Happy Anniversary and Happy Halloween!

It's the most wonderful time of the year for the Naylors!

Yesterday was our third anniversary! We kept it low key and went out to a nice dinner in town, but first Andy surprised me at work with some beautiful flowers.  What a nice husband!

Now onto Andy's favorite day of the year - Halloween! Since this time last year we had not been reunited with our Halloween decorations, we went all out this year.

Our house has looked like this for a month.

Here are some closeups:

The pumpkins.  We slacked and did these in the last day, but I think they turned out okay.  Can you tell the two little ones are afraid of the big one?

These are our ghost lights.  I love them.

And over the door we have spider icicle lights.  These are the only acceptable spiders around my house.

Despite our awesome efforts, we have only had three trick or treaters and it's already 7:15 (and it's been dark for quite awhile...) I think all the kids went to trick or treat in the mall, which is weird because this is one of the warmest Halloweens in recent history - last year it was like 10 degrees out and there was snow on the ground.  Today it's in the 40s!  Oh well.

Now we're off to snuggle up with the animals by the fire and watch the Nightmare Before Christmas, which is both a Halloween and Christmas movie.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Prost!

On Saturday night we headed out to a local Oktoberfest celebration with some friends. I didn't really know what to expect except that, of the many many Oktoberfests around Anchorage (hey, when the weather gets colder, people like to drink), this one was put on by the German Club and was the "most authentic." Sold!

Having been to the "real" Oktoberfest, I have to say that there were many authentic elements to this one (which was celebrating its 47th year!)

Long tables, lots of blue and white.  Check!

Beer in steins.  Check! (They had full liter and half-liter.  We purchased half-liters, so that my full liter Hofbrau stein which I borrowed in 2001 and now have on permanent loan from the brewery in Munich could have a little friend.)

Polka band and people in lederhosen and dirndln.  Check!

These adorable little children played the bells.  They were so good!

And these guys did a choreographed dance with a wooden bench and a girl in a dirndl who did about as much choreography as the wooden bench.

We enjoyed the beer immensely (it was actually Spaten, despite all of the steins being from Hofbrau).
The food was really good, too.  They had schnitzel, two kinds of wurst (including weisswurst, ugh!), sauerkraut, potato salad, and of course, giant pretzels.  Side note: have you ever noticed that most German food is generally a shade of beige?  I think that means it's extra-nutritious.

Ann's brother Lee joined us.  He just moved back up to Alaska after going to college and law school in Montana, and now works at the federal courthouse right down the street from Ann and me.

Lee bought Ann a tiny German hat.

Here's Lee's friend Dave.  His beard is epic.

The kids call pictures like this a "selfie."  How do teenage girls take pictures one handed with their cell phones?  I had to have Andy push the button while I held the phone.  We're amateurs.

Our friend Jen, who is also our vet, came out with us too.  I didn't get a picture of her, which she's probably happy about.

Eventually everyone had enough beer to hit the dance floor and do the chicken dance.  Even Steve!

Here's Andy demonstrating the moves.  Beak:

Wings:

Tail feathers (he's shaking it so enthusiastically, he's blurry):

The final step is clapping, which I didn't photograph, but you can probably use your imagination.

We ended up shutting the place down and staying out WAY past our usual bedtimes.  We had a fantastic night full of great friends, great food, and great entertainment, most of which was provided by Ann towards the end of the night and which Andy even has captured on video, but I will not share with you because I want her to keep being my friend.  :)

Happy Sunday everyone!

Ripley's Important Life Lesson...

...not all the creatures want to be your friend.

But before I get to how Ripley came to learn this important life lesson, I wanted to share some recent pictures we've taken from this beautiful fall of ours.  Amazing.

This was taken off the back deck the other night.  Pretty much every night has looked like this lately. Keep it coming, nature!

The birds are coming back and we're putting out a handful of seeds to feed them while we still have to watch out for bears.  This one's a nuthatch - I love these guys.

This is a little woodpecker that's been coming by lately to snack on the seeds and peck our house/drive the cats crazy.

Speaking of driving the cats crazy...

The squirrels have also discovered the feeder!  The cats haven't seen a squirrel up close since approximately 2007 because we didn't have them at our old house in Salem or the rental up here. They. Love. Squirrels.

Zeus spent a good 10 minutes trying to will himself THROUGH the window.  He got three feet on the windowsill which is pretty impressive.

Friday was gorgeous.  We drove up to Flattop and walked around a little to enjoy the sunshine:

Can you see the paraglider?

It kind of looks like Andy's standing in front of a painting.  

The moose have been out. Everywhere. In full force.  More on that later.  These tourists are demonstrating appropriate moose viewing distance, which we should have noted.  Again, more on that later.

As we came around blueberry hill, one of the paragliders (parasailers? what exactly is this man doing?) flew right over us.  What a day.

Saturday morning the sun was out again and we headed out to Kincaid Park for something a little different.  We immediately saw moose.  Everywhere.

He has lopsided antlers...

Fall is moose mating season.  This is also when the males fight each other for the females.  We didn't see it, but walking around Kincaid Park you can actually HEAR them crashing into each other.  The sound is very difficult to describe... like gunfire? kind of? but quieter.  Either way, it was really cool.

We strolled around some of our favorite trails and took pictures.  It was a great day:

While I was taking pictures of the lake, I got photobombed by a bald eagle.  I didn't mind.

We typically let Ripley stay off leash in Kincaid Park because even though there's tons of moose, there's also a lot of people around doing noisy things (biking, talking, running) and he generally ignores moose completely anyway.  Until yesterday.

At one point Ripley got out of sight for a brief moment.  We almost immediately heard a large crashing sound in the brush ahead of us and Ripley came darting out of the woods.  We quickly realized that he got WAY TOO CLOSE to a lady moose and her calf, causing her to charge him, and the sound was her clomping through the trees.  When he got back to us he laid on his back submissively and acted really sad.  Thankfully he was not hurt, but we learned our lesson - no more off leash at Kincaid!

Because of how the trail was situated, we actually had to walk right by the offending moose and her calf.  She didn't charge us or anything, but she was pretty pissed off.  Sorry moose!

I didn't get a very good picture because I was too busy peeing my pants. 

On the way out we saw one last moose being a cliche and walking around on the road.   The crappy tourist shops in Anchorage have about 20 variations of this exact scene on a postcard that says "ALASKAN TRAFFIC JAM."  Clever.

Eventually Mr. Moose (who was ginormous, if you can't tell from the pictures) made his way to the bike path, which is much better for the moose, but terrifying for the bikers.