2,000 miles in 5 days

There are less bugs to eat us b/c most are on our car

We have traveled over 2,00 miles and have only about 3,500 more to go on our cross country journey. Molly has been quite the trooper and entertains herself in between naps with reading, playing games and screaming at Jon and I. Jon and I have listened to The Chronicles of Narnia and loved it!! We have camped, cooked, and slept in nature for 4 nights and tonight treated ourselves to a hotel. After 4 nights of being in nature we realize that it is a treat to be in secluded areas with no noise, cars and fast food. There has been some awesome bonding times at night when we try and get Molly to sleep outside without blackout curtains, remember we were in the north where there was no NIGHT- perpetual daylight/dusk. After looking forward to the Edmonton Mall for the past 2,000 miles is was a HUGE let down. Instead of staying 2 nights we will stay tonight and hit the road. We are adding Yellowstone to our itinerary and can't wait to see Old Faithful. Molly cna't wait to be outside where she gets to run wild and play in the dirt.
Night 1 Sourdough Campgrounds
Day 2 - Random roadside lunch, probably one of the highlights of the trip for Jon and I. It was beautiful and Strong River was flowing next to us and Molly ran and played and then fell asleep until we arrived at Tahiki Hot Springs!!
Day 3 - Watson Lake and the sign forest. Not too bad, found some others that went to NC also and found one from the Rose family - Meredith did you take this trip as a kid??
Day 4 - Molly has become one with nature. Yes that fly died in her snot - I guess I don't know. She entertains herself for the 10 minutes it takes me to get dinner and Jon to set up the tent, she comes and talks to both of us but neither of us noticed this until it was too late for the poor fly.
Molly with her 2 sippy cups, alphabet caterpillar and book. I love noise making toys because they entertain her for the few hours that sleeping and books don't!
Day 5 - Edmonton Mall - LET DOWN!!! I guess after sleeping at 2 hot springs and driving with some of the most amazing sites a mall filled with nasty people is just not that great. I guess it was culture shot for us all since AK. I am not used to people running around in next to nothing, shops in malls that I don't want my child to ever enter, or the crazy prices people want you to pay when we had been happy with next to nothing. The upside is that we are making and addendum to our trip and are now going to Yellowstone!!!
Me, Molly and the Mounty.

We have made the best of our hotel stay - playing on the computer, taking a shower without shower shoes and I can't wait to wake up not in the cold dew of the morning but we are all ready for the open road and some more awesome sites!!!

Day 1

Today is the day we start the journey out of Alaska. Just 22 months ago we moved here from Texas and now we head out to North Carolina. We will post some things we see along the way as often as we have wi-fi on the road. We will be tent camping and cooking our food on our camp stove as we head along the path. While we are all super excited Jon did point out that his joy diminishes by 100% when it is raining and cold out like it has been this morning. Today we will be going to Tok, AK can't wait to tell you all we see.

Goodbye snow Oct - May hello open roads.

Movers are coming

There will be no pictures today even though we have gone on many adventures in the past 2 weeks. We road our bikes on the Tony Knowles, road our bikes to Subway and Marble Slab, went to the Saturday market and have been getting ready for our last week in Alaska. Molly and I tried to make sure that Jon at least got to do some of the highlights in his short summer here so while we road the bikes we pointed out to him the train as it passed and told him what he missed and the same when we saw the flight seeing helicopter fly over us. I can't believe our time in Alaska is coming to a close - it has been fun and I will miss it here.
TOP TEN THINGS I WILL MISS
1. My friends
2. Nonstop daylight in the summer
3. Random adventures that only Alaska offers
4. Seeing moose and bear walk down my residential neighborhood
5. Riding my bike around
6. Sledding down some of the most awesome mountains anytime I want from Oct - Apr
7. Snow City, Mooses' Tooth and Hacienda's
8. my amazing on-post housing
9. my friends amazing off-post housing for the moments I needed to get away
10. My friends - luckily the Army moves you a lot so I should run into at least one of them again!

Maybe once the packers have come and gone I will post some pictures.

