THE BRET, JAN, AND LEE SHOW

Is anyone still reading this?

2009-05-04T05:02:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this now that both Lee and I are on facebook. I've been told that folks are having difficulty writing comments so if you can't comment send me an email at: hobbz4@yahoo.com

If folks are still using this blog I'll start writing again...if not look us up on FaceBook.

jan

Thanksgiving already????

2008-11-23T15:18:00.002-09:00

Wow, I just looked at the blog and it seems that it's been a month since my last post...yikes...I don't know where the time goes!

Since Last I wrote we've been to a couple of hockey games...one loss and one win, so pretty good all around. The Ace's hold first place in the ECHL so we're pretty geeked!

Snowboarding has officially hit our household. Yesterday Lee was up on the hill for 9 HOURS...and the only reason he stopped was because the hill closed. I think he would have stayed all night if he could. lol....The nice thing about being in Middle School is that since there are alot more kids in his grade now, he meets tons of people he knows up on the hill. It sounds like we boarded with at least 10 different friends yesterday. He was going to go again today, but sadly for him, he "procrastinated" on his book report and is now trying to write the whole thing today, since it's due tomorrow. Been there done that :) Awww to be a teenager again.....ick.
So sadly he's at the table trying to get his work done.

Bret went back to work on Friday, and is now working in the Lead Floorhand position, he is next on the list to be promoted to "pit watcher" for those of you that know what that means. For now though he's the head guy in charge of the rig floor and he seems to enjoy it. It looks like he will stay at Beluga Point for the winter which is nice, since he won't have to deal with the extreme cold of the North Slope.

I've been really busy with work, as our new program went live on the 10th, (my birthday)lol...so far there are lots of bugs to work out, but things are coming together well. It's nice to see all of my hard work come together into a cohesive working program. Yay!

It's the American Thanksgiving this week, so far I'm not sure what Lee and I'll be doing. We have an invite to my friends house, but he wants to snowboard all 4 days off of school, so we'll see how we feel on Thursday. It never really feels like Thanksgiving to me in November....it's very un-Canadian...lol. But I won't complain about a 4 day weekend.

Winter has definitely settled in here. it's been snowing for the last 2 days so we have about 6 inches of snow on the ground, which makes it so crisp, clean, and beautiful. The temperature has hung just below freezing so it's been nice, since it's still warm enough to go outside and do things, without freezing to death. Right now we're trying to decide what to do for Christmas Break. We may try to take the train up north and see the Northern Lights in all their glory, but we haven't made any firm decisions yet. it would also be nice to take a snow machine tour in Hatcher's pass. What to do what to do? We'll keep you posted

Keep safe and warm!

Love,

bret, jan and Lee

Same as Usual

2008-10-26T14:29:00.002-08:00

Life in Alaska is moving on same as usual. Lee is chomping at the bit, to get up and snowboarding, the rest of us are glad that most of the snow has melted away and that maybe, just maybe we'll have a bit of a reprieve for now. Lee's mom is setting him up with an annual ski pass at Hilltop again this year and we are enrolling him in lessons twice a week again. The first month he'll just be in the regular snowboarding lessons, but he's decided to try a new class for the second month. The new class focuses on jumping and doing tricks on the half pipe, so needless to say the young man is quite excited.

Parent teacher conferences are this coming week and are student led. The students have been working on a power point presentation for the last week to present to parents, and then teachers will drop in and out during our appt. time to answer further questions and fill in the gaps. This sounds like quite an interesting set up and I look forward to seeing Lee's presentation. All in all he's settled in quite nicely to middle school, much to every one's delight, especially his!

Bret just went back to work last Friday, and is still working at Beluga Point which is just across the bay from Anchorage. This has worked out good and bad for him. It's not as cold as working up on the slope, but the wind walls down here are only 6 feet high instead of 12 feet high so, he's exposed alot more to the elements. He's liking his new crew and has a chance at being promoted to "pit watcher" this hitch, so the opportunities keep expanding with every hitch up there. We're very proud of all the work he does, it certainly isn't an easy 14 days for him.

I've been working from home for 2 weeks now, and absolutely love it! I can't even express the difference it's made for my health. It also works out great for Lee and I while Bret is gone, because I'm home when he is and we don't have to worry about piling too much responsibility on him. Even though he's 13 he still very much thrives in a scheduled routine environment and stays on track alot easier when someone is around more often than not. I'm also able to schedule things like parent teacher conferences during the day, and be here when he has half days, or full days off. I think it's been a hugely positive change for all of us!

Halloween is this coming Friday and Lee has the day off. He's been struggling with whether or not to go Halloweening, but also knowing he IS 13 and he's kind of old for the whole deal. The hospital I work for gets discounted tickets to the local hockey team's games, so we've compromised and decided to spend Halloween night at an Ace's hockey game. It's something we both love to do, and it still makes it a special night out for Lee. Go Ace's.

I've been taking some pictures with my new DSL digital camera, but have been saving them for this years calender. I'll try to pick some out to post this next week.

hope everyone is well! Take good care.

bret, jan and lee

Happy Weekend to you all!

2008-09-21T14:23:00.004-08:00

So it's yet another weekend without a post on this blog so I thought I'd better get cracking. lol

Bret is back up at work, technically he's not on the slope, he's at Beluga Point which is NW across the inlet from Anchorage. This is very nice for him because he gets to experience our weather, which is a a touch milder than slope weather. He went back on Friday, with the idea that he was going to be working for only a week and then back home for two, and then just settle into his two on, two off schedule. Oddly for Bret, LOL, he misunderstood and he is actually up there for three weeks and then off for two....so it kind of sucks. Not that he's upset about being back at work, it's quite the opposite, but psyching yourself up for one week is alot different than getting mentally prepared to be away for three....such is life.

Lee had an adventuresome week! He stood up in class to talk with one of his teachers, but sadly forgot to pull his chair back in, before sitting down. Needless to say, his but missed the chair, but his head did not! He now has 4 beautifully stitched stitches in his head to show for the ordeal. OUCH. Overall though, he was a real trooper, I don't care who you are, it's no fun to get numbing medicine in your scalp! double OUCH. He's healing well, and the stitches will come out this Wednesday. His newest acquisition is pictured below. We bought it yesterday with money he borrowed on his much anticipated Permanent Dividend Fund check...yes, it truly does pay to live in Alaska!

Hopefully this doesn't mean another trip to the doctor's for stitches! At any rate he is very proud of this new scooter, especially since his bike was stolen earlier this summer and he's been stuck walking everywhere....

As for me things are going reasonably well. I gave notice at my job and was miraculously offered a work from home position as the systems administrator for our new electronic record...pretty happy way for me to get the extra home time I need. This position will for sure be in place until January and then I'll possibly look at job sharing a full-time position with a co-worker who wants to retire, yet still keep her foot in the door. I'll keep you all posted as things happen. So 3 more weeks and i'll be happily working on my puter from home.....yea me!!!!

hope everyone is well and thanks for all the warm birthday wishes for Bret....he celebrated his 10th sober birthday on the 16th and I couldn't be more proud of him! Happy 10 day Bret!!!!

jan

Released to work

2008-09-03T20:16:00.002-08:00

Bret is officially released back to work as of Sept. 17th. YIPPEEE YAHOOOO (insert back flip here). Needless to say we are really thankful and excited. No one is more excited of course than Bret, I think he's starting to get a little stir crazy hanging around the house 24/7.

In my last post I mentioned that we were struggling with the decision of whether or not I should continue working. In short the decision has been made, and as soon as Bret gets back to the rig, I am going to give notice at work. After 5 weeks off and 1 week back at work, neither of us can believe the toll that work takes on my body; and all that is considering that my time off wasn't a vacation, it was recovery from neck surgery. It's come to a point where this is the right decision to make at this time, so be it, that's what we're going to do.

just wanted to write a quick note to update you, and I'll write more this weekend and with luck I'll even get a couple pics up from when Karen and Monty were up visiting.

love you all!

bret and jan and lee

Schools back in session!

2008-08-30T12:45:00.002-08:00

So for us adults...school being back in progress, is a wonderful thing. No ringing telephone, no ringing doorbell, no "can I have", no "why can't I...", aaaaaaahhhh silence is such sweet bliss. For Lee on the other hand, it's back to the old grind stone.

Overall though I think Lee is feeling much better about middle school. His first day he left the house in terror thinking all the 8th graders were going to make his life a living hell. Well all they did was call him a "sevvy"....so when we asked what he said back he said they called them "eightys" and all was well. Whew, he dodged a bullet on that one. The funny thing was the other night at dinner, Bret asked Lee what he thinks of school now that he's been back for a week? the response....."it's not that I don't want to do work or anything, but ALL they expect us to do is SCHOOL WORK all day long!". Welcome to the big leagues, little man! lol

I'm back at work, since last Tuesday, and it's been a long week. When I have long periods of time off, I notice how much easier my life is, then when I go back to work, my fibro flares, my patience dives and life gets rather rough. Bret and I finally decided this week that I need to quit my job and take some time off, so as of yesterday that was the plan. Then I went in for my annual review at work and got a glowing review, and was told repeatedly on how she (my boss) relies on me totally....and then I caved and didn't mention our plans to her. So now I'm excited about the prospect about not having to work. But on the other hand, I feel totally guilty about work...and on the third hand (if that's possible), I like working and it's great to get a glowing review. Do I give it all up for fibro? Or do I make my fibro worse, for the job? Not that it all boils down that simply but that's where we're at right now...in the middle with no decision in place...argh.

Bret goes back to the doctor on Tuesday, and we're hoping he gets released back to work...so keep you fingers crossed and send the good vibes Bret's way! We'd appreciate it.

The weather here has been simply beautiful! This morning we went out for a hike in one of the biggest parks in town...and then treated ourselves to some DQ afterwards. Lee's out playing with friends, Bret's gaming, and I'm working up the energy to take a nap! LOL, not too bad for a lazy labour day Saturday......

please do keep in touch and keep your comments coming. We love and miss you all!!!!

Bret, Jan and Lee

Heads UP!!!!

2008-08-25T19:30:00.001-08:00

I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm going to take the link to my fibromyalgia blog off of this site soon. I want to see how many people are visiting my blog on their own. So....if you want to stay tuned, please save the address in your favorites. I'll leave it on for another week or so, but then I'm going to take it off.

Thanks for all your support!

Jan

So far so good!

2008-08-18T11:36:00.002-08:00

Sorry we haven't posted in awhile, but we're back now. Bret's parents came to visit for a week so we weren't online much. It was great to see them and we all had a REALLY good time...the only complaint was that we didn't see any belugas...sigh...hopefully next time.
It was great to have help with carrying groceries, cooking etc...it made our recovery alot easier than it could have been, so we are very grateful that Karen and Monty could come visit/help us.

Other than that recovery is still going well. I saw my doc last week and will have the collar for at least another 6 weeks, ick. Bret has his 6 week post-op appt. on the 2nd of Sept....so keep your fingers crossed, he's getting anxious to get back to work.

Lee is all registered and ready to go back to school. He and Bret are out buying school supplies as I type this. We all know that Lee's first year of middle school will go well, but he's not so much convinced yet....poor guy!

We'll keep you posted as school starts on Wednesday!

take good care!

Jan,Bret,Lee

2 surgeries down...just recovery to go...

2008-07-31T19:07:00.003-08:00

So I had my surgery yesterday and came home this morning. Overall it's going reasonably well today, but day 3 and 4 tend to be the worst. My neck pain seems to be a little less than Bret's but my throat sure is sore.

Lots of popsicles and jello so far....we'll keep you posted as the days go by!

jan and bret

Home sweet home

2008-07-23T13:16:00.002-08:00

Bret came home late yesterday afternoon....then night for him was so so....he was pretty nauseous but he slept really well. Today is Day 3 which is supposed to be the worst day post surgery. He definitely is feeling the swelling in his throat and is living pretty much on pudding and Popsicles. The bonus is he's still able to lay down without feeling like he's choking...we count that as a HUGE plus.

So it's simply a day of taking it easy today. Lee comes home tomorrow afternoon so we're really excited about his arrival!

