Alaska

School has been back in session for a full week. I’ve been at Paul Banks elementary everyday a subbing in special needs, and it’s been pretty great. It’s been pretty tiring going from a full day at school to a night in the harbor, but it’s only temporary. I’ve definitely complained though! And I feel like I haven’t been able to spend hardly any time with Chris or my family. I’ve just been kind of drained and I’m ready for a true day of rest! Fortunately I had a day of rest, without any boats even, on the day before school started! Ah… Such a great day it was. I love to be home and free. School is a great place to be too. 

My first day of school I was kind of nervous and I didn’t know what to wear. :) But once I got to school, the teacher I was working with had an R2D2 shirt on, and I felt mo betta. 

Well I just fell asleep typing so I better slumber! Chris flew a float plane the other day and he loves to fly!  

I saw a little kid otter in the harbor the other day and hung out with it for 45 minutes! It was so cute. And I saw it poop twice, so that was cool.  

School starts tomorrow. And I’m going! I’ll be in special ed at the elementary for the first three days of school. I am so sleepy right meow. Falling asleep as I type. I had a super super last day of summer. I did some needed house cleaning and organizing and I love that. I also visited Chris at work for a while and helped him with some stuff.

AND I HAD NO BOATS TONIGHT! THAT IS SO RARE AND LIKE NEVER EVER HAPPENS. THANK YOU WIND!

I got our drawers nice and folded and organized. :) Wow I am sleepy. Time for sleeps. I read my scriptures and wrote to our favorite missionary and I made dinner with all local food and my school lunch for tomorrow. Our sheets are clean and we have charmin toilet paper, so life is really swell.

Here’s some of the many unfinished chores I needed to work on today. It was a beautiful day, but I was happy to inside lots. I’m sleep, must roll out. Okay bye.

I just ordered the Portuguese Liahona for myself. Yay! Alyssa, you should get it in Spanish. Thanks for reading my sleepy blog. <3

I picked a load of fresh raspberries recently, thanks to my sister and a wonderful family at church, and yesterday I just wanted to make waffles to eat the raspberries with. :) Buuuuut Chris and I were up until 3:30 am on Friday night, making some travel plans, and so we didn’t wake up till like 11 on Saturday morning. And we had to go to the church just before 1 for some special training that was really good. So I didn’t have much time for a fun waffle feast yesterday.

So TODAY, my sweet mother’s birthday, I wanted to have a waffle feast for breakfast and have my mama over. But Chris and I worked on travel plans till 2:30 am last night, so I was pretty sleepy this morning. And my mom happened to be pretty sleepy too. So we did no birthday breakfast of waffles. So when Chris and I got home from church, our hungry bellies naturally desired waffles.

But when Chris found out we only have a random heart shaped waffle maker, and no nice Belgian flipper one, we resorted to pancakes. Or rather, FLAPJACKS.

We don’t watch tv much (but we watch plenty of movies and netflix), but once we saw a shark tank episode with Kodiak Cakes of healthy looking flapjack mix, focused on the old frontiersman lifestyle, with hearty ingredients and not just bleached fluff! Then we saw the product at costco and got our very own flapjack and waffle mix! Today was the first time we used it and it was great. Delicious and nutritious.
Christopher and I don’t cook together too often, and it was so great doing it today. We put raspberries in the flapjack mix, and that kind of ruined them. Chris was flipping one, and it was cooking weirdly and flopped on top of itself and he said, “Well, now it’s a burrito.” The raspberries made it like too moist or something. Anyway, then Chris got out the griddle to cook them on, instead of the frying pan, and as soon he turned it on, it smelled like fish… and scentsy. Weird.

We mixed new flapjack mix, just put in a few raspberries, and a little coconut too actually, and Chris successfully cooked them on the griddle thing. He even made a mickey mouse one which was a funny happy moment. I cut up some fruit and we got out the maple syrup and strawberry spread, and we made real whipped cream too. I got some old school magic hand beaters at a garage sale for $1, and Chris whipped the cream with that. We were going to use the electric ones, but could only find one of the beater inserts. The other one may have gotten lost in the drawer full of random utensils that don’t get used much. Chris likes when the drawers/cupboards are full of random kitchen stuff that doesn’t get used. Haha just kidding. :)He doesn’t like it.  I don’t like it much either, but I know where I stash all the stuff in the kitchen so it’s no prob for me Bob.

