Earthquake!

Okay, so we had a 5.01 earthquake yesterday afternoon. Stephen says it lasted for at least 10 seconds, which is long by quake standards.

The problem is, I didn't even feel it! From the best I can figure, I must have been in the elevator of our 19 story office building for that very 10 seconds...

One of my colleagues came over to me after I arrived back at my cube and asked if I'd felt the earthquake. What earthquake?

Well darn. It's been a while since I felt a good shake. And there I was, dangling from a steel cable 10 stories up... oblivious to it all. Sheesh.

Carousel Completion!

You may be thinking that I've done nothing but gingerbread for the past 3 days. And, if so, you'd be right! Between baking gingerbread pieces and whipping up batch after batch of royal icing... I've started dreaming about gingerbread. I think I woke up Stephen last night with some vague dreamland type question about making gingerbread pieces...

But alas, it's all behind me now. All gingerbread for 2007 is complete! I am finally satisfied, if not downright pleased, with the Carousel and its yard area. Here's a photo of the somewhat barren surroundings.
And then here's the final version which will be driven all the way to the bank. :o) [Because that's where the display & competition is being held...]

I really like my fondant Frosty with his Necco shard "coal" eyes, dried mango nose and buttons and banana chip cap. And the Big Red Flyer sled is cool, too! I also like the way the sugar cone trees came out. I used a different icing technique on them than I've used in the past. Straight out of the Wilton Cake Decorating Yearbook from 1994. It came with the cake decorating kit I picked up at the Thrift Store for $4.50 a couple months ago.... lots of icing tips, icing bags, and how-to instructions. Pretty neat!

Gingerbread Report

I've made a little more progress on the Christmas Carousel, including this sweet bench made from icing. It's quite possible that my gingerbread project is complete. But it looks a little barren in the "yard" area. So, if inspiration strikes, I may add some more before carting it off to the Gingerbread display at the bank.

I did, however, already bring over the Gingerbread Train made by Alicia and her toddler class at her daycare. Seven of the twelve kids in her class were there to help with the finger-licking good construction project.

I wondered how this would go, trying to make gingerbread with 2-year-olds. But they did such a great job. Some of them have a definite creative streak which was cool to see. And others had a strong fancy for the sweet stuff...

One little fella had to give each candy a good lick before sticking it to the side of his train car piece.

I left them with some little gingerbread men to decorate and consume later this afternoon.

This Week in Photos...

Monday night was the Flag Football banquet... Finally! It kept being put off. The season ended well over a month ago. At any rate, I volunteered to order pizzas (42 of them) and to procure some of the coaches' gifts. I also made a little season scrapbook for Tess's coaches.

Tuesday was my office Thanksgiving feast. I brought a turkey breast which I roasted in the wee hours of the morning. Generally, I sign up to bring some sweet dessert item. But by the time the sheet made it to my cube, there was no one signed up to bring a "main course" and several in the sweet dessert section. So I brought turkey. It's good to step outside the comfort zone every now and then...


No photos of Wednesday... at least not in my camera. :o)

Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving. I got up bright and early and started making pies. We still miss the double oven situation we had in our Groton, NY house. It came in super handy on holidays...

Anyway, I baked a chocolate pecan and a pumpkin pie that morning so the oven would be available for turkey roasting. It turned out the turkey was still frozen and needed a good sink-soaking before it could be roasted. In the end, this only delayed our feast by a couple hours.

I discovered I had extra sweet potatoes after making Pam's yummy sweet potato casserole. So I whipped up another pie crust using Sandy's recipe from the best pie bakers in Berlin, NY and tossed a sweet potato pie into the oven.

All food came out scrumptious and we filled our thankful bellies.

On Friday, Tess, Alicia, & I went to Play It Again Sports in Anchorage where Santa found a nice snowboard package. Shhhh... don't tell Tess. If she's good, she'll find it under the pre-lit artificial fir tree on Christmas morning.

Then we went across the street to the Bear Tooth dinner theatre to watch a matinee of Hairspray. Good movie. We had our standard Bear Tooth fare of cheese quesadillas. And this time we reserved a booth in order to better contain our toddler. It worked out well.
We passed off Alicia to her daddy and Tess and I went to see the Nutcracker at the Anchorage Center for the Performing Arts. We had good seats and the ballet was wonderful. From where we were sitting in the mezzanine we could see the orchestra in their pit as well. It was a beautiful show and made me realize how much I missed going to the theatre.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving has been Gingerbread Day at our house for the past 7 years. This year, I made a Christmas carousel. It's not quite done yet. I still need to pick up a few more Christmas candies at the store after church this morning. I need to finish the roof and decorate the "yard" area. I'll try to remember to post a photo of the finished product here on the blog.


This photo is Alicia's perspective... :o)

I'll be making a gingerbread train with Alicia's 2-year-old class tomorrow (Monday). I'm going to bake up the gingerbread pieces this afternoon and make some icing so they can just decorate and help me put it together.

Both the carousel and the train will be entered into the Eagle River Gingerbread Contest for next weekend and on display at the First National Bank through the holiday season.