Will write more later....

thanks for ALL of your support!

jan

latest news

2008-07-21T13:28:00.002-08:00

Bret is out of surgery and lounging in his hospital room. All went as expected during the operation! The doc said that he had a bunch of bone fragments pushing against his spinal cord which were most likely the main cause of his numbness. He was put in a soft collar instead of a hard one, so our hope is that he will be able to drive by the time my surgery rolls around next week.

I spent about an hour with him after he got to his room, but he's still really groggy so I'm home to catch a few zzzz's myself...it was a short night last night....and then I'll head back to the hospital later this afternoon. When I left he was dozing away and had convinced the nurse to get him some pepsi, so life was good. I've been ordered to bring more pepsi when I go back, so he's well on his way back to normal....lol....

I'll post more as time goes on!

thanks

jan

Bret's surgery is today....

2008-07-21T05:21:00.002-08:00

So it's 5:21 in the a.m. and Bret and I are just getting ready to go to the hospital for his surgery, which is at 7:30. The surgery itself will take about 3 hours and I'll be at the hospital for most of the day I suspect. I will post an update before I go to bed though.

Please send positive thoughts Bret's way!

Love to all!

Jan

As promised....

2008-07-10T19:35:00.010-08:00

Here is a series of pics to fill you in on some of what we've been up to....I hope you enjoy....

Here are a couple action shots of our budding viola star during his spring concert :)

These are some huge ice "chunks" that calved off of the Portage Glacier, which is about a half hour from Anchorage. They're just floating around in the lake...but you don't want to get close because they are really unstable and can flip without notice.

this was the views from our lake side campsite a couple weekends ago...

This is Bret and Bailey making dinner at our camp, and I threw in a pic of our very old, but very beloved new pop-up trailer....woot woot

If you look really closely, you'll see a cute yet prickly porcupine that we came across in the woods

So that concludes our slide show for now....I'll try to keep more current on the pics from now on. For the next post I'll take some shots of the inside of our house to give people an idea of where we live....

We love you all tons!!!

jan

Checking in once more

2008-07-08T20:27:00.002-08:00

So I'm doing my best to get back into the swing of posting regular blogs, so here I am checking in. The latest news is that I too need neck surgery, like Bret. My doc wanted to do it next week, but in reality I'm hoping for the week after Bret's surgery, if all the stars align. I just found this out tonight, so my mood is less than chipper lol....but I'll spare you all my rant....I took care of that in my other blog....lucky you lol.

So to recap....Bret has surgery on the 21st, Lee comes home on the 24th (yippee), and I'll have surgery that next week....fun summer huh?

I've done some painting in the kitchen and still have those camping pics to post (several of you have reminded me that they are still missing). I promise they will be posted by Thursday!

Hope all is well with you guys....I'm keeping this one short....until Thursday....take good care!
jan

Many big events and well wishes!

2008-07-06T19:54:00.004-08:00

So I know I said it last post but

belated HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!!!!! to all my fellow Canadians!

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY ALASKA!!!!!!!!! to all my fellow Alaskans!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!!!!!!! to all the Americans with whom I live!

But most importantly and definitely closest to my heart goes a huge and heartfelt....

HAPPY 9TH ANNIVERSARY TO BRET AND JAN!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep folks on July 3rd Bret and I celebrated our 9th year together....crazy huh....we've definitely built quite the life together, and it's been the best 9 years of my life! I love you and look forward to 9 more (x5) together!

jan

Latest update...

2008-06-30T20:08:00.004-08:00

Check out these pictures of a tornado that hit Manhattan and Chapman Kansas on June 11th...

The first photo is of the tornado that hit Manhattan, Bret's parents house was hit, but luckily they had minor house damage, but alot of tree and landscaping damage....here is a picture of their house, for those that know it....

Wowzers is all that I can say! We are thankful that Karen, Monty and Sean are all ok!

As for us, life is just chugging along. Lee is still with his mom and Bruce, and by all reports they're having a wonderful time! We are always happy when they can spend an extended period of time together like this, since we live so far apart!

Bret....well he does indeed have to have surgery. He will be going in for it during the week of July 21st, we haven't got a specific day yet. It will put him out of commission for a significant amount of time, so I'm hoping he will become an expert blogger...lol...NOT! This does mean however, that we will not be able to go to Canada as planned...sigh...but we got to do, what we got to do.

I may follow close on Bret's heels with the whole surgery deal. They have finally deduced, that my shoulder problem, is in fact a neck problem. I had yet another MRI done last week and I'll see my doc on Thursday...we will keep you posted on that one.

On the fun side of things, Bret and I got a chance to take our Pop-Up trailer out for the first time this past weekend. We had a blast! We went down to where the Kenai and Russian rivers meet, and camped right on the shores of lake Skilak! A great time was had by both humans and canines...we hope many more trips are in our future!

Well I'm trying to keep this short, but I should be on more regularly now that we've found some medication that calms my shoulder pain...hope all is well in your worlds!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

jan

pause...

2008-06-10T17:40:00.002-08:00

I again apologize for the long absences! My shoulder is quite messed up and just sitting at the computer causes a fair amount of pain...so needless to say blogging has not been a priority.

A brief update is....Lee finished grade 6 and is now an official 7th grader...Middle school, here he comes! Congrats to Lee! Lee is currently in PA visiting with his mom and Bruce and will be back at the end of July.

It looks like, keep your toes and fingers crossed, that Bret does indeed have work this summer, which has taken a big load off of our shoulders. The flip side of this is that he's having some neck problems, and we're not quite sure, but he just may need to have surgery...sigh

As for me, My shoulder sucks, but I had a cortisone injection, via fluroscopy last week, and it might be getting better, but it's too soon to tell.

I have sooooo many pics and things to post....just waiting for my body to cooperate....please don't forget about us! Keep checking in.... we miss you all TONS AND TONS!

bret, jan and lee

a quick check in...

2008-05-08T21:29:00.002-08:00

So if you've read my fms blog you know that I'm still really struggling with my shoulder, and thus have not had the time, or inclination, nor the pain free moment to blog much lately. Is the shoulder better? "kinda sorta, but not really", i'll keep you posted though.

As spring has sprung in Alaska, it brings with it many changes in our lives. Elementary school will be over on May 21....can you believe it? Our little man will be a 7th grader this August. i'm not sure, even Lee has accepted this concept yet. All the Anchorage 6th graders put on a band/orchestra concert at the hockey arena tonight....all 3000+ of them. Bret and I attended and took a few photos that I will share with you this weekend.

Bret is home for another week and then goes up to the slope for his last guaranteed hitch of the winter. After that we have our fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed that there will be slope work for him this summer. Keep good thoughts for us, and we'll keep you posted.

I was recently offered another job in a different department in the hospital, and in negotiating with them, I was given a raise and promotion in my current position, so I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now. We are putting in and designing a huge new case management software program of which, I will be the system administrator, so there's alot of new things happening for me at work right now. My hope is that my health will co-operate and let me take full advantage of this great opportunity.

The snow is all gone and the buds are budding....wow is it nice to see the spring coming our way. Our temps are in the 50's most days now, and most alaskans are sporting shorts and fleece to celebrate the return of the sun and warmth. When I go to work at 5:30 it's bright and sun shiny, and the sun doesn't go down now until about 11pm....it is simply spectacular! We are loving it to say the least.

I just wanted to check in and say hi, and let you know that we are all alive and well. Obviously to those who usually get calenders....we sad to say, but it's a no can do this year. I'm just too exhausted and in pain to even get that project together at this point. I really apologize, but I've gotta take care of me,and I don't have the best track record in that department. Pictures???? I will post a bunch this weekend to keep you up to date!

until then, take good care!
love you all as big as the world!!!!

Jan, bret and Lee

a quick note

2008-04-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to send a quick note to let you know that we are still here. I've torn my rotator cuff and it's excruciating to sit and type so I haven't been on the puter at all. I will sit with Lee and we will write something this weekend....sorry for the long absences.

jan

At long last we post again!

2008-03-23T09:19:00.002-08:00

Sorry for the long absence folks it's been a hectic month! First off I broke my ribs when I lost a race between myself and our BIG dog Shep down the stairs. He wanted a scooby snack and knocked my feet right out from under me....sigh. Then Lee was on spring break and caught the flu he was sick all week, and just about when he was getting healthy I got it....ick. So Bret spent his time home nursing the sickies, Poor guy! So in a nut shell that's why I haven't been posting on either blog.

Lee's now back in school, and life has somewhat returned to normal. Unfortunately Lee missed the talent show because of the flu so we were all a bit bummed out by that. Hopefully another one will come his way in middle school/Jr High. The weather has warmed up alot here and our snow is slowly melting away. After this last week, there's not too much left on the ground, except of course where it was piled up....hopefully the warm weather is here to stay! They've been warning all Anchorage residents that the bears will be coming out soon, if the warm weather sticks around...so we're all on high alert. There are several bears and their cubs that live right in the city so one has to take special precautions. Usually there's a big uproar each spring because some poor resident gets to watch a bear take down and eat a baby moose which of course people freak out about. They always seem to forget how the food chain works in the wild. They're not just cute fuzzy animals for our amusement....lol....

Bret's back on the slope , and we're hoping that the flu that Lee and I had, doesn't hit him halfway through his hitch up there. That would be bad! There's rumor flying around that his crew is going to be assigned to a new year round rig, that has a minimum 5 year contract. We have our fingers and toes crossed for that one. A bunch of the work on the slope shuts down for the summer, it would be nice to know that we have a guaranteed income for the next few years. It would also open up the possibility for me to look at not working for a few years in order to 1. be home with Lee, and 2. not get so overwhelmed with my fibromyalgia....but that's just the hope at this point.

That's a brief update on the Williamson/Carmichael clan for now....I'll try to post more in a couple of days!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!

jan

Wow now it's almost March LOL

2008-02-26T14:04:00.001-09:00

As per usual time has escaped me. We've been busy with life, but I can't really tell you what we've been so busy at. Lee is in his last quarter of school, and is rushing back and forth to the ski hill in between school and homework. By the by, he has a great ski lift story to pass on, but I won't spoil you with the details. He's also been accepted as one of the acts in the sixth grade talent show comming up in March. He's singing a popular song that's on the radio right now AND he's up there all on his own. He has made his Mom, Dad, Bruce and I very proud! What a trooper! I'll keep you posted on that one.

Bret went back up to the slope this past weekend, after several failed attempts due to poor weather up north, he finally made it Saturday evening....lots of trips to and from the airport for me....lol...but it was nice to have him home for an extra night.

Our weather has been really warm....up in the high forties...this week we're back into the thrities, but Spring is definately in the air. Our whole light situation is improving rapidly, we are definately close to 11 hours of sunlight a day right now, as opposed to 6 hours like in December.

As for me life just keeps chugging along, which I'm sure you know if you read my other blog, so I won't bore you with the same details twice. We're hoping that Bret will be assigned to a year round rig before summer hits, so that he doesn't get laid off again this summer. If all goes well, that may lead to me taking some time off work to get my health on track. we'll keep the updates comming.

Take good care all!

jan

Wow is it almost Febuary????? I'm slacking here

2008-01-25T10:02:00.001-09:00

Well I hope everyone made it through the holidays safely and with some fun! We have really been slacking on the blogs, so I apologize for that.

We only just had our family Christmas yesterday....just a tad late, I know. Lee got home from his mom and Bruce's a few days after Bret went back to the slope so that delayed us some. Then we were going to do it last weekend, but some other issues came up that were more important. So I spoke to the people at work, and they graciously allowed me to take Thursday off. We pulled Lee out of school for the day, and we went to IHOP for breaky.....mmmmm.....pancakes! Good stuff! Then we went to the Anchorage Aviation Museum, which was pretty cool. Lee had gone to the museum in Seattle with his mom and Grandma Susan, last spring break so we thought we'd check out our local one. Obviously it's waaaaaaaaaaay smaller than the one in Seattle, but it was cool none the less. Lee is really into WW1 and WW2 aircraft so he's always excited to do something that involves planes. After the museum we went and got Lee a couple new pairs of shoes.......yikes we've hit the stage where the "label" means everything! AAAAHHH life with a teenager! Actually it's cool to watch and see. Then of course in true Williamson/Carmichael family style we went and browsed at the video game store and then the book store....we each got a little something. Then Lee finished off the night, with his snowboarding lessons.....and even got to stay later than normal since he didn't have any homework. All in all it was a great family day, and I think everyone really had a good time.

