This is it - Don't get scared now

It is here.  Got here very unexpectedly and very quickly.  The one and only EMPTY NEST.

Alicia and Justin were working on their house which is right next to our house and we were all planning this cozy wonderful life and then Justin got a blessing at church encouraging him to look harder for employment . ...  so he was out walking the dogs and got this prompting to call his old boss in Idaho and his boss said, get here in the morning and I'll put you to work.

So 3 days later, Justin had moved back to Blackfoot Idaho to work for Gale Lim Construction.  he is running their ashpalt plant.  And 2 weeks later, Alicia packed up all their stuff and Justin flew back up and they drove down to Blackfoot together.  They rented a house there - just moved in on September 1. 

It has been, and will probably continue to be, sort of traumatic for all of us.  Alicia has said since she was a little tiny girl that she was always going to live in our backyard and all of a sudden, she is thousands of miles away.  In a way it was good it happened so quickly because there was not as much time for us to lose it emotionally, there was so much to do to get everything sorted and packed.  Lots of deciding what belonged to who and what was staying because she didn't have room or time.

The upshot of that being that her Kirby vacuum stayed, but so did both of her great big dogs.  It was a trade-off.  The Kirby stayed because the dogs had to stay and the Kirby exists to clean up after the dogs who shed all the time.  Saying goodbye to her dog pal, Mya, was the hardest part.  They have been pretty unseperable for most of the 5 years we have had her.  Alicia is her girl.

Alicia has pictures of her boarded up house somewhere - I'll check the other computer to see if they are here or with her in Idaho, but as I was getting ready to write this, I saw the happy exciting pictures of the house being built and the pictures of it all boarded and wrapped and unfinished are so sad in comparison; they are heartbreaking to see.

Today was the last day of charter fishermen for us this year.  Brian works at the middle school as a special education aide during the school year and was still running as deckhand for his friend's boat on weekends for the past few weeks.  Done today.

So, for the first time in their marriage, Alicia and Justin are alone as a married couple and for the first time in our marriage, Brian and I are officially alone as a married couple.  We had a couple years when Alicia was in college, but i don't count those since technically, she still lived here.  It will be different.  We hired a woman from church to take care of me during the day when I need help.  I wanted to do without help, but I guess it really isn't possible. 

It looks to be another really long cold winter - never had much of a summer and of course, last winter is on record officially as the longest and coldest and snowiest winter in Alaskan history.  at least since they have been keeping records.  brrrrr. 

So this is it:  a cold, empty nest in Alaska.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers...  and stay warm.