In Search of Snow

Anchorage hasn't had much snow yet this year.  We saw in the paper that Portage, which is a place we love to visit anyway, got 20 inches the other day, so on Saturday morning we packed up the dog and headed out to Portage to play in the snow.  

On the way we stopped at Beluga Point to check out the beautiful (as always) scenery.  If the water looks weird to you, it's because it's frozen.  THAT'S how cold it's been here the last few months.  

The water isn't a solid frozen sheet because the tides are so crazy in the Cook Inlet that the ice breaks up.

You couldn't tell until we stopped, but the water was moving really fast.  We took a video:

As we headed towards Girdwood (and dealt with all the ski resort traffic heading to Alyeska....I have to admit I was pretty jealous of them...what a day to go skiing! Even if the snow IS all manufactured right now), the ice in the inlet got really deep and looked like giant frozen waves:

Here's me playing with the camera taking pictures out the window.

The campground where we stayed back in August was totally closed up, so we headed straight to the Portage Glacier visitors' center, which was also closed, but parts of the parking lot were at least plowed.  We were alone except for one other couple who was there to cross country ski on the lake.  Now, I know it's PROBABLY frozen solid, but I'm not quite ready to go running around on a frozen lake.  Not yet anyway.

Look how deep the snow is! (And yes, Andy did wrap his face up like a mummy because it was -6 outside.  I took about 25 pictures and then had to put the camera away because my fingers were freezing even with gloves on and I had to put another pair of gloves on. Brr!

Here's the lake looking towards the glacier.  Everything is white!

A little bit different than how it looked this summer, huh?  Heres a picture from our camping trip:

The snow was so deep Ripley could barely run in it.  It went right up to his belly!

After we walked around by the lake a little, we headed back to the car for me to put on more layers and to grab the chuck it so we could play ball in the snow.  Ripley even got the hang of bounding in the snow:

Ripley liked chasing the ball as always, but he didn't like that we'd throw it and it would sink into 12 inches of snow.  He acted like it was a trick every time he couldn't find the ball.  Despite feeling perpetually betrayed by his owners, I think Ripley had a great time.

Look how handsome!

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  This was our first year on our own for the holiday and even though we missed all of our friends and family this year, we had a great day.  Since Andy and I both love to cook, we went all out, even though it was just the two of us.

First and foremost, the turkey.  This year, after watching about five million hours of the Food Network (oh cable, I'll never get rid of you again!), we decided to try Alton Brown's super special turkey recipe. The fact that it had five stars on their website and over 4,000 reviews definitely persuaded us.  Here's our bird with the secret weapon - the custom designed foil shield!

The shield protects the white meat while allowing the dark meat to cook perfectly.  This was, hands down, the best turkey I have ever had.  It was also super easy and didn't involve any fancy tricks aside from the foil.  You can get the recipe here: Alton Brown's Turkey Recipe.  If you plan on trying it, definitely watch the video to get the step by step on the foil shield.  Totally amazing.

On top of the turkey we had potatoes and gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and of course, Andy's secret family recipe green bean casserole.  If you want that recipe, you have to get in good with Andy's mom and maybe ply her with a little wine to get her to give it to you.  Or, as an easy alternative, you can check the back of the French's fried onion container.

I also, on Andy's request, baked a pumpkin pie!

I'm in a bit of a food coma right now as you might imagine, and I'm also trying to think of a thousand ways to repurpose the approximately 13 lbs we have left of the 14 lb turkey we bought.  We've also decided that the double oven, which we have at the rental, is a MUST HAVE for any future house.  Cooking the turkey and the sides at the same time was so convenient!

I hope everyone out there had a fantastic Thanksgiving.  This year we definitely have a lot to be thankful for.  It's amazing to think that a year ago we were just sort of kicking around the idea of moving to Alaska "someday" and that just a few months later, despite the time apart, the multiple moves, driving the ALCAN twice, the ups and downs with trying to sell our house, renting a house without seeing it first (bad idea), and all the other headaches that came with this whole process, we're actually HERE and we're starting to even feel settled.  Hopefully in the next six months or so we'll have a new house and we can start playing tour guide to all of our great friends and family! It was a tough decision to pack up and leave almost everything and everyone that we know and love, but we're really happy and know deep down that this was absolutely the right thing for us.  We're so happy and we wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!

And now I'll leave you with this picture, which is something I'm thankful for because it makes me smile:

Possibly the Best Video Ever Recorded

Before I show you said video, a little background.  As you know, it's pretty cold up here.  For some reason, we haven't had a lot of snow yet and so the sidewalks are covered with ice from the old snow that fell weeks ago.  Ripley has not been the greatest fan of the ice and, the last couple of days, he refuses to stand outside with all four of his paws touching the ground.  Ultimately we decided it was time to pick him up some shoes.  

Because I know my dog, I bought the cheapest ones I could find because Ripley hates anything weird happening to his feet.  I would say that these four booties were the best $12 I ever spent.  Not only because they keep his feet warm, but because of the amazing comic relief they provide.  

With that, I leave you with the best video in the world.  In the background you will hear me laughing uncontrollably because this is the only response to Ripley walking in his new shoes.  Andy is obviously a better parent to Ripley because he proclaims it to be the "saddest thing ever" while I continue to laugh. 

The video is a little dark and small - watching it in full screen helps a little.  Next weekend I'll take a video with our fancy camera instead of the phone and see if that's any better.  I need more of this on video anyway.  

To further shame Ripley, here's how he looks in his walking gear.  He's so embarrassed he won't even look at the camera.  