Other than that there's not much more to report. Bret left for the slope this morning and Lee was off to school too. We will get our well over due calenders in the mail hopefully by the end of next week, so keep ur eyes open for one. Lee and I are hoping to catch an Ace's hockey game either tonight or tomorrow....and then next weekend is supposed to be a good time to see the northern lights....provided it's clear and not cloudy. Can you believe that Lee and I still haven't seen them and we've been here 2.5 years.....ooooohhhhh well it will happen when it happens I guess.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying 2008 so far!

all our love
B-J-L

A New Year's Post from Lee

2008-01-06T10:58:00.000-09:00

The New Year was great! Me, mom and Bruce, were downstairs playing "Pain" and "Rock Band" on the Playstation 3. So we never got to see the ball drop in New York on TV, because we were playing games. For Christmas I got about 5 fighter planes, a poker game for my Nintendo DS, some new clothes, and some new cars...all from PA. From Alaska I got 3 fighter plane models ( the snap together kind), an F-15 Phantom, a F-4 Eagle, and then an A-10 Thunderbolt. I also got a poker set with 2 decks of cards, 3 containers of white poker chips, 2 of blue chips, and 1 container of red poker chips. They didn't have amounts on them which is cool, because I can make up my own money value for them. It all depends on the blinds of the game. I also got some new HotWheels cars.

I'm going snowboarding this Tuesday, even if my wart is hurting my foot. I have 2 warts on my left foot, but I can't see the doctor until Wednesday at 2pm. Then hopefully I'll be on the hill every weekend, Tuesday and Thursday. Part of my christmas present from my Dad and Jan, is to take a family ski day to Alyaska to the big ski hill.

Hope you guys all had a great Christmas/New Year's party can't wait to see you in Canada, this August!
Love you all,

Lee

Best laid plans....

2007-12-31T14:32:00.000-09:00

So Bret and I had great plans of writing a silly Christmas poem to post on the blog before he went back to the slope. He left Friday, and as you can see....no poem. So I'm afraid you're stuck with me again lol lol

Our Christmas break this year was oooooh soooo quiet and ooooooh soooo relaxing. We pretty much did nothing. We went to a couple movies....ate out a few times.....window shopped....slept in....played games with friends....and it was the best xmas ever. We had big plans of going off somewhere, but we really just enjoyed hanging out at home, we even did some home organizing type stuff???? wierd huh. Alas, reality has come back to our lives, Bret went back to work Friday....I had the stomach flu (ick) all weekend and then went back to work today, sigh. The good news is that Lee comes home tomorrow so things should be back to normal soon. Although the little rascal doesn't have to go back to school until next Monday.....oooooh to be 12 years old again.....NOT!

We've got a good foot of snow on the ground now so it's starting to feel like winter, we even made it through the winter solstice, so now we're just gaining light everyday! Yipppeee! I'm hoping to get Lee up to the hill for some more boarding this week, it works great getting off at 12:30, because that's the perfect time for him to get to the hill, so i'll just pick him up on my way. I'm sure he'll be excited to see all of our snow.

That's all I really have to say...I'll write more once Lee gets home and have him update you on his Xmas Holiday in the lower 48....

Happy New Year!

jan

Update

2007-12-11T16:46:00.000-09:00

So the search for the helicopter has officially been called off. At this point the belief is that it went down in the fjord which is over 600 feet deep, much too deep for divers. I think there are still some private people who continue to search but at this point it seems that it's over.
This is a very sad day for the famillies most of all but also for LifeGuard, Providence, and Alaska as a whole.

On lighter news we are finally getting some more snow, our first accumulation melted away a long time ago. Today though we've gotten a good 2 inches and it's still falling like crazy. Lee is up on Hilltop as I write this, taking advantage of the new snow and hopefully learning some new skills. Needless to say, he is one happy camper.

The sudden realization that Xmas is only days away, has left me somewhat dazed. Yikes, where the hell has the year gone? It still feels more like Sept. or Oct. to me? Wasn't last Christmas only a couple of months ago? Man if time flies when your having fun, I must be deleriously happy! We will be sending out our usual Calanders again this year, but I fear they may not make it in time for the big day, but we'll try!

As I've mentioned before Lee is going to his Mom and Bruce's for the holidays so Bret and I are just gonna lay low. We always have big plans of going somewhere but in the end money and time bite us in the butt. We've been tossing around the idea that we may go somewhere like Hawaii or Disney World next year and send out a global invite to anyone who wants to join us. I know that we come up with some cool plans and never follow through, but I think this one would be worth the effort....we'll keep you posted, but as I've seen a year can go by in the blink of an eye, so it's comming sooner than I'd like to think.

Bret will be home on Friday. He has a horrible cold right now, so he's really looking forward to getting home for some rest. Hopefully I'll be able to coax him onto the blog to send you all some info,....i'm sure it gets old listening to me prattle on....lol

So that's all for now. I'm just trying to be thankful for everything I have right now, given what the famillies of the missing helo crew are going through!

we love you all!

jan

2007-12-08T22:20:00.001-09:00

The body of one of the missing crew members and the back left door of the helicopter were found washed ashore, close to Whittier today.

please say a prayer for the families....the search will continue Sunday for the remaining crew members and patient.

jan

Missing LifeGuard Helo (see previous post)

2007-12-06T16:34:00.000-09:00

So the search continues, with clearing weather and more and more services and people joining the search. There has been some discussion about them being near a glacier between Portage and Whittier and the railroad avalanche team are out on their snow machines investigating.

We found out today that they have a weeks worth of survival gear on board so let's keep hope alive for the families. There are several candle light vigils that will be held at 5:18 pm, which was the time of their last known position, and contact with dispatch.

Keep them in your prayers, and all I ask is that only POSITIVE comments be left, as there have been several nay sayers writing in to the Anchorage Daily Newspaper site.

If you want to track what's happening go to

adn.com

and you can see the story as it continues and is updated 24/7. Keep up the faith folks, this has hit Alaska, and Providence very hard, we're a close knit community!

thanks for the thoughts and prayers, I know the famillies appreciate it.

jan

To family and friends

2007-12-05T14:56:00.001-09:00

I work at Providence Alaska Medical Center and we are the only level 3 trauma center for the state. We have a flight service by the name of Life Guard, and they have several helicopters and fixed wings that they transport patients with. Monday night a BK 117 helicopter was transporting a patient from Cordova to Anchorage, it had the pilot, a flight nurse, a paramedic and of course the patient on board. The helicopters call in every 10 minutes to acknowledge their location and how the flight is going. Twenty seven minutes before the helicopter was due to arrive at Providence, they missed 2 ten minute checks. Their last known location was over Prince William Sound, just south of Esther island and within minutes of Whittier. There has been no communication from them since their last check in, at which point everything was status quo. Due to poor weather the search has been very limited, but the the fog/clouds did break today for a bit. The army researve, air force reserve, the coast guard as well as several good samaritin fishing boats are out looking for the helicopter as I write this. The emergency locating device was not activated/or can't be picked up. Please keep these folks and their families in your thoughts and your prayers!!!!
While it's been 48 hours, the helicopter is equipped with survival gear and their wilderness training is very intensive. Having a brother that is a helicopter pilot, and having several years of EMS experience myself, this hits close to home. So all I can ask is that you think of them and their loved ones, who are hoping for their safe return.

Thanks soooo much.....give everyone you love a hug today and let them know that you love them. To all those that read this blog, know that we love you all more than words can say, and appreciate you all greatly for being in our lives.

Take GOOD care!

jan

I finally got to go snowboarding!

2007-12-02T13:46:00.000-09:00

I went snowboarding yesterday on my new snowboard! We don't have much snow down by our house, but actually there is alot of snow up on the hill in some places. We can only go down one run right now, there's actually four in total. At first I fell for about 2 runs, then I went inside to get a bite to eat, which helped alot. After that I was able to turn better and go faster.

We went through some of the snow makers, because they were right in the middle of the run. The run that we could go on had a bunch of jumps, which at first I wasn't very good at doing them. The people that had been boarding for the past 2 weeks, were getting lots of air and practically jumping over me. By the end of the day, I was going off the jumps myself and getting some air.

I heard some people cheering "go little dude! you can do it!" and when I fell I would hear them say "oooooooh soooooo close"!

I spent most of the day up on the hill. We were thinking about going up at 9 am but it was only 15', so Jan went back to sleep until 12:00, and then we left. I was up there from noon to about 8:30 at night, which was pretty cool. I can't wait to find out who my new teacher is this year! I go up for lessons on Tuesday's and Thursdays. Hopefully I can inform you on how my lessons are going, on Friday.

I'm gonna be taught how to do a 180' and 360' in the air, yahooooo! Can't wait to be taught that.

Love you all! and I'll write to you soon!

lee

Lee must "ride"

2007-12-02T13:09:00.000-09:00

So on my last post were pictures of snow everywhere. Now, just 2 weeks later most if not all of the snow has melted and gone away! Lucky for Lee though, "HillTop" where he snowboards, has a good base and they are making snow 24/7. The first 2 weekends Lee had his board he didn't get to try it out due to numerous missing assignments at school. This week however, he caught up on everything and a "riding" he did go!

I dropped him off at the hill shortly after noon yesterday...and honestly I kind of expected him to call by 3 or 4 pm to be picked up. Well by 8pm when I hadn't heard from him, I decided to go up to the hill and see how he was doing. When I found him, and let him know it was 8:30....he simply replied...."I know".....toooo funny! He had a blast and was just doing his thing, it's sooooo exciting to see him take to an activity this strongly. It was a high, yesterday of 28' and the sun is going down around 4:30. We had him dressed to the hilt and he said he stayed warm, which is quite impressive given his "rail-like" build! Today we decided against going as the wind is howling at about 40 miles per hour....it's 35' but it feels alot colder, so he's not out today. He starts his "hot doggers" classes on Tuesday night. He will be going from 4:30 to 6:30 every Tues and Thurs.....I'm hoping he can meet some friends there that he can board with on the weekends, since most of his school friends don't ski or board. We'll keep you posted. Hopefully I can coax him on the blog this week so you can hear it from him....

Bret was home and is now gone again. His new crew is really starting to gel really well together, and it sounds like they all work well together. Despite his grandiose comments about the long hours and cold weather, He really does LOVE this work, and it seems to be suiting him really well. I think he gets back on the 14th and then Lee leaves for Christmas with his mom and Bruce on the 19th...actually like 1 am on the 20th. He's really excited about going to PA to spend time with them, and it's nice the Bret and Lee will have a few days together before Lee leaves, since Bret will be back on the slope when Lee gets home from PA.

As for Christmas for Bret and I, we're not totally sure what we're going to do. I've taken a 9 days off, and we'd like to maybe take a train trip up north to check out the northern lights (which I've still not seen), but other than that we're just going to spend some nice quiet alone time together, which is nice once and awhile.

Work is going really well for me right now. I can't say enough about how great my hours work with life at home with a 12 year old, and physically with the fibromyalgia. My focus has always been to get a "black belt" position with the hospital...but I think i'll postpone that for a year or so, just to get my health on track and Lee settled into Middle school. I hope everyone is well, and we're so greatful that people tune in to see how the Williamson/Carmichael clan is doing. It makes it feel like we're not so very far away. On the flip side of that though, is that you are all welcome to come visit anytime! Our door is always open to anyone who wants to come up here. It is simply the most beautiful place you will ever see (nope no bias here) :)

hugs and kisses to all!

jan

do you take your medicine????

2007-11-14T13:08:00.000-09:00

So Lee's rash/reaction, I'm glad to report has pretty much gone away...until yesterday, when he decided to not take the pills and lie to me about it. And what happened???? Low and behold, he started getting splotchy (is that a word?) and red, this morning he woke up with a runny nose and a little bit itchy. We've been through this a thousand times with Lee and I think, that maybe, just maybe, perhaps, there is an off chance that he has finally learned that he must take his meds as prescribed, in order to keep his body in check.....He had his dose last night and this morning so my hope is that he will return home, itch free. Yikes! kids......need I say more....lol

The other big news here is that Lee's prayers have finally been answered

we have finally got our long awaited first snowfall. These pics are the view from our back door and our front door.(oops same pic twice, sorry) Lee is in hog heaven to put it mildly. We had to go see the ski hill the other day just to check and make sure, he wasn't missing out on any snowboarding....I can't be trusted with that kind of info....lol. So Lee is ready to hit the slopes the very "second" that they open up! We'll keep you posted on that one.

