Getting the Tree

Nic and I feel that traditions and customs are important. Nic is better at "enforcing" them than I am. I cave to the stresses of life, and would sometimes "vote" to forego a tradition in favor of doing one less thing. Thank goodness for Nic, though, since I know these traditions will become a part of who Hope becomes as she grows up. (So, I know I don't say it enough, Thank You Nic!) One of the traditions for us is cutting down a Christmas tree. Nic has cut down a tree with his family for as long as he can remember. (We even cut a juniper tree down last year to preserve this tradition - even though our movers were coming Dec 27 to pack us all up for the move from UT to AK. The juniper tree, cut from the desert of Utah, smelled an awful lot like cat pee. Our house was on the market to sell, and we had to put the juniper on the back deck - but we did put lights on it. But, the point is, it was a tree that Nic and Hope went to the great outdooors for, searched for, cut down, and brought back to our home. I "voted" to forego last year - and I think that will be the last time I make that choice...)

This was the first year for our Alaska tree - Hope is standing in front of the one we chose. We went the Saturday after Thanksgiving to a spot about an hour south of Anchorage. It was unseasonably warm - in fact it was raining. It was warmer than any other time that I can remember getting a tree. Turns out we cut down a hemlock. It's quite nice! But, doesn't smell very "piney."

Last weekend, we had a moose sleeping outside of our dining room window. She was a joy to watch. She stayed for at least an hour. How amazing!

The three of us (4 if you count the new cat!) will be home together this year. We will still have our traditions. Nic and Hope will make Christmas cookies and make cinnamon rolls (just like his grandmother did) to bake on Christmas morning. I have some traditions too - cut and bake chocolate chip cookies when we decorate the tree - and we talk about EACH ornament as we hang it up. We talk about where it came from and share a lot of memories as we put up each one. It takes us a while to decorate this way, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Here's to your Christmas traditions...with love from our home to yours...here here!

Fun in the Sun in Hawaii

We snuck off to Hawaii for a week in mid-November. We got an email from Alaska Airlines about an airfare sale to Honolulu, and we found a cheap place to stay (you get what you pay for) and the three of us went 10 days later. We were there for our 8 year wedding anniversary, so this was a great gift to ourselves. We stayed in Kailua - a beach town about 20 miles from the bustle of Honolulu/Waikiki. We spent a lot of time just hanging out at the beach. We played in the sand and in the surf, baked a lot of pretend sand-chip cookies, and I (Jolie) was fortunate to make yoga on the beach for four mornings (one morning for sunrise). It was a great vacation!

Hope and Nic enjoyed the boogie board, but I suppose I still have my New Orleans bones because I thought the water was chilly. That didn't stop me from enjoying a lot of nothing on the beach. We spent a day snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. I can't believe how incredible that was. It is a state park that gets really crowded, but in good Nic fashion, we were one of the first people there in the morning. So, it was great. I forgot all about the chilly water when we were snorkeling, because there were fish galore. But, the first thing was saw was truly wonderful. The three of us were swimming, holding hands, and a sea turtle swam right up to us. All 3 of us watched him and we were giving each other the "thumbs up" since we couldn't really talk about it with snorkels in our mouths. Since that was the first thing we saw (before fish even), I thought we'd be seeing sea turtles all day. However, that was the only one we saw and I think it's because we were there so early. This is a picture (that we didn't take) of what the turtle looked like while we were looking underwater. Truly amazing!On the last day, we visited Pearl Harbor and walked around Honolulu's China Town. We saw women making leis, and we bought one for Hope. It had plumeria and orchid and smelled absolutely wonderful. She brought the lei to show and tell and we used it as part of a Hawaiian Princess outfit for a Pirates and Princess party the weekend after we got back.

TASSO THE CAT!!!! I keep meaning to post photos of our new cat Tasso. He is now about 9 months old. He is an absolute wild and crazy cat. We were looking for a cat who Hope could play with and who was kind of "dog-like." Well, we got Tasso. He is very outgoing, and not afraid of anything. Purrs constantly. He lets Hope cart him around holding only one leg. They are best buds. With that, though, comes a cat who is NOT afraid of the squirt bottle or anything else for that matter. We keep hoping he'll mellow out as he ages. We'll see...

(Hope was a cheeetah, again, for Halloween. She picked it - I promise!)

Fall

The weather turned out great for Fall. Nic's mom and dad "Grampam and Grandpa" came and visited. It was great to have Pam and Larry here in Alaska. We were able to show them around, and they went to Seward for a few days by themselves. They also helped us finsish some projects around the house. Of course, they spent a lot of time playing with their Hope.

Here is Hope helping Larry and Nic split wood for the wood stove to help heat our house for the winter.

We went for a hike on Winner Trail outside of Girdwood.

