We had our first out of town visitors this weekend! Yay! We went to dinner with Kristine & Mark after they disembarked their Alaskan cruise and before they had to catch their flight back to SC. Thanks for visiting y'all!


In other news... we had a busy, productive weekend. Stephen finally got a functional vehicle which he adores! We spent a lot of time at the numerous truck dealers in Anchorage and Eagle River. It's amazing how much retail there is in Anchorage. I heard somewhere that we have one of the highest levels of retail per capita of any US city... I believe it too. We went to at least 7 car lots to browse before we finally bought this Dodge Ram 1500. We wanted something that might pull a trailer of ATV's or snowmachines, but that would also fit in the garage! This one is a 2004 with 17,000 miles on it. We got it for $20,300 (thanks to some hard-hitting bargaining, I like to think). It's in great shape with some nice perks.

In addition to truck picking, we also went berry picking a couple time up in Arctic Valley. This is between Anchorage and our home in Peters Creek and it is adjacent to the army base, Fort Richardson. Less trail hiking, better vistas, more berries. A great spot! We got enough berries to make a couple more batches of my spectacular blueberry muffins and also to freeze some. I've stopped offering muffins to the baby. She gets her fill of berries while we're still on the hillside.