Columbine

I found this lovely flower in our backyard clinging to the top of the bluff near the shed. It's the only one I could see.

I tried to look it up in our Alaska Nature book, but couldn't find a purple flower like it. I asked a friend at work and she told me it is columbine. But generally they are orange in this area. So that's probably why I couldn't find it in my book.

Anyway, I think it's beautiful. The latin name is Aquilegia vulgaris.

In other news, we're preparing to fly south to San Diego this weekend. I've got a conference all next week and the family is coming along for a fun vacation in sunny southern California.

Naughty Bear

We had a hungry visitor last night. But don't worry, they went away satisfied...

The naughty bear opened this feeder with one clawed swipe. You can see the scratch mark on the roof.

The only feeder he or she didn't mess with was the one already emptied by the local squirrel.

Summer Visitors: Kate & Ray

Here are a few photos from Kate & Ray's visit so far. We hiked 3.3 miles to the US Forest Service's Barber Cabin in the Chugach National Forest. The cabin sits on the edge of Lower Russian Lake just south of Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula.


The weather was a little wet, but we just used rain ponchos and other plastic covering devices and set off down the trail.


The trail is pretty good. Sufficiently wide and low grade to accommodate a wheelchair and a double stroller. We made good use of the wheeled vehicles to load much of the heavy items into the cabin.










We used the rowboat at the cabin to explore Lower Russian Lake. The weather on the second day cleared up quite a bit.











It stayed clear for the following day when we took a Kenai Fjords National Park boat tour to the Northwestern Glacier. We stayed at the Seward Military Resort in Seward.

The boat tour aboard the Greatland was a nine hour tour. We saw stellar sealions, humpback whales, a sea otter, lots of puffins and murres as well as other sea birds. It was a beautiful day and a very nice trip.

Visitors and Dancing Girls

Sissy will be returning home late tomorrow night. And she's bringing Aunt Katie and Uncle Ray with her from Florida.

Stephen and I have been hard at work trying to make the house "guest-worthy". We've constructed a ramp to allow Katie to get from the front foyer to their sleeping quarters, aka the family room. Still need to add some finishing touches, like non-skid stair treads. The ramp's a little steep, not quite up to ADA standards. But it'll beat mudding it around the steep cliff in the back yard to reach the private back entrance.

Alicia is wearing her new, lovely pink dress to daycare today. She thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread. Nothing pleases her more than a fancy dress to wear. You may question the logic of sending her to daycare in it, where muddy sand boxes and finger paints prevail. But she was desperate to wear it and I only paid 75 cents for it at a yard sale. I'm sure she got that value of enjoyment out of it by just seeing it hanging in her closet.

Alicia did a great job at her dance show at the Bear Paw Festival. You can see she looks so happy and cute in her little dance costume. It was a nice way to round out our Bear Paw experience.

Her next dance event will be at the Alaska State Fair next month.

Midnight Visitor

We were sitting in the family room (hot tub room) downstairs watching a late movie after our Bear Paw excursion. Noting some movement, I glanced out the window under the deck and saw what looked like a large horses rump.

This "horse" had LONG spindly legs and new antler growth.

It was about 11:30pm, but still light enough to see him clearly. Of course, he was only about 8 feet from the window.

He wandered around to the front yard as I scrambled to locate the camera in a jacket pocket. He spent a little time playing with Alicia's leftover 4th of July games in the yard. He nibbled on a tree a little before noticing me standing in the picture window with a camera.

He's obviously not a fan of the papparazzi, so he skipped off down the driveway. But maybe he'll come back for another late night visit.

BEAR PAW FESTIVAL

It's Bear Paw Festival weekend here in Eagle River, Alaska! We've been waiting all year for the Bear Paw...

Just after Bear Paw last year, Alicia started begging to go back to the Bear Paw. Finally, I told her that we'd go to Bear Paw again when the trees turned green. At the time, it was autumn and all the trees were yellow.

So, all year, she's been examining the trees to determine when they might be turning green. We went through yellow, brown, white, brown, and then finally GREEN! They are now a nice deep green and we're living it up at the Bear Paw!

We went Friday evening after work and rode lots of our favorite rides... including "you know who!" And we ate lots of yummy food. We all shared an order of fried halibut and corn fritters. Alicia had a sack of pink cotton candy. I had a caramel apple... you get the idea.

Saturday morning was the big parade. Alicia rode on the dance studio float. This was her first parade in which she participated. She was a little unsure about riding the float. But I told her we'd find her a balloon after the parade, so that clinched the deal.

By the time the parade was over, she looked very sleepy. It was her normal nap time. So we found the balloon, ate a hotdog and then headed home to get our nap. We'll be returning to the festivities this evening when Daddy gets home from his AK Defense Force drill.

Sunday afternoon, Alicia and her dance class will be performing on the Bear Paw stage at 3:15pm. She can't wait to dance in the show!

Latest House Photos

Okay, so here are a few photos of the inside of the new house. We're slowly but surely getting all the boxes unpacked.

We had to add a few shelves here and there to store our things. We're using one room (which will eventually be the office) as the "box room".

Alicia's room is basically done. I installed those three white shelves on the wall to hold some of her toys and display items.


The upstairs living room has a "new" sectional sofa with 2 recliners and a sleeper. Little Bit has a designated end which she's allowed to lounge on. This pleases her very much as she's not been allowed on furniture in the past. The cat also enjoys perching on the back of the sofa and browsing the tree tops outside the window. The property slopes steeply down from the back of the house. It's almost like living in a treehouse, which is cool.

We also acquired a "new" 32-inch TV with Mom's housewarming monetary gift. Because we can't hook up the cable tv to it at this point, Alicia loves watching movies on it! We can get local channels on it with the normal antenna.

Celebrating the 4th in Alaska

Happy 3rd of July!

Around here, today's the DAY for the big celebration! The festivities begin this evening with kiddie games, live music and the beer tent. Then around midnight, the fireworks go off, first thing in the morning on the 4th!

Why not do this on the 4th of July? Because it doesn't get dark enough to see fireworks until midnight or so. And if we did the partying on the 4th, we wouldn't see the fireworks until the 5th!