Cookies

A close friend of mine, someone I work with, died suddenly last week of a heart attack. His funeral is tomorrow. Our whole office will be there, of course. I'm baking little shortbread squares to bring to the reception afterwards.

It's crazy how life throws in these curves. We can never know when our time will be up. It's so important to do everything we possibly can for as long as we can. Live life. Enjoy life. Be enjoyable in your life. Love your life... with all its ups and downs.

This past Sunday, our pastor's sermon included a bit about chocolate chip cookies. So, naturally, I paid close attention.

He said God's recipe for our lives is like the recipe for making chocolate chip cookies. On their own, some of the ingredients aren't all that pleasing to consume. But mixed together just right, they become something wonderful.

Lately, I've been sitting in my reading nook with a book called The Shack. Our church is doing a book club on it during October, so I'm getting a head start on reading it. In some ways, it's hard to read, but I suspect I will be altered and glad to have persisted in the end.

Licensed to Drive

After two arduous years of white-knuckle training... Tess successfully passed her road test and is now a licensed driver.
She took her driving test on Friday, Sept 26 in Palmer.

Look out world...

She's doing her first solo drive this evening. She took the van to go to the homecoming dance at Eagle River High School. It's a little nerve-racking to have her out there by herself. But at least I don't have to go pick her up at 11pm...

Earlier today she and her beau-hunk, Mike, took a 6-mile stroll from Mt. Baldy in Eagle River back to our neighborhood. There was enough snow up there for a brief snowball fight. Only in Alaska is it advisable to bring a firearm on a date. They saw plenty of bear scat, but thankfully no bears... Just a few ptarmigans. But to be on the safe side, they watched a video about being safe in bear country the other evening (at Mom's suggestion, of course).

Tess took my camera with her on the hike. The view is expansive from that high trail. In the photo of Tess's sneakers, that white rectangle in the distance is the roof of the Super Walmart in Eagle River.

New Job

Employment Update: As of mid-October, I will be working in a new position. I've taken a job with a private engineering firm here in Anchorage. My job will be to continue the development of their GIS. The company has offices in AK, MT, WA, WY, and AZ. So I will undoubtedly be spending some time in those locales during the course of my employment.

A new adventure...

Sometimes I break my life down into 5-year chunks. This current chunk from age 35-40 has been very active. Major events include:

• Had a baby.
• Moved from NY to VA
• Bought house in VA
• Moved from VA to AK (becoming landlords in the process)
• Bought house in AK
• Taking another job back in the private sector

There's still one year left in the 5-year chunk... Who knows what surprises are in store!

Oh, by the way. Tess also has just taken a new position. She has her first real job, now that she's 16. She was hired yesterday as the Executive Secretary of a local Oil & Gas company. :o) Okay, really, it's just one fella who owns a bunch of oil and gas wells around the country for whom she'll be organizing his office and managing his accounts. But the fabricated title sounds more impressive.

Autumn Splendor

It's autumn in Alaska.

That means... everything's yellow!

This first photo is of Bear Mountain across the street from our house.



If you look toward the entrance to our street, the top of the mountain in that direction is completely covered with fresh snow. It's coming! Alicia breaks into applause every time she sees the new snow on the mountain tops. She can't wait for it to make its way down to our level so we can play in it, go sledding, make snow angels, and eat it!





The trees in the yard are bright yellow and lovely.











Stephen started teaching Alicia how to hit a ball. She'll be a good athlete. She aspires to be a soccer player like her idol, Dora the Explorer. But she has a good arm, so I'm thinking she'll do well at something that involves more than footwork...

First Date

Our kids are made to wait till they are sixteen before they can go on any "one-on-one" dates. Tess hadn't been 16 for 48 hours before she'd scheduled her first date: going out to breakfast with her dude.

We tried to instill in her a sense of responsibility, with a slight overshadowing of knowledge that we're watching her every move.

I like to think she's grasping the concept.

Waiting for our first date to arrive...

Sweet 16 Party

Tess had her Sweet 16 party at the house last night. Here are a few photos from that lovely event.

We decided a Tower of Cupcakes would be perfect for this crowd. Half chocolate, half vanilla.

"It's my party... I can eat all the popcorn flavored Jelly Belly's out of the tub if I want to..."








Robin with the fruit kabobs sculpture.







Crazy girls + food + camera = fun photos.













Some chics from the Grid.... Flag football grid, that is.

Tess, Elles, & Bailey.

Sweet Sixteen

Guess who's Sweet 16 today...

Happy Birthday, Poopy!

Bit and Blueberries

Little Bit has a new email penpal. She's started her own email account. If you'd like to write to her, she's at LittleBit.theDog@yahoo.com.

She just had her photo shoot done this morning so she could send a recent picture to her penpal, Ben, who was her good buddy back when we lived in upstate NY.

Stephen said he saw tons of blueberries around where they were hunting. Next year we might take a family weekend and pick buckets and buckets of blueberries from that area.






On our own local blueberry hill the berries are not as plentiful. It's a popular hill as well, so it's difficult to pick a lot. But I took our out of town guests there last Thursday on their last day in town and we spent an hour picking 4 cups. Not bad.

Back from the Hunt

Stephen is home safe and sound. No moose, no bear, no backache!

They had a good trip. Beautiful scenery. Some good ideas on adjustments in planning they can make for next year's trip.

They came home a day early, figuring if they got a moose at this late date, they wouldn't have time to tend to it and get home by tomorrow.

Stephen's hunting partner took some photos, so I'll post some of those once I have them.

Perfect Timing

Okay, so this is the first year we're eligible for the Permanent Fund Dividend. Each year, every Alaskan who lived here from Jan 1-Dec 31 of the previous year (2007) can apply for a PFD check which is distributed in the early fall.

You apply from Jan 1-March 31. The amount of the check for this year's PFD has just been released.

And the total is..... drum roll please.......

$2069 per person.

Right... per person. So we'll get 5 slices of that pie.

But wait! There's more.... :o)

Because fuel is so dang expensive up here, and since the State has recently made a chunk of money off the whole oil gig, everyone eligible for a PFD will also be getting an additional $1200 rebate from the State's oil revenues to help with our fuel costs.

Do the math... Yes, that's $3269 for every eligible Alaskan.

I think I'd be bummed if we'd moved here on January 2, 2007! But there's always next year...

Fall Harvest

The time for harvesting meat for the winter is the same as the time for harvesting berries.

Stephen and his colleague, Jonathan, set out to harvest the meat in the form of a moose. Alicia and I are taking care of the berry harvesting.

Stephen was a little concerned about the size of his double-pack and the reliability of his bad back. They plan to hike in and find a campsite with all their gear. His pack weighed around 65-lbs.

They're bringing a canoe in which they hope to float much of the moose meat back down the river to the road. So that should work out okay. Hopefully, he made it to the campsite without throwing his back out. I won't know much till next Sunday when they're scheduled to return home.

Alicia and I have been harvesting both raspberries and blueberries. The raspberries are in our front yard. So we can pick those while wearing our favorite dress and ruby slippers.





















The blueberries are on a mountainside near Eagle River. We put more rugged clothing on for that excursion.

Alicia's blueberry picking skills are vastly improved since we moved here 2 years ago. She can now discern between blueberries and crow berries (which are black and less flavorful). She also doesn't consume more than she picks. She only ate a couple on the trail. And that's a good thing since the wet, chilly summer has not produced a very good blueberry crop.













Alicia had a good time at the birthday party on Sunday. Here she is with the little dolly quilt we made for her friend Hannah.