Our Life in Alaska and Beyond

It was so fun to have Grandma and Grandpa Hadley here for Robyn's birthday! We were in Whittier on her actual birthday so we celebrated a couple days later at home with cake and presents. Robyn loves Ferrero Rocher chocolates so she requested a Ferrero Rocher cake. We made a yummy chocolate cake with chocolate hazelnut filling and frosting, with Ferrero Rochers on top. It was delicious! Happy Birthday Robyn! 🥳🎂

7️⃣❗️

The last few weeks of school are always so busy, but so much fun too! The girls had some fun activities, and then their official last day was Thursday, 5/23/24. Ruby got to hike the butte with the rest of the 6th grade on her last day, and Noelle and Robyn had a movie day. Earlier in the week the littles had a giant slip 'n slide and field day. Yay for end of school year celebrations!

Ready to hike the butte! It was a little cold and rainy this day, but if I remember right I think she said she didn't get rained on while hiking! (Also wish I had some actual pics of her hiking!) 5/23/24

Right after moving here I got Noelle and Robyn signed up for ballet to continue working on what they had started in Utah. It was a great studio, and they had a fun time, (although I definitely miss Studio 1!) In the spring they had a nice recital. It's a bigger studio so they had many recitals during the day, and Noelle and Robyn weren't in the same one, but I had fun watching all the other classes as well, haha. Both Noelle and Robyn are such beautiful dancers and I love seeing them on stage! Great job girls!

Ruby also had a spring choir concert with her school. I was so impressed with the program! Her music teacher is so good with the kids and puts in so much work. I don't know that much about music, but the songs were great, and the lights on the stage were so cool too! I loved the concert! Great job Ruby!

4/27/24

A few extras from Feb. '24! ❄️🩷

Beautiful sunrise from our front yard. 2/15/24, 8:18 am

We really were in such a whirlwind moving back! Two days after arriving in AK the girls started school. Ruby had the biggest transition, going from 6th grade in elementary to 6th grade in middle school. She had to quickly learn how to use a locker, and go from having one classroom to multiple, with multiple teachers, and making new friends. She handled it so well though, and we're so proud of her! Noelle and Robyn also did great with starting at a new school in a new classroom with a new teacher. We've been so happy with the schools here, knowing they're in such good hands, learning to the best of their abilities! ✏️📚❄️

Had to get used to packing snow gear everyday again!

The girls had their photos taken by a couple different professionals for the Nutcracker and I wanted to share on here. These first few were taken at the studio a few days after the performance, and a few days before we moved. I absolutely love how they turned out! 🐭🗡️

These first few were taken by Hello Dancer Photography. I love having both girls in them together! 12/7/23

All too quick we're at the first day of school! (But we still had plenty of fun adventures after school started too!) Ruby started in 6th, Noelle in 3rd, and Robyn in 1st. It was seriously so nice to have them all in the same school and going for the same amount of time. (Unfortunately this only lasted a few short months before Ruby started middle school in AK, but we'll get there!)  These girls are the best little students and we're so proud of them!

Our family had plans to go to Fish Lake at the beginning of August and we decided to go a day early and spend some time at Capitol Reef NP! We did a similar trip the year before, and it was so fun! We did a few little hikes, admired some ancient petroglyphs, saw lots of deer, and camped in the Fruita campground for a night. It was also Robyn's 6th birthday so we sang to her and celebrated with s'mores around the campfire. So much fun!

It was a little windy and overcast when we first got there, but overall we had great weather! These first few photos are from exploring near Panorama Point and Sunset Point trail.

Just a few more fave pics from July 2023!

Barbie Movie! It was really good! 💗 7/25/23

We celebrated Robyn's birthday a few days early because we knew we would be in Capitol Reef right on her birthday. She chose to have a flamingo cake, which turned out so cute, and then we actually ended up taking it to Sam and Sadie's to celebrate, and we also got to meet baby Brooklyn, who was born July 7. Can't believe our baby isn't really a baby anymore, but we're so proud of how she's growing up so big and learning so much, and keeping us laughing all along the way. Happy Birthday Robby! We love you so much! 🥳❤️

The girls took swimming lessons at Farmington Pool again, and they did great! I'm so glad they were able to take lessons and become so much more confident in water. They're the best little swimmers! I took these pics on the last day of their lessons. 🏊🏻‍♀️

The girls finished up the school year before Memorial Day, which was so nice! The previous year in Utah (and when I was growing up) it was always after, so we loved getting out before! So happy to be done with school and so ready for summer! Good job girls!

Robyn had the best kindergarten year! She loved her teacher, and with her being a little younger, I'm glad she was able to just do half-day. I helped out in the classroom 1x/week in the mornings, and it was so fun to get to know her class a little better, and to see Robyn with her classmates. She is the best little student and we're so proud of her! The school had a graduation for all the kindergartners, and Robyn's teacher gave her an award for Brilliant Behavior. Great job Robby! 🎓

I took so many beautiful flower pictures (usually while running or walking the kids to/from school) those first few days in May, I decided they needed their own post, haha. I love spring blooms! 🌼🌷🌸

This is definitely becoming more of a regular thing. Here are my favorites from March! 🍀🌈

Scott got tickets to a Utah gymnastic meet from someone he works with at the U. We also took Chrissy and Ruby!

 A few pics from my February camera roll. 💗💗💗 

It's always so fun to go swimming at Chrissy's apartment! The rooftop pool is so cool! 🏊

December was such a busy month, and there are several more pics I wanted to share, so I just put them all together in this post. Happy Holidays! 🎄

We had some friends over for dinner and games, and we also decorated sugar cookies. I love the grinch ones!

This is a compilation of cute photos from Nov. '22 that otherwise don't have a separate blog post. It was a fun and busy month! 

Noelle has always been our snow girl. She was so excited to get her snow gear on and play in it after having this little storm just two days into November. Little did we know, it was the start of a HUGE record breaking snow season for Utah! See here and here.

Wow, a lot has happened since I last posted! The biggest change is that we decided to move back to Alaska! In short, we just missed AK way more than we thought we would! 😭 I can't believe our time in Utah has already passed, but we're so happy to be here in AK. It's been pretty crazy and busy, and I'll post more about the move as I get there in blogging, but for now I'll just work on getting caught up, haha. 

These pics are from the first day of school (August 2022)! Ruby started 5th grade, Noelle started 2nd, and Robyn started Kindergarten (half-day)! They were all at the same school, which was so nice! And they all had wonderful teachers! I also really liked living fairly close to the school (about a mile away), so when the weather was nice we walked to school! They only offered half day for kindergarten, and Robyn had morning. It worked out great, and I got to help out in her class once a week for the whole year with passing off skill sets. I loved being able to be with Robyn, and peek in on the other girls too. I also worked 2-3x/week, and Grandma and Grandpa B. were the best help in pick-up/drop-off, and watching the girls until I got home. It was so nice living so close! Enjoy these first day pics!

I was actually working their first day, but Scott was able to go in late, so he snapped these pics for me!