The coolest thing

I got a tip from my boss that she saw baluga whales coming into town early this week. I remembered that the one and only time I've seen them was around Labor Day and I thought... maybe we should try to see them. My boss suggested we go at high tide since that's when she saw them.

My sister and I went home and looked at the tide tables and decided to go last night to try and whale watch. John, my sister and a friend and I loaded up and headed down the Turnagain Arm. We pulled over where one car was with binoculars...but couldn't really see anything. Looking down the highway we could see a bunch of people pulled off so we headed down there.

Sure enough - there they were. we stood watching the whales for about an hour. We didn't see a ton of them, and at one time we saw about 6 of them swim by one right after the other, but mostly it was looking for them a little further out.

Very cool - and well worth the trip!

Morning Excitement

I live in a neighborhood that some might find a little 'sketchy.' I normally don't feel threatened living here, and the only time I've ever been scared was when we had some crazy people living next to us that we worked hard to get rid of.

But this morning on my way to work, I called 911.

It's like this - I walked to work (I live 4 blocks away from work) and coming out of my driveway I saw a young guy walking down the main street we connect with. Well...I take that back, first I heard him yelling obsenities, and then I saw him. He looked at me and yelled "what are you looking at? I'm going f... somebody up." wow...so I felt a little threatened. I let him get way ahead of me, he's still yelling at no one, at himself at other people along the road, and I decided someone needs to get him off the street.

So that's when I called 911. Normally, I'm not squite so apt to call and might have just let it go. I run into questionable people now and then, but I felt threatened by this guy.

Needless to say, I was late to work...not so shocking considering how slowly I was walking to stay way behind this guy.

I'm wide awake - that's the good thing! :)

Weekend Fun Part 2

Jeni's here! And we're having a great time. We picked her up at the airport Saturday night. Sunday morning we went to church (which was a great sermon this week) and then went out to lunch and headed home.

We are watching John's parent's dogs this weekend, so we let all the critters out and packed some snacks and headed to Wasilla. We went kayaking on a lake out there - it was beautiful. The sun came out as if on que and we just floated around checking out different parts of the lake.

It had been a gloomy day so it was so great getting an hour or so of sun.

After the kayaking, we climbed the rock climbing tower. It's 35 feet. It didn't seem so tall...at least not at first. We got all geared up and John went first. He just flew up the wall - oh I thought, it's not so hard.


So then it was my turn..I climbed to the little window and then had some issues...I got stuck. I had to stay there and think for a while. But I made it to the top! :) It was so worth it. Belaying doing was very fun I recommend trying it to any one! The harness is so flattering...ha! It really just accentuates your fabulous fluffy parts!!!

Jeni went third and she did great too. She got a little stuck a the window as well, but made it to the top. Watching her belay was a riot. I laughed so hard...and then she watched the video we took and had good laugh too...it was great.

Weekend Fun Part 1

John and I rearranged our bedroom...big time. Those of you who have been to our house know that we had a really - and I mean really tall bed. We were both growing weary of how much space our huge bed took up in our room and tired of having to literally climb in and out of it every day...so we got to work.

We had a lot of stuff stored under our bed so it took a long time to unload all of the stuff and find places for it...and then we took the bed apart...yeah huge job. Above is Izzy checking out the situation as we cleaned things up and got ready for the main event.

We are currently borrowing a queen sized bed from John's parents to see if we can survive in a queen before we commit. I think we'll make it, and we'll get our own bed soon. I like it so much better - it's much more roomy and more like a bedroom. AND I can have my book on the nightstand next to me even! How cool is that?

So - here's the look so far. We'll probably move things around a bit more...and I'm not sure if we'll keep our current bread spread, etc. It's okay, but not it's HUGE on our little bed. As you can see Izzy approves.

Getting Excited

My sister Jeni is coming to see me for the next week or so and I cannot wait for her to get here. It's so great to have family visit and I love that she's willing to come all the way up here to hang out with us! :) I'm not sure what all we're going to do but I'm sure we'll find something to do - having a hiking buddy is going to be fab!

I have to brag for two seconds. I have the most incredible husband...for real. That's all. I'd like to say more but I'm fairly certain I'd really embarrass him.

I suppose I should get moving already...

BIG bummer

I thought it was too good to be true - my $100 was counterfeit. That's right - I found funny money...bummer! I hadn't really spent it in my head yet, so that's a good thing!

Bella and $100

John and I just wanted "Bella" a movie recommended to us. It was an incredible movie - I HIGHLY recommend it - to anyone. Clean, beautiful story, great acting...it was just an amazing story.

Also - I found a $100 bill today when I was walking the dogs. That was very exciting. I picked it up off of the street when I was picking up some trash this morning...pretty sweet, eh? I'm not even going to try and think of where it came from and whose it was...that takes too much imagination, or maybe not enough!

A crowd draws a crowd

Maybe it's because I have a BA in sociology...maybe it's because I analyze things too much...not really sure. Whatever the reason, I am fascinated by theories - I have a few of my own and I'm going to share one of them.

It's not like I made up "a crowd draws a crowd" but I have seen in proven many times. I have some good friends that I used to travel with and we liked to go to theme parks - I think we went to Disneyland twice and Magic Mountain once or something like that. Anyway...we would walk up to a line and there wouldn't be anyone there but as soon as all 8 (or however many of us there were) got in line it was like the skies opened up and dropped people from the heavens. The line would suddenly double or triple. We had so much fun on those trips...but I digress.

