Taking a Break-Halibut Fishing & Climbing Flattop!

Brian went fishing for a few days, and I, left to my own devices, decided it's been TOO LONG since I've been hiking.  I'm a little bear afraid, so I drove up to Flattop after all of my "chores" were done today, nearly 6:00 by the time I started.  I figured, correctly, that I'd have enough company on THIS hike that I wouldn't worry about hiking by myself.

Brian is out on Prince William Sound and caught a 35 inch halibut today - about 19 pounds, he thought. No pictures yet - have to get him a smart phone!  Here are some pictures from the hike to Flattop though -- a nice summer evening with a shower all of the way down - ended up cool and kind of wet!  Probably close to a hundred people on the hike in various places though - maybe not quite that but a lot!

On the way up - I forgot I had to go "over there" from what looked like it could be a summit! 

From the top - looking further into the mountains! 

From the top - looking out over Cook Inlet and the city of Anchorage!

Okay, tired enough from hiking, fed now and ready to go to bed.  I saw everyone in every imaginable shape, size, age climbing Flattop - it's one of the things that I love about Anchorage - families climbing with small children, people obviously out of shape (even more than me!) taking their time and making their way up the mountain, people with babies in backpacks - and I'm thinking it's way enough for me!  I need to toughen up!  It was fun though, and I look forward to some more hiking as Brian's daughter, Colleen and her partner arrive on Tuesday for 9 days.  One more day of work on Monday, and then I'm pretty much off til August 15th!  Later than usual this year, because we're going east and I'm going to a conference in Toronto on the way back.  

Moving from Downtown -- are we SURE we wanted to do this?

Okay, we finally took the plunge.  We bought a house - well, a townhome.  In Eastridge.  We closed in early June, a little later than we had hoped to, and we've been working, working, working, since mid-May on packing, getting ready to move, and then getting the house ready to move into! between finishing the semester and going to two conferences, one in San Francisco and one in LA, it's been an intense period of time!

Brian has done an incredible job of ripping out carpet, replacing all of the molding, laying down laminate floors throughout the entire house, tiling the kitchen backsplash, and everything else!  The movers came on Tuesday, and we spent our first night here that night.  We had already moved everything but the furniture.  Then a couple of days cleaning the apt. and we're finally officially out of our apt. (which we loved, loved, loved) and in our new place.  We took a final walk from out old house up to Crush and walked around downtown - a little meal at Crush and a glass of wine for yet another celebration- yay, through cleaning the apt.!  Not hard to find little celebrations!  Pictures of the renovation:

Deck, Master Bedroom, Living Room from the stairway, and kitchen with that outstanding backsplash tiled by Brian!  He also opened up that entrance to the kitchen and rewired the outlets, since it originally was just a doorway with a pocket door - so much nicer!  We're still putting up pictures, waiting for the rugs to come in, but the floors he installed are just great!

A long time between posts!

Okay, it's been a while . . . a LONG while!  Since our last post, we went to Tucson on spring break from the university to spend time with our landlords, Lance & Mary, but at their new house in Tucson.  That was a lot of fun, and we did a lot of hiking.  Brian and I tried to get ourselves in a little better shape after his "bout" with the pulmonary embolism.  The hiking was quite different than hiking in Alaska, but so interesting in the types of vegetation and the cacti beginning to flower.  It must be stunning when they are in full bloom - like the flowering cherry trees in D.C. or the many flowering trees in NY when they're in full bloom.

We had a great time, and Brian and Lance also played golf twice, not something that Brian ordinarily would do.  It was glorious to be in the sun and be warm, but when we got back to Anchorage, Brian immediately got a really bad cold and was sick for the next 2 weeks!  Just as he was getting over that, he pulled his back when he was getting the boat ready (Kakwick) for the season of shrimp pot pulling, and then he was "out" again for another two weeks -- and then it was time to start moving or just about -- so not too much exercise has taken place in our neck of the woods since the day after Christmas when Brian was hospitalized!