Bret will be home on Friday, which is nice since the U.S. Thanksgiving is on next Thursday. We're going over to one of my co-worker's house to celebrate, with a big pot luck dinner. I'm sad I missed the Canadian holiday with my family, but we should have fun next week. The bonus is that Bret will be home for Christmas too. Lee's going to his mom and Bruce's for Christmas but will be home around New Years and will be able to get some snowboarding in before school starts. Bret and I are just going to spend a quiet week here in Anchorage. We had hopes of going to Canada, but it's just to expensive around the holidays...so maybe we'll go to Denali or Mt. Mckinley for a couple of days...take the train through the mountains...it's supposed to be a wonderful trip.

Not much else new on this front though....oooooh wait I almost forgot....Lee's class is selling chocolate bars, in order to raise money to go to space camp in March or April....the cost is 1 dollar per bar. If anyone would like some email me at hobbz4@yahoo.com and we'll pay Lee and you can send us the money and we'll send you some chocolate. He has 100 bars to sell so don't be shy :)

take care

bret, jan and lee

The Itchy and Scratchy Show (no...not the Simpsons)

2007-11-05T14:20:00.000-09:00

So poor Lee has developed hives, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He woke up on Halloween morning with hives everywhere, we kept him home from school and he and Bret went to the doctor. No problem, just an allergic reaction, take benadryl for the next couple of days and he'll be fine. By the time I got home around 3pm the hives were gone. We continued to give him benadryl through the night, but low and behold he woke up on Thursday covered head to toe again! We washed everything in his room....no for those of you who are asking, we haven't introduced anything new, and no he didn't eat anything new. All through Thursday and overnight the meds were keeping his itching to a minimum so off to school we sent him, much to his horror. Bret dropped off some more medicine at 11:30 and by 1pm the school had called me and said that his hives were back with a vengence and the poor kid was going nuts with the itching. Bret by this time has left for the slope.
So I pick Lee up and make the earlist doctor's appt available, which is not until 5pm. We try an oatmeal bath....no good. We try yet another baking soda bath....does not work. We show up at the doctors at 4:30 and luckily they could get us in. By this time poor Lee is just about in tears, and is constantly checking various parts of his body to see if the hives have changed, moved, gotten bigger, or smaller. The doctor thinks that he has some sort of virus that isn't making him sick, but that his body is waging war against. The kicker is that we have no way of knowing how long this will go on, "possibly several months" was what the doctor said. So Lee got 3 prescriptions, a steroid, an antihistamine, and some thing else. Within 2 hours of taking them the hives are gone. All goes well Friday night and saturday. But suddenly Saturday night at about 12am the hives are back yet again. With not many options to help the poor kid I gave him his meds 4 hours early and that seemed to do the trick. We're now taking meds every 12 hours, but the hives start to reappear after about 10 hours, not horrible though. Today (Monday) so far as of 2:30 I haven't heard from the school so I assume he's doing good, I'm sure he has a ton of work that he missed over the last 3 days....but hopefully we have the hives under control......ack......we'll keep you posted!

jan

Winter is edging ever closer!

2007-10-28T15:08:00.001-08:00

There's no denying it now! We had snow twice last week, none of it stayed on the ground but it's definately here. Lee of course is beside himself with joy....just another snowfall closer to getting to go snowboarding. When his PFD comes in we're going to get him his own snowboard and boots; hopefully this week. We found a sports store that specializes in second hand QUALITY sporting goods. It mainly targets families with ever growing kids, so that we can keep recycling equipment that has only been used for one season, before the child has grown out of it. Mailed PFD's are supposed to start arriving this week, so it should be a Happy week for Mr. Lee.

Bret's just starting his second week home. He goes back up to the slope next Friday. This week's plan is to buy or replace his winter gear, boots, coat, hat etc.... At least the company pays for his boots which tend to be the most expensive, next to their jackets. His exciting news is that he "crushed" one of his fingers, last hitch. Luckily nothing is broken....it's just really swollen and purple, but he says it's not bothering him any which is good.

As far as me, I'm just trucking along. Everyone is back at work so I'm looking forward to this week and just being responsable for my job and no one else's. Sadly my feet have started bugging me again, I'm trying not to panic, but I haven't been very successful. Hopefully it's just a bump in the road. keep your fingers crossed for me.

hope everyone is well! take care and drop us a line....

jan

Lee the Cross Country Runner

2007-10-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

So here he is folks....our budding cross-country runner. Lots of excitement at the beginning of the race...but working pretty hard in the last few yards....but hey it was a mile long race!!!!

Life has been running along pretty well as of late. Lee is well into his school year and all is well. Everytime he see's even a hint of snow he's ready to jump into his snowboarding gear and rush to the ski hill. To give you some perspective, the east side of town got a skiff, and I mean a sparse amount of snow a week ago ( we didn't get any at our place) and Lee's sure the ski hill is operational. We live less than 5 mins down the road from where he snowboards! It's rather humorous. Lee's about the only one in Anchorage that is actively praying for snow at this point. Most of the leaves have turned to yellow, but some are still quite green and the grass is still as green as can be. Just in this last week it's started freezing at night...so he's getting closer.

By the way HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all the Canadian readers...sorry I missed it. We still have well over a month until the holiday in the states...which never has seemed right to me...it's too close to Christmas....but oh well, when in Rome.....or something like that.

Bret's halfway through his 2 weeks on the slope, he'll be home next Friday. By all reports things are going well. His shifts are Midnight to noon the first week and noon to midnight the next. It makes it kind of hard to touch base with him because I'm either working or sleeping when he gets off...so we don't talk much during the week, but we try to touch base on the weekends.

It's PFD time up here in our great state of Alaska. PFD stands for Permanent Dividend Fund. Way back when the pipeline was put in, Alaska received a huge lump sum of money. So now each year it collects the interest off of the principle. Half the yearly interest goes to the government and the other half is handed out equally to each Alaskan resident....so this year it's just over 1600 dollars each. It's a pretty nice perk for living up here: the bonus is that we're one of the few states that doesn't have a state tax either....I guess it kind of makes up for the added expense of living so far away. Bret's PFD will be here shortly but for whatever reason Lee and I had to appeal ours, so they'll be along sometime in the future...not to sure when. You wouldn't believe all the sales and deals that happen this time of year. It's way bigger than the Christmas rush....everything it just so happens is being sold at right around 1500 dollars....wonder why that is????

My works going along pretty good...we'll be back at full staff by Wed the 24th, which will be much appreciated. Things have gone really well, but I'm looking forward to getting back to my regular schedule and duties.

Not much else to report...hope this finds you all well! take good care!

bret, jan, and lee xxoo

rainy september

2007-09-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

Yikes it's almost October! Can you believe it???? It's been pretty rainy here over the past week or so, but life keeps rockin right along. Lee has his second track day tomorrow so we will keep you posted on the results.
Bret's still home for another week, before going off to the slope for more fun with oil. We've mainly been spending our time laying low and relaxing. The leaves have started to turn to gold and red, fall is definately here, no more denying it. We even have snow (termination dust) on the mountains. It seems like it's creeping ever closer each morning as Bret drives me to work.
Lee is totally excited though, because snow means he's that much closer to snowboarding.
Work's been busy, but I came home early today cuz I caught some sort of cold/flu/crud that's been going around the hospital. I just wanted to check in and let people know that yes we're still here!
So I'm off to nap with my puppies and we'll try to update the blog this weekend. Have a good one!
bret-jan-lee

2007-09-16T21:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, per my previous post, I found a better way to link my two blogs....just click on the link to the right.
or go to:

http://fms-tiger.blogspot.com

thanks for the support everyone!

jan

2007-09-16T11:01:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal, I started a blog on my journey with fibromyalgia the other day. If you click on "view my complete profile" you will see it listed along with this blog. I debated for quite awhile on whether or not to make it anonymous or attach my name to it. In the end I've decided to attach my name.

One of the biggest problems that people with fibromyalgia syndrome face, is the lack of awareness and understanding in the general public. It's not a disease that you can see, but it can be and is devastating for those us who have it. I also would suggest you checking out

www.fibrotalk.com/

this is a website that many fibromites use as a way of sharing information, and supporting each other. It also has really good information for family and friends.

I don't want to push this on anyone at all!!!! If your interested, it's there and check it out....if not just ignore it.

thx Jan

2007-09-12T19:23:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody it's me LEE.

Summer was a BLAST.Back to my 5 days of school.

B/O (Band/Orchestra) YES this year i'm going to play the viola .We are going to use one of the violas from school for $40.00 for the whole year.Can't wait until I get the viola.Our teachers name is MR. O'BRIAN. Have a new 6th grade teacher named MS.IBELE. Her name is pronounced like bible only with
an I get it?

CAN'T WAIT UNTIL WINTER YIPEEEEEEE!WINTER???? it is time for me to get back on my snowboard.Can't wait until I get taught how to do a back flip. Yikes!Also i'm going to be taught how to do a 180,THEN! the 360.

Ms.Ibele is our cross country running coach . I'm loving every bit of it.

well thats all the time i have .Hope to see you all soon good night.
LOVE, LEE
Just so you know Lee typed this and spelled everything except "pronounced" all on his own!
3 cheers for LEE!!!!!
hip hip hoooraaayyy
hip hip horraaaaay
hip hip hooooorrrrrrraaaaaay

2007-09-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

Ok I get it! I need to write more often...yah yah yah.

Sooooo, what's been happening in the great state of Alaska. Schools back in session, and yes I will strap Lee to a chair one of these days SOON and have him post a message. We've had a few homework blips in the road, but overall things seem to be going well in the land of our favorite 6th grader.

Bret???? you ask....he's back on the north slope! YIPPPPEEEEE everyone is very happy about this. Bret's more than glad to be back doing the work he likes, and we really like the steady, reliable pay check. Stupid bills! He left last friday the 7th and will return on the 21st. He's on a new rig that's in Prudhoe, so he's not back out on the ocean. So far it sounds like it's been alot of job shadowing as his crew learns the ropes on this rig, before the current crew gets transferred to his old rig. Does that make any sense? yikes. What's cool is he sounds really happy and he likes being back on the slope.

My work has been busy this week, since one of my coworkers is off for 6 weeks (she had surger). This has made my life very hectic...my fibromyalgia doesn't like me working 8 hour days, with high stress...hopefully my body will even out soon tho. Either way I have to work so I'll just look forward to my coworkers speedy return so that I can return to just doing one job not two.

September is the rainy season up here, and boy has it hit. Out of the last 5 days it poured for 3 and a half. The plus side is that everything is still nice and green...the leaves will be turning soon though. No sign of termination dust (snow) yet on the mountains, but it won't be long. For those of you that don't know, we call snow on the mountains "termination dust" because it signifies the termination of summer in alaska....which I think is hilarious so I use it as much as possible.

Not much else to report...life has been chugging along at it's usual rapid pace, and all is well. I hope to see MORE comments to the posts, and please leave your name so we know who's writing. Just like some people (mike) have said that I need to write more....so do you! so ha!

take good care, and know that we think of you all often!

jan

2007-08-29T14:52:00.000-08:00

So it's almost September and the summer is drawing to a close...at least it is here in Alaska! Lee started school last week and will write something this weekend on the blog....I'm hoping that now that we are back into a routine, the posts will be more frequent on the blog. It's hard to keep up over the summer...at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it....ha ha ha.

Our visit with Karen and Monty was great!!!! We did lots of fun things and took some pictures as you can see. We went hiking in Eagle River, whale watching/boat tour in Seward, trekked around town, and Lee and his grandparents even made it out to the Matanuska glacier. It's always great to have family come visit so that we can share some of the amazing places Alaska has to offer, with them. We had one or two rainy days, but for the most part the weather was picture perfect...no pun intended.

