December - February 13

Hello All!   I know, 2 months since my last post, pretty bad!  I took just a small break due to the craziness of Christmas, and then just didn't want to do a post because I wasn't allowed to post any more pictures.  Well, Jason helped me figure out a way to still show you some pictures.  I have a Flickr account!  So it will take you one more step to view pictures, but I hope you still enjoy them.  If it doesn't work well, we will come up with a plan C!
Click on the link below and it will take you to my Flickr account.  If you have problems, please post a comment letting me know what wasn't working.  Hope you can see all the awesome pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alaskastrong/sets/72157632760646535/

 It's good to be back to the blogging world!

Well, it's been crazy busy around here, which has made time fly!  

December: 

            This was a busy month, filled with many preparations for Christmas.  We had a beautiful Christmas service at church, with 96 people in attendance!  The most we have ever had! We had our very first Advent by Candlelight, and it was a huge success!  34 women! The women are already looking forward to next year. Jason and I continue to form new traditions, while being so far away from our family and our old traditions.  We were very thankful for all the wonderful gifts sent form our families.  We also enjoyed Skyping with them and seeing their faces.  

           Some of the biggest news of December was the piano we got for my very first studio!  We ended getting a beautiful upright piano from a gem of a lady.  She ended up giving the piano to us for free.  More about piano and my lessons to come.

           I also started up a small business.  Thanks to my sister-in-law who got the idea going, I now have a knitting business called Alaskan Boutique!  It's been a blast getting it going, but just hard finding enough time to knit.  If you are interested in seeing what it's all about, just type in Alaskan Boutique in Facebook and see what I've been up to.  I'll put a few pictures up on Flickr that show what I have been up to. 

           

January:

           Piano lessons continue to go strong!  I have 13 lessons (including 3 voice lessons), 12 of which I do on Tuesdays.  The majority of my students are home schooled, so that allows me to teach lessons all day long!  I am LOVING having my studio out of my home.  The kids have enjoyed it too! Playing with Finley is always a treat for them, and boy does he sleep well at the end of the day.  We had our FIRST PIANO RECITAL! It went very very well.  It was a great first experience, and they are all looking forward to our next one in May.  

         Choir rehearsals have started up again.  We are prepping for our performance in April of Beethoven's 9th!  All in German!  Rehearsals are a bit more intense, but I think I am going to stick with it. 

          Jason headed to Pastor's conference in Seattle for a few days and enjoyed getting out of Fairbanks for a bit.  The conference was a mission conference, so he came back with lots of great ideas!  I am very glad he got to have some time off!

February:

          Found out about a week ago that I get to go to ARIZONA for my cousins wedding!  We had enough airline miles!  I am very excited, if you couldn't tell?!  The sun, warmth, and family time will be a great break. I head out in less than two weeks.  So fun pictures to come!

         We had two visitors right outside our front door this morning.  The closest these visitors have every been to our front door.  A mommy moose with her baby!!  It was kind of neat, but a bit scary.  Good thing Jason didn't let Finley outside first thing when we woke up, but looked out the window.  Right there, next to Finley's fence was the mommy moose, and the baby moose was right next to our well house.  Now, I have no pictures of the moose to prove this because it was 7:00 a.m. and still dark out, but you'll see some other pictures that prove they were there.  Every time Finley went outside, he would pace the fence and bark because he could still smell their scent.  Jason was very excited about this event, but I really don't want to see them this close to the house again.  They really would not like Finley!

So as you can see, life has continued to move forward.  I am sure I forgot a bunch of things, but they will come up in future posts.  God has continued to bless us in 2013 as he did so richly in 2012.  I look forward to each day that God gives us on this earth.  

We pray everything is going well for all of you as well!  Enjoy the posts and enjoy the pictures!

God bless, 

Becky

Pics located at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alaskastrong/sets/72157632760646535/