Greg's Birthday Weekend

SBFs Mindy and Paul came to get us Saturday afternoon. We stopped and picked up king crab legs for a dinner celebration in honor of Mindy's and Greg's birthdays. Headed on to their home to cook the dinner. I had made strawberry cake. They prepared steak, salad, boiled shrimp, and the crab legs. Needless to say, we had a delightful dinner. It was scrumptious! We hung there til midnight playing the new Wii games with the super sensitive remote. I rule.

Slept in on Sunday as would be expected of us. Jacque gained the prestigious BF status as she now has her car and drove us to the library and out to dinner. We ate at Twin Dragon so the birthday weekend barrage of calories continued. Sure was good, though. Got a shot of 2 moose across the street as they searched for food.

Today on Greg's actual birthday, he was at Campbell Creek Science Center for a work related meeting. Everyone enjoyed the yummy chocolate and vanilla birthday cakes provided for Greg and another birthday employee. The Science Center is located in Anchorage on part of the 730 acre Campbell tract of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. This is the place my class went on a field trip earlier this year. The Center hosts about 40,000 visitors each year. There are 12 miles of non-motorized use trails. You can see plenty of moose, bears, and a variety of other creatures.

Sunday, January 23

Friday night, as we were both too tired to cook, Greg ordered a pizza. He walked down the front steps and headed toward Pizza Hut. He was quickly stopped in his tracks by a huge moose that had taken up residence in front of our building. The moose wandered around and rested in the front of our building. I went down to take some pictures but we can't seem to get the hang of nighttime photography. Later, she wandered on across the street and we watched her tear up some trees in a neighboring parking lot.

The weekend started off with a nice Saturday- about 25 degrees, little sun, and no wind. It seemed like the perfect day to introduce our new friend, Jacque, to the bus system. We needed to show her how to get to Wal-Mart and the library. Bought a few things at WalMart. Greg took them back home while Jacque and I walked to the Mall at Sears. We looked around for a bit and then headed across the street to the Great Harvest Bread Company. Mmmmm. Jacque got this yummy Cinnamon Sugar Swirl bread and I picked up a cinnamon roll for tomorrow's breakfast. We met back up with Greg and had a most delightful dinner at Hula Hands. This place never lets us down. Everytime we've eaten there it has been excellent. Later that night we took a delightful stroll downtown. Jacque and I enjoyed dessert at the Cake Studio. We walked around for a bit and headed home.

We finally made it to the library on Sunday. Didn't do much walking today as it was cold and windy. The wind chill made it feel like 4 degrees. We took some pictures from Jacque's room. The view is awesome even on this cloudy day.

Cold Weekend

This weekend we spent most of our time trying to stay warm! The temps stayed in the single digits for the high and around 15 below 0 at night. We got out Saturday and walked with a new friend to the 5th Avenue Mall. Walked around inside the warm mall and just checked out the stores. After leaving the mall, we walked over to the Town Square near the Performing Arts Center to check out the ice sculptures. We took several hurried photos as the wind was blowing and it had gotten bitterly cold. Some of the sculptures are very detailed and elaborate. Some are real works of art.

This one is called "She's So Sweet" and has a little lady figure on top of an ice cream sundae. Interesting. Saturday night our friend, Christine, came to visit us. We just chatted and drank tea while catching up on all the latest.

Sunday, SBFs Mindy and Paul, brought us a dresser for our bedroom. This is a huge improvement over the cardboard boxes we'd been using. When they came over around 1, the temperature was still -11!! We went shopping and then hung out at their home for awhile. Mindy made some scrumptious sloppy joes and delicious cake. We played the Wii and tried to work off some of those calories. We are definitely out of practice at bowling but I still rule the tennis court! Tonight, I didn't even break anything!

Sunday, January 9th

Spent Friday night and part of Saturday morning trying to put things away in the new apartment. You never realize how much junk you have until you move. We did get most things put in place and finally have a feeling of home for the first time in a year. SBFs Mindy and Paul came over and we all went out to eat at Twin Dragon. Of course this being a buffet/Mongolian restaurant, we may have over indulged slightly (slightly being the key word). After we waddled to the car, they dropped us off at Freddie's. Here we attempted to walk off that heavy meal as we did a little shopping.

Little did we know, we would get a lot more walking than we had anticipated. We loaded up on new things for the apartment and a few groceries. We headed out to catch the bus back home in 10 degree weather. For the first time in the history of mankind, the number 3 bus was about 7 minutes early to our stop and..... we watched it rocket by us as we were walking toward the stop!

As luck would have it, this was the last bus back downtown. So we walked the approximately 2 miles back to the apartment. It really wasn't that bad, but we weren't as prepared as we usually are for cold walks. We did have to walk about 1/2 mile through the woods in the dark, no streetlights. Not scary- just kinda makes you become extra alert for moose. Got out today and took some pictures. As you can tell from the pictures, the dense freezing fog of the last few days makes all the trees glisten.

Remember the snow in a can that you sprayed on your Christmas trees? That is exactly what this reminds us of.

Ringing in the New Year

We left my Mom and Dad's home about 3 am (Alaska time) on December 30th to fly back to Anchorage after celebrating the holidays in Tennessee. Due to an unusually long flight from Seattle to Anchorage, we didn't arrive home until about 6:30 pm! We were both exhausted so we just ate dinner and went to bed.

The next day was spent moving all our belongings to our new condo with the help of SBF Paul. We greatly appreciated his help because we had amassed an alarming amount of belongings. Greg went out and got some delightful fried chicken from Freddie's. After dinner, I stood on the balcony of our new home and snapped some photos of the Fire and Ice Festival fireworks. This is named for the fireworks display and ice carving competition held in Town Square on New Year's Eve. So here are a few pictures of the fire, I'll post pictures later of the ice. Sunday afternoon we walked around the very large ice skating rink (also known as midtown Anchorage) to return library books and pick up a few household goods. Amazingly, we made it home unscathed. Forgetting the ice cleats today was a big mistake! The temps had gotten above freezing and melted the top layer of snow exposing the slippery layers of ice below. Tonight we walked over and took a few photos of the lights in front of the Anchorage Museum. It was a very pleasant evening stroll.