Christmas Cookie time

 
Katie and Jasmina and I baked sugar cookies and russian tea cookies. yum, and the new kitchen is bigger.

Thanksgiving Feast with friends

Thank you June for your hospitality!

 

Prep madness

 
 
 
 

fire department saves the day

At 4 am the truck outside didn't sound like the regular newspaper delivery. Nope - there were 3 fire trucks and the distinct smell of wood smoke, but not the yummy campfire smell.

















It was very sad for the neighbors.

The Anchorage Fire Department were very efficient and thorough. We're all very grateful.

mid-October is SLOW

It's been raining and sleeting for days, 'just been dreary. October is like being in a waiting mode for winter to come. Many people are getting their snow tires on and the weather is definitely colder. I'm waiting on the condo sale like this picture shows.
 

early snow?

I thought we'd have an early snowfall this year, like... today, this Sunday. At 3 a.m. a little snow fell, but not enough to stick around.

 

Slumber Party with Jasmine

Jasmine and I met up at East High Pool and went downtown for First Friday. We checked out many art galleries, got capuccino and ran into folks to say hello to. Then we came home by way of Freddie's to get baker's chocolate, almonds, eggs and splurge on lip gloss! (you gotta splurge on something when the PFD arrives). Here's Jasmine smacking those almonds into sliverines so we could make a special flour-less cake called caprese -- her family's secret recipe. (She's from milan and her parents own a bakery)


No, I'm not doing the Heimlich maneuver on myself.
My only real job was to break up the pieces of baker's chocolate, a finger workout.

She did all the work - melting the chocolate and mixing the sugar and almonds in.
Here's the cake out of the oven.

And here it is! caprese
it's the chocolate cake with powdered sugar to match the mountains with snow on top.

Chocolate Cake with Powered Sugar

Well, it's been a glorious fall -- about a month of golds, reds, yellows and pinks. The blueberries were small and plentiful this year, but they've turned to mush now as it's been frosty for two weeks, at least. The high bush cranberries are best to pick AFTER the frost, though, so I should get out to the bog nearby and pick away. The fall equinox is behind us, so we have fewer minutes every day of daylight. On Sept 21st we had just 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of dark. We're losing daylight noticeably now, Sun is rising around 8:15 a.m. and setting around 7 p.m. giving us 11 hours of daylight, a loss of around 6 minutes a day, and it just crashes downward till the winter solstice. Hopefully freeze-up will give us good conditions for ice skating and good snow for cross country skiing.
The snow is on the mountain tops again. The Chugach Mountains remind me of a chocolate bundt cake with powdered sugar on top. This is the view from my condo. Okay, I do need those bottom up blinds to blot out the nearby building.

Dogsled Pass

A very cool surprise after getting back to the car from Dogsled Pass
was a sudden hailstorm that filled the valley we'd just come through.

What is Jack so happy about?




















Only his harem knows for sure :)

Birthday weekend

A very fun birthday weekend started by getting back from broiling Washington DC to summer weather in Anchorage. Here's David and Ruth - both will be heading back to Cal and Montana soon. David will be in his final year at Cal Poly and Ruth starting year 3 at Montana State U.

Jasmine from Milan and a dozen other foreign exchange students arrived for the school year. She'll be studying at Service High School and is set for a great year. Welcome Jasmine!
.

Saturday was a magnificent Alaska summer day. June and I headed up the hillside for some hiking and had lunch on Little O'Malley Peak which you can see behind us.

We walked the ballpark to where we could look down and see Black Lake.

and then to see the Williwaw Lakes and Mount Williwaw. Here are some of those views.

Fair Angel Lakes/Hatcher Pass

If you turn onto Archangel Road before Hatcher's pass and pass the trailhead
to Reed Lakes, eventually you'll come to the end of the road, unless you decide
you or car can't make it. Off to the left is a trail through thick bushes and down
into a valley. The hike offers boulder fields, good dry trails, some mushy wet
trails and lots of mining trash left around - rusted out metal, weathered wood.

Here's Fair Angel lower lake where we had lunch and Sawyer's bug
dope for dessert.


Priscilla and I were glad to find the upper lake.

Beatiful valley, good weather, fun company. Nothing's better on an
Alaskan summer's day.

mud mud beautiful mud, nothing so lovely for soothing the blood

okay, this is Melissa, my neighbor and buddy.
We biked around Campbell Creek Trails, up to Service,
down to Rover's Run through some mud and she's
singing her grandmother's song about mud. Very fun.
Great weather, good trails, wonderful company!











How does that go? You can tell a happy bicyclist by
the bugs in her teeth? Anyway, Walter took these shots before
we hosed ourselves and bikes off.

Cousin Paula (used to be Stone) and Seth came into Anchorage after a 10 day
float trip down the Kongicut River in the Brooks Range. We had a fine day together
walking on the coastal trail and catching up. They got to sample our fresh salmon
at Arctic Roadrunner AND the Bear Tooth before heading back east. Thanks for
sharing the photo Paula. Best wishes on your writing and inventions you two. 7/16/07

Ruth's 20th birthday party

Ruth