In non-dog shaming news, we got the rest of our stuff from Oregon on Wednesday!! We're ALL happy that the king bed is in place, especially Zeus:

Fro's mostly happy to have two rooms of our packed up stuff in the house.  Look where we found her this morning:

For some context, that is a queen mattress sitting along the wall balanced on the head, not the side, which is why she's only about a foot from the ceiling.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Ravens

Most of you know that Andy and I used to volunteer at a wildlife rescue place in Salem.  I think that is probably where I started really being interested in wild birds, though I did always like them (and yes, I know birdwatching is generally the favorite past time of people in their 80s, but I've never really pretended to be hip and cool anyway, so this shouldn't be a surprise to you).  

We ended up volunteering at the wildlife center after Andy found an injured crow and took it there to be fixed up.  While you all may know that Andy is a big animal lover, you might not know just how much he loves crows.  I just started to understand how unusual that is because he grew up in Alaska and they don't have crows here.  This is hard to believe if you're from pretty much anywhere else where crows are about as ubiquitous in parking lots as seagulls (I also have not seen a seagull here..weird).  I think I've finally figured out where the love of crows comes from for a kid from Alaska.  It's the ravens.  

In the summertime, you don't really see ravens in Anchorage.  I read in our bird book (yes, in addition to my super cool wildflower book, we got a bird book to help identify all the frequent visitors to our bird feeder) that the ravens spend the summer in the mountains.  During that part of the year, the town is full of magpies, which have sort of the personality of a crow or a jay (meaning they are kind of jerks and also very smart, which is unsettling when you're talking about wild birds), but they look really fancy.  They don't have magpies in Oregon and I love the ones we have here.  

Once it got cold, the ravens totally invaded town.  For those of you that haven't seen ravens, they look just like crows but about 3-4 times the size.  Like their smaller brothers they also frequent parking lots.  It's hard to describe just how interesting these animals are.  They make crazy sounds that sound like talking and they are obviously very smart and crafty.  They also walk a lot more than they fly and usually the walking looks more like adorable hopping.  Here's a video that Andy took of some ravens playing in the wind outside of his office.  You can clearly see that they're doing nothing more than gliding in the breeze.  What other birds play?? (sorry the videos are small)

Here's another video that Andy took of a raven just going to town on a plastic bag in a garbage can.  Seriously, I could watch them all day.  

My only prior experience with ravens was at the Tower of London where I'm pretty sure they're trained to eat the flesh of tourists - I found those ones to be really terrifying.  The Alaskan ravens are really fascinating, and are pretty much the only birds that the cats see out the window and they don't make the "let me out so I can eat that bird!" sound at (I think because the cats know the ravens would probably fight back).  So yeah, ravens are pretty great.

A Busy Week

It's been a pretty busy week up here in Naylorland, and the week isn't even over yet!

On Tuesday morning we woke up to a pretty decent amount of snow.  Since the weatherman, who we affectionately call "Ricky Bobby" because he has two first names and we can't remember what they are, isn't forecasting any temps in the foreseeable future over 32 degrees, it looks like winter has officially arrived in Anchorage and the snow is here to stay.

The good news is that I haven't killed anyone and am starting to learn how to drive in the snow and ice.  The bad news is that everyone in Anchorage is still talking on their cell phones while they drive and we studded-tire-having-people seem to be in the minority up here.  I guess Alaskans aren't very risk adverse, which is probably why our car insurance is officially a million dollars a year now.

I also discovered a new "alaskan" thing this week...school skating rinks!

That's a super attractive (and blurry) picture of me geeking out on the ice rink at Andy's old junior high, which is where we take Ripley to play ball.  In the summer, it's a sport court with basketball hoops.  For some reason I never really noticed the little walls on the side.  The schools in town all seem to have these things and they just dump water in them and let the kids play hockey outside all winter.  This is definitely NOT a thing in Oregon and Washington. Also, I'm really proud of myself for not falling down while walking on the rink.  Go me.  

On Tuesday, Andy got sworn into the Alaska Bar! Good job Andy! And good job court reporter for taking a bunch of awkward cell phone pictures of the occasion for me to use to embarrass him with on the blog!

Tuesday night was also our anniversary! I feel like we just got married yesterday, but it's already been two years! We celebrated with dinner out at Simon and Seafort's, which is probably the fanciest place in town...meaning you wear nice jeans.  We got a nice table by the window and they gave us free dessert! I had halibut cheeks and Andy had an amazing steak.  If we were millionaires we'd eat there more often.  I don't have any pictures from dinner, so here's a nice picture of us from the wedding two years ago:

Sorry you have to look at a picture of us kissing,
 but it's one of my favorite wedding pictures and since I run the blog, I pick the pictures!

This week was also our favorite holiday - Halloween!! We stocked up on candy, but didn't get many trick or treaters.  The ones we did get were pretty dedicated since it was only 12 degrees outside and there was snow on the ground.  Most costumes were either obscured by snow suits or totally ruined by the addition of warm weather clothing - the princess with a sweatshirt and jeans under her dress was particularly depressing.  Andy also scared a small child with his pumpkin, which was really sad.  Here were our pumpkins this year:

Fun fact: in Alaska, don't buy your pumpkins early and keep them on the porch.  When we brought ours in to thaw and subsequently carve, they totally liquified in the laundry room.  We had to make a second run to freddy's to buy new pumpkins which was especially annoying because they are SIXTY CENTS A POUND here.  We need to find a pumpkin patch...or start up a business venture exporting them ourselves from Oregon where they are basically free.

Random note - I just discovered Andy is a total pumpkin face recycler.  I just found this picture on the computer of pumpkins we carved in 2008:

IS THAT NOT THE SAME PUMPKIN?  Also, notice I always do nice ones and he always does scary ones.  This should tell you something.

Happy Halloween everyone! Have a great weekend!