Our flapjack feast turned out great. Delicious and nutritious (before we added the syrup and whipped cream, but at least it was good quality syrup and whipped cream). Our Edel pup even got to enjoy a flapjack. I like saying flapjack. Edel doesn’t eat very much human food at all, just plenty of veggies like the ends of carrots, pieces of lettuce, or any other veggie scraps that I create while making food. She eats our leftover salmon too. :) Oh! And popcorn. When we make a huge stainless steel bowlful of popcorn to go along with a movie, I love throwing kernels or handfuls of popcorn to her.

Oh! One of best parts of our feast was flapjack baseball. We had two left and I threw them at Chris while he was loading the dishwasher. Then he threw one at me, which Edel ate. And with the last one we decided to play baseball with. :) Sunday fun.

Now I just finished watching Up, and it was so good. It’s been a delightful afternoon.

My relationship with boat cleaning has some pretty big highs and lows. There’s lots of great things about my summer boat washing, but it gets old when I have a negative poo attitude. But the lovely beauty that surrounds me makes it much much better. What a privilege seeing the lovely sunsets in the harbor each night. And the best part of the day is coming home to my honey and doing whatever we want, and usually eating ice cream.

And I love getting home from boat washing before dark! So this picture has a lot that I love.

My sista Holly just surprised me with this cat watch! Turns out it doesn’t actually work. The second hand always gets stuck, so that’s lame.

While driving home from boat cleaning, just before our driveway we drove past a mama moose and her two big babies. So we reversed at top speed, I mean low speed, parked, turned off the car and watched them for a while, listened to them munch their greens, and it was great.

After that we came home and ate late dinner, watched part of a movie, and ate ice cream. I’ve been a little addicted to ice cream lately, oops.

This watch though, so funny. Cats are funny. Our little Piper kitten loves cuddling with our German shepherd, Edelweiss Edel cradle. It’s so cute.

I love making a home and I love taking care of our home with Chris. Many of my thoughts focus on our home – changes I want to make, stuff I want to get rid of, things to clean. Things like organize the food storage that has been out for over a week, go through the growing pile of mail that always seems to flood the counter, clean out the cluttered and dirty garage, do something to our 7 ft tall lawn, turn Chris’s old office into a creation room, paint our front door turquoise, replace the wonderful, old chairs I love, slightly smelly, orange, swivel rockers in the living room… the list goes on. 

I really love our home, and strive to create a home full of love, peace, and harmony. And guess what creates that best: family prayer. So I shall work to focus my thoughts less on the temporal things and more of family prayer. :)

Gordon B. Hinckley said, “I feel satisfied that there is no adequate substitute for the morning and evening practice of kneeling together – father, mother, and children. This, more than heavy carpets, more than lovely draperies, more than cleverly balanced color schemes, is the thing that will make for better and more beautiful homes.”

Yesterday was ward youth baptisms at the temple so we went up and back to Anchorage yesterday. We took a sweet older lady with us too and it was swell. The temple is always pure loveliness.

When we got back in the evening, I had seven boats to clean, so Christopher came and helped and we whipped them out and got some nice cash. :) It was beautiful in the harbor, even though I just wanted to be home.  

Today at church I taught mission prep on teaching with the spirit. I was going through my MTC journals and my mission blog posts and I always think about that glorious 18 months as a full time missionary. It was joy filled, and hard, and the best ever. I miss it, and the people, and the personal dedication to the gospel.
I always point out to Chris when we’re matching. He usually doesn’t see it but I pretend he sometimes likes to dress to match me haha. I like matching sometimes. Anyway, today our color schemes were nice and neutral and matchy so I insisted we take a picture after church. The picture didn’t turn out swell, but we’re in it and so is our house and my Subaru dream wagon, so it works great.

The fireweed surely is a blooming this time of year! Hills are getting nice and pink. And the weather for most of the summer has been stellar. But I’m tired and want to rest and sit at home and tidy. :) As beautiful and fun filled as summer has been, I’m looking forward to some winter hibernation.