So I decided that maybe the crowd draws a crowd theory applies to more than just people. Maybe it applies to trash too. I live in a somewhat shady part of town, I don't really notice it, and am totally comfortable walking my dogs around my neighborhood, but others aren't so comfortable here. Anyway, there was a TON of trash on this one stretch that I walk most days so I decided I'd pick some of it up. I only picked up the big obvious things like Mc D's cups, Taco Bell nachos thrown out of a car, huge bottles of beer (empty of course), etc. I filled up a kitchen trash bag completely in three blocks. Wow.

This morning I walked to work on the same path and noticed that while there was still some small trash - that I missed and maybe some that has gotten there since I picked up - there were no big chunks. My theory is that the crowd of trash drew a crowd of more trash...I'll fill you in on if my theory holds or not - I'm sure everyone is just riveted at my discovery.

Encounters of the furry kind

Friday night we went hiking with our friends Tim and Rebecca and their children. We were planning to walk the Turnagain Trail from Potters Marsh side (at the RR section house) to McCue Creek. Great plan. We went to the section house side to park our cars and we were warned there was a mama black bear and her cubs in the parking lot. So up we went in our cars to check out the scene. Sure enough - there she was a very small bear and her babies were up a tree. The mama loped around a bit sat down and watched us, sniffed around some, pooped and then walked over to the tree and somehow summoned her babies down from the tree. The scurried down and the three of them went off into the woods. We got to watch them for maybe 20 minutes -I took pictures with my phone camera, but they mostly just look like dots in the distance and you can't even see the babies.

So we decided to start at the other end.

It took us about two hours to walk the trail and by the time we got back to the section house side we decided to not go down the path that would lead us to where the mama and her babies had been and went down the wider more used path instead. Great idea....in theory. It wasn't long before we saw her and the babies right on the trail! I was busy looking at all the debris she had dragged onto the trail and didn't see them until she'd already shoved her babies up a tree and was getting ready to climb herself.

We went ahead and headed the other way...not really into walking past a sow and her cubs if you knwo what I mean!

It was the coolest - we got to watch them for so long in the parking lot - and then ran into them at a relatively safe distance on the trail. That is the third time I have run into bears on that particular trail, so I wasn't too surprised, but I have never seen them that close for that long not in a zoo before. This year people have had a lot of bear meetings not nearly as 'fun' as mine, right now there are hunters trolling a trail where a brown bear with her two cubs has already mauled two people. It's been quite the summer for bear encounters.

sunshine and long lost friends

Yesterday started out pretty gloomy and then in cleared up into our sunniest summer day this year. I decided it was too nice to be at work, afterall - who knows when the next nice day is going to be, so I bugged out of work early.

I went home and mowed the lawns (LONG overdue that's a funny pun on so many levels, I kill me!) and then went inside to clean up a little. My friend Mel called and we hit the coastal trail for a little while. I was tight on time, but we made use of what time I did have and she biked while I bladed. I have been wanting to act like I was flying down this hill (if you are familiar with the trail, you know the hill coming down from Earthquake park) it's steep but not so steep that I'm scared, but steep enough that you pick up some good speed. I've been too embarassed / shy / whatever to put my arms out like I'm flying but i've often prayed that I would just take off...wouldn't that be a weird prayer for God to answer? But this time I just did it - I looked like an overstuffed bird coming down that hill, but I liked it so there!

I went home and got to making dinner, and my friend Kim whom I haven't seen in 15 years (we figured that out) came over for dinner with her son. Her husband is now stationed here and we found out the other was here through our moms who happened to run into each other. Weird. So here we are 15 years later...it was so good to reconnect with her - she's newer to the area so I decided we should go to the coastal trail again and her son loved it. Yesssss....I got another one hooked!

John came home just in time for dinner and Kim and I had tried a new recipe that thankfully worked out (chicked stuffed with apples and cheese - so good by the way).

what a nice night...i slept hard!

Oh my my my

What wonderful thing did I come home to after work? Well behaved dogs waiting with yummy chummy breath for me to take them on a walk.

nope.

Dogs who did this: So i'm looking around trying to find the rest of the RAW HAMBURGER container that one of the dogs apparently ATE. I can't find it anywhere, I'm beginning to wonder how in the world that is going to digest in their tummies. Was it going to kill them? No such luck. I found the rest of it in the living room chair...oh to have this stuff on camara.



For the record, I love P&H...they just drive me CRAZY sometimes!

Photos

Promised photos for all my readers of our fun weekend with family!

Here I am with Hannah our little niece and Pike our nephew. Hannah was really into Pike's dog tags, and Pike was really into getting some
loving...from anyone!







Here's Hannah and my MIL's dog Izzy. They are infatuated with each other. It was too funny- the first night Hannah was here, Izzy was trying so hard to herd her. Hannah puts up with a lot and let her kind of push her around the room. With a few little nudges now and then!

Family

I'll post some photos soon, but I thought it would be fun to tell that we had a little family get together this past weekend. John's mom had a birthday last week and to surprise her FIL and John and I decided to see if brother T, wife and daughter could come in from Juneau for the weekend.

They did - and we had a great time. We totally surprised John's mom and she seemed pleased to have her granddaughter here, and of course brother T and wife! It was fun to spend some time with them, and I hadn't yet met their sweet little girl (who is about to turn 1 how embarrassing that I just met her!) - so that was very fun. Seriously, I don't think I've ever met a better behaved child...I'm not just saying this because I'm the auntie...for real I'm not! :)

Pics of the weekend to follow...

We did it!

Well...we did it! My friend Rebecca and I walked the entire length of the coastal trail (9 miles) from Westchester Lagoon to Kincaid park...and BACK!

By about mile 15 we were both feeling the 'pain' but we pursued and proved to ourselves that we can do it. I remember one time when Rebecca, Deb and I walked to church (remember Deb?) and it seemed so far away - I think it was about 6 miles...

Anyway...not to brag, I'm just saying!