CJ & Autumn Miller

We are leaving our home in Virginia in 20 days & it's beginning to dawn on me. I know we've only been here ten months, but we've lived life here & loved it. We cherish the mountains, the climate, our beautiful old house, & the bicycling, recycling, farmers market shopping residents of Harrisonburg. We have spent weekends camping in the national forest, days backpacking in the national park, afternoons mountain biking on the trails, and way too much time finding tics. We watched Casablanca under the stars in Court Square, ate donuts at the Maple Festival, & served meals to Harrisonburg's homeless. We went trick-or-treating with neighbors, picked peonies from the yard, & shoveled snow from the driveway more than anyone would have predicted. I got in running shape on the hills of Keezletown Road, walked to the grocery store, & threw a quail BBQ in the rain. We experienced life on cistern water, heating oil deliveries, no air conditioning & drying underwear on a line for the neighborhood to see. Teco developed an odd resistance to the electric fence, ran away chasing the 17 neighborhood cats, experienced snowfall taller than she was, & learned to shake. CJ built a porch swing, made a man garage, played a mean season of church basketball & drove to work over a one lane bridge. I made kitchen curtains, refurbished garage sale tables, viewed life through a fancy camera, & discovered food as a celebration. We learned that the best date is the cheapest date (Kline's Ice Cream), that Mennonites believe in peace at any cost &  I only last three days as a stay at home wife.

Thank you visitors for witnessing a part of our life.
Thank you friends willing to invest in our friendship. 
Thank you Harrisonburg for being our home.
Virginia, we're going to miss you.

This weekend we took a day trip with Mike & Ana to our nation's capitol. The big event was the Holocaust Museum & we stood in line early in the morning for a time slot to return. In the mean time we saw the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol building, and later in the day the White House. Below is a picture account of our day, some pictures courtesy of Ana. :)

Now that the word is out in Harrisonburg with our employers & land lord we can officially talk about it! We start the 2 week drive to Anchorage on April 18th with all our stuff. Right now we are concentrating on making our stuff shrink so we don't have as much to fly into Port Alsworth. CJ will be working for Lake Clark Air & we are excited about life in the bush. Well, mostly excited & a little stressed. There is no access by car to our new town, so even the simple things such as buying groceries & visiting the dentist are going to require more effort. But to make up for that little inconvenience, it is absolutely beautiful there, we will travel by aircraft everywhere, I will have ample opportunity to cook delicious homemade meals & we will soon be experiencing the adventure of a full fledged Alaskan winter. Who wants to come visit?