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Momma heads back to Texas :(

September 2, 2013

Mom finally had to go home after three awesomely rainy weeks up here in Alaska. I think she got a total of one sunny day, but what do you expect for a record tying rainfall stretch? Other than the rain, I did my best to make sure she had a great time, but I think Tommy accomplished more in that department without fancy trips and events.

It's hard to compete with an adorable grandson. I know, I've tried. :)

We will miss her until she comes back to visit, which won't be soon enough. Since Tommy was asleep when we got to the airport, we walked mom in and had frozen yogurt with her before she had to head off through security. And of course someone woke up as soon as I was trying to eat my tasty treat. Luckily mom didn't mind holding him for awhile... ;)

Thanks again mom for helping out these past three weeks and we will miss you bunches! Thank goodness there is Skype until we see you again!!

(She asked me to get a photo of her and Tommy before she left, but its next to impossible to photograph the two of them together, someone is always making faces or moving. Or course this shortly turned into a tickle-fest, in case you can't tell from the second photo.)

State Fair

September 1, 2013

Anyone who has been around me during the month of September knows how excited I get about the State Fair of Texas! Since Matt took me the first time 12 years ago, I haven't missed a year. We were there the day after Big Tex went up in flames. A tragedy to be sure! But an equally big tragedy (to me) - I would be missing it this year!!! :(

Luckily the Alaska State Fair was running the weekend my mom and sister were both in town. It wouldn't be quite the same, but I would take it! I googled activities and those were certainly different: Lumberjack Competitions, Pumpkin Weigh Offs, Tractor Pulls and Beard Contests. Well that would certainly be a change in pace...! Luckily, the food looked equally as bad for us, so I figured it would all be ok.

Duncan tried to caution me about getting my hopes up, so the expectations were pretty low when we got there. And it was totally awesome! No, it's not Texas, but it was really fun. The food was yummy and the weather mostly held out, so we had a blast. We on,y decided to go when the youngest in our party had enough and signaled very loudly that it was time for him to nap. I can't wait to take Matt next year!

For the curious, the foods I photographed were: Fried Cheese Curds (my favorite!), Denali Cream Puff, Elephant Ears, Corn Fritters, Potato Soup Bread Bowl and Halibut on a Stick. Not picture is the huge bag of Kettle Korn we ate on the way home... :)

Not Quite a 26 Glacier Cruise

August 31, 2013

Heather just arrived and mom is leaving at the end of the long weekend, so I had lots of plans for weekend fun to welcome one and say goodbye to the other. :) :(

Today was the 26 Glacier Cruise out of Whittier - complete with a drive through a shared train / car tunnel. And by shared, they mean it is one way car OR train only. That was quite possibly the narrowest tunnel I've ever driven through... Thanks to the open once per hour tunnel schedule, we arrived earlier in Whittier and drove around the tiny town to kill time. We managed to find a nice mountain stream in our hunt for wild berries - it's probably easier to hunt for berries on foot, but sleeping baby made that kinda hard. Mom and Heather really liked the stream though!

And we did find some wild salmonberries! Not enough to make jam, but I was still excited! So - wins all around on our exploring!

The cruise was fun too, even though the weather was completely uncooperative. We missed about half if the glaciers due to a reroute of the cruise - silly fog! And it was super windy and rain on the deck when trying to see the glaciers, but Thomas was in a great mood and we were seeing Alaska, so who cares? It just means we'll have new stuff to see next time we go. :)

I Live in Alaska!

August 30, 2013

Driving down the hill this morning to work and suddenly the car in front of me stops quickly. I had no idea traffic lights could get so backed up here - we're really far back! Then I notice the other side of the road has stopped too...

Because there was a Moose who wanted to cross the road!!!

She waited very patiently for both sides to stop, then walked across the road to the other side. It was the best way to start the morning! Where else but Alaska is your commute interrupted by a moose?? (Yes, I'm aware other states have moose, just go with me...)

And it was a great reminder how freakishly tall they are compared to my car.

Really, really don't want to hit a moose...