Here We Grow Again

Here's a news flash.
Check the date...
Baby sister is 38. :o)

I guess I am officially in my "late-30's"... Sigh.
Okay, that's enough dwelling on that.

We had a good day yesterday. After church, we went into Anchorage to go to the Holiday Craft Bazaar at the Egan Center. We went to that last year for my birthday as well.

I met Shannon Cartwright who is a children's books illustrator, among other things. She signed the 3 books we bought for Alicia May for Christmas. She does great work.

I bought Stephen his annual knife from a vendor who comes up from Homer, AK. This year we got a skinning knife with a mermaid (fossilized walrus bone) handle. Shhh... don't tell him, it's a Christmas gift.

I also got some awesome peanut brittle from Klondike Candies. Okay, we also got pecan brittle and macadamia brittle as well as some chocolate cashew clusters. Yum!

Then we headed over to JCPenney and got our family portrait made. Last year we made our own out in the snow. This is the first "formal" family portrait we've done since Alicia joined our brood.

We did the birthday lunch at the Golden Corral because the restaurant I'd wanted to try was closed for Sunday lunch. But the Golden Corral was good and easier to manage a toddler.

At home we did the cake and gifts thing once the digestion had made some progression. Tess & I played a board game called Huggermugger, which involves vocabulary. And Alicia May ran wild around the house, crying and antagonizing. I know I shouldn't, but I can't wait for her to outgrow this phase! She's a complete terror when she wants to be (which apparently is often!).

Case in point... it took about 3 attempts to achieve a good run down the front yard sled hill. In between the efforts, she was dragged back into the house and disrobed for throwing a tantrum for one reason or another. After which, she'd apologize "for crying" or "for being bad", etc and we'd start all over again.

By the way, I keep meaning to mention... We're heading up to the Chena Hot Springs in mid-December. On the way up, we'll be passing through North Pole... where the big guy lives. If anyone would like us to mail anything from there, let us know. At that time, we'll also be passing through Big Delta where Mom, Dad, and Susan lived in the early 50's... I'll try to take pics, but it'll probably be pretty dark when we pass through.

Lions, Giraffes, & Elephants, Oh My

Well, GIS Day was this past Wednesday. I coordinated a Map Gallery at work. You can see more about that at www.gisday.com if you check out the "Success Stories" and the "Cake Photos".


Today I'm headed to Alicia's daycare to do an activity for Geography Awareness Week (which always coincides with GIS Day). We'll be talking about Africa and the animals that live there. I got a book from the library called "Roar" which is about a little lion looking for someone to play with. Alicia May loves to ROAR. So I'm sure all her little cohorts will as well...

I also whipped up some Lion Cupcakes as a last ditch effort to win their affections. :o)

Snow, Glorious Snow!

We had a surprise snowfall over the weekend. It started Saturday morning and continued through Sunday evening. All in all, I'd say we got about 8 inches at the house.

This came as wonderful news to our Alicia May. She's been chomping at the bit to go sledding!

We went after church and her nap yesterday. I thought about taking her to Eagle River to sled on the nice hill near the playground. But it was about 2:30 by the time she woke up from her nap, so I didn't think she'd appreciate wasting valuable daylight hours trying to drive the 8 snow-covered miles to Eagle River. So we just went sledding in our sloped front yard.

It was probably for the best. As I said, the snow was unexpected (well, except for the fact that we live in Alaska and it's mid-November...). At any rate, despite the obvious fact that snow should always be expected around here at this time of year, there were clearly many folks who didn't plan accordingly to drive in this sort of precipitous event.

Stephen had drill in Wasilla on Saturday. He said the Glenn Highway was like a junkyard with cars, trucks, and SUV's just lined up in the median and snow banks along the road's edge. Even when he drove in to Eagle River last night to pick Donald up from work, there were many cars flipped over in the snow. According to the Anchorage Daily News, yesterday had a record number of accidents (146) and ditch-divers (86) in the Anchorage area.

You can see that story at www.adn.com/news/alaska/anchorage/story/9449004p-9360486c.html.

Iditarider Auction

The auction to ride on a dogsled for the first 11 miles (through Anchorage) in the 2008 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is underway... It ends January 18th. You can find it at http://www.iditarodauction.com/. Looks like they have 91 mushers registered to do the race this year, so far. The deadline to register with your dog team is November 30th.

That auction site gives you a brief bio of the mushers. I think it's interesting to see the wide range of folks who enter the race. You can't just wake up one morning and decide to be dragged 1100 miles across Alaska by a pack of dogs. From what I've heard, you must qualify to enter by having run at least a couple other long dogsled races.

Anyway, bidding starts at $500 to be an Iditarider. If any of you win a spot and need an igloo in which to crash while you're here... let us know!

Pilot Bread

This was my breakfast this morning... PBPB... Peanut Butter Pilot Bread. There was a great article in the Anchorage Daily News the other day about Alaskans and Pilot Bread. Here's the link: http://www.adn.com/life/taste/story/9433461p-9345620c.html. I hope it's still there when you go to read it.

