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).