Northern Lights

Weather Report

High +22 Low -5
Sunrise this morning 6:30 a.m. Sunset 7:26 p.m. for a total of 12 hours and 50 min of daylight. It seems to be increasing fast at 6-7 minutes a day.

Hi, It is spring on the top of the world. Spring Alaska style that is.

When it is +20 I still wear my thermals but have only a sweater on and am very comfortable for in and out of the car. We still dress up very warmly for our security job at Ice Alaska, however. . The other thing that is so strange here is that it has not been above +22 this week and the snow is melting. Like spring in Utah there is a lot of dirty snow around which they are hauling off by the truck loads. They don't put salt down on the roads so it is easier on the car but they put little rocks and we are wondering what they will do with all the rocks on the road now that the snow is melting. We actually saw grass on the median the other day and everyone was talking about spring. Someone saw the pussy willows budding out, we haven't but Spring is definitely on its way. Everyone says when it really starts it will only take a week and it is here. Will let you know when that happens.

Just when Burt had decided we would never see the Northern Lights we saw them! It was a splendid night. We had just gotten out of the shower with wet hair when the Elders called about 10:45. No question about it we just grabbed out coats and headed for the hills. We were very cold at 0 degrees and when we got home decided it was because of our wet hair.

It is hard to remember well enough to compare Northern Lights of 30 years ago but these were close to the best I have seen. It is hard to describe the show they put on as they dance and swirl and change colors all across the sky. I wasn't sure that we were going to see them change colors and then it happened and we could see the reds and yellows. When they dance and change colors they are moving so fast that Burt couldn't get a good picture. We like the mostly green ones that you will see from the pictures but believe me the pictures just don't do them justice. As I watched them I kept thinking of peoples thousands of years ago, seeing the lights for the first time, how scary that would be. It was an exciting night.

We spoke about Family History in the second ward last week and I finally got sweet revenge on Burt. I spoke first and left him short of time. We will be talking about the Savior in the 1st ward in two weeks and he is insisting on going first to get even. We are probably the only couple we know who fights over getting their equal share of time.

I think I have told you before that the Christmas lights are on all year long, I guess. With almost 13 hours of daylight they haven't turned them off yet. We went to the Stake Presidents house for dinner last Tuesday and I noticed that we were greeted with the usual Christmas lights every where but also with two Halloween scarecrows on the walk going in. Inside the tables were covered with Easter decorations. I loved it! Just leave all the decorations up all year long and think of the time you would save putting up and taking down.

Thanks for your responses. I love you all so much! Thanks for caring, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma

Bicycle Bumps

Pictures today are ones we took Monday on our big hike for the week. We walked up behind the University in a series of trails they have up there.

• we ended up at the lake, notice that it is still mostly frozen. But the day was very hot so I don't think it will be long until we have breakup in the mountains.
• we chose to hike the Bicycle Bumps trail, it was a fun up and down little hills,
• shows the big pictures of where we went,
• shows just how close the trees are in some places, notice the different trees in the different pictures,

Croakers Chronicles

First let's hear it from the cousins!

• Sarah and Annie are the proud owners of a little dog named Sammy. They are having fun teaching her tricks. . I think this is their first dog.
• We all have tough things that happen to us and we were sorry to hear that Collins little lamb died.

• A busy month for Sarah, she took second place in a history fair project, she got National in her running of a mile (10 minutes and 45 sec), she got all A's (4's in modern language), congratulation for working hard!
• Annie is in a school opera/play called "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble,"and she plays as Sylvester, the biggest part! Wow!
• Caroline said she was not wearing coats to school 2-3 weeks ago but guess what. Today I wore a short sleeve shirt and no coat for the very first time.
  

We have some email addresses to share with everyone. Our missionary cousins Dave, davidwoodbury@myldsmail.net and Jeff at jeff77board@hotmail.com. Let's keep writing our cousins to tell them to "Keep up the good work!" Jeff had two baptisms last week. Can't wait to hear from Dave. Sarah has a new email address animalluver_18@hotmail.com as does Hunter hunterbooth6393@hotmail.com.

While we are talking about Hunter we are happy to report he received very good grades, just starting Tae Kwon Do class and is a White Belt but by now is probably a Yellow belt, and is building his very own web site. Check it out at http://spaces.msn.com/hunterbooth/ and tell him what you think.

We were in the mountains two days ago and found a street named "Love Road". It was a beautiful wooded area. Also, a members house in on Sarah's Lane and next to it was Laura Road.

Here is our funny story for the week. We have a cute young couple who have three tiny children living in our house and taking care of it. They have a two year old little boy named, Zack. His dad started the big lawn mower the other day and Zack was so interested as his dad was telling him that it was a "lawn Mower" and he cut the grass with it. The next week when he got it out and started it Zack ran out of the house saying, "Oh, goodie dad is getting the "Lenore" out. His mom and dad have been talking a lot about Burt and Lenore and that was what lawn mower sounded like. They are wondering what he thinks Burt is. What do you think would be a good thing to call Grandpa Burt?

Grandpa and I went walking today up above the University in a big trail system into the mountains. It was so wonderful. Every thing is turning so green and it was actually hot. We hiked to a lake and heard a lot of noise and went to look. We couldn't see anything and thought maybe it was ducks but it really didn't sound like ducks and we wondered if it was frogs. Then we said, "No there couldn't be frogs because how could they live during the cold winter?" We asked grandpa's cousin, Sister Gho and she said it was a tree frog. This frog freezes hard during the winter and when spring come it thaws out and hops away. Isn't that amazing!