Above, is the hand cart that we used to cross a small canyon with the creek at the bottom. Two people (or two with a 5 year old) is all that fit in the cart.

Hope's Cross Country Training
We've experienced a great fall. Hope ran her first cross-country running race (maybe the first of many to come?). Here she is after "winning" her first medal, and with our friend, and her classmate, Tatum.

We all went for a hike to Hatcher Pass, north of Anchorage. It is the site of an old silver mine. We lucked out with beautiful weather again and had a great day exploring the area.

Nic took his parents on a short but steep hike above the Turnagain Arm for a view of the Kenai Peninsula. Once at the top they were treated to a spectacular view on a great clear day in September.

Above are a few pictures of us hiking to Portage Glacier. Hope wanted to keep hiking and we went bouldering for a while. Some hockey players on the same hike were not going to go further down the trail, until one of them pointed out the fact that a 5 year old girl kept going. "Dude, she owns those rocks," one of them commented to no one in particular.



On Columbus day we had to take Pam and Larry back to the airport. We awoke to snow and a suprise guest on our front steps eating the rose bushes. Shoo moose shoo.

First Day of School!

Hope started Kindergarten at Denali Montessori yesterday. Her teacher is Mrs. Irene. Hope loves it! She wants to eat "lunch on a tray," so today she got the hot lunch. It was very impressive - egg roll, rice, and a "peach thing." She loves it and wants to have lunch on a tray tomorrow too.

Grumps, my dad, brought Hope back to Alaska from two weeks in New Orleans where she had a lot of fun and played a lot of Uno (the card game).

One of our favorite activities these days is going to the raspberry bushes in front of our house and gobbling up all of the ripe berries. The morning of the first day of Kindergarten was no exception.

Trip to Seward, Alaska

In August, Jolie's mom came to visit and we went to check out Seward. We took a boat ride around Resurrection Bay and saw whales, sea otters, sea lions, seals, eagles, loons, oh my! It was a lot of fun, but not real toasty. A boatride is something all visitors should do.

Glaciers:


Glaciers calving - booming and splashing - it's an incredible site!
We saw several humpack whales - Nic did a good job of getting this dive captured with our camera:

Judy is getting our photo with the New Orleans' daily paper, The Times Picayune - we'll let you know if we're published in the paper:
Steller's Sea Lions sunning (?? - sun is all relative - ??) themselves:

A side trip to Exit Glacier outside of Seward the day before the boat ride:

The sun making a rare appearance on a picnic on our way to Seward:

In case anyone is following our remodel, pics will be posted soon. And we are DONE!...with the things we're paying others to do. Is anyone ever truly done??? Well, we are as done as we can be for now. Of course, there's always the paint touch-up, picking out the right thing to hang on a strange wall, etc. And there is still more fun to be found outside (we've identified the trees to sacrifice to improve our view of the ocean!). The saga will continue - as most of you can relate to. And summer is almost over - WHAT HAPPENED??? Still hoping some of you will make the time to visit the last frontier!

Love, us!

Father's Day in Cordova, Alaska

We went to Cordova, Alaska for an amazing Father's Day weekend. Our house is a total sheetrock mess and we have no kitchen, dining room or living room (along with missing various parts of other rooms - we continue to miss things like real stairs, showers, carpet). [As an aside, Hope wins daughter of the year award because a few weekends ago, after a little too much partying at Kid's Fishing Day, hot dog, space walk, hula hoop, snowball, etc. - she threw up on our brand new subfloor - but she missed the BRAND SPANKING NEW CARPET by 4 inches - way to go Hope!]

This is Whittier...the jumping off point for Cordova...it was built during WWII - and has an interesting history to it...

Our weekend was a fabulous one - full of North America's longest tunnel (see http://www.dot.state.ak.us/creg/whittiertunnel/index.shtml) - where you travel for almost 3 miles on a single-wide lane that was closed to vehicles until about 3 years ago).

After the tunnel in Whittier, it's on the ferry to get to Cordova (http://www.cordovaalaska.com/). The ferry is pretty pricey (almost $400 round/trip for the 3 of us - 4 of us if you count Dora van), but it's an adventure itself. On the ferry we saw humpback whales (blowing and tail fins), Dall porpoise, sea lions, sea otters, eagles.

Some pictures of us in Cordova...

