Tanner Crab at Orso's!

We had tickets for a special reception tonight for the Kodiak fishermen (fisherpersons!) and the Tanner crab coming in from Kodiak.  We bought 10 lb. last year through the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, and again this year, a seafood version of community-supported agriculture!  Tonight was the first time they tried this with wine and crabmeat h'or d'oeuvres.  Crab legs, crabmeat salad on rolls, crab-stuffed mushrooms, etc.  We met a couple who have 3 planes and want to trade time on Prince William Sound with us (on the boat we just bought with partners) for time in the air!  Gotta love this place!

Double Digits -- Finally!

We were delighted to find that it was finally above 10 degrees today for skiing - well, it was 11 degrees!  We've been kind of lazy, finally tiring of the 0 and below weather and having a hard time pushing ourselves out the door!  This was also supposed to be a big activity time for the Northern Lights, and Friday night, as it was perfectly clear, we stayed up really late, drove several miles north til it was really dark, and parked for awhile, hoping they would appear -- but, no such luck!  Now it's overcast and snowing again, so we won't see anything tonight.

Today we went back to the Campbell Airstrip Park and skied on groomed trails again - we haven't skate skied in a week or maybe even two!  It snowed the whole time, and probably an inch and a half or more just while we were skiing.  Then home to turkey soup and turkey sandwiches on Judy's first time sourdough biscuits!  (We should have taken a picture of THEM!)

IMPORTANT BOAT PICTURES -- Brian is now a co-owner of another boat, a 30 foot Sundowner Tug on Prince William Sound named Kakwik.

Pictures of the inside:

Brian and Carl are working on the engine which needs repairs now, but hopes are to have it on the water come April (or May) in time for shrimping!  This is a boat with a LOT of room, plenty of sleeping room for 4, and lots of wonderful little bays to explore -- more than we could ever get to!  Not the kind of water you would jump into even mid-summer (glaciers too!) but drop dead gorgeous, and you travel with lots of sea life -- otters, seals, sea lions, porpoises and even whales!

We'll be traveling back east for Judy's son's wedding in less than 2 weeks, weather willing!

Back to work preparing for classes to begin!

It's been a week of preparation and a continuing week of snowfall in Alaska -- sorry New York skiers!  We skied over the weekend, and Brian continued skiing this week, but Judy got too busy with the week before classes and preparing to take over a new role 1/2 of her time at UAA as the Associate Dean of the University Honors College.  And . . . we've been waiting for our Amaryllis to emerge from its cocoon -- we've been growing it since WAAAYYY before Christmas, and we actually thought you maybe can see it grow, it grows so quickly and so tall.

In the last couple of days it really began to emerge, and I wish we had taken a day by day picture as it began.  The picture above is from Tuesday.  Today, Thursday,  it is fully emerging, and it is glorious!

Waiting for dinner to be done, and then we're going for a walk tonight.  We're supposed to get 10 inches of snow altogether by the time it stops, and it's fairly warm here -- 11 degrees, we call that warm this year!
Judy's been going to Pilates many mornings trying to get some workouts in since night doesn't always work now, and Brian's continuing to build his contracting business.  I'll have to try to put his business card on here -- it's really great.

We have only three weeks from Friday before we're headed back east for Colin's and April's wedding -- it's coming up so fast now!  We're looking forward to the wedding and to seeing our friends and family again!

Skiing Campbell Airstrip trails off Basher Rd.

Cold, cold, cold.  We've gotten out there, but we were looking forward to double digits, which we finally almost got to today by the time we finished skiing.  Had a wonderful ski with our back-country skis, which basically were used today on a single track trail that's not groomed, just skied in.  Beautiful woods, and it seemed warmer than the 5 degrees than it said when we started.  Not too many people on the trail, and as many dogs as people, which is usual for Alaska!

Yesterday we started out to ski at the end of the day, but as we got over to the parking area on the right-hand side of Basher Rd., to skate ski on the groomed trails, the temperature gradually dropped until it was -4 degrees when we parked.  I had to say no, I was so tired of skiing when it was so cold.  We drove back to the trails by our house, started to skate ski, and after about 10 minutes, Brian skied back and said no himself - too cold, skis too slow, more work than fun!  

