Springtime

It's springtime in Alaska... Time to rejoice that you only need 2 layers of clothing when you leave the house.

Time to break out the warm* weather gear. And after a long bike journey around the cul-de-sac, you can kick back and relax in a pink princess swimsuit at your own personal mini-spa.





Life is good.

*relatively speaking (45 degrees is warm compared to -20)

Update...

Just sitting around watching a little TV. Doing a little web surfing.

Alicia and I went to the big Anchorage library after work today. I got a new book on CD and some cake decorating books. She got the Tinkerbell movie on DVD and a few storybooks for bedtime story time.

We stopped by the Lucky Wishbone on our way out of Anchorage and picked up some fried chicken and milkshakes.

Tess volunteered at the Honors Graduation this evening. Anyone with a GPA of 3.5 or better is honored at that special ceremony. Next year will be her turn for that... This year she just helped with the ceremony. She has to do a certain number of volunteer hours as part of her membership in the National Honor Society.

Stephen went to a training workshop at the Harley shop this evening to learn how to be a Road Captain when they do group rides. He got a patch that says "Road Captain" so I guess he passed!

Just Enough

It's the perfect time of year to live in Alaska. The sun stays up long enough for you to work a full 8-hour day and still have a few hours of daylight in which you can do something amusing outdoors.

The winter has too little daylight and the summer has too much for proper sleep schedules and productivity. But the transitional seasons of Spring and Fall each contain a period of "just enough" daylight. And this is it.

Those seasons are known more prevalently in Alaska as Breakup and Freeze Up. The snow and ice are melting rapidly from the yard and the surrounding hillsides. Soon there'll just be little chunks of leftover snow hiding in shady spots behind trees or beneath shrubs.

One morning we'll wake up and the trees on the hillsides will have taken on the light green glow of springtime. Right now, all is brown in the world. Trees are bare, and the snow that still remains on the ground is mixed with dirt and road grime. But soon things will be green and bright.

For the time being, I'll be making the most of the "just enough" daylight.

Cake Fun

One super cute cake....



PLUS




10 super cute twirly gum paste candles




EQUALS





One REALLY FUN Crazy Birthday Cake!






This was my latest confectionary creation. I made it for the 10 year old daughter of our friend who did our taxes for free! She does taxes for a living. And by having her do ours, she came up with a far more appealing bottom line than I'd come up with! So the LEAST I could do was whip up this nifty cake for her daughter...

Dreaming of a White Easter

Busy busy... as usual.

The sun stays out almost 15 hours a day. So we're getting into that time where you forget it's past your bedtime because the sun hasn't set yet.

I've bought some materials to make blackout shades for Alicia's bedroom. With our new daycare schedule, she has to go to bed at 7:30pm in order to get enough sleep and still leave the house by 6:45am. I'm thinking of shifting my work schedule so that we don't need to be in Anchorage until 8 or 8:30.

As you can see from the photos, we had a colorful, sugar-packed, Easter holiday. Alicia went to the Easter egg hunt at the church on Saturday and wore her new sundress, bonnet, and matching purse.

On Easter Sunday, she wore her "garden dress" with the Easter themed apron. Okay, it's not exactly "her" dress... It was made for Tess when she was that age. So the Easter apron has been worn a total of 2 times...

It's a good thing she wore the sundress the day before, because it snowed on Easter Sunday... all day. It was snowing when we got up, and it continued to snow into the late afternoon when we finally got around to having our outdoor egg hunt. Tess and Alicia hunted for eggs bundled up in coats.

Stephen was able to take his inaugural ride of the season on Saturday. The ice finally cleared off the road enough for him to get through. He'd been chipping away at the driveway each evening after work. Hopefully we don't get any more blizzards before Spring really arrives. Our temperatures are venturing into the 40s every day. Soon we won't even need to wear a coat!

Easter Picnic 2009

We had our 11th not-so Annual Easter Picnic on Sunday. In year's past we have always held this annual tradition on Palm Sunday.

Of course, the tradition began when we lived in balmy North Carolina. So Palm Sunday was almost always true "picnic weather". We'd invite all our young friends and their families. They'd come, lay out their blankets on the grass of a local park or playground and have a picnic lunch. We'd play games and hide eggs around the playground and grassy areas.

