Alaska

So this is a long overdue post but one that I didn't want to go unposted!  Last year when Karl was in Korea he had a temporary duty assignment in Alaska that fell over Labor Day Weekend.  We made a last minute decision for me to go up and spend the long weekend with him and it was the BEST DECISION EVERRRR!

My time with Karl was so fulfilling and needed for us after such long periods of time apart.  Beyond that, Alaska was and is one of the most beautiful places Karl & I have ever seen.  The air is so fresh and crisp and the view was different in each town we went to but equally beautiful no matter where we were!  I cannot express how much I loved that weekend!  It felt like such a long trip, even though it was just 4 days.  We saw so much but both of us would love to go back!

We rode the train all day to a super cute town called Talkeetna (which is apparently where most people start their climb of Denali) and stayed there that night in a little apartment over a bakery and cafe.  It was adorable.  Next time, we want to take the train one stop farther to Wasilla and go whale watching!  The whole train experience felt like we were in a movie or a dream or something out of this world.  The mountains, greenery, the snow, the cabins in the middle of nowhere.  There was a car with a glass-dome roof that we sat in on-and-off for the whole train ride that gave us a 360 degree view, the train had great food and hot drinks... I could go on and on.  I would never have thought that a long spontaneous weekend in Alaska would end up being one of my favorite vacations ever!  God is good and so fun!!

Then we went on a hike.  We were in Denali National Park and we chose a "strenuous" trail.  I was feeling really confident.  I don't work out.  Ever.  I have the endurance of a large, mouth-breathing lap dog.  But I figured, like, there were A TON of old people and kids at the park so surely they mark the trails based off the physical capabilities of the weakest human.  The trail was 2 miles, each way.  I haven't walked a mile since my freshman year of high school.  WHY DID MY HUSBAND AGREE TO THIS??  I will boil the whole thing down to 3 points:
1) I literally thought I was going to die on that mountain.  Die of cold.  Die of exhaustion.  Die because I did smell bears.
2) My legs did stop working.  They stopped over and over and over again.
3) While he didn't say anything even remotely close to this, I knew 100% for a fact in my mind that if I didn't make it to the top of the mountain my husband would be crushed.  His soul would die.  Right then and there.  He was counting on me for the absolute greatest moment of his life.  What is wrong with me??
But we made it!  It was literally the coldest I have EVER been at the top.  And going down was possibly worse than going up.  And I felt SO ACCOMPLISHED when we made it!  But not accomplished enough to ever do it again.  ever.  That mountain owned me.  Here is picture proof, in chronological order...

 ...and there is my mule of a husband who didn't break a sweat and Richard Simmonsed me up that mountain.

Then the weekend was over. I remember how hard it was to leave him.  It always is.  But if I remember right, we only had to endure about 6 more weeks before he was home for good!  Since then, I have only been separated from him once- for Lucy's birth.  When we say goodbye it feels like we are saying bye for months and months.  It is the worst feeling.  My mind cannot comprehend a short-term separation.  I say to myself over and over, "it's just a weekend," or "it's just one week," but literally in my mind it's months!!  It's like a weird form of PTSD or something.  IDK.  A weird after-effect of 6 years of goodbyes.  I cannot wait until November, when we feel safe that we don't have to say goodbye anymore.  Goodbye is so lame. Alaska is so cool.

Hannah K.C. Burton

weekend away and fun things ahead

Two weekends ago Karl & I got a last minute opportunity to spend the weekend away in Sedona, Arizona.  We had already decided that we definitely wanted to spend a weekend there before we move away so we were super excited to go!  We went on an all expense paid Air Force marriage retreat and I am so glad we did!  Sedona is absolutely breathtaking!!  It is a pretty small town with these huge red rocks surrounding the whole town.  It is the coolest thing!  Driving in was beautiful but all of a sudden those red rocks just appear and it really does take your breath away!  The resort we stayed at was awesome, all the food we ate was delicious, and Karl & I had so much fun exploring the town.  The retreat was nice... it wasn't Christ centered and catered to couples in all stages and states of marriage as well as religions or lack thereof but the time we spent in the different sessions was really limited... so basically it was just a good weekend away :)

This snow is what we woke up to Saturday morning.  We expected nice cool weather but not quite this!  While it did cloud the views for the rest of the weekend, it was a welcomed change from the Phoenix heat!  I LOVE the cold!

Loved having quiet time in front of a fire and with Karl!  He has been on a weird shift at work for several weeks and it's made time with him sparse.  

In PRESENT DAY news: shoutout to two of mine and Karl's besties for the resties, Jacki & Abe and brand new Baby Keagan!!  It sounds run-of-the-mill, but Jacki has been battling pre-term labor for almost 4 months.  Keagan's pefect birth and health is nothing short of God's faithfulness, provision, love, and grace wrapped up in a gender-neutral hospital blanket :)  I am so excited for them!! Karl & I are itching to meet him!

SUCH a great weekend!!  Now we are getting pumped up for all the visitors we are expecting!  First up: THE BAILEYS!!!!!!  And to excite everyone: here is the video I cannot stop watching.

{cookie is my mom and that growling is how Oliver complains/cries... it's normal}

Love,

Hannah K.C. Burton

Family Weekend

After a couple-day blogging dry spell while the stomach flu destroyed me, I'm back to post about happy things while taking a few breaks to tend to Karl who is currently being eaten alive by said flu.  Awesome.  Just trying to strengthen our immune systems before Lucy comes :)

Here is a picture heavy post for you :) ... University of Arkansas Family Weekend is a maj Cuppett Family tradition!  It obviously began my freshman year with all 5 of my family members making the trek in the 'burban up to Fayetteville, eventually adding Karl to the mix my Sophomore/Junior/Senior years.

