Merry Christmas from the Oelkers!

Shannon, Richard and Wilco at the top of the South Fork trail in Eagle River

Hello Friends and Family!

2008 has been another whirlwind year. We find ourselves healthy and happy at the end of 2008, which is something to be thankful for.

Shannon & Richard recovering from Shannon's surgery

Some fun things that Shannon did this past year:

Becoming and Outdoors Woman
It’s like girl scout camp for adult women, and I had a lot of fun learning to skin, gut and quarter a caribou, how to cast a fly rod, how to use a map and compass to verify GPS, and of course, went skiing and tubing (sledding down a steep hill on tire inner tube).

XCountry skiing at BOW

We went to Chitna again and had a miserable, rainy, wonderful time with our friends Paul and Jarkko, and netted our full family allowance of 39 Copper River Reds and one slow and ugly King Salmon.

3am on the way to the river!

This summer was also travel time for my job, I did inspections in lots of places, but the most beautiful were Saint Paul, St. George, and Adak. The Aleutians and Pribilofs are so beautiful and wild. The best part of living and working in Alaska, is, well, Alaska!

While Rich was out hunting I made a few baby quilts, started cooking for fun again, and worked hard on getting the house and the yard in shape.

Some fun things Richard did this past year:

In March, Richard went on the Trek Over The Top (http://www.trekoverthetop.com) with his good friend Dan. They had a great time and Richard even managed to win a few thousand bucks playing poker.

Richard went on an out of state trip for work to Galveston, TX and New Iberia, LA. In between he had time to visit his sister and brother in law Kristen and Nathan in Abilene, TX. It was a good trip and a real adventure learning how to eat crawfish. Eating at one of the president’s favorite restaurants was pretty cool too.

Richard managed to go on one camping trip with a rifle and one hunting trip. Richard and his brother Alan went sheep hunting on the north side of the Brooks Range for a week. They arrived just after a snowfall that left the mountains covered in a thick white blanket. Then there was more than 60 miles of hiking with 60-70 pound packs. Weather was cool, getting as low as 15 degrees F at night. On this trip the sheep won. The only rams spotted were sublegal, but they had a great time.

Richard also went on a deer hunting trip with 5 friends to Montague Island in Prince William Sound. The trip was planned for 7 days but ended up being 8 when the boat couldn’t pick them up due to weather. In that time, Richard managed to get two deer to bring home. The venison that we have had so far is excellent! The best part of the trip was spending a week with good friends and having almost enough beer to last the whole time...

Richard has also had a great year at work. Richard has been very involved in some very exciting projects that are improving the safety for the entire corporation. He’s really looking forward to 2009 and getting these projects finished up.

We managed two vacations this year, one to Las Vegas for Rich to attend a conference (and Shannon got to just hang out by the pool and see the sights) and another, delayed a bit, to the beaches of Mexico.

Vegas BABY!

At the top of Nohach Mal at Coba ruins

Finally, at the end of the year, we managed to get off the waitlist we’d been on for months, and we got our first brand new car, a 2009 Jetta TDI (diesel) and the car is AWESOME, and fuel efficient too. Our weekly commutes will cost us literally hundreds less per month!

We continue to see lots of friends and family as they come to Anchorage, and that is really great! So if you’re thinking of coming down, please give us a call, we’d love to see you, and if you need a place to stay we have a very comfortable guest bed. Love, Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009!