Busy, Busy, Busy

Thursday we had an absolutely beautiful day here in Alaska. The temps were in the 20's but it was completely calm and gorgeous. Ches and I played outside a lot. This is her telling me to put down the darn camera and start throwing! She's very demanding these days. I'm still hunting for boots that actually work on her feet. Most days we have to come in early because her feet are sensitive. Until then, we just do shorter bursts, which causes her to sigh heavily in disappointment.

Thursday evening we went to check out a piece of property and managed to spot two moose enjoying their evening meal. The big one above obviously had her fill because she just laid around despite the abundance of onlookers. I guess she was feeling very comfortable. The smaller one (below) was a little more nervous, but just kept on grazing and glancing.

Yesterday (Friday) we headed to the M family's home in North Pole. Tony and I grew up in the same small town in Northwestern MN, small world! I hadn't seen him or talked to him in 15 years and had never met his family. We drove up in the afternoon and had a great time!

Within 28 seconds of meeting us Daughter #3 hugged me, and was filling me in on wardrobe choices of the arctic. She helped me off with my jacket and scarf, and the rest of the kids were just as charming.

We brought along our snow shoes from last weekend's shopping spree and Brent and Tony took them out on the slough for a workout. They worked better on the snow this weekend, and Brent decided that we need new bindings and they should work better. So I'm looking forward to getting back out on them again.

Tanya made a great dinner of lasagna, salad and bread. It was an easy, relaxing afternoon, and I personally thoroughly enjoyed getting out and seeing people. We chatted late into the evening, and even broke our no-driving-after-dark rule, because we were just having such a good time.

We traded stories of our youth, and caught up on life after GHS. Since Tanya and I had chatted away 6 hours of our life earlier in the week we had no issues picking up where we left off. Their children are sweet, inquisitive and so fun to be around. All of them. Including the two dogs! We are looking forward to our next visit!

As we were leaving North Pole last night we were worried about the drive, the moose, and the dark and winding mountain roads that connect Delta to North Pole. We were barely passed Eielson when a trooper turned on his lights (in front of us) and gently guided a HUGE cow moose to the side of the road. Because of the stress, and late hour, we divided the drive in half, and were fortunate that the rest of the drive home was uneventful.

This morning Brent woke me with the bad news, bad news scenario. Bad news was he was waking me up, worse news was because we had no water. Ugh. Thankfully we didn't have anywhere to be, except the dump, so we called the landlord, loaded the car and headed to Jitter Junction. Since he was waking me, WAY TOO EARLY, on a Saturday, I bribed, er threatened, him to buy me coffee.

After the dump we came home and I made brunch while he napped. Nice, huh? And then proceeded to be entirely too lazy. I did try out a new banana bread recipe, which smelled delightful. I wrapped it up and took it to a friend/neighbor as she's staying alone while her hubby is in the Aleutian Islands for work. We visited for a couple of hours, and then I headed into the IGA to pick up some pizza fixings and home to Ches and Brent.

I whipped up a shrimp/pesto pizza for Brent and my favorite caramelized onion pizza. Tucked Brent off to bed, and now I'm updating this and then I'm heading to the couch to find a good movie to get lost in.

Tonight is supposed to dip down to -30 degrees. I'm hoping "they" are wrong and it doesn't get quite that cold, but if it does, I'm prepared. After all, I did choose to live here in the beautiful state of Alaska!

Have a happy day!