After the events of mid April, Tim and I were scrambling. We started to post up as much stuff for sale as we could bear to part with, some stuff we just tossed up for free hoping to not leave so much behind. But we had to be realistic.
We live in a hot market where people can barely afford rent and that's assuming they're luck enough to even find a place to live. After weeks of searching for places to stay that could hold the family and would accept my dog, we came to a very real conclusion: we were not going to be able to stay in Utah and live the life we wanted.
There was a handful of two or three bedroom apartments that we could have moved into. They were small, in bad locations, and most of them looked like they hadn't been updated or even properly cleaned in the last half-century.
This was around the time I got an offer from the University of Alaska: Fairbanks. I had applied to both of the major campuses for U of A hoping that if Tim and I decided to move we could look into family housing as a less expensive option to land in. Plus I really need to finish my schooling and get my degree.
Fairbanks got my application and approved me for a three bedroom town house on N. Chandalar Dr.
Look how beautiful!
Surrounded by all those trees.
It was love at first sight for me.
Fully furnished home for less than what I was paying right now. Our planting space would be limited. But with the woods so close by, we would be able to hone our foraging skills and finally be in the state we'd always dreamed of.
We just needed one thing.
Tim needed to get a passport card so we could drive the U-Haul to Alaska.
Just saying it, even as we weighed the options and considered the possibilites. Could we do it? Would we be able to afford it? What about the kids? How would we get them there? How would we decide what to take and what to part with?
The biggest question being: How would we handle the winters in Fairbanks? They are famously bad, with huge amounts of snow falling.
And I mean huge.
Could we handle that?
Could the kids?
Maybe more important than all of that, how do you homestead in a place that only has three months of viable growing season?
So we talked.
And talked. We looked at the money, we considered logistics, and finally, we talked to Tim's parents. Two of the most logical and reasonable people I have ever met, Tim's parents would listen to us, talk with us, and then helps us consider things we'd never thought of.
And they did.
I have said it before and I will say it again, I hit the in-law jackpot when I married Tim.
(Honestly, sometimes I feel bad. I got Tim, who is amazing and I've been in love with for ages, I got three amazing, wonderful, funny, and curious kids, and I got this amazing family of in-laws. I feel like All he got with me was too many baked goods a semi-mentally handicapped dog.)
Together we worked out a plan and started to set things in motion.
We're going to Alaska!