Winter is Here!

Winter once again. Summer is a long distant memory...wait...did we even have summer?

Halloween 2010

Bryan and his friends had a Halloween party this year. Isn't he just too cute for words? Feet pajamas has been on his Christmas list for the last few years. Can check that one off the list now.

Meet Rory

Meet Rory Rachel Wells. Our newest and third granddaughter. I am so grateful to Steve and Moe for inviting me to come down to help out. I loved being there with them.

I had plenty of time to see all my family and some friends from the old Ivins 3rd Ward. It was great to spend some time with my grandchildren in Salt Lake. I kept busy playing with the grandchildren, watching Kaden's soccer game, attending his Primary Sacrament Mtg. presentation (he did a terrific job on his talk), making a Halloween dinner, and in general just hanging out.

I also had time to spend with my parents and see all my siblings except Sharon. Thanks to John, I even had a little dental work done.

One accomplishment I am most proud of is getting my pomegranates juiced and frozen (thanks Gilbert), packed and shipped home on the plane. We can go another year with jelly on our shelf. I even put some fruit in my carry on so that we can have us a little Dixie Salad for Thanksgiving this year.

I had a great visit to Utah, the weather was perfect. I soaked up the blue skies, fluffy clouds, the red hills and the green from the trees.
And now I am off to do some errands in this:

*I didn't post pics of my time with the kids out of respect to those with private blogs. But if you want to see the cutest grandchildren ever, you can take a look at their sites.

Seldovia in September

In September I went on a little two day jaunt with three friends from our ward to Seldovia. Usually when ladies get together for a getaway, shopping is involved, but considering that we live close to the largest "shopping mecca" in Alaska, that was not our main goal. We just wanted to do something so we picked a trip to Seldovia.

Seldovia is a small town of about 300 people and sits almost on the tip of the Kenai peninsula. The only way to get into Seldovia is by boat or plane. It is a quaint, pretty little town and the citizens take a lot of pride in it. Most of the people there are commercial fishermen. Seldovia is just large enough to support it's own school of close to 50 students - preschool through high school. This year there are no Seniors and just 3 Juniors. (We got this information from the preschool teacher at the local bar.)

Cherrie, Jodie, and Nancee. The bishop just told me he refers to us as the old ladies group. Ha! Ha! It really is definitely true in our ward as we are about the oldest ones in it.

In Homer looking across the bay towards Seldovia. That little bit of land is called the Homer Spit.

We spent the night at the Harbor Inn.

This ferry made two crossings each day when we went, that has since changed to three days a week, twice a day. You would really have to plan ahead if you needed anything more than the small grocery store offers. In fact someone on the ferry had just made the four hour trip from Anchorage where they had stocked up at Costco.


Dinner at the local Bar & Grill. We went the day after Labor Day which is just about a day too late to visit Seldovia. Nice because we were the only tourists in town, but not so nice when you need something to eat. By the time we landed and checked into our room, (6:00 p.m.) the only restaurant still open for business had closed for the day, the grocery store was closed and the tourist shops and other cafes, and such were closed for the season. Only the bar, with a sign advertising lunch was open. When we saw an elderly woman help her husband out of the car we felt it would be safe to go in and see if they sold anything besides drinks. Maybe popcorn or pretzels. Fortunately for us they keep prepackaged frozen sandwiches and hamburgers on hand.

The dock.

The Jack London Lollipop Park.

We went for a walk down the main street of Seldovia and met a number of these wooden sculptures. They hold an annual wood sculpture contest each year and the winners earn the honor of being on display in one of their many little parks that dot the main street.
Fishing cabins on the boardwalk.

Russian Orthodox Church with a padlock on the door. We tried to get a peek into the church, but the windows were too high.

It was nice to get to know these friends a little more. We are all in Alaska for a different reason. Jodie's husband is military and she has one year left here. Cherrie's husband manages the north slope operations for Conoco Phillips, and Nancee and her husband moved here 25 years ago for work. (I really, really hope that doesn't come true for us!) ***Oh, and we did find two quilt stores on our way here ... so we did get some shopping in!

It's autumn time, it's autumn time...the leaves are turning gold...

Fall in Alaska. We were almost too late taking pictures, they aren't quite as gold as they were a week ago.

If you click on the photo you can see the vibrant red of the salmon. Salmon make their way to the ocean and spend about 4 years there. Then they swim back to where they were born to spawn their own little ones. Once they have laid their own eggs they die. Sad, huh? Out of the 40,000 eggs laid from two fish only two survive other fish eating fish, and fishermen, to make back to spawn again.

A little friend we met on the trail. He stayed frozen like this as we walked closer and closer to him. Finally when we thought we could reach out and touch him, he flew up into the safety of a tall tree.

I wish we could have seen one from afar. Some of you might remember walking on this trail.


We woke up to a very cool 27 degrees this morning. We all are thinking it is just a little too cool too early in the year. It did warm up to 37 degrees. I guess I am adjusting because I thought it felt great when I went to the grocery store today. Just a tiny little nip in the air.

We had the most wonderful, glorious, beautiful fall. The sun decided to come out and play about mid August. Bryan's second day of school to be exact. A milestone like that is unlikely to be forgotten after the rainy, cloudy, down right yucky summer we had. It warmed up too, and yes, we were able to go outside without a jacket on. We kept trying to get out and try some of the trails around here while we had this good weather to enjoy, but a few things got in the way, like BYU football, Stake Conference, and general "to do" lists. We finally got out last Saturday and walked the small loop at the Eagle River Nature Center.

Sunday morning we woke up to snow flurries, for a minute we thought it was going to get serious, but fortunately it didn't. We are watching the mountains for termination dust. It will be a sad day when our fall weather comes to a close. It is fun to look out our front window and watch all the people walk up and down the street. Everyone is out taking advantage of every good day we have left.

Alaska State Fair

Fair time! The Alaska State Fair attracts people from all over the state. It is a topic of conversation everywhere. We joined some friends in the ward and went last weekend even though the gray clouds didn't look promising. It started sprinkling as we stood in line to get our tickets, but that did not put a damper on the fair goers. The fair grounds were packed with people out to check out the displays, entries, entertainment, food, and rides.

It always pays to be prepared for any kind of weather here. A little (or a lot) of rain is no excuse to stay home.

The famous large vegetable display.

Sitting by the 916 pound pumpkin and not my best hair day - but hey, it was raining - did I already mention that? Look at all the ribbons. The vegetable weigh in was held the following day and we were told a farmer was bringing in a 1200 pound pumpkin. Imagine how much bigger these could have been if the 31 days of rain had of been 31 days of sun. These big babies are started in greenhouses in April.

Rainbows

One question we asked people a lot was, "Why do you live here?" One common answer was "for the summers". That was the one thing I held onto during the long, dark days of winter. Summer here is supposed to be spectacular! Well, not this summer! We got a glimpse of what it could be like back in May, but by June, the sunny days were long gone. This year we broke a new record, 31 continuous days of RAIN. Since then we will have a break in the clouds for maybe a half a day, and if we are really lucky we might get a full day of sunshine, but the rain always comes back. It is a steady downpour as I type this. The trick here is taking the saying "there's a silver lining in every cloud" seriously. You have to look on the bright side of things or you could really get down in the dumps.

This is one of those silver linings. We had a complete double rainbow going practically right over our heads. To say it was beautiful sounds a little lack luster (is that really a phrase?) There are just no words I know of to describe a truly beautiful sight in this state.