My new job is going extremely well to say the least. It is exactly what I have been looking for! Great hours, Great people, interesting work, and it allows me to be home in the afternoons with Lee. I really couldn't ask for more. It's also really helped alleviate some of the fibromyalgia stress of a full'time....all day job. I can't complain about having all my weekends off either.

Bret spoke to Nabors drilling this morning and they are hoping to get him out on an off-shore rig by next Friday....yippee! He is really missing working on the rigs. This rig is in Cook inlet not on the North Slope which will be a ton warmer for him. Right now it looks like he'll be moved to a rig that works year round in November/December...but as we've found, nothing is set in stone when working on the slope. The construction market has slowed considerably so he is working for a local print shop; screen printing for now. Flash back to the days in Kansas! He is hoping that he will be able to screen print on his two weeks home, since it doesn't look like the construction job is going to work out. We'll keep you posted though.

We're still hoping to get to Canada this December/January, but that's a ways off at this point. It's hard to do any concrete longterm planning until we know where exactly Bret will be in December and what his schedule will be. But for now that's the plan.

The weather here is still beautiful...high's in the mid to high 60's during the day. It's starting to cool off at night though, I actually wore a jacket to work this morning...ick. The sun is getting later and later every morning too...it's coming up around 6:30 now and getting dark around 9:30, which for most folks is alot of light, but for us Alaskans it's getting shorter and shorter by the day.

Everything is still lush and green though. We went to the big state fair on Saturday, and got to see all of the gigantic veggies that won in the agricultural contests....there was a head of lettuce there that weighed more than Lee!!!! yikes.

I hope everyone is well, and stay in touch!

love as always

bret, jan, and lee

2007-07-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

Wow is it the middle of July already???? How did we get here? Wasn't it March, like yesterday???? Crazy huh.
So life in Anchorage has been pretty quiet for us the last month or so. Bret is still doing the construction thing on and off depending how busy the week is. Most weeks he works a minimum of 4 days, but this week he has off...so He's leading a nice and laid back life. I started my new job in the Case Management/Social Services dept. at the hospital. I'm one of 3 support staff people in the dept that take all calls and authorizations/denials of insurance claims for our in-patients. So far I totally love it! There are some really great people working there and you can't beat my ours of 6am to 12:30pm Monday thru Friday! Yippee! I know it's only the 3rd day...but my gut tells me this will be a really great fit for me! I'm glad to be out of the NICU as the deaths were/are getting too much for me...it was getting pretty hard to go in and face grieving parents every day....and you can only attend so many funerals for newborns.
Other than that we've just been relaxing. Lee and Bret's parents arrive at midnight Monday and Karen and Monty will be here for a week. We're REALLY looking forward to having Lee home and exploring the surrounding area with Bret's parents. Hopefully we'll be able to do some halibut fishing while they're here. The record was broken this year when a guy caught a 450lb halibut....isn't that nuts!?
We'll be sure to take lots of pics to post on the blog.

keep in touch and we love you all oodles and oodles!

Jan

2007-06-21T16:02:00.000-08:00

Let me send out a long overdue HELLO form the Williamson/Carmichael family.

Where does the time go???? Lee is still in PA visiting with his mom and Bruce and by the sounds of it they are all having a wonderful time!
Bret is working as the manager of his friends construction company over the summer while his rig is down. It's been great having him home while the weather is so darn nice. He's doing kinda of a bunch of different things. They are working on getting the business incorporated and comming up with the most effective way to manage their crews, with the summer rush of construction, but I think he's really enjoying it. Once he's back on the slope he will still work with this same company on his 2 weeks off, so it's worked out really well.
As for me, things have been kind of hectic. The job I was hoping to get this summer has been put off until January, but I was fortunate enough to be offered a position in the Case Management department at the hospital. So i will be starting there on the 9th of July. The hours are from 6am to 12:30pm Monday to Friday, which is an ideal schedule for me and my fibromyalgia. Not to mention the fact that It allows us to not need child care for Lee once he's back from his travels. A day here or there with him home alone is one thing but we didn't want to have him spend his summer all indoors, because both Bret and I are working. So now about the time that he's up and moving, I will be comming home and he will be able to go out with his friends.
The weather this last week or so has been nothing short of amazing! Today is the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) which is always a big celebration up here. The temp has been in the mid 80's and the sunset is around 1am and sunrise is 3'30am so it never really gets dark....just kind of like dusk. It's certainly hard to get to bed because we lose track of time so easy, you look outside and think it's early evening and then look at the clock and it's 10pm...very strange, but way toooo cool for words.
We've been spending lots of time on the deck and outdoors taking advantage of this weather, since we only get a limited amount of it.
Bret got an invitation to go King salmon fishing on Saturday, so I'm sure he'll come home with lots of stories to tell.
Karen and Monty are bringing Lee back to Anchorage in July and we've rented a little cabin in Seward for a couple days while they are here...hopefully we'll be able to find a fishing charter to take while we're there. We're definately looking forward to their visit though.
Other than that life just keeps trucking along. I planted my first flower garden ever this year, and by most people's standards it's not very much, but I think it's waaaay cool. We are exploring possible adoption/foster care here, since our plans in Kansas ended up taking a back seat to our move, but we're still in the really early stages of making a decision at this point. We just want to keep the option open and then make decisions once Lee's back home and can participate in the decision too....but we'll keep you posted.

that's all for now folks, we hope you are enjoying your summer's as much as we are ours!

Jan and Bret

2007-06-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

WELCOME TO THE WORLD: Graham Andrew and Logan Stewart!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Karen and Dean, who are the proud parents of these young twins born on June 11th 2007.

2007-06-01T10:25:00.000-08:00

I'M A SIXTH GRADER!!!!

A couple of weeks ago I got my report card saying that I was officially a 6th grader. Tonight at 12:30 a.m. I am going to Pennsylvania, but I'm going from Anchorage to Seattle, from Seattle to Houston, then from Houston to PA. I will arrive around 6pm Saturday. The plane ride should be about 18hours. BOOO!

We went to the Alaska Wildlife Center, which was pretty cool. We saw moose, bears, oxen, elk, and buffalo. Also we saw two black bears that were play fighting, like Bailey and Shep do, if you've seen them play fight. The whole family is doing well. Dad got a new summer job as a construction company manager. He doesn't work on road construction, he works on the inside of houses. Like kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, and decks.

For the last couple of weeks I have been riding my bike and playing with my friends. We went to see Shrek the Third last weekend. It was not bad, it was kind of funny like the other two. The movie was 2hours long, and a great movie in my opinion.

The weather has been nice and we have barely had any rain. The temperature is around 60 degrees each day wooohooo. Which gives me lots of time to go outside and play. Also because the sun stays up so late. Can't wait to see you all soon.

I am going to my mom's tonight at midnight, then I'm going to Kansas City to see my grandparents on the 9th of July. Then we are going to California to see uncle Darin on the 11th of July, then grandma and grandpa are coming up to Anchorage with me for a couple of weeks. wooohoo.

Love you all, hope you all have a great summer! love Lee

2007-05-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

I was going through all of my pictures the other day and I found this digital card from a broken camera. These are pictures of Lee at the go-cart park when we were coming up to Alaska. When we stayed in Bellingham for a couple of days before catching the ferry to Alaska.

I know all of you that know Lee well can appreciate theses pictures!

We will write more tomorrow before Lee leaves to go see his Mom and Bruce!

take good care!

Jan

2007-05-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post these pics for all to see; they were forwarded to me by our friends Jan and Gary in Kansas. These are pictures of the town of Greensberg Kansas after a tornado that hit earlier this week. They're pretty sobering and speak for themselves.

Jan

2007-05-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

Hello to all!

I apologize for not being as good about keeping the blog up to date recently, but life gets hectic and time just slips by sooooo darn fast.
Spring has definately sprung, as I'm typing this I had to shut the window because they are mowing our lawn right now! Yea! This is good 1. because they mow it for us! and 2. because it's getting green, green, green. Even the leaves are starting to make an appearance. I had the day off yesterday and had ambitious plans to prune the bushes and plant some flowers but it rained so I guess we'll try for Thursday :)
Bret is back home, and work for this summer is kind of up in the air. His rig doesn't operate in the summer after break up, I guess the island that it's on would sink if they did, and that is something they'd probably like to avoid. He has his name in for other rigs so we're in wait and see mode. Luckily for us, he has had a couple of construction offers for the summer as well, and he's working with a friend this week doing light construction. So either way he'll be busy, we would just rather have him working on the slope.
Lee is going to be done 5th grade on the 23rd and then he's off to his Mom and Bruce's on the 29th...at this point we're not quite sure on when he'll be home. He will be in PA until after the July 4th holiday, then he'll go to Kansas for a day or too and fly back to Anchorage with Bret's parents....I think they are trying to stop and see Uncle Darin in California for 3 days on their way. Man I'd love to do the travelling that Lee does. ha ha ha
My work has been extremely busy and my potential job is waaaaay up in the air, which really sucks. Patience is definately a virtue that I have trouble with lol. My fibromyalgia has been pretty bad lately which also contributes to lack of blog updates, but hopefully with the 17+ hours of daylight now, my body will decide to be a little nicer to me....i'm keeping my fingers crossed anyways.
Lee and I will try to get some pictures posted this weekend, Bret probably won't be back on the slope this weekend either so maybe the three of us will get to go explore some of the sights we haven't seen yet.

I hope that everyone is doing well; please keep the comments coming they are really appreciated.

lots of love,

B-J-L

2007-04-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

These pictures were taken in Seattle with my mom and grandma for Spring Break. Before I get to the pictures, let me tell you that the St Patrick's Day parade was a total disaster! Because when we got to the parade, it started to sprinkle a little bit. But right about when the parade started rain was comming down like there was no tomorrow. I kept telling my mom that we would have to leave soon so we wouldn't have to stay inside because her leg was hurting.

The pictures are when I was at the Seattle Glass Blowing studio, where I made a little baby dragon, if you look closely into the small ball of glass you will actually see the head of the dragon is red and the body is orange and the tail is a mix of orange/red. The big volleyball shaped glass ball was blown to be whatever, and as you can see it's only orange and red, instead of a dragon body.

My snowboarding lessons are going great! I'm being taught by a future X-game champion! The last 2 weeks he has been snowboarding to qualify for the x-games. He is teaching me how to do a 180 and a back flip.

I got a new ipod nano "SWEET"! Which is grey with a really nice rubber case, which is also very cool. I must thank MJ (which is Jan) for buying me the ipod. When I was flying home I got delayed for 2 hours on the runway, sitting on the plane! We finally took off 2 hours later than I was supposed to but it wasn't a problem because I had my DS and my ipod.

love you all! miss you all! hope to see you all very soon!

Lee

2007-04-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

These pics were taken in Seward after a ton of rain.....we had other shots of the waterfall, but they didn't really show how big and awesome it was! Well with a tiny little Bret beside it...you sure get an idea of the awesome beauty that we see every day here in Alaska....the top photo speaks for itself...."oyster anyone?

2007-04-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

Hi folks, I'm home from far away! I love the new job, the rig is much bigger. I work on an island 7 miles out to sea, haven't seen a polar bear yet, but I'm still looking. I had to climb to the top of the derrick, it was 150 feet up in the sky. I can now say that i've done it and WON'T be doing it again any time soon. Break up is here and summer is just around the corner. Can't wait, will send photos.

Bret

Hi guys this is Jan....
As Bret said break up is definately here! Yeah! Our temps are haning in the 50's and 40's everyday. We had a couple days and nights of rain, which made quick work at making our snow disappear. There is still some snow here and there but the grass is visible and even getting a green tinge to it.
Our days are getting longer and longer we're close to 14 hours of day light and June 21st is still a long ways off. It certainly is nice to drive to work in the sun and not have it go down until well past 9pm.
Lee is in his last 6 weeks of school and is definately got spring fever. Keeping him focused on his work has been a chore....but who could blame him?! Snowboarding ended this past weekend which is sad for Lee....he has almost perfected his 180' jump...yup folks with only a month of snowboarding under his belt he is starting to learn tricks on the half pipe! Pretty cool huh.
As for me work has remained hectic, and I'm still not sure where things stand with my possible new job. I do my last week of green belt training this month....and I can't wait to get moving on to bigger and better horizons.
I'll have Lee write something about his trip to Seattle this week....we keep meaning to do it...but then the sunshine ends up pulling us outdoors! We'll try to post a couple pics too.

hope all is well! And a big CONGRATS TO KAREN AND DEAN! who are expecting twins this summer! woo hoo!

