Ghost Story

Alicia is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. If someone flushes a toilet and she hears the water running through pipes "somewhere", she gets startled. Finding a stray hair touching her skin is enough to cause her to completely freak out.

So when she told me she wanted to go into the haunted house at the Chugiak Elementary School Halloween Carnival, I had some doubts.

Several 3rd grade girls, dressed up as various princesses and storybook characters were in the hall outside the haunted house in full debate with their mothers as to whether or not they wanted to try entering the room of doom. Alicia pushed past them, handed her 3 tickets to the door keeper and ducked inside.

She has a habit of running ahead. As it turns out, this isn't so wise in the confines of a haunted house. I tried to catch up with her in the darkened entry hall. But I wasn't moving quite fast enough to get to her before a high school student dressed up like a mummy leaped out from under a low-lying elementary school table and yelled, "boo!". Alicia let out the perfect, terrified scream while jumping at least 2 feet off the floor. She immediately burst into tears.

The mummy felt so bad she pulled off some of her wraps to assure Alicia that she wasn't really that scary. Too late...

Alicia had bolted back through the dark entryway and out the door, flying past the indecisive 3rd graders and settling their debate.

Getting Back on Photographic Track

I recently got a new laptop as my old desktop was almost obselete. Unfortunately, my photo editing software was as old as the computer and would not function on the new laptop.

So, I got a newer version of the software (Photoshop Elements) today. Here are a couple of attempts to do quirky things to photos with the new software. Both of these photos are from the Bear Paw festival this past July. Alicia loves to pounce on any pageant princess she sees and give them a hug.

Today, Alicia, Stephen and I went to the Trick or Treat Town in Anchorage. Alicia's hip hop/jazz class danced on the stage there after we'd gathered some candy. We saw a teen girl dressed up as a beauty queen and Alicia tried to run over to her for a hug, but I convinced her that it was just her halloween costume and she wasn't a "real" princess.

Tess babysat for our pals the Reiters who have twin boys age 1. Babsy went with a friend from school to their family's cabin for the weekend.

Hitting the Beach in Alaska

Alicia and I took Nana to the beach for the past couple of days. We drove down to Homer on Sunday afternoon and stayed at the Driftwood Inn. We had a great room with a double bed and a king size bed and a private bathroom. The lodging has a common living room and kitchen space shared by 5 rooms. But as it turned out, we were the only ones in the place, so we had it all to ourselves.

We spent some time cruising the beach, searching for shells and pretty stones. Alicia loves the beach for this reason! We have a bucket full of rocks and shells to show for our efforts.

Sunday evening, we drove out to the end of the Spit to have dinner at the Lands End Resort. Mom got a seafood platter and was very pleased with it.

On our way back to Anchorage today, we swung south towards Seward to stop by the Exit Glacier. Alicia took a nice photo of me and Mom in front of the glacier.

Mom at Hatcher Pass

I took the day off from work to spend the day with Mom. We drove north to Wasilla and Hatcher Pass.

Mom wanted to see where Sarah Palin lives. So we drove by her house on our way up to Hatcher Pass.

The weather was very cloudy when we left the house. I had thought it was supposed to be a bright, clear day. So I was a little disappointed to find that the clouds were sitting so close to the ground and we couldn't see a thing!

But up in the Pass, we got above the clouds and broke into magnificent views of craggy mountain tops and clear blue skies.

After taking in the views at Hatcher Pass, we stopped by the Walmart in Wasilla to pick up a few things on our way back to the house.

Welcome Back to Alaska, Mom!

We've been having a nice time visiting with Mom. She hasn't set foot in Alaska since 1955, I think. So it's been a while!

She arrived very early on Thursday morning. She was scheduled to arrive late Wednesday evening (10pm). But some rearrangements of her flights sent her on a time consuming detour through Texas. So she didn't arrive until 2am our time (6am her time!).

After taking a day or so to recuperate from her journey, we've had some fun. She went to one of Tess's very last flag football games. She and I went to a nice craft bazaar on Elmendorf Air Force Base. And we took her to the Arctic Roadrunner for a great burger.

I got she and I tickets to the final performance of Lion King at the Anchorage Performing Arts Center. The show was this afternoon. We headed straight there after an enjoyable church service in Eagle River.

The show was phenomenal. Our seats were great. Mom loved it. The sets, the costumes, the music... it was all just amazing! I knew she'd love it and I was happy I was able to get her to the show to see it. All the performances in the final week were sold out.

This evening she spent some time in front of the woodstove with a crackling fire. I let her check her email and play a few games of Free Cell. Then we took a dip in the hot tub. Apparently she hasn't been able to take a bath in a couple years since she had her knee replaced. So the hot tub was great.

She's been having tea with Alicia each evening. She makes Alicia "calico tea" (which is mostly milk). They color together in Alicia's coloring books.

Overall, it's been a great visit so far.

Summer Vacation 2009

Okay, so I FINALLY got around to resizing and posting the photos from our Summer Vacation into an album on Facebook.

Here's the link to the Ohio portion of our journey:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112349&id=523908158&l=b57e89c108

Here are some photos of our time at the Virginia house near Lynchburg:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112360&id=523908158&l=867ea33937

And here are the photos from the Virginia Beach:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112361&id=523908158&l=7653f24e81

Sorry it took me so long!

Flag Football

Chugiak emerged victorious this evening in their final regular season game. They played the previously undefeated Dimond. It was a great feeling when the final play was made and the score was 31-20 in our favor.