Dealing With Imperfection

August 28, 2013

I know I'm not alone in the struggle with perfection. And we all handle it differently. I apparently just don't do something if it can't be done the exact way I want. Or I just never finish it - ask my parents about a parent-teacher conference in 7th grade about missing homework... (Had it all, but I didn't turn it in because it wasn't perfectly done - yikes!)

This manifests itself in my blogging abilities all the time! Either I don't have time to do it right, or I don't have the equipment. Right now I'm struggling a bit with both, but especially the equipment factor. Matt has my fancy camera and computer. So I have my iPhone and iPad. But the app for my host is really pretty limited. So I either have to download all my photos to Duncan or Brittney's computer, then upload everything, then delete it so I don't feel like I'm taking over their computers too - or just do a photo because that's all I can appropriately caption.

Which is silly. Of course I can upload more than one photo (but only at the end of the blog...!) and you guys will all understand that I can't caption all of them right. You guys will be fine with that until I have all my usual stuff back. Why do I even worry about it? You guys are happier with something rather than nothing, right?!?

So here is my compromise to myself. I bought a nice point and shoot camera - one that I can force into a true manual mode so I can continue to learn my camera skills. And Matt helped me find a connection kit so I can download photos from my camera to my iPad. And even barring that, I can use photos from my phone - it still takes really good photos! I will try to focus on the "something is better than not turning your homework in" lesson I thought I learned years ago.

And you guys will still love me.

Right?

Exit Glacier and Mountain Views

August 25, 2013

The plans for Saturday was to take mom to see a real glacier! Exit Glacier has a fairly easy hike to get up to the side of the glacier and I thought mom might be up for it! Of course, we were almost to the park when I found out she hadn't brought her tennis shoes...

Well that kinda ruled out the mile hike to the glacier. Luckily there was an overlook that was a much shorter trek. I told her to let me know if her feet hurt too much in the boots she was wearing, but she was up for trying.

Of course, the little guy fell asleep on the drive over from Seward. Luckily I had just bought a new baby carrier (Yay Ergo Baby!), so I just carried him up the hill with me. He wasn't the least bit perturbed by the fact he was being carried around in the beautiful Alaska outdoors.

He woke up just in time to see the glacier and admire it from a close distance. Of course, given that ledge behind us, I wasn't even going to consider letting him run around on his own. The boy is either incredibly brave or has no sense. So, he was stuck in the carrier!

Mom was pretty excited about the glacier as well. Like her nice tourist sweatshirt? I bought it for her next week because the heat isn't on in the house yet and she has been getting chilly. I figured she was a tourist here, so why not? :)

We drove back through Girdwood and decided to take the tram up the Alyeska resort because it was such a pretty day! I think the tram was a little pricey, but the view was kinda worth it.

Plus look at that smile on my mom's face? Isn't that... priceless?? ; )

Trip to Seward

August 23, 2013

Even though it had rained most of the week, I was hoping for some nice weather this weekend to try and make my mom understand why we wanted to move to Alaska. The rain was not helping the situation... But I had panned a fun weekend and it looked like the weather was going to cooperate according to the wildly inaccurate forecasts.

First stop was The Bake Shop in Girdwood - a fun & tasty little cafe we had discovered the weekend before. The sweet rolls are what they are known for, but their real food is delicious as well.

And we can't go to Girdwood without stopping at Tommy's favorite place - the super awesome playground he can run around and have fun. We discovered it last weekend as well and Tommy decided that he likes swing sets - hesitant as he was to try it out...

After letting him blow off some steam, we headed down to Seward to the Marine Life Center there. He really seemed to like it when we were there in November, so we figured he would like it even more now that he is old enough to walk around and see over the ledges.

And he really seemed to like the birds. They decided that it was a good time to feed the birds, so they were swooping and diving all over the place. Tommy was so focused on all the activity, he was super quiet. (Rare for him these days!)

Of course, right after this sweet moment, he had a complete meltdown. He really wanted to push the stroller all over the center, and given the number of people it really wasn't headed anywhere but disaster. So, being the logical mommy I am, I took the stroller away from him and folded it up. Utter and complete melt-down. It was by far the worst tantrum he has had - ever. I was that parent, trying to calm down their freaking out child who was throwing himself on the floor. Yikes!