After dinner, we bundled up completely and walked downtown for coffee at the Cake Studio, then along the Coastal Trail and Chester Creek Trail back to Valley of the Moon Park near our house -- probably 1 1/4 hours or so altogether, not bad for 0 degrees or below!    Now we're off to walk downtown for an 8:00 show of 2 silent films (Buster Keaton!) with the Anchorage Symphony live! 

Snow, snow and more snow!

Home from Talkeetna yesterday and back in Anchorage in time for an afternoon ski on more fresh snow. They had already set a diagonal track on the Chester Creek trail, and we had time for a 10k out and back before we vegged out on the couch and watched a movie.  We didn't take pictures, but one notable thing on the trail were the lovely glass Christmas balls that someone had hung carefully from the tree branches over the trail in one section.

Today we wanted to do something different, so we went to a different section of the trails off of the Campbell Airstrip Loop Rd.  Usually we do the groomed trails on the right hand side, and we took our back country skis and had an enjoyable two hours in some really fresh snow - it was snowing most of the time, and they had about 16 inches overnight in that part of town -- much less where we live.

We saw a moose today in the woods, but perhaps more interesting was the one we saw this morning from our window -- right across the street with his big rump in the air reaching up to eat off the tree, then just casually moseying down the street, just like he owned the place.  We stopped in the pictures above to have some tea.  Our landlords arrived home today from Florida and came for a lasagna dinner, and Jessica arrived for a post-Christmas visit later this evening.  It is supposed to get much colder again tonight, but they did forecast a couple of inches more of snow!

Christmas Day in Talkeetna

We got three good morning texts from the East Coast at 5 am, 6 am, and 6:30 am.  We'll be calling all of you at midnight our time on New Year's Eve!  Seriously, it was great to hear from everyone, and we got coffee and tea and opened our Christmas presents in bed (tiny cabin, remember?) after it was clear we weren't going back to sleep!  We had a great and somewhat unusual breakfast -- eggs baked in the middle of some great bread with pecans and currants and creamed spinach with a tangerine for garnish - very colorful and not everyone's cup of tea but really good!

Some more reading and then we took off for a ski through the same park that we've been skiing but a different trail today as a snowmobile had rolled a trail around the lakes.

It was really a beautiful day, even though the sun never did get very high in the sky.  You can see that beautiful "weak winter sun" here, and the day was lighter than it looks in the picture.  We skied just about 2 hours - warmer today, about 10 degrees, and then back to the cabin for snacks and a glass of wine.  We brought some of the wonderful smoked salmon with us that I helped to smoke and jar in Klukwan this summer, with smoked cheese and apples and pears.  I hope we're still hungry for that turkey breast and cranberry dressing cooking in the miniature oven here!

Back to reading in bed for awhile - Brian's reading sailing stories and I'm starting another book -- or I did bring some knitting with me.  We went to an irreverent Christmas show in town last night at 7:30 but probably won't go anywhere tonight - just a nice dinner when it's done.  Or we may go out to a "town caroling" and local musicians at, I think, the Fairview, which takes place after the last Christmas show is enacted tonight.  The show, Brian says, is like a Saturday Night Live routine about living in Alaska.  It was pretty funny, most of the time anyway and -- support the local arts!  The Denali Arts Center puts it on.

We both hope you all had a day to remember (in a good way!) with family and friends.  We miss all of you but feel blessed to be enjoying Alaska -- we think we were meant to live here and were born elsewhere by mistake!

Love to all.

Christmas Eve in Talkeetna

An invigorating snowshoe this morning when it finally got light about 10:30 - but it was still 10 below 0!  We could see Denali in the background of these pictures very clearly, but you can't see it as well!  The Alaska Range is a beautiful view from here, and the light was just striking the mountains as the sun was rising.

Then we headed home -- to the Munchin Moose Cabin - to get warm.  It was still 6 below when we finished.  

Sooo . . . even after lunch next to the heater, we were still cold!  Back to bed to read and get warmed up there! 

And then back out for the afternoon ski, as tempting as it was to stay inside . . .  diagonal skiing today (or classical).  It was a beautiful day with sunny skies and all of the way up to about 4 degrees when we left!  

Pictures are chosen for when I feel as though I can take my hands out of my mittens to hold the camera and point and shoot without having them completely freeze!

Happy Holidays to everyone - may everyone feel as blessed on Christmas Eve as we do -- even without the friends and family with us -- we're all sharing the same planet!