Dogsledding

This weekend we will be attending our very first Iditarod. The race begins in Willow and ends in Nome, covering over 1150 miles of pure Alaska wilderness. In February. The dead of winter. It scares me to even think about. We will be attending the festivities in Anchorage on Saturday and the official start in Willow on Sunday. With our parkas and hot cocoa. Gus is totally stoked. We haven't broken it to him that he will not be competing.

Driving

I travel to Kenai (an hour and forty-five minutes away) and Seward (three and a half hours away) several times a month. As long as the weather is good, I enjoy the drives. I always see my share of bald eagles, bunnies and moose. Often, I will be the only car in sight for miles and miles. I definitely find myself forgetting the phenomenon of traffic. When I visit a city I am jolted back into the reality that not only do millions of other people exist, but sometimes they all coexist in one tiny area. I often crave cities: hearing languages, seeing people of color, having more than five restaurants to choose from. Traffic, however, is one thing I have never missed. Five restaurants may not sound like a lot, but when I visit the city of Kenai, I find myself giving thanks that I live in Homer, for the food selection (among many other things). Other than a strand of bad food chains, Kenai has one cafe at which I will eat. And I eat there every single time. (Veronica's Cafe, pictured below)
The cafe is surrounded by a couple of old Russian Orthodox churches, which I find adorable.

The New Workbench

Juneau

Juneau was quick, fun, and rainy. And I learned that Alaskan Legislators wear fishing hats to legislative hearings. The Mendenhall Glacier was gorgeous and the sky cleared for just long enough for us to enjoy it.

Next we visited the Shrine of St. Therese. The grounds were beautiful, and so peaceful.

Tried an omelette waffle. Genius.

Visited the Alaskan Brewery.

Love the drive home from Anchorage.

Ski Date

It was a beautiful weekend for skiing!

SLC (punk)

Went to Salt Lake City for the first time. Over the next year, I will be trying to get my program nationally accredited, so I attended a training there called, "Accreditation Bootcamp." Needless to say, Ihad some reservations about attending anything called "bootcamp" in the state of Utah. I actually really liked the city. They had a great little antique district, which I am deprived of in Homer, considering Alaska is only 50 years old. I was only there a few days and worked most of the time, but got a little taste of downtown. Sadly, I left my camera at home, so I just had my phone to snap some photos.

Knives

If you know Patrick, you know that he loves any knives that can be used for camping, hunting, fishing, being a boy, etc. His obsession extends to kitchen knives, as well.

Happy Sunday!

From the Woodshop

Here are a few photos of Patrick's woodshop. It is located in the downstairs bathroom. However, if you ask Patrick, he will proudly tell you that his woodshop has a bathroom in it.











Anyone need a handcrafted mallet? Latest reads... Latest obsession: dovetail joints A recent product of woodshop class. Love it.

Lately

Things have been super busy in our world. In the midst of me traveling for the past week for work and Patrick getting settled in his new job, we got TONS of snow. We had a busy weekend full of snowshoeing, snowboarding and superbowl watching. Pictures coming soon.Below is Seward, where I spent part of my week last week (photo was clearly taken in the summer). This week we are headed to Juneau. It is legislative session, so I have to work for a day, but Patrick is coming along and we are staying a couple of extra days to explore. Neither of us have been before-we love seeing new parts of our gigantic state.

Lastly, we got a wii. I don't think either of us have owned a game system since Super Nintendo. I will proudly say that we quickly beat Super Mario Brothers Wii, but are having to take a break to give some respite to our thumbs.