This year is Emma's freshman year and we had all been looking forward to Family Weekend literally since she decided to go to UofA last spring!  We always all have such a blast!!!  This year instead of having 7 peeps there would be almost 12, you know,  the 'almost' being Lucy.  Obviously.  The real family weekend happened on a weekend with a major scheduling conflict, so we created our own and it happened to coincide with Karl coming home from Korea and Homecoming- win!

Unfortunately Jeremy had to leave early for work so we really missed him for half of the weekend but we tried to soak it up for the time he was there.  It was so crazy how different {yet equally fun} it was this year and will continue to be while Emma is a student.  Having babies and husbands up there was different than years prior- we went from 1 hotel suite to 4, 1 car to 3, packed a stroller, picked activities with nap time in mind... the weekend was an absolute blast despite the change!!  We went to the game, had every meal together, shopped and ate locally, went to a corn maze and saw tiny little piglets, and just had so much fun all together.  Having everyone together is really rare with Karl's deployment/Emma at school/me & Karl here now.  I am so thankful for this weekend and feel blessed by it!  Praise God for these sweet times!!

twinkies!!

buddies

boo, pic without jeremy :(

on our way to the Pi Phi house

look at those teeth!

Jeremy :(

LOVE  Emma & my parents enjoying Pi Phi things

Matt held this pumpkin like a guitar, ha

 Look at those three!  And those northwest Arkansas trees!!

Cookie and Ollie :)

I have such an awesome family!! I am so thankful for each and every one of them.

Hannah K.C. Burton

Greetings from Korea

So after about a year of begging I decided that I would humble myself and guest post here on Hannah's blog. I would probably say no if I hadn't have had such an awesome first week in Korea. However, I had such an awesome first weekend here, so Hannah decided that I need to blog about, so here it is...

My roommate is a very adventurous person and I like to think I am the same way, so within the first 20 minutes of talking to him, I found out that there are some really great places to rock climb here in Korea. He said that he was going out this weekend and I could come along. I have had quite a bit of experience with rock climbing so I was really excited to be able to be doing what I love in Korea!

The day started early, my roommate and I woke up at 7:30am saturday morning (4:30pm Texas time) and had a quick breakfast while we waited on his friend that was going with us. Taxis are everywhere here, even on base, so we took one to the train station 20 minutes away where we took a train to a city called Gurye (about an hour and 30 away.) The actual climbing area is called Yongseo Pokpo.

We had to stand for the whole train ride and we were in an area of the train with about 30 Korean cub scouts. We stood in between 4 girls and 4 boys on either side of us and every one of them wanted to practice every bit of english they knew. Your name, where are you from, what food do you like, do you like kimchi, what is your favorite star (movie star, Harry Potter was one of theirs,) how old are you. After every question they would ask they would look back at their friends and giggle. One was even nice enough to give me some Korean candy he had from his sack lunch!

When we got to Guyre we took a short taxi to Yongseo Pokpo where we are right in the middle of the huge rock faces, beautiful fall colored leaves, even a little water fall. We hiked up a short trail, over a stream and we got to the designated climbing area, where they had actual routes for us to climb and anchors for our ropes at the top.

We met up with a few people at the train station that are living in different parts of Korea and teaching english in schools for a year. One was a fellow Texan, one from South Africa, and couple other that I can't remember where they are from.  These were people that the guys I was with had met on previous climbing outings.

So after several hours of climbing I was sore and extremely happy with my first day out in Korea. I couldn't have had a better way to experience everything that is good here all in one day. I saw gorgeous landscape, met wonderful people and experienced more of God's creation on the other side of the world. We even got an invite to a thanksgiving celebration by the english teachers!  They requested we bring avacados from the base commissary... I guess they don't have access to any.  I also got to climb with a few Korean climbers which was really nice and pretty fun trying to talk climbing with a man that can only speak broken english but was far better than my level of climbing. I didn't meet anyone that wasn't extremely nice and enjoyable to be around. The only thing that would have made this weekend better is having Hannah with me.

Well I guess that's it for my first ever blog post, I hope you all enjoy it! Who knows there may be more to come...

Karl W. Burton

Amy & Paul spoil the kids weekend

Months ago we all set aside a whole weekend for "family fun."  And fun it was.  All this fun I speak of went down about 3 weekends ago and basically my parents just spoiled us in the name of Karl & Korea and I'm not here to complain about it.

Friday night we all went to Jeremy's football game- super fun, as always.

 And Saturday we squeezed in a wedding dress fitting for Maddie followed by... massages for all the girls!  It was such a fun surprise!  Having all sisters = 5 girls in the house so doing things like this or all going to get mani/pedis or do other normal mother/daughter(s) stuff is just not common around here.  Instead of eating my parents out of house and home we could easily groom/luxury treatment my parents out of house and home.  So that was a blast.  Then we all went to celebrate Jeremy's birthday at his restaurant of choice!

Sunday was more fun!  We all packed up in the suburban (using all 9 seat belts that it has to offer, mind you) and headed to Glen Rose to drive through Fossil Rim.  It was SO SO SO FUN!  See for yourself...

After Fossil Rim we stayed in Glen Rose so the boys could have their fun outing- they did a competition clay shooting course at Rough Creek Lodge.  a) that place is gorge.  and I'm dying to stay there ASAP b) the very last thing I would ever do for fun would be competition shooting.  I do not and will not ever understand boys.

While the boys were shooting, we hung out in the lodge and all beat Maddie at Egyptian Rat Screw.

And then played on the giant seesaw... and my mom tried to pick up a bunny.

The whole weekend was a blast and a huge treat!  So grateful for family, the time that my sisters and their guys have given to the excess family activities we've had lately, and for my parents and their desire to give Karl an incredible time while he was home and willingness to basically do anything to do so!

Hannah K.C. Burton