As we've moved to colder climes, the traditional Easter Picnic is still alive, but in a somewhat altered state. This is the first year we've actually held it since Alicia was born. It originally began when Tess was 2 years old.

With the colder climate, the Easter Picnic now involves sledding and tucking eggs into snowbanks.

We again invited all of our young friends and their families. We held it at the sled hill in Eagle River. There are a couple small pavilions there. But the only one with tables is perched atop the sled hill. So we hauled all the party gear to the top of the slope.

It was a true sledding party. The families all brought snow gear and sleds and spent much of the afternoon hopping onto the sleds and hurling themselves down the hill. There were a few collisions with boulders and pavilion posts. Alicia May bounced off the chain link fence, just missing sliding through the exit to the parking lot. She was stunned, but not hurt. And the experience did not dissuade her from sledding some more. The fact that she was handed a cupcake directly following her collision probably helped some.

The kids brought their favorite stuffed bunny and were led down the Bunny Trail on a Bunny Parade while some big people hid eggs in a nearby park area. Everyone had brought a dozen filled eggs to be hidden. So each child was able to find 12 eggs plus a special numbered egg. And one lucky hunter (Phoebe Collins) found the golden egg which won her a special Easter prize. The numbered eggs were redeemed in numerical order for a chance to pick a prize from the prize bin (bubbles, play-doh, candy, etc).

After the egg hunt, the grand finale was whacking open the egg-shaped pinata. In early Easter Picnics, we'd made the mistake of using a bunny shaped pinata. But the minute his head fell off due to blunt force trauma, several of the kids burst into tears. So ever since then, I've made a pinata using a balloon to resemble an Easter egg.

The weather was as good as could be expected. Bright blue sunny skies. Temperatures were in the high 30's. Perfect sledding weather. Just right for an Alaskan Easter Picnic.

Springtime at the Zoo

Tess, Alicia, and I went to the Alaska Zoo yesterday afternoon. They were having an Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt.

There were 20 numbered Easter eggs hidden in the animal exhibits. You had to write down on your scavenger hunt sheet where you found each numbered egg. When you turned in your completed sheet, you received a prize.

The weather was great for the zoo. A little chilly, but blue skies and sunny.

The Alaska Zoo is a great zoo for families with small children. It's very walkable and has just enough exhibits to sustain the average young child's attention span. There are about 30 different exhibits. All the animals at the zoo are native to the Alaska climate from arctic foxes to wolverines to polar bears.

The polar bears were doing an Easter egg hunt of their own. There were colored boiled eggs in their area. And there were egg shaped popsicles which had been made using a balloon as a mold.

We stopped at the mid-zoo coffee shop for lunch. It was a nice visit at the zoo.

Chugiak Prom 2009

Dress... check.
Shoes... check.
Nails done... check.
Hair up-do... check.
Make-up... check.
Corsage/boutonierre... check.
Dinner reservation... check.
Paparazzi photo shoot next to cool bear carving... check.

Michael and Tess are off to the prom. A night to remember. And in case they don't, we've got some lovely photos as proof.

Donald is taking a girl named Emily to the prom as well. Hopefully we get some photos of that from the prom photographer because he went straight from the tux rental shop to pick her up, bypassing the whole photo shoot at home scene.

Will Trade Volcano for Prom Gown

Who knew how much inconvenience a volcano could wreak?

Example (based on a true story):
You're a teenage girl living in Alaska. This means you're probably going to go to a prom or fancy dance at some point. But then, so are the 10,000 other teenage girls living in your local area. There are approximately 2 stores stocking prom dresses in the entire state of Alaska and one of those is a consignment shop... so it stocks dresses purchased at the other store which have already been worn at least once.

Not wanting to be a prom clone, you do what 9,825 other girls are doing in your area. You order your dress from Outside. Probably off Ebay.

Enter volcanic plume.

Unfortunately for you, the local volcano has chosen the weeks prior to your prom to begin erupting repeatedly. This means very few UPS or Fedex flights are getting through to Anchorage. Your dress will be safely stowed in Seattle until the ash plume dissipates. You'll hopefully have it in time for the 4th of July picnic. But even that might be optimistic.

Off to the consignment shop for you.