Life is Good

We are headed for the lake.  We've rented a little log cabin at Kelly Lake for the night.  It's looking like a lovely weekend weather-wise.  Beautiful blue skies, a few puffy white clouds, and temperatures in the 60's. 


Stephen's headed into Anchorage this morning to ride with the Alaska Vets Motorcycle Club as part of the ceremony for the Moving Wall (Vietnam Vet Memorial) which is currently on display here.  After that, he'll be joining us at the lake.

This past week has been full of new developments for both of us.  I became a private GIS consultant with a nice contract to continue working for my previous employer.  My new consulting business is called Aurora GIS LLC.  I'm looking forward to the new freedoms this opportunity will provide. 

Stephen has been making great efforts to renew his wastewater treatment operator certification.  He spends long hours studying in the morning so that he can take the certification tests offered by the State DEC.  He has acquired his Alaska Level II license and is now studying to take the Level III test.  In the meantime, he also took an expensive week-long driving class and got his CDL.  All of these efforts were aimed at going to work for the Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility (AWWU). 

Earlier this week, he finally had an interview with AWWU.  And, yesterday, he got a call offering him the job.  He's elated!  I'm elated too...  This is the first time he's taken the steps to move into a new position without me having to move him to a different state. 


So, a new day is dawning for both of us.  And, it's exciting to think of the possibilities!

Metlakatla Trip Report

We've had some gorgeous weather in Alaska these last few days.  Each summer, it typically gets above 70 degrees so rarely that you can count how often on one hand.  We've had about 3 days of 70+ degree weather just this week already! 

Stephen spent the week in Metlakatla, an Alaska Native village of the Tshimshian people on Annette Island in Southeast Alaska.  Annette Island is the only indian reservation in the State of Alaska, established as such in 1891.  All other Alaska Native peoples gained retribution from the US Federal Government via the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which formed 13 Native Corporations in 1972.  The corporation format for Native claims settlement is unique to Alaska and fascinating to me. 

But I digress.

Stephen was in Metlakatla for work.  He and one of his colleagues were doing some building inspections or something.  To get there, they first flew from Anchorage to Ketchikan via the "milk run".  This is the flight that makes several stops including Sitka, Juneau, and sometimes Petersburg and/or Wrangell before you make it to Ketchikan.  They stayed the night at a hotel in Ketchikan.  Then, the next morning, they flew in a small chartered plane from Ketchikan to Metlakatla.

They stayed in a B&B in the village for a couple nights.  This far surpasses sleeping on the floor of the school or some other building.  Then, on Friday, they flew back to Ketchikan, waited a few hours and then boarded the return "milk run" flight back to Anchorage.  He got home around 10:30 last night.

Every time he travels for work, he brings home some sort of souvenir for Alicia.  This time it was two ziploc bags full of shells, pretty rocks, and sea glass he'd gathered on the beaches of Annette Island.  I think we'll use glass jars and some sort of shelving to create a little display for her treasures.  She also has a collection of sea glass I gathered for her in Kodiak last year.  And she gathers stones herself on the beaches at Talkeetna, Homer, and wherever else we find ourselves.

I'll see what I can do to get some photos from his trip.

Sunshine & Raindrops

The sun rose this morning at 4:21am and will set tonight at 11:39pm.  We're closing in on the peak of the summer solstice!

On the other hand, next week we'll start losing daylight... Boooo!

We are making the most of it.  There are days, particularly on the weekends, when we're still tinkering on projects around the yard.  Stephen's been putting his windfall of new DeWalt tools he won just before Christmas to good use.  He made a frame to hold our porch swing.  And, we've been making decent progress on Alicia's playhouse. 

Admittedly, it's a little disconcerting to look at your watch only to discover it's already 9:30pm and you haven't started supper because you were doing something in the yard. 

This week, the rains have begun in earnest.  Given the record-setting snowfall we had this past winter, if the precipitation continues to ruin a perfectly good summer, I think we'll see a record-setting exodus of Alaskans who just can't take it any more.  And, you know what that means??  Lots of wonderful "moving-out-of-state" garage sales!

In the meantime, poor Alicia is spending this cold, wet week at an outdoor Girl Scout day camp.  I did buy her a new rainsuit, and she has good rain boots.  But still, she doesn't seem to be having a great time.  If she can make it through the week without becoming hypothermic, I'll be happy!

The rain doesn't seem to dampen her enthusiasm for soccer, though...  She's more than happy to run around the soccer field, dodging raindrops and scoring goals.  Go figure!

