The Most Triumphant Brooks: Light at the end of the tunnel

So, if you don't count today, we have SIX DAYS left in Alaska and we cannot wait!!!

I'm so excited that I've packed up all of our clothes, minus the stuff we'll wear in the next week.
I'm really worried about how we're going to fit all of our stuff in the 3 bags that we each brought.
We've acquired/bought lots of stuff here, and I'm pretty sure it's not all going to fit in our suitcases on the way back. Not to mention the fact that we brought snowboarding pants (that we never used), a climbing rope (that we never used), a tent, climbing gear, and two sleeping bags with us to Alaska. I don't know if you knew this, but all that stuff is MASSIVE, and doesn't all even fit in one bag. Another thing we're a little bummed about, is that checked baggage costs $20/bag with Alaska Airlines. So we're going to have to pay $80-100 to get all of our stuff home. Oh well, I guess that's just the price you pay for bringing up all the equipment for some pretty unforgettable experiences. Can't complain too much :).

We're also trying to eat all of our food before we go, but somehow we have way too much.
We'll probably end up leaving a ton for our roommates. We've mooched off of a lot of their stuff in the last few months anyway, I figure we owe them:).

So my good friend from high school, Lisa, came up here at the beginning of this month to visit. She's in Petersberg for about a month for an internship where she gets to hang out with whales all day. How rad is that? Anyway, she was here for a little less than a week, and we had a blast with her. The weather was pretty awful when she was here, but she was well equipped for the weather, and she loved it!

Also, my coworker, Gale, went out of town for about a week and asked us to house sit since she lives just down the street. We gladly agreed, seeing as we'd get her car and get to play with an adorable dog all week. We had a great time with Gracie, the dog, and it made us even more puppy hungry than we were. I don't know if you know this, but Todd and I are dog lovers, and very very puppy hungry. We realize that dogs can be pretty expensive to care for, but we're starting to think that it's worth it. We have a goal that we have to reach by the time our last paycheck comes, and if we reach it, HELLO PUPPY! If we don't reach it.... HELLO PUPPY! Haha, just kidding. If we don't reach it, who knows what we'll decide... but if we do reach it, there's going to be another addition to the Brooks family :). We're thinking a Boxador if our apartment complex will allow it. Or a Boxer. Or a Lab. Boxador is #1 on the list right now though because they don't shed that much, have really short hair, and are just awesome. Here's a pic for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Boxador cross breed. What do you think?

Puppy!!!!!!!!!!

Adult... I don't know about the scarf, but still super cute :)

One thing that we're SUPER excited about, is finally having our own place!
Usually that's something that happens right after getting married, but we had to wait 4 months, which is lame. But maybe it's a good thing after all. All the post-wedding excitement has died down a little bit, so now we can have apartment-decorating excitement! And boy, are we excited!!!!!

We're only going to have a few days in Utah before we have to venture up to the Burg for school, so we're trying to get as much as we can in order before we get home. We want to get our furniture on ksl because, let's just be honest, craigslist cannot even compare. And we may have been saving quite a bit up here in Alaska, but we still feel pretty dang poor because we know how quickly that money will probably go away once we're in school. Anywhoooo, we're super excited because we found our SOFAS and our KITCHEN TABLE! For the sofas, we just arranged with the lady selling them, that she'll hold onto them for us until we get there, and we'll pick them up and pay her on the 5th. For the table, we negotiate the price down about $50, so we figured we wouldn't be able to ask them to hold onto it for us. Luckily, Michael and Stacy are absolutely amazing, and were willing to go pick them up for us... which will happen on Wednesday. Sadly the table doesn't come with chairs, so we ordered some on ebay yesterday. We also bought our comforter on Overstock.com because it was a much better deal than Target, and we liked it better. I doubt any of this is as exciting for you as it is for us, but I want to show you pictures of the stuff we've found anyway :).

The "EAT" table! This table was a little bit more than our budget, but who could resist a table as cool as this?

Hopefully the chairs don't clash horribly with the table. They were a really good deal at least! Like $17 each :)

I absolutely love this comforter! Todd pretended to like it as much as I did, and I pretended to believe him so we could get it :)

The SOFA! Which also comes with a matching love seat. We love how homey it is

Well, I think those are the main updates. This is most likely the last Alaskan update... EVER! So I will bid you all farewell with some pictures of the adventures that took place in August!

Miss you all!