Love you all more than we can say! stay in touch....we love the comments that you post!

As always
Bret-Jan-Lee

2007-03-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

2007-03-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

HELLOOO FOLKS......
Yes it's been awhile since our last update. You'll be glad to know that Lee's eye is all healed up with no lasting marks of any kind. It's been a long and busy month here in Alaska. In my last post I remarked how well things were going and then life hit us smack in the forehead again BAM!
Bret came home from his usual 2 week hitch on the slope and was laid off the very next day. I guess he was one of the lucky 300 hundred people that Schlumberger decided to let go due to "falling commodity prices". So we stressed all weekend and got up bright and early on Monday to tackle the not so fun task of job hunting. By 10:00am that very same morning he was hired by Nabor's (not sure of the spelling) Drilling. Isn't the oil business weird???? He had a weeks worth of training and then another couple of weeks waiting for work to start up on the slope. It had been shut down due to cold. Last Friday he flew back up and is working on a "tower" called NorthStar that is actually situated 7 miles off coast in the Arctic Ocean. It's on a man made island and of course this time of year it's completely iced in, so they travel back and forth to the rig by bus. In the summer I guess they either travel by hovercraft or helicoptier. The biggest threat up there are the ever present polar bears, who whole heartedly believe humans to be as good of food as any. Laugh my ass off! So the camp is surrounded by sensors that go off if a polar bear trips it....at that point everyone is to be inside....not that I think they spend a whole lot of time outside anyways.
So in his first week up there, he has yet to see a polar bear, but reports that there are a ton of arctic fox, which are fun to watch. He says he likes this crew better than the one he was with previously so that's a good thing. He has also managed to get himself promoted from roustabout to floorhand....so he's moving up and influencing people. His hours are alot nicer too, he works noon to midnight for his whole 2 week hitch. At the last job he worked one week nights and then switched and had to do one week of days, which was hard on his body. So keep your fingers crossed for him!
Lee is on spring break right now. His grandma Susan and Mom flew to Seattle and the three of them I'm sure are painting the town Red! He left last Friday and will be back on Saturday, I'm glad they get to spend that time together, I'm sure they're having a blast. I'll have Lee update you all when he gets home.
For the past month and a half Lee has been learning to snowboard at the Hilltop ski hill here in Anchorage. So far he seems to really like it and is already planning his trip to the XGames! He's stuck it out on some coooold days (we're having the coldest march on record), and his teachers report that he is picking it up quickly....he's a natural snowboard bunny I guess. The nice thing is that the hill is only 5 min from our house, so we drop him off for lessons and then he boards with his friends afterwards...he just calls when he's done, usually cuz he's too cold and we're up the hill to get him. All in all it's turned out to be a great activity for him.

Things at the NICU have been crazy as ever, we seem to be hovering at the 40 mark (census wise that is) which is really taxing our resources, because our capacity is only 35. This week was particularly hard as we lost a baby that had been with us for over 4 months, and it was quite unexpected. When I dealt with the loss of adult patients it was usually because they were dying of old age, or had done something stupid to cause their own ill-fate, But babies are a whole different ballgame and I'm struggling with this particular loss.....I am very much looking forward to my prospects of working for Operational Excellence.
Speaking of which I've completed 2 weeks out of my 3 week greenbelt class and have a project well underway. I've also had the priviledge of sitting in on some high level projects that were being presented/reported out on to administration. While the prospect of doing this on my own is more than a little intimidating, I'm pretty confident that it is something that I can do and be pretty good at....so keep those happy thoughts coming our way.....
Like I said it's been a cold March, but today it got all the way up into the high 30's which is just about 1-2 degrees celsius. It's sad when 30 seems like a heat wave. ha ha ha There's still about a foot of snow on the ground but the streets are all dry. The bonus is that we are gaining about 7-8min a day of sunlight, which makes a pretty huge difference over a weeks time. We are well over 12hours of light a day now, which just makes things sooooo beautiful. Won't be long until we're out fishing for salmon....or maybe we'll get lucky this summer and be able to go fish for Halibut the big fish! Bigger than Lee even.
I'll try to write more often, but I've been busy with work and my project. Things should start slowing down a little bit now that I'm over the really labor intensive part of my project.
I hope all is well with you! please write comments, but don't forget to tell us who you are!

love you all as big as the world!

Bret-Jan-Lee

2007-02-04T12:48:00.000-09:00

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everybody, as you can see I have a big black eye! Yesterday night, I was playing with Jonah and when I was gettting a snowball, I turned around and Jonah hit me in the left side of my face with a snowball. It really hurt. My glasses were bent.

My mom gave me hockey tickets, for the good grades on my report card. So Jan and I will be going to the Ace's hockey game Feb.9th. I got all A's and B's except for Math and Writing.

We went to Fred Myer's and got new glasses yesterday. I am reading a war book about weapons of war.

Love to all hope everybody is doing well. Love Lee

2007-02-01T17:29:00.000-09:00

I know that I am partial because they are my nephews, but aren't they the cutest?!
Here is a bathtime pic of Eric (2) and his 1 month old baby brother Tommy.....aaaaaaaaawwwwwww. Again we would like to say welcome to the world Thomas Dawson and we love you ALL as big as the world!

Life in Alaska has warmed up considerably, the last few days have been in the mid 40's which as you can guess has made things pretty sloppy around town. Alot of our snow has melted but there's still a could 2 feet on the ground. Bret went back to the slope today, but we had a great 2 weeks of family time. Work is still busy, I start my operational excellence project manager training on Monday. I have 5 days of class, then 3 more in March and 4 in April...hopefully by then I will know what I'm doing and will have impressed them enough to hire me. Keep your fingers and toes crossed. Next week will be quite hectic as we are actually working on a project while we go to class, so it will be alot of long days. It will be well worth the effort though and I really love this kind of work.

Lee is doing really well in school and has found an adventure series of books that he really likes. He's read about 10 of them and has got to the point that he can read one of them every 2 days....wow...it's very cool. He has also taken up a recent interest in WW1 and WW2. He has been checking books out of the library and watching alot of shows on the history, he certainly knows more than I at this point. It is amazing to watch really, his mind is like a huge sponge and he can tell you the blow by blow events of just about any major battle. For those of you who know Bret well, you can just imagine how the 2 of them will discuss the wars and battles at great length. They've even got several of the battles mapped out on one of their PS2 games and they can play out the whole seen over, and over again. Not really my cup of tea, but it's great to watch the two of them together, not to mention see Lee so passionate about a topic that he searches it out and studies it all on his own. Very cool.

While Bret was home he did the state part of his CDL and now has his official liscence...be afraid....be very afraid! LOL Otherwise life has just been bumping along as usual. It's tax time so we're busy gathering all of our lovely w2's and trying to guess how much we'll get back....lol....

We hope this finds you all well, I haven't been as up to date on this as usual but I knew I wouldn't get to it at all next week so I wanted to check in and keep everyone posted. We're gaining over 5 min a day of sunlight right now and it is amazingly beautiful as always. Bret and I were talking the other day, and it's hard at this point to imagine living anywhere else. A year and a half later, we still strongly believe that this was the best decision we've made thus far. Lee has completely blossomed here, Bret has a job that has huge long term potential, and I'm working towards one of the biggest and exciting career steps I could ever make. If you would have asked us a year ago....we never would have dreamed that we would be where we are. It has been a long and arduous road, but we finally feel like we're making headway and we really would like to thank EVERYONE who has supported us in soooooo many ways, through this adventure. When we first arrived things got pretty icky, but we stuck by it and are on the up swing now.

Thank you sooo much to our parents first and foremost, and also to all our friends and family. It seems in this day and age that we don't say it enough but we LOVE AND CHERISH all of you, and very much appreciate all of your love and support.

TAKE GOOD GOOD CARE!

Bret, Jan, and Lee :)

2007-01-08T17:58:00.000-09:00

Hello Everybody, this is Lee's quick news report. The pictures up top are the stuff I got from my gift card and christmas money for Toys R Us. The bottom one is a truck with a control center inside. It also came with army men, and a jeep, as well as extra weapons. The second one is a helicopter that has inside a jeep and it comes with extra weapons and men also. The third and final one is an army jeep with men and weapons. I can set up my own little battle field. I'm hoping to get some extra money to buy some more army men to make the battle field bigger.

It has been snowing for the past 3 weeks, that I have been on Christmas Break. We have 3 ft of snow on our roof so of course we get no satelite T.V. Which is a bummer because on Sunday I was going to watch "1-7-07 at Seven" a tv show on disney channel. We are going to have somebody come out and look at it on Thursday.

Thank you to Grandma Anne and Grandma Karen for the gift card and money for Toys R Us! We hope it gets warmer soon, so I can go outside, and that has been another news report from Lee.

Love to all!

2007-01-08T17:34:00.000-09:00

Bailey and Shep!

2007-01-08T17:10:00.000-09:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

Hopefully this year will bring everyone lots of love and happiness! New years around here was pretty quiet. That is to say I was in bed by 10pm cuz I had to work the next morning. Bret says he came in and gave me a kiss at midnight, but I have no memory of that. :)

I've included some pics to show you all how are weather is up here. We have set all sorts of records for snowfall already this year. As you can see the snow is soooo high that Lee has been busy digging trails in the backyard so that they can go out. Obviously the snow is too high for Bailey, but it would also be almost over Shep's head with out a path. I'm not too sure who has more fun with the paths, Lee or the dogs.

We have completely lost our satelite TV as the dish has disappeared on our roof, which I think is hilarious. I phoned the satelite company who of course has it's call center in Georgia, and they have no concept of what I'm talking about. "you'll just have to wait for the snow to melt in a couple of days" and "surely you mean 2 inches, you couldn't possibly have 2 FEET of snow on your roof mam" These are my 2 favorite quotes from the handful of calls I've made.

Bret is back up on the slope, but they aren't doing much work because the high's have been -58' which is the same in both F' and C'. brrrrrr. So he has been able to get alot of his educational modules done during work time. In Anchorage we hit a record low of -16'F today which is about -24'C, and it's mighty chilly. I love the snow, but not so wild about the cold. By the end of the week temps are expected to be back in the 20's and 30's which is normal for this time of year.

Lee had a shopping spree extravaganza at Toys R Us just after Christmas, with his money from Grandma's Karen and Anne....His post is next.

Not much else to report, too cold for sledding, but I took this coming weekend off, so if it does warm up, hopefully Lee and I will be able to hit the sledding hill, we've found a good hill that we've been waiting to try out....I'll try to get pics.

Stay warm and have a most wonderful January!

All our love,

Bret, Jan and Lee

2006-12-26T11:40:00.000-09:00

Hello this is Lee's quick Christmas News Special!

I had alot of fun with my new presents. Bailey got a kick out of the remote control Jeep. As Jan said we tried to take the Jeep out but it was too cold so we let it charge up and when I took it out this morning it was running very well. Until I hit a little ice patch, then it skidded into a big pile of snow. After that I decided to bring it in so it didn't kill the battery.

Grandma Karen, thank you for the sweat shirts, hoodies, and blanket they are all so warm, and when I'm really cold I cuddle up and warm up very fast. thank You!

Mom, thank you for the 2 gift cards to Itunes and to Best Buy. Also I like the new the new coloring pads that I got they are very fun. When I am finished I can tear them out and give them to people.

Uncle Elton and aunt Patricia, thank you for the 40 dollars to itunes. Congratulations on the new baby, he sounds very happy can't wait to see how Eric reacts to having a new brother. I think it will be pretty funny.

Grandma Anne, thank you for the Toys R Us card I am hoping to use it for some new stuff for my christmas presents.

Grandma Nelson, thank you for the snowshoes can't wait to use them. So I can go in the 4 feet of snow that we have, and not fall through.

Thank you Frank and Jill for the magazine can't wait to read it over christmas break.

Thank you all for the great presents I love them all!

Have a great New Year and hope your Christmas presents from us were the best.

Love Lee

2006-12-26T11:13:00.000-09:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY AND WISHING YOU A MOST HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

So Santa found us and was very good to us (Lee) this year ;) Many pics follow that show Lee opening all of his gifts. I apologize for the poor quality of some of them but I was a little shakey yesterday....oops.