Alicia May's June July & August

We have settled into our summer schedule.  Alicia goes to day camp during the work day.  There are 13 weeks of summer for which I needed to find some form of day camp. 

She's attending the Eagle River Parks & Recreation Summer Camp program for 8 of those weeks.  (It's the least expensive at $160/week.)  For two weeks she'll be at Trailside Discovery Camp which is facilitated by the Alaska Center for the Environment at the Campbell Creek Science Center in Anchorage.  One week will be spent at Girl Scout Camp.  One week at her elementary school's Ram Camp which will offer some Spanish reinforcement as well.  And the last week will be at Camp Fire - Alaska's Si La Meo camp on the campus of Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage. 

I've discovered that our child care costs double in the summer months.  We pay anywhere from $160-$250/week for summer camps.  Luckily, she seems to be enjoying herself.  The ER Parks & Rec camp goes swimming twice a week, bike day every Wednesday, and a field trip each Friday.  So, it's certainly keeping her off the streets...

We've consolidated our "extracurricular" activities to the same 2 nights/week.  On Monday and Wednesday, she has soccer practice (which she loves!) and then swimming lessons.  Those are busy days.  But with the sun still shining till around 11pm, you don't notice that you should be done for the day by 8:30pm when we're leaving the pool.



Diving Into the Summer To-Do List

This summer will hopefully be one of many milestones for Alicia.  So many things have slipped by the wayside, that I feel like we've failed her in some ways.  But, we're going to check off a lot of boxes during our long summer days.

Some of the milestones include:

1. Ditching the training wheels

2. Learning to swim

3. Learning to tie our shoelaces well

4. Joining a soccer team

We've made some good progress already.  Earlier this week, Alicia and I spent our day off (Memorial Day) doing some bike shopping.  She picked out a brand new bike with no training wheels and a brand new helmet. 

Later that day, Alicia made a valiant attempt to learn to ride a 2-wheeled bike. Well, okay, maybe valiant isn't the word. But, progress was made at any rate. I keep telling her that she doesn't want to be the only kid in middle school that still needs training wheels. But she's not convinced. (She's only going into the 2nd grade, but still...) We have such a short bike riding window, that if we don't tackle the challenge early, the opportunity will slip away for another year.

Tess and I spent about an hour running alongside Alicia on her new bike as she tentatively pedaled around the school playground. We kept mainly to the grassy ballfield assuming a toppling was inevitable. We were not disappointed.

Both Tess and I discovered that there is only so long that you can jog along all stooped over.

Eventually, Alicia was able to pedal a short distance on her own.  We've returned to the school playground each evening to make a couple of practice runs.  She gets better every day! 

All summer long, Alicia is attending a day camp.  For 8 of the 13 weeks of summer break, she's at the Eagle River Parks & Recreation Day Camp.  Every Wednesday at that camp is Bike Day.  Everybody brings their bikes and rides around in a bike rodeo or takes a trail ride.  I think Alicia is pleased (albeit grudgingly so) to be done with the training wheels as none of the other kids in her age group use them anymore...

We've signed her up for private swimming lessons which are supposed to begin next week once the Chugiak Pool's renovations are complete and the pool reopens.  She's been on the waiting list for the general swim lessons for over 3 years.  I finally just arranged for her to have private lessons to get her some basic swimming skills before she graduates from high school.

In addition, Alicia has ventured into the world of team sports.  We've joined the Eagle River Soccer Club which meets twice a week to teach beginner soccer skills and have a little scrimmage.  At first, Alicia wasn't sure she wanted to do soccer.  She enjoyed buying the shin guards and new shorts.  But she's never been on a team of any sort, so she was unsure about that.  As it turned out, she loved it!  She had her first practice this week.  Three other kids on her team are former classmates of hers.  So, that was good.  She did well with learning to kick the ball around.  And, most importantly, she looked good!  ;o) 

Last weekend, we drove up to Denali National Park.  The HOG does a ride up there every Memorial Day Weekend.  We stayed in our same little tent cabin.  It's cozy and just right for the 3 of us.  The bathroom is in the little building right behind the cabin.  Regular toilet and running water in the sink.  Beats an outhouse, hands down!

For $38/night, this cabin is the best deal at Denali!

Over the course of the weekend, we saw a bull moose (near our cabin), a mama and baby moose, and a black bear.  All close enough to see clearly, but far enough away to be safe viewing!