I guess, by the time you get this letter school will be out. Write and tell us what you are doing this summer. I bet most of you have started playing baseball already.

We love and miss you, from Granny Frogger and Grandpa, the Old Croaker By the way he says he loves you all and sends the pictures but you all know that.

Cranes and Geese

Photo Report

1. Two geese coming inCreamers Field
2. Crane coming in notice his long legs and his red top notch
3. Contrast the view from Pres. Grose's house in the Denali Branch. We spoke there two weeks ago. This picture was taken outside his house on the private air strip in front of his house and looking at the Alaskan Range.
4. Missionary picture was taken last transfer. Leaving missionaries leaving all have their missionary clothes on. This picture was taken at 7:00 a.m. with full sun in our faces so not a good picture. Sister Jenkins is from West Point, Sister Klenk (not being transferred is from SL), Elder Watt from Layton, Elder Palmer from Tooele, Elder Tuita from Tonga (the three on the right hand side). Gosh, we are sad when these kids leave, we love them!
   

Weather Report
High + 60 Low + 27
Daylight Report: Sunrise 4:57 Sunset 10:43
For a total this weekend of 17 hours and 46 minutes of sunlight.

The sky is so pretty at night now. We had Sister Klenk the other night and her companion didn't get here until 1:00 a.m. so we were outside and the sky was the most clear beautiful blue. It is not really very dark at night and it reminded us that it is only 6 1/2 weeks and there will be 21 hours of daylight on June 21st.

We are the stop off point for the sisters when they get their transfers. We have transfers every six weeks and that is how we keep time here in the mission. Every thing happens from one transfer to another transfer. The elders do pretty good but the sisters have had a lot of bad luck. Sister Jenkins was here the whole three transfers that we have been here but she has had 5 different companions. Two of them got sick, the third one had to go home to have surgery, the next one was a sister Rep who was sent back to Anchorage 3 weeks before she went home, and then she had Sister Klenk for just two weeks before sister Jenkins was transferred to Wasilla. Then we had Sister Klenk (pronounced Klink) for the two weeks with Sister Jenkins.
At that transfer they sent up a visa waiter (a missionary who is waiting to go somewhere else, in this case Sister Dent was waiting to go to Spain and her visa hadn't come through yet). So at this point we had Sisters Klenk and Dent, pretty funny. Well Sister Dent was here Monday night at 11:00 p.m. and she got her visa the very next day so she left at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday and her replacement didn't arrive until Friday night at 1:00 a.m.

So we had Sister Klenk for a companion twice this week and Sister Jenkins at everyone of her transfers. That is not the funnest part of Elder Robbins missionary work. Speaking of fun parts we just got notice from the mission president that he wants us to do the missionary apartment inspections.

Neither of us are happy about that little job! Last month we spent two weeks apartment hunting for the Elders so you can see we do have variety in our job description.
We were transferred this week from Fairbanks 2nd ward to Fairbanks 3rd ward.
I cried when Pres. Wood told us we would be leaving 2nd ward. I just hadn't realized how much I had fallen in love with that little ward. They are the poorest ward in the stake and struggling so in their pool for ward leadership. But the interesting thing is that they have the most baptisms.

There is plenty to do for the members. One Hispanic fellow who joined the church last October came home after doing two or three ward jobs as well as his home teaching in one day. His wife said he dropped on the couch and said, "This Mormon stuff sure is hard work!" Then there is a little Philippian gal who told the bishop a couple of weeks ago, "There is just too much Mormon!" Both of these brand new converts, baptized just last October, are wonderful people and we have gotten them both involved in their family history. Sister Alexander is so excited as she reads the films from the Philippians and sees her family names. Br. Rodriguez is taking his father and mother's names to the temple next week and is so excited.

Spring is in the air in Fairbanks and according to what everyone tells us in two weeks everything will be covered in green growing things. It is fun to see all the people and children outside playing, walking, talking, laughing and just so happy to see sunshine and feel warm. I don't know how happy we really are because I told you last winter that I didn't feel any pain from my arthritis. No thumb, knee, or back problems and I could sleep all night with no pain. Not so the past couple of weeks. They tell me that it is because it is so dry in the winter and now we have water everywhere. By the way this also brings mosquitoes which we are not looking forward. But we are just enjoying being able to take nice long walks. And there is so many places to walk. Tonight we walked out by the airport, Burt wanted to see the float planes. The water is still frozen so no float planes on the water but a lot tied up with their floats on just waiting for break up. We saw something we have never seen before and it was an air plane campground.

Each site is just like a camp site in the lower 48 except there is a spot to tie up your plane and a place for your tent. It was so nice with restrooms, showers, pavilions, fire pits and even a place to hang a dutch oven. Then right in the middle was a phone booth. I have never seen a phone booth at a camp site before. You could stay one night free and after that it was $5.00 a night. You pay your fee and put your ticket in the window of your plane.
So fun!
The birds came and went at Creamers Field. It was so fun to see the hundreds of Geese, ducks, swans, cranes etc. We drove up there about every other day and there was always a line of cars. People take their lunch and just sit and watch them. Fascinating! This past week there weren't many birds and it was kind of sad to see them come and go so fast. Spring is wonderful in Alaska! Haven't seen any hungry bears come out of hibernation yet, much to Elder Robbins delight.

Lara reminded me that I didn't write last week. I guess when I don't hear from kids I just assume I just wrote. Hint, hint!
Love you and God bless you all,
Sister Mom