One of my colleagues told me about Pilot Bread. He's an Alaska Native from southwest Alaska. I think this bread is mostly consumed in areas off the road system (the bush) where access to actual bread is spotty. But they do sell it at Walmart in Eagle River as well as the local grocery stores in the Anchorage area.

This morning I toasted it and spread it with butter and peanut butter. Yum!

Juneau GIS Conference

This was the group at the Southeast Alaska GIS Conference earlier this week. I was the self-designated, event photographer. I'm sending the Central Council all the photos I took. Of course, since I took all the photos, that means I'm not in any of them... Story of my life.

Most of the folks in these photos are either from the Tlingit or Haida tribes. This is how they dress. Just like every other American.

They drive the same cars we drive. They use the same cell phones we use. They have many of the same hobbies, professions, and interests as you and I.

Anyway, it was a good training session/conference... especially for the first time around.

As it turned out, it was good that I flew into Juneau on Sunday night because the snow on Monday caused all incoming flights to be diverted to Sitka. So I would have been stranded there until the weather cleared enough for a Juneau landing...

Juneau Snow

I flew into Juneau last night at about 9:30pm. I'm staying at the Silverbow Inn which is a nifty little inn with a bagel bakery downstairs. Free bagels and espresso beverages for breakfast. Yum!

Today I went to the GIS Conference for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (CCTHITA). Those are the main tribes in this southeast portion of Alaska. I gave my spiel just before lunch and listened to the other presenters for the rest of the day.

It was a good group with lots of friendly, interesting people. I learned some new things and met some nice folks. One of the other presenters was a girl from Santa Fe, NM with the Trust for Public Lands. She's originally from NC and we chatted for a while. I ended up running into her later this evening and we had dinner together at the Hangar Restaurant on the wharf. She goes to the same San Diego conference I go to every summer. So we plan to get together down there as well. Nice girl.

It started snowing this morning. This is their first snow this season. And it was unexpected. They don't generally get snow before late November or early December. It came down all day in big, picture-postcard flakes. Just like a snow globe. By the end of the work day, there was probably an inch or two on the ground. But I don't think it'll last. It was here long enough for everything to look white and beautiful.

Happy Birthday Stephen!

We celebrated Stephen's birthday today. We started out with gift-opening before church. This made us a little late for church, but it was the only time the whole family would all be together.

After church, Stephen, Donald, and Tess went to a Gun Show at the Lions Club. I attempted to get Alicia to take her nap by driving several miles up the Eagle River valley and back. But she wasn't falling for it this time. She didn't end up falling asleep until after we went out for a late lunch/early supper at Humpy's in downtown Anchorage.

That's the first time we'd ever been there and I'm sure we'll go again. We watched the Pats play the Colts on big screen TV's and ate some scrumptious halibut fish & chips and chicken fettucini. Good stuff! They brought over a splendid brownie sundae for Stephen's birthday dessert with 4 spoons. We'd dropped Donald off for work in Eagle River before heading to Anchorage.

In a few minutes, after we recuperate from the Humpy's meal, we'll dive in to the birthday cake and ice cream here at the house. (We'll wait till Alicia wakes up from her late nap!)

There's basically no snow or ice to be found on the ground here in our area of Alaska. The high mountains are covered, of course, but not the human habitations.... It's definitely supposed to have snowed and stayed by this time of year! We went to the zoo for Stephen's birthday last year and there was several inches of snow on the ground and coating the trees... Here's a reminiscent photo from that adventure...

All Hallow's Eve

We've done more than our share of candy-gathering this Halloween! After going to "Trick or Treat Town" in Anchorage on Saturday, we went to the church Harvest Festival on Sunday evening. That was fun with lots of games, candy, toys, hotdogs, cotton candy and popcorn.

Then of course we went trick or treating around town last night for actual Halloween night. The weather was much nicer this year than last. There was minimal snow on the ground and the temperature was up around 40 degrees... almost a heat wave!

Both Tess and Alicia made a good haul of candy. Alicia was really into it this year, much more than last when she was content to suck on the first Dum-Dum lollipop she got and stay warm in the van. This year she said "trick or treat" (admittedly, she's been receiving ample tutelage from Barney's Halloween video on how to "do" Halloween), and after each house she said, "okay, let's go to the next one". :o)

We've come up with a new plan this year for dealing with the surplus of candy... The girls each picked 20 pieces of candy from the pile. (Okay, we picked Alicia's for her.) Stephen also picked 20 pieces. They'll eat one piece a day which will last till Thanksgiving. We gave the rest of the candy to the Public Information Center at my building. They keep a bowl of candy for their patrons...

In other news, Stephen's birthday is Sunday. We'll be celebrating by going out to eat, as usual. Then I'll be flying to Juneau that evening for 3 days of GIS training. I'm presenting on Monday at a GIS conference for the Tlingit and Haida tribes of Alaska. Then I'm doing some training for our staff on Tuesday and Wednesday.