Lee loved all of his gifts that arrived from afar. I'll have him write a quick note shortly. I woke up at 7:30 yesterday, once I realized that it was Christmas morning I got a little worried, since Lee wasn't up yet. Bret and I expected to be woken up at 0'dark thirty to open presents (i guess Santa treated us well after all ha ha ha). We sent the dogs off to wake Lee with their ritual of licking his face until he gets out of bed (much more reliable than an alarm clock). Then the present opening fest began! After trying out all his new toys and clothes we had fresh baked cinnamon roles a la Bret...very tastey even out of the can. We tried to take Lee's new remote control Jeep outside for a spin but the temp was a frosty 5 degrees, and in combo with a dying battery that didn't work so well. So we decided to go check out all the sledding hills in town to scope out our sledding trip this week. We also went to the ski hill in town to show Lee where he'll be taking his christmas snowboarding lessons.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing for Bret and I and Lee hanging out with friends. The best part of the whole day, was that Santa brought laser sited nerf dart guns. Both in the morning and in the evening we turned all the lights off in the house and had a huge war of laser dart tag. Since our hous is three levels and all open it makes for the perfect laser tag game. Lee was sneaky by drawing fire and then hoarding all the bullets in his new hoody sweatshirt so then his counter attack on Bret and I was vicious. At one point he took off upstairs and it took Bret and I a good 10 minutes to find him under our bed. I have now confirmed that I wouldn't cut it on a swat team....i was scared to clear a room when nerf darts were the deadly weapon....i wasn't much of a back up for Bret.

I hope that Santa treated everyone well, and that the new Year is full of bright opportunities and love

take good care,
Bret, Jan, Lee and some tired out dogs

2006-12-26T11:04:00.000-09:00

2006-12-20T16:25:00.000-09:00

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WELCOME TO THE WORLD - THOMAS DAWSON CEH!

I'm glad to report that both baby and mom are doing well, pictures will follow soon! Love to Elton, Patricia, Eric and new baby Thomas!

2006-12-14T16:06:00.000-09:00

please ignore that HUGE spelling error in the first line of my post

Lee has been doing SUCH a great job

not suck ooops sorry Lee

2006-12-14T15:48:00.000-09:00

Hello one and All!

Lee has been doing suck a great job keeping you all up to date on the Ace's hockey season I haven't got a chance to check in with you all. I hope everyone is prepared for the big day with santa....and that this holiday season finds you well.

Bret is up on the slope right now and gets back on Thursday...just in time for us to do some last minute shopping for Lee. As is our family tradition, we have picked out a lovely rock and stick for him this year! Every year this is what we promise him and we wrap up both for under the tree. Lee will be off from the 22nd until the 8th of January, and Bret will be home until the 3rd so it works out great! I of course will be working, but I do have the 25th off so no complaints.

We have probably about 6-10 inches of snow right now and the day time highs have dropped back into the high 20's so it's pretty nice hear. We are down to about 6 hours of light each day with an hour of dusk on each end. Dec. 21st, Winter Solstice is a huge celebration up here, because it officially marks the shortest day of the year and then we just keep gaining daylight right through June.

Work is going well, we have been crazy busy this month, on Tuesday we had 40 babies and our capacity is only 36 so they set up 3 babies in a patient room on the mother/baby unit. It's been quite busy! I start my Green Belt training in Febuary which I'm really excited about. It's training through our Operational Excellence department at the hospital. It was originally used by the Toyota company and General Electric as a way of gathering information and graphing/analysing and coming up with proposals to make business practices more efficient and to affect positive change within an organization. It is called the Six Sigma program. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's something I'm quite passionate about and I have been allotting 10 percent of my work time at Providence to facilitating meetings within the company. After my Green Belt training, in which I will work on a 3-6 month project I will be eligable to apply to do this work fulltime within the hospital. I have worked quite a bit with the director of Operational Excellence and she has invited me to apply for a fulltime position in April, when my green belt course work is complete. This would be a HUGE career move for me and I'm really looking forward to it....so keep your fingers crossed for me.

We'll try to get our christmas gifts in the mail on Monday for our family members, so be on the look out for those. We are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of our new neice or nephew this month as my sister-in-law and brother are expecting at the end of December.....so lots of warm and safe wishes to Elton, Patricia and Eric......and new baby :)

We don't have any new pics but will try to post some before xmas!

Have a great holiday and be safe!
all our love
Bret, Jan, and Lee

2006-12-10T19:34:00.000-09:00

We went to the millitary appreciation week, hockey game on Friday night. The Aces were playing Fresno again. It was kind of funny how they lit the ice (they light a flaming "A" at the beginning of every game), this time they brought out an armored personnelle carrier and started shooting with a machine gun. The flaming "A" lit up and then the machine gun guy shot at 3 fireworks and they were about 10-15 feet high.
Then the referee couldn't find his hockey puck, and the announcer said "who has the hockey puck?" over and over, which was kind of funny. Finally 4 millitary men came repelling down from the top of the arena, and one of the guys got stuck and they had to tug him off his rope. The Aces started off the same way as they did the last game, except way more violent. There was alot of checking and elbowing each other. One of the Aces hockey players, hit another player and Jan thinks that he broke his nose, but we don't know as of right now. The Aces beat Fresno by 2 points, and we think that it was a big victory. Me and Jan got stuck in a traffic jam trying to get out of the parking lot, which I thought was not very fun.
Today I was building a tunnel under one of mine and Damien's snow forts. Damien is my friend next door. We are now waiting to watch "Extreme Home Make Over", but the station is having technical difficulties. I will talk to you when another news update comes up.
thank you for listening in to Lee's news and weather update.
love to all
talk to you soon,
Lee

2006-12-08T16:56:00.000-09:00

Hi everybody,
Wednesday night me, Jan, Dad, and his friend Paul went to the Aces' hockey game. They were playing Fresno, they got 1 penalty in the first quarter. We got 1 goal in the first 2 minutes, then Fresno also got 1 goal. In the 2nd period Fresno got 2 more goals, because the Ace's didn't have their heads in the game. But at least they tried. Fresno also had a great goalie. In the 2nd period also Fresno made a lot of shots on our goalie. Before the 3rd period the announcers gave away a thirty-five hundred dollar blue fox coat, that Jan thought was ugly. Really ugly. In the third period the Ace's got aggressive and had alot of people go into the penalty box. Then at the end of the game the Ace's pulled their goalie out and Fresno scored. Alot of people were being rude to the referees.
Thank you for listening to my update report. Two more will be coming up tomorrow and Sunday.
thank you!
love to all!
Lee

2006-12-03T17:03:00.000-09:00

wow it's December already, can you believe it???? Time passes faster and faster every year. Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. I worked until 3:30 came home and Lee and I threw everything into the oven and Bret arrived from the slope at about 7pm. Couldn't have planned it better if we tried. lol

It was actually the first year I cooked for holidays, because we have always been with family. Glad to say it was deeeelicious. We've had more snow since last I wrote, we have at least a foot on the ground right now. It's even been in the 20's most days, and this week they are talking about temps in the 30's which is around 0'C. It's funny cuz the weather here is warmer in the winter than it was in Kansas, because 1. we don't have any wind and 2.it's nowhere near as humid here as in Manhattan. Anchorage is it's own unique ecosystem we stay moderate all year long instead of 110' summer and -60' winter in somewhere like Fairbanks.

The moose are starting to appear, almost daily now which I think is a little later than last year. We still haven't seen the Northern Lights, we tried last weekend but it didn't work out. We'll keep you posted though, and hopefully have pics!

Bret's home until Thursday and then back up on the slope until Dec.22, back right in time for Xmas. We picked up a little norfollk pine tonight and some lights and decorations. Of course we had to get K-state purple beads to decorate the tree. You can take the kansan out of KS but not the KS out of the kansas....ha ha ha....if that makes any sense. So tonight is "Funniest home Videos", "Extreme home Make over" and tree decorating night. Quite a family night if I do say so myself.

Bret just got over a cold, he scheduled right on target for getting sick the day after he got home, Lee has managed so far to avoid it....yea lee! I didn't catch the cold but had a toothache, so I went into the dentist to get a simple filling and came out 2.5hours later with a root canal, stitches in my gums, and two temperary crowns. If anyone knows my dislike of dentists you'll understand that I was in abject terror the entire time....ick.

I'll try to get some pics this week and have Lee write a quick note to all.

Please, keep those comments coming it's nice to know who's checking out our site.

love you all, and miss you terribly

Jan, Bret, and Lee

2006-11-18T20:25:00.000-09:00

So Lee and I went out tonight to see a meteor shower that is supposedly taking place....hmmmmm nope we didn't have much luck. We hurriedly drove to 3 different spots in hopes of seeing all the shooting stars across the sky. It wasn't a total bust however, we did see one lonely little shooting star, oddly enough we both saw the same one. lol what were the odds. Finally we got too cold standing with our necks cranked back, so we came home. sigh....maybe next time. I think the big problem was lack of planning. I'd heard about from a friend and then completely forgot about it until Lee started telling Bret about it on the phone at 6:45. Well the best viewing time was from 7 to 8....so we just hopped in the car and went. We didn't even know which direction to look in, and we really didn't have enough time to get far enough away from the light of Anchorage. It gives Lee and I something cool to research on the web later this week though.
This week has definately been chilly we are having highs in the teens now. Everyone says that this is extremely uncharacteristic of Anchorage weather, it definately wasn't like this last winter. It comes with the territory, so I guess we can't complain. Actually all you have to do is look to the east and see the mountains or the west and see the ocean, to be reminded of how lucky we are to be living up here.
Needless to say Bret is on the slope and it's cold up there highs in the -20 to -30 range....I know it's mean but it still makes me laugh, just a wee bit....ok alot! It's in my nature ha ha ha.
Lee is doing ok, not too excited about reading yet but the battle continues. He has aced all of his spelling tests so far this year, his average is like 98%...I told him I'd give him 2 dollars for every 100% he got....I better start saving cuz at this rate he's going to break the bank.
Thanksgiving is this Thursday, but being Canadian, it just doesn't feel right. I completely forgot about Thanksgiving in October this here, so now i'm stuck in some middle world between Canada and the USA and I'm not too sure where I fit in???? Never thought you'd hear me say that now did you???? ha ha ha
I found a really cool site on Fibromyalgia a couple of weeks ago, and it's proving to be more helpful than any other resource I've found up to now. It has message boards on just about every topic you could think of, several chat rooms, and lots of links to reputable sites, so I'm pretty geeked about the whole thing. I've struggled somewhat this last week with pain...but it seems to be subsiding a little bit now, so all's good.

hope all is well....not too many comments out there folks....don't be shy....just chime in whenever you feel like.

love and miss you all happy Turkey day!!!!

gobble, gobble gobble

b-j-l

2006-11-17T16:29:00.000-09:00

from Lee

My week has been going good. On MONDAY we did a spelling pretest#10. I think I got 100%. We had music we are practicing with some instruments for a song we are learning.After that we did reading.The story that we are reading is called THE ISLAND of the BLUE DOLPHINS.After lunch we did math wich we are very behide,because people won't be quite.We did math box 4.3.We also did study link 4.4. for homework. All in all it was a good day.

BY EVERYBODY .

2006-11-10T11:19:00.000-09:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAY TO MEEEE

HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAY TO MEEEE

HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAY TOOOOO JAN

HAPPYYYYYYY BIRTDAAAAAY TOOOOO MEEEEE!

Wow, 37 years old, how quick it goes by! My best present this year was that Bret's flight was cancelled last night due to engine trouble so he gets to spend an extra day at home!!!! Now he leaves at 5pm tonight.
Other than that not much to pass on Lee had half days of school on Wednesday and Thursday, and also (a nice bday gift) he is off today. Parent - teacher conferences are in full swing. We actually did ours last week, so nothing but play time this week! Lee is doing very well by all reports and we're very proud of him. He's currently working on a note to post on the blog so hopefully we will get it up on the site this weekend.
Weather is still chilly, but it's been super sunny so the mountains have an awesome glow to them these days. It's even been clear enough to see mount McKinnley a few days.....very impressive.

hope all is well. Hope to see you all soon!