THE BEAR STORY! As told by Nic

We found a short 1.6 mile round trip interpretive hike to end our day late Sunday afternoon before dinner. The trail made it's way up through a forest to a look out bluff where you can look down at the valley below that you hiked from and perhaps catch a glimpse of trumpeter swans, bald eagles, maybe a moose munching grass or even a bear. About a third of the way up a young couple were quickly making their way down stopping just long enough to tell us that from the top they could see a bear way down in the valley walking towards the road. They were hoping to run down to the trailhead, get in their car and see if they could see the bear. We beat feet to the top, and got out the binoculars once we reached the over look. Jolie and I took turns looking and looking. We saw the couple's car way off in the distance driving the road. We couldn't see the bear. We didn't even see any swans or much of anything. Hope sat on a bench at the overlook eating a snack as Jolie continued to scan the vast Alaskan landscape hoping to see something. I looked back at Hope, heard a noise and saw something brown flash by. Maybe it was a bushy squirl's tail. I turned back to the overlook and heard a "Haramph" then back again at Hope. About 30 feet behind her was a grizzley bear sniffing the air and ambling up the hill towards us. I grabbed my pack with the bear spray, got my hand on the trigger and grabbed Hope with my other hand. Jolie and I both put our hands in the air and told the bear to go away (Jolie was actually shaking her finger at the bear as if he just hit a base ball through our window). The bear didn't run away like we hoped. We shoved our binoculars, water, and snacks back in the back pack and backed away from the bear. We put Hope beteween us and quickly made it back to the VW van. My heart rate went back to normal after two beers and three smores around the campfire that night. I didn't have time to take a picture, but here is a black bear that went by our house and van parked in our driveway in Anchorage.

Craig's List part II

CRAIGS LIST in Alaska appears to be the go to place. Below is an article about the huge response received when a dead moose was put on CRAIGS LIST in Anchorage. The response was bigger than our rolls of blue carpet (more carpet will be ripped out of the house soon, so stand by CRAIGS LIST watchers). It makes me laugh.

Alaskans find takers for dead moose online
CRAIGSLIST: Interest is high, but giving away carcasses is risky, biologist says.
By JAMES HALPINjhalpin@adn.com
Published: May 20th, 2008 01:47 AMLast Modified: May 20th, 2008 03:51 PM
When a 300-pound yearling moose stumbled into Calvin Hay's Hillside yard and died this month, he called the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, expecting the carcass would get hauled away.

Instead, he found out he was on his own.
"I guess I assumed that they would come deal with it," he said. "I kind of joked around a little bit; I said, wait a minute, aren't you the guys that say moose are, like, natural resources and they belong to all of us, but now that it's dead, it belongs to me?"
Turns out that's about right. So Hay, 46, posted an ad for a "dead moose" on Craigslist, a classified ad Web site, becoming at least the second person to do so in Anchorage this spring.
"You could use it for dog food or stuff it and put it (in) your front yard, bear bait, whatever," says the ad. "If you live in the Lower 48, this might be your best opportunity to get a free Alaska moose. I don't really care; I just want it out of my yard."
Within minutes, the responses began flooding in, he said. He got at least 50, including one poster who offered to take just a quarter: "I want it. But I can only take a haunch. I got only a small knife and a bicycle."
When moose die and their meat is deemed inedible -- often because the cause of death is unknown -- they become the responsibility of whoever owns the land they end up on, said Rick Sinnott, the Anchorage-area wildlife biologist for Fish and Game. When they die on public land, the responsible agency takes care of removing the carcass. On private land, it's up to the owner.

I think I have seen that guy that only has a small knife and a bicycle.

Mother's Day

It's been a while since we've posted. I guess that means we've been busy (we have!). Today, though, we spent the day exploring and hiking around Hope, Alaska (about 90 miles from Anchorage). Before that, as part of our usual morning routine, we said good morning to the ocean, to the mountains, to the trees, and this morning...to a MOOSE...nibbling the landscaping in our front yard. On the way home, about 1/2 mile from our house, we spotted this bear:

It seems like we have been working non-stop on getting our house in order. Nic and I have started using a phrase that we did not invent, but can understand. It's "TIA." TIA stands for "This Is Alaska" and it's used to describe any multitude of idiosyncrasies or irritations that could be unique to this island state (like $4 avocados, or the fact that I can't find Annie's Cheddar Bunnies anywhere). Or like the fact that we ordered bathroom windows to fix this problem (portrayed in the bathroom below) about 6 weeks ago, and they'll be in "soon." Consequenetly, we've been about 4 weeks without a bathroom and no end in sight (Nic has reminded me to note that we ARE using a bathroom - we have more than 1 - so we're not that Alaskan...). The good thing is it'll be really nice when it's all done. The kitchen starts in a few weeks and I know that won't be fun.

At the end of April, we had a whopper of a snowstorm. In fact, it was Anchorage's THIRD BIGGEST SNOWSTORM ever. Nic couldn't get over the fact that he's shoveling 18"+ of snow at 9 PM and it's practically broad daylight. We are getting used to the daylight, but it does throw off your sleep. Our sleep patterns may never be "normal" again until we move back Outside (another TIA, they/we call the lower 48 states "Outside" with a capital "O" - the newspaper even refers to it as such).