I stopped at my dad’s house today and saw this gem of a picture. Cabin days. It’s a pretty good life.

I love my Edelweiss girl and try and take good good care of her. We went on a nice walk after church and saw a couple moose in the woods. Edel pooped in the very middle of the trail and that’s not awesome, but I’m not sure how to train her to poo in better places. Anyway, found some yummy raspberries and watermelon berries in the woods, and really enjoyed my bare feet in the grass.   
    
 

Now I’m making my first ever peanut butter cookies. They’re not turning out super great though, especially to me, since I don’t really care for cookies unless they’re loaded with chocolate. 

Gotta head to the harbor shortly and wash boats. I’d rather just stay home and keep making cookies and watching From the Earth to the Moon, but it’s summer time and that means boat cleaning every night. But some good news is that my honey will be home in the morning!

Boy oh boy, do I love summertime in Alaska land. It’s very busy with lots of work and lots of play and lots of visitors. I’ve got about a bajillion pictures and words to share of summer moments and memories, but I’ll just share this one from my phone. It’s a picture I took in Whittier while going to the bathroom, before going through the Whitter tunnel and after going on a 26 glacier cruise. Happy times and a beautiful world.

Yesterday I met a nice lady. And she casually asked, “so what is your passion?” 

The question surprised me and I didn’t really know how to answer. What a good thoughtful question and an excellent way to get to know someone. 

When I’m cleaning boats, a lot of people pass and we exchange the fairly empty “how are yous”, but there are plenty of people I have great conversations with in the harbor too. What a great workplace it is. 

My kitten is attacking me right now. She’s so cute. :)

What is your passion?

Both are beautiful and wonderful and have a grandiose purpose. Being a flower would be quite nice, but I can’t wait to become a mama bear! I love having my mother and mother in law here in Homer together. What great women. 

 I’ve ran into some good ol’ amigas lately! Lately means the past four months. Today I went to two sisters bakery with Kathryn and met her precious one month old girl. I’m grateful for friends and for catching up and seeing the great things people do, and the great ways they are. 
Also, my bestest buddy Carlita gets here soon!   

Ah… Blissful (and busy) Alaskan summers. It’s so nice when some of the ice melts so we can go swimming! ;)

We had a combined girls camp/scout camp last week and it was so wonderful. Wednesday we hiked here to Grewingk glacier lake, and it was a beautiful day with not very many bugs! The main purpose of camp was the grow closer to the Lord, and I believe everyone did! Success. And lots of fun. 

Edelweiss has been my boat cleaning buddy lately, which is lovely. Chris will be my boat cleaning buddy tonight, which is most superb. I really need him down there with me tonight; it’s been a busy bee day. Life has been pretty busy for both of us lately. I suppose that’s how our AK summers are right meow. We’ve got lots of visitors all summer long, lots of work, lots of play, and plenty of church commitments. Girls camp and scout camp are next week, and it’ll be fun and wonderful, but takes work to get ready for. Work is good though. You now what else is good… chocolate bread and kittens and green and sunshine, and the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is even kinda good. :)

I went on a camp out with the Center for Alaska Coastal Studies with some fun girls to a beautiful place. It was wonderful! It was so nice being separated from normal life and in the wilderness. :) 

At 3 am I woke up sooooo toasty warm and with a full bladder. And this is what it looked like at 3 am. Dusky and preparing for sunrise, which is at about 5 am right now. Sunset is about 11 pm.   

I’m just sitting in the car in the harbor parking lot, trying to convince myself to go get boat cleaning done so I can go home and be with my bff and we can get ready for our youth conference workshop tomorrow. But I’m tired and allergic and wish I had started boats two hours ago! Guess I best mosey on down there now and scrub a dub away. I’m grateful for boat cleaning. It’s pretty good in the hood. 

And I can’t believe summer is here. Where did winter go? Oh, it never really came. :) But everything is green and growing and my allergies are bad and it’s beautiful outside!

PS what’s slightly not normal about this picture? (Other than my hair looking orange) (Hint: meow)