I finally got him to calm down with a bottle of milk and a walk out onto the side deck. He was still just a thread away from tantrum-ing the entire rest of the visit. He wouldn't even look at the camera when I tried to send his dad a photo...

Sigh...

It was overall a rough end to an otherwise nice day. Here's hoping a nice night's sleep will return the sweet loving boy I had earlier that morning! :(

Berry Madness

August 22, 2013

One of the best parts of Brittney's massive yard is the berries! I only caught the tail-end of the strawberry season, but I was super excited about the fact that the back corner of her yard is crammed with raspberry bushes! I love raspberries! Can there be anything more exciting than pulling them off the bush and cramming them in your mouth? As a scientist, I postulate that it would be hard to beat!

Thomas, however, was not quite so sure what the red thing his momma pulled off of the bush was and why was she encouraging him to eat...?

After carrying it around for about 5 minutes and pretending to put it in his mouth, he finally got brave enough to eat it. And he loved it! I guess you can't fight genetics. :)

Soon enough, the little guy was helping by trying to pick the berries with us. Of course, he was much better at smushing them, but his enthusiasm was certainly appreciated. Look at the haul of berries we (Mom, me, Brittney, Holly & Thomas) managed to pick!

We enjoyed some of them right away on some amazing Lemon Buttermilk Sorbet that we had made earlier that day. If you have an ice cream maker, take the time to make the easiest sorbet ever - you won't regret it.

And what else does one do with a ton of leftover raspberries? Make jam, of course! It was quite delicious on the French Toast I made the next morning. The growing season might be short up here in Alaska, but I sure do appreciate the produce while it is here! :)

When You Mention Craziness...

August 17, 2013

When you mention the "craziness that is life" on your tag-line, it shouldn't really come as a surprise when life hits one of those crazy times. For me, that's been the last two months and I went into full "hunker down and power through this" mode. But now, the time has come to breathe easy again and go back to keeping people updated!

So what happened, exactly? I'll give the short version as I tend to ramble on about most things...

I quit my job of seven years in Houston and moved up to Alaska to start a new job.

Brittney and Duncan took me into their home and Brittney practically gave me her to use most days (before mine arrived and now so mom has mine)!

I came back to Texas after two weeks to fetch Tommy and my mom joined us in Alaska to watch Tommy.

Matt stayed behind to finish projects at his job and sell the house. (He did the single dad thing with Tommy for a week, then my parents had a week to spoil him!)

Matt will be driving up with the dogs after his motorcycle trip in mid-September & his dad is road-tripping with him.

We have to find a new house!

I'm going to need more winter clothes!!

That's the bare bones of it. It was the hardest decision I've ever made to leave a company I really liked, but it was an amazing opportunity to move to a state we fell in love with during a back-packing trip in 2008. And life is short, so if it turns out we were crazy, oh well! Now that Tommy is up here, the updating should pick back up, the two weeks without him I was pretty unmotivated to do much updating. He's a much more interesting subject than most of the mundane settling in I was doing.

And so far, I think he likes Alaska! :)

Birthday Yummies!

June 23, 2013

Since Heather came down for her birthday, she got to choose the birthday food. Not surprisingly when I told her about our new Porterhouse cooking method, she wanted to try that! And since she had given us enough warning, we decided to go the extra mile and dry age the steaks for a few days.

If you're curious if dry aging really can make a steak taste better, the answer is yes. Definitely yes. You should go try it right now. I'll wait. ;)

We also learned that you really shouldn't let your lump charcoal get rained on. It looked dry when we started the chimney up, but the moisture inside of the pieces would explode out in a shower of sparks. Matt managed to keep anything from catching on fire, but it was quite the firework show!

And of course, there had to be yummies for dessert! I promised her Nutella cupcakes last year, but it never actually happened (I blame having a 2 month old!). But this year I was determined to make them happen. These cupcakes are not the easiest or fastest ones I've ever made (quite possibly the opposite!) But incredibly delicious!

Heather approved of the birthday yummies, so I'm calling it a success! Of course this means I'll have to find some way to top it next year... ; )