December 25th, 2006 at 10:42am
After our Christmas Church service Bill and I took Judy Almy and her daughter & son-in-law snow shoeing out the Gold Creek trail. It was a perfect afternoon for the trek. Not too cold, no wind, and plenty of fresh snow to enjoy.
Katie stayed home and made her first loaves of bread. As you can see they turned out beautifully!
After a bowl of traditional oyster stew and delivering hot buttered rum mixes to the neighbors the Wilcox’s invited us for a night snow shoe trek up the Solomon Gulch trail. The girls had a great time doing summer-saults all the way back down the steep hill.
Sarah, Annie, Katie, complete with glo sticks!
We drove back home taking time to look at all the Christmas decorations around town. Doug Disourci’s still was in the top two.
Katie took Christmas pictures of us since Bill wasn’t here to do the time laps for us. A little lonely without Bill and Erin…..
December 23rd, 2006 at 11:14am
We invited our friends the Wilcox’s over for an evening of Farkle. Katie Crump joined us for the evening. It was great catching up on all the directions the kids are going.
 Annie just graduated from a school in Washington. Plans to work the next couple of months in Bellingham and then travel in South America for a bit before doing a summer job at one of our local kayak companies for the summer. Then, who knows….
Casey is in his freshman year down in Idaho. Doing lots of hiking and outdoor actities in spite of school. He heads out next week for 10 days in Costa Rica.
 Annie, Katie and Katie catching up.
Farkle, food and fun. Great catching up on what everyone’s up to.
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:36am
The holiday season is underway. Mother Nature got us into the holiday spirit with a huge snow dump Tuesday/Wednesday. We were relieved that our return trip from picking up Katie in Anchorage got us home Monday night. 29 inches of snow in 24 hours greeted us the next day. Bill and I plugged away removing snow for the good part of Tuesday.
It’s nice having neighbors with big toys! Jay Scribner was pretty much taking care of the neighborhood driveways and swung through to polish up Bill’s hard work.
We kicked off the holiday season in Achorage going out to dinner with friends and then to the Performing Arts Theater to see “Joseph and the Techni-Color Dream Robe”. Here’s Katie and her dad at the Brew House.
September 2nd, 2006 at 11:15am
Bill and I went over the pass this afternoon to try out the new 6 wheeler. Though we got a late start, the rainy weather was creeping in so we kept the outing short.
July 31st, 2006 at 10:16pm
We kicked off our course, School Librarian’s Institute, at the University of Alaska Consortium Library. A beautiful new facility. Alice Yucht, nationally known instructor at Rutger’s University in the Library Science Departmenet, past school librarian, not to mention many other hats, is our main speaker for the week. Lots of valuable suggestions and ideas for promoting what we do and how we can assist our library community. She’s very upbeat and throws in lots of humor. A natural story teller. Sue Sherif set the course up. It’s always a plus whenever Sue takes part. She’s a wealth of knowledge. It’s great having time to learn from other Alaskan librarians in the trenches. Great putting the faces to many of the names as well. Time for bed! I’ve been up since 6:00 and it’s close to midnight. Have a little more reading to do before the light can go out. Tomorrow I’ll try to take some pictures of class.
July 30th, 2006 at 9:05pm
I left Valdez in the rain and it followed me all the way to town. The RV trafic was thick, which really slowed things down. I stopped off at Sheep Mountain Lodge to stretch my legs and get a hot cup of tea. Oh, and one of their awesome oatmeal raison cookies. Yum! Sheep Mountain Lodge always looks so pretty this time of year.
The rain really started coming down as I arrived in Anchorage so I picked up a few groceries and headed right to the university and got settled into my room at North Hall. This will be my home away from home for the next 6 days.
It’s nothing fancy, but the price was right and I can walk to classes.
Once I got settled in I played around with the teacher librarian wikki we will be using for our class.
It’s greek to me, but I know all the help Bill 3 has been giving me is paying off.
July 29th, 2006 at 7:21pm
Today Katie treated us to a trip on the Stan Stevens Cruise that went to Columbia Glacier. Though the day was overcast we managed to see quite a bit of wildlife. Sea Otter, Stellar Sea Lions, a Minky Whale, 2 Sitka Black-Tail Deer, an occational silver salmon jumping, and of course a few eagles. The high point for me was getting into the glacial ice. The colors were impressive. Though we were not able to get too close to Columbia, 9 miles away, it looked like it was less than a mile. Very deceptive! Check out the glacial ice!
We enjoyed chatting with tourists from all over the world. Israel, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, California, and Iowa, to name a few. Katie was pretty busy serving food, answering questions and hanging out with the kids on board. We didn’t see much of her until towards the end of the trip. Here’s a pic of Katie in action…..
July 28th, 2006 at 9:29pm
Bill, being the scientific/gagety/wanna-be/outdoorsman that he is, learned about this nifty way to make a little cook stove using cat food cans from the “Leave No Trace” class he took earlier this summer. As soon as Katie heard about it she was on him to make one. Tonight he came up with the proto type. Check it out!
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Wala! It needs a little fine tuning, but not bad for the first attempt.
July 28th, 2006 at 9:01pm
Bill went flying this morning. He wanted to practice using the new CAP 206. Bill 3 and I played a quick game of frisbee golf down on the park strip. When Bill returned the guys headed out to check the shrimp pots. Check out the gallery to see some huge specimen. Bill, Katie and I went to a going away party for Vivian. She is the Taiwan exchange student we had stay with us at the end of the school year. She leaves tomorrow for home.
July 27th, 2006 at 3:59pm
Yesterday Bill, Bill 3, and I headed out in Costello’s boat to drop a couple of shrimp pots. The secret: cat food!
Here is our local “Vana” displaying some tastey cat fish just waiting to entice some nice fat shrimp to our pots.
As you can see, the weather is nice. I think Bill 3 brought the sunny weather to Valdez. Everyone says it’s been a rainy summer.
Today, Thursday, we had another blue sky day so we decided to hike the Shoup Bay Trail to Gold Creek. It’s a hot one! It feels like 80 degrees out, but when we returned from our trek, the thermometer at 3:30 said 67 degrees. Of course we loaded up with plenty of water, but having nothing with for Rudy, Bill 3 created a nifty and efficient drinking bowl using some of the plant leaves along the trail.
Here’s a couple of handsome guys I happened upon on the trail. We never made it all the way to Gold Creek. The trail was only maintained about half the way out there and the stinging nettles were killers.
Remember that cat food? We have big plans for those cat food cans. I’ll keep you posted.
