New Years Eve Puzzle Off!

This year we continued the tradition by hosting another New Years Eve Puzzle Off! What, you might ask, is a puzzle off? We broke into two teams, each with similar difficulty (although there was some argument about the winning team's puzzle being easier...), same piece amount puzzles, and started at the same time. The first team to complete their puzzle wins!

Team 1

Team 2 

The kids doing their own puzzle

Team 2 - the winners! (500 pieces in 1 hour)

Team 1 - 1 hour 3o minutes

We made it to midnight!

Christmas in Our New House

This year we hosted the family Christmas dinner at our new house. I had fun decorating the new house this year - we even got a new PRELIT Christmas tree!

Five years ago, to the day, we hosted Christmas dinner at our first home out in Chugiak:

What a difference five years makes!

 After dinner we opened presents (and put together a puzzle).

"It sounds like Legos!"

We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2014 from the Gichards!

Merry Christmas 2014 from the Gichards! We had a very memorable year spanning from Amber losing her Grandpa and Andrew losing his Grandma, to Andrew's dream of seeing the Atlanta Braves play, to buying a new home, to graduating! We are so blessed with wonderful family, friends, and church to be with us in the good times and bad.

We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and wonderful new year!

Clockwise, starting top left: Flying in the Misty Fjords in Southeast Alaska, at the Braves game in Seattle,  at the airshow with our friends, in front of our new house in Eagle River, on the beach in Destin, Florida for the Anderson reunion.

We are Graduating!

Last week Andrew walked in his Commencement ceremony - the first in the new Alaska Airlines Center! He is receiving his Bachelor of Science in Aviation Technology, with an emphasis in Aviation Management.

I also finished up this month with my Bachelor of Business Administration in Management, from the University of Alaska Southeast and will be walking at their Commencement ceremony in May in Juneau.

To celebrate both accomplishments we had a little party to thank our family and friends for all their support over the years.

Double Trouble Turns 30!

This November, Aimee and I turned 30! We went all out and had a big joint-party, with the theme of "Double Trouble" :)

We shared a cake, so it had 60 candles on it! Mom was ready with the fire extinguisher though...