Alaskaland

Yes, I believe I will always refer to Pioneer Park as Alaskaland. That's how it's always been until a few years ago when it was renamed. Anyhow, we've moved into Fairbanks as we sold our house to the Roberts family (friends from church) May 15th. We are just hanging out until we head on down the road to Topeka, Kansas (yikes!) so Jeremy can attend law school at Washburn University. Now, we know we were sounding a bit secretive about why we sold our house, hence the reason I'm JUST NOW putting this info out into the blogosphere, because a very important person couldn't know of our plans just yet - Jeremy's employer. So he broke the news to her and she was actually very excited for us. We are very excited (and a bit scared) for us too.

So back to Alaskaland - we now live about a mile away from the park and frequent it often. The girls love the playgrounds, the merry-go-round, and the train (one is free, one's a rip off, and one is worth the $1...in respective order). Anyhow, we went this past weekend to check out the Fairbanks Folk Festival and have a fun little picnic. The music was great - one guy even sounded like Jack Black with his comedic songs - I think I may have to pick up a few CDs of folk. The girls ate and danced and we had a great time waving at the train as it passed right behind our picnic spot.After our picnic and feeding the ducks our leftover bread, Maddie wanted to go on the merry-go-round (the rip off ride). We didn't bring any cash, so she just watched it from the fence...and watched, and watched. After about 3 rides watched later, we wanted to take a walk and check out the shops, but Miss Madeline protested. It was definitely a 3 year old protest, complete with screaming, kicking her shoes off, and getting enough attention to have EVERY single person turn in disgust at us as Jeremy carried her over his shoulder out of the park. It was embarassing, however, this is becoming quite a common response from her on most things (terrible 3s for sure!)
I think she'll need to start earning her $2.50/ride doing hard labor at home (well, cleaning up toys, BEHAVING, and helping mom) or we're not even going to venture that way until she's earned her ride.
The girls have been troopers though, living out of suitcases and boxes, eating out because we aren't really set up to cook dinner, all of us sleeping in one bedroom, and living in a strange house and moving from the one they were taken to from the hospital at birth. Kansas will definitely be an adventure...so stay tuned...