Airborne

Jon jumped yesterday so I went up on a near by mountain to take some pictures of him jumping. It was an awesome view from Skyline drive - you could see Sleeping Lady mountain behind the plane as they jumped. Can't wait to go to NC because at that base the families can sit at the bottom of the jump zone and see then right after they jump.

Jon is the second to last person to jump out of the plane in this picture. It was a great jump so Jon told me - no major injuries unlike the jump earlier this week when his chaplain assistant hurt his back.
Jon and a bunch of other soldiers falling to the ground.
The drop zone - this is where the soldiers landed.
Then I got the girls I have hung out with the past year. We got together and made some water bottles to remember our time together and to explain to them that I am moving and we only have a few more times.
Then we became airborne - one of the families made a zip line so we all did a run or two.
Running the line back up - the guy in red was cutting down trees in their backyard but was pretty excited about the zip line also!

3 weeks - AHHH

As Molly and I were playing around this morning I looked at the calendar and realized in 3 weeks all of our household goods will be packed and we will only have a few more days until we hit the road. So until they come we are going to play with her toys a little more each day because once we hit the road she won't have that many to choose from.
We are preparing for the road trip of all road trips this June and July. We will be traveling over 5,000 miles in our CR-V and camping along the way. We will be loading all of our supplies in the car to include: clothes (for 3 seasons), tents, sleeping bags, air mattress, food, toys, Jon's work uniforms for when we arrive in NC, etc. This should be interesting to say the least.
You may be wondering what we are looking forward to the most - well let me tell you!
*Edmonton Mall - largest mall in North America with over 800 stores, water park, amusement park and 2 putt putt golfs courses
*Glacier National Park - there is a hike that is supposed to have an amazing waterfall at the end
*Mount Rushmore - because it is a national ICON
*camp food - I have been researching some fun recipes and can't wait to try them out
*The exciting adventure of camping out in God's creation (quoted from Jon)
*Seeing family along the way - we will visit all of Molly's great-grandparents on this one trip
*Making it by July 10 so I (Ashley) can hop on a plane and go serve as a camp counselor at Camp ICON the bi-annual conference held by our church back in Waco!!


Molly enjoying the moose her Grandaddy McPherson made her!

Dog sitting

Our friends are letting us watch their dogs as they visit family on the east coast and Molly is loving it! Titan (the white dog) loves to follow her around as Molly sticks out her hand to be licked/cleaned. Annie on the other hand just sits and waits for the rare moments Molly decides she needs to bug her.
I let the dogs out and left the door open so they could come in and out as they please and forgot about Molly who can walk now. Jon called me from the computer to see what was going on. Molly had gone outside and down the stairs to play with the dogs - luckily they go to the bathroom on the other side of the lawn!
Later that afternoon she was back out again. I can only take it so long when she cries at the door to be outside so I let her out to play with them again - this time supervised.
The dogs are wearing her out along with the SUN!! Molly and I goth got a little sun Saturday as you can see with her rosy red cheeks. This is Jon and Molly's planning session for Mother's Day. They cooked me breakfast and took me to Bear's tooth for lunch and a movie and then McDonald's for an ice cream cone and a relaxing afternoon sitting on our neighbors swing out in the sun! My present didn't make it but neither did the ones we sent our own mother's - that way everyone can celebrate a second mother's day in our families!!

Moving Update:
In one month the movers will have come and cleared our house and we will be cleaning for our final inspection, then June 15 we hit the road for a 5,348 mile cross country ROADTRIP! We are camping out and seeing some amazing sites like the Edmonton Mall, Glacier National Park, Mount Rushmore and FAMILY!! I will miss seeing the snow capped mountains out my windows but it will be nice to be a little closer to family and friends.

3 Bears

On my drive home yesterday I saw three bears in the tree. A momma and her two babies who were just 3 blocks from our house. The bears are coming out and while I like seeing them I prefer for them to be a little further away from my house. Last year one walked down our street while all the kids were corralled into one garage. Now that Molly is a big girl and out riding her bike with the big kids I will have to be on bear watch.