Jan

2006-11-02T18:53:00.000-09:00

Hi all,
Just returned from Kellyville, Ok. where I graduated 3rd in my class of 57 (yea! Me)
I can now officially and LEGALLY drive 18 wheel trucks anywhere in the U.S. OR Canada (so inlaws need also be afraid...) Spent 4 days on the slope this time and it wasn't too bad. A balmy 15 degrees. The slope is VERY desolate in the winter time flat, white and it just goes on forever. My rig is being remodeled so I've been doing pretty much everything else while I'm at work. Life in Anchorage is pretty much the same as always, spending time with my family and going to meetings. Jan and Lee are occupying their time snapping photo's as evidenced on the preceding blogs. I am off to the slope next thursday where it shoould be -20 degree's and 50 mile an hour winds so wish me luck and warmth. write more later....... Love ta all.

2006-11-02T18:25:00.000-09:00

HAP HAP HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!

Ahhhhh the lovely vision of young Eric in his cool Halloween costume........ BUT the differences between a two year old and an eleven year old are many lol,
but I think if you compare the two costumes Erics and Lee's you will see how great a gap exists between a toddler and a pre-teen

tooo funny.....

Well there you have it!
All in all Halloween went very well . Lee and his friends were out for a good 2 hours collecting lots of sugar filled bliss to keep them hyper and happy!

Bret and I hung out at home and manned the door.

Winter has definately settled in here, tomorrow's high is supposed to be in the 20's....ick....by far the coldest day we've had so far. Needless to say our snow has not melted away.

Bret is still home for another week, and will leave next Thursday. The hospital has been laying people off, left, right and center for the past week. So while I'm happy to be employed, I'm keeping my eye out for other opportunities in the paper. I'll keep you all posted.

That's all for now folks, hope everyone is well!

We love you all!

Jan, Bret, and Lee

2006-10-29T17:47:00.000-09:00

winter is here........BRRRRRrrrrr

2006-10-29T17:26:00.000-09:00

Hello everyone this is Lee. I had a frozen sandwich on Wednesday October teh 25th. We also saw some silver salmon sponing before we got to the Sea Life Center in Seward. When we got to the sea Life Center there was a lot to do. We saw Woody he is a male Steller Sea Lion or a pinniped wich means carnivorous marine mammal plus two harbor seals. On the way back we saw a glacier, over 30 moose and over 100 bald eagles where we also saw some silver salmon on the train. We had Subway sandwiches for dinner. Over all that was the most fun trip I have ever and will ever go on. Lee

Sounds like Lee really enjoyed his trip! I know that when he got off the bus at 8:30 pm he was one tired little camper. Today was a beautiful day for Alaska. We got about 6 inches of snow and the temp stayed right in the 30's (-3'C). Lee spent most of the afternoon outside in the snow building a fort with his friend. Bret and I just hung out inside. One of our tires was punctured so Bret got to spend some time in the snow changing over to the spare. Other than that not much going on this weekend, just spending some quality family time while Bret's home. He will write something later this week.

Hope everyone is doing well! we miss and love your all

2006-10-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hello one and all, so it's Sunday, and obviously Lee and I didn't get any pictures posted from last weekend. Lee did have Friday off though and we went out to Earthquake park to watch the planes zoom overhead that are landing at the airport so we got a couple of pics for you to see

The first one is of the mountain "Sleeping Lady" Just where the sun starts shinning on the mountain is the lady's head, then you see a slender neck, her chest and torso and then finally her two feet sticking up. I don't know if that is an adequate enough description for you to figure out over the net....but hey I tried! Obviously the 2nd is a shot of downtown Anchorage from across the water. Pretty self explanatory.

Bret was back briefly last night, but he left for the slope this morning at 11:00, the nice thing is that he'll be back for 2 weeks on Thursday. Even though it was brief it was nice to see him.

Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees now, and we have frost most nights. The days have been sunny and cool (high 30's to low 40's) so it's been great fall weather. On Friday Lee and I also got his Halloween costume, but I'll wait until the day to put a pic up on the blog. Now that he's eleven this will most likely be his last year. When I told him that he said, "ya we'll be too old to dress up next year, so I'll just go trick or treating in my regular clothes". Yikes, too funny huh.

Otherwise all is well on the homefront. Just hanging out and relaxing.....if only life was that easy lol. Lee's big trip to the Sea Life Center is on Wednesday so I'll have him write something for everybody on the blog. He's really excited! He very much appreciated everyones positive reaction to his last blerb, so we'll keep the news updates coming.

Hope this finds everyone well!

Peace, love and eternal grooviness!

Jan

2006-10-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

HAPPY SATURDAY TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!

No pics today sorry ;( Just thought I'd write a quick note to keep people up to date. Bret is still in Oklahoma (sorry for the spelling error last time) What can I say??? I'm Canadian.

We interrupt this broadcast for an important news bulletin by J. Lee Williamson:

dear Everybody we are going to the Sea Life Center in Seward !We are leaving Anchorage at 9:15 am our time. We should be back by 8:30 at night.We are going to take a bus one way and a Sea Train the other way. It will take two to three hours by bus and we should be at the Sea Life Center for about two to three hours plus we take a Sea Train back which will be three to three and a half hours. which should add up to 8:30 pm we won't take any of our school stuff we won't even need our own backpacks, all we really need is a journal, two pencils, an eraser, and a sharpener. I will also be looking for some wild animals. My grades are doing very good,and my reading and writing plus my math is doing pretty well. Goodbye friends until next time! LOVE LEE

Thank you Lee for that news break!
Yes Bret is still in Sooner territory, and reports that his class is going well. On all of his tests up until today he got 100% but today.....sadly.....he got 88%......one big sigh for Bret everybody......
sigh
As for me it's been work work work. Lee and I went to see the movie "Open Season" today and it was hilarious! we highly recommend it to kids and adults alike. Many laughs were had. Other than that we've been doing the boring stuff like grocery shopping and working on spelling lists. Hopefully we'll get out tomorrow and take a few action shots to post on the blog.
Until then......goodnight to one and all!

We love you very much! p.s. I've adjusted the settings so anyone can leave a comment on the blog. We'd love to know who is watching and reading our news...include emails if ya want or just email me at hobbz4@yahoo.com so that I get everybody's address.

later skaters!

2006-10-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

2006-10-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

So the three of us went to the park for a walk this weekend. It is Campbell Creek and this is one of the spots that salmon come to spawn. Here's a photo of one salmon that was hanging around in the river

You can see how red he is....obviously he'd been here for quite awhile. The best thing about the walk is that when we were walking up the path by the water we almost ran into a moose head on. I was so surprised that I didn't get a good photo of him but he was less than 4 feet away from us.......

Hopefully I won't be shaking so much next time and I'll get a better photo.

Bret's been home since Thursday and is off to Kelleyville which is right outside of Tulsa on Saturday. He is taking his commercial drivers license....maybe he'll get an action shot of him driving a big rig.....yikes! lol

Just to sign off I thought I'd send a couple of action shots for you to see ....Lee studying....Bret and Lee at the park.....and Lee and I at the park. I hope everyone is doing well. The weather here has certainly cooled down. It's in the low 30's at night and mid 50's during the day. Lee has been playing with his friends all night outside. We're still losing light of course but it still stays light until at least 8pm. I'm taking one of my change facilitation classes tomorrow and then I work the weekend...ick. Bret will be in Oaklahoma for 10 days back in Anchorage overnight and then he'll finish off his hitch on the slope for 4 days....so at least we'll get to see him once during this hitch. We got Lee's school pics and they are great we'll work on sending some out to family.

2006-09-25T16:34:00.000-08:00

A most wonderful autumn day in Alaska!

Since this was the last of my 5 day stretch off, I spent time outdoors taking pics and enjoying the bright sunshine. As you can see from the photos it was breathtaking. I went out on the boardwalk of Potter's Marsh, which is a bird and fish sanctuary just a stones throw from the inlet. This made for some great pictures to send your way.

all in all a beautiful setting don't you think.

2006-09-23T22:24:00.000-08:00

ok so what's the moral learned by Jan today????? hmmm what could it be? Oh ya I know.... DON'T EVER, and I mean NEVER pick out a hair color that you've never tried before and DO IT ALL BY YOURSELF! Tooo funny... sadly this picture is taken AFTER 3 attempts to fix the original orange (bozo the clownish) hue that I got. At least I can still laugh at myself.....lol lol lol lol

what a lovely color I have going here....Lee is being sooo nice too, He's trying to convince me that it really does look good.

So as you can see these are some pics of the slope that Bret took on his last hitch. I thought I'd add them, but sadly I can't explain what they are cuz I have absolutely know idea. Obviously you can see the huge roll of coil tubing that he works with, but I will have to let him update you when he gets back. He's due back this Thursday.

Lastly for pics I added a shot where you can kind of see how thick the salmon are here when the run.....see all those fish, crazy!

the only problem with this picture is that it makes the salmon look so small, they are actually quite big.

Fall has definitely descended upon Anchorage....All the leaves are turning to yellow and red, it is really very beautiful. Maybe Lee and I will get out and about to bring home some more pictures tomorrow. We ran lots of errands today but it poured down rain all day long. So far we've had more than 12 inches more rain than average here in Anchorage. But the hillside looks really cool with all the trees turning. You can really notice the light changing recently too, I think we're losing about 3-4 minutes of light a day now, which really adds up over a week. All summer long while I was going to work at 6:30 in the morning it was bright sunshine and never really got any darker than dusk in most places of the world. Way up where Bret works the sun did not set, but now we're moving into the opposite stage. There is even some snow dusting the tops of the mountains in Anchorage. Everyone here calls it "termination dust" cuz it signifies the termination of summer. I'd like to get out at least a couple more times to see beluga in the bay before they head south. When we were coming home from fishing about 3 weeks ago, there was a huge pod of beluga that we stopped to see. There were literally hundreds of them. They stretched from one side of the bay to the other, and as far as we could see in either direction. Long time residents say that that doesn't happen very often, but high tide was coming in and they were following the silver salmon that were headed towards the streams....We caught our limit of silvers in about 45 minutes....It was tons of fun.

Have a great week and don't hesitate to send your news our way! We miss and love you all!

bret, jan and lee

2006-09-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

Ok so here are some photos.....one of our humble abode.

one of 3 eagles that we say while cruising in Resurrection bay.

one of our silver salmon fishing expedition.....

yada yada yada,

anyways hopefully this color of text will show up better and make things easier to read....ha ha ha.....sheepish grin

lots o love

bret
jan
lee

2006-09-20T19:19:00.000-08:00

THE BRET, JAN, AND LEE SHOW

2006-09-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!

This is our/my first attempt at starting and maintaining a blog. We are hoping that this will become a good way to keep friends and family updated with our lives in Alaska....so bear with me while I ride the learning curve....weeeeee

So to catch people up, Lee just started the 5th grade. I find this very scary since it seems like just yesterday that he was the 3 year old toddler that I first met. We've definitely jumped right into pre-teen mode with his 11th birthday in August. Lee was at his mom's in Pennsylvania, for his actual birthday on the 5th of August, so when he got home Bret took him and three friends to Anchorage's big indoor waterpark which is aptly named H20asis. Then it was back to the house for ice cream cake and hotdogs....All in all it was a fun time.

In May, Bret was hired to work with Schlumberger on Alaska's North Slope. This is where the Alaskan oilfields and pipeline are. Currently his schedule is 2 weeks on the slope and then 2 weeks at home. Luckily he started this job over the summer so the weather was not too bad....But believe you me it's getting cold up there now! It's a two hour plane ride north and east of Anchorage...If you're looking at a map of Alaska, he's in Prudhoe Bay.

As for myself, I am still working in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) at the hospital. My position is a unit clerk type job...not really exciting but hey, it pays the bills. I had to have surgery on both of my feet in March so working in Respiratory Therapy, is no longer an option for me. My feet are tons better, but with my fibromyalgia....It's just going to be impossible for me to walk that much. So for now I'm in the NICU, trying to figure out where to go from here.

We've got lots of pictures of Alaska, but I haven't got them on my puter yet....I'm off for the next 5 days, so that will be my goal!

that's all for now....take good care and we miss you all dearly!