Winter is Upon Us

It's the Winter Soltice today and the first day of winter break for the kids. We haven't started our chanting or drumming yet, but I'm sure we'll have time to fit it in and probably a few venues to choose from around here. Sunrise is 10:05am this morning and sunset is 4:04pm. As I am typing this, it is 9:11am and the mountains are illuminated from behind and the sky is a fabulous dark blue. I'm not keeping up with the blog as much as I had hoped, but I've decided getting it down is more important than formatting and looking for just the right photo etc. Here goes the report for the last six weeks or so...

November started off with the Homer Ski Swap. This was a much talked about event and supposedly a great way to pick up used ski gear. We make a mental note of the kids' shoe sizes and head in to the Homer High School common area. The first table was the Kachemak Nordic Ski Club, so we sign ourselves up for a family membership and Kate for the Junior Ski Club lessons that begin in January. Lessons come with skis, so now we just need to pick up boots and poles for her. This is great....and then overwhelming. I am stopping at various tables and looking for ladies size 9 ski boots etc. I am always met with the same question:

"Well, what kind of skiing do you do?"

"I want to learn to cross-country ski." (Always referred to as Nordic skiing. I've got it now.)

"Do you skate ski or classic ski?"

"I don't know, but I wear a size 9."

"Well do you want to tour or back country?

"Size 9?"

Perhaps I should just rent from the shop in town until I get a clue.

We buy cookies from the bake sale table and high tail it of there with no more knowledge than when we entered. Kate is beaming with skis on her shoulder and James is in tears because he doesn't have skis and is not in the Ski Club.

Things look up on the ski front when we decide to go to Anchorage for Thanksgiving. We make the trip in part because Brian is here, we have four days, and the roads are clear, but also because we have no other Thanksgiving plans. Cooking the full turkey dinner with bells and whistles for 4 doesn't seem like fun, especially knowing that 2 of the 4 of us will only eat cranberry sauce and pie. There is not much snow to speak of in Anchorage, but enough for a few downhill slopes to be open. I'm not sure why I am determined that our kids learn to ski, but I feel it's important. Maybe it's because I didn't learn until I was in college. My skills are pretty much non-existent and I've only been a few times, but somehow I have decided it's something we can do together as a family our whole lives. I have two college friends who have been skiing since they were little and have been taking ski trips with their dads ever since (shout out to Dr Kate & Judge Lane and Adrian & Norman (I know it's Dr Sas (no disrespect)). You guys have inspired me. It's such a cool thing to do together...family, travel, sport, and the great outdoors!

Driving the Sterling Hwy to Anchorage with a near full moon (above).

The sun is setting as we reach Turnagain Arm just outside the city (below). This is taken from the car window and the sky really does turn that incredible blue.

The dashboard thermometer registered 10 degrees when we rolled in to town at 5pm, and there was a line outside Sears. They still had five hours to go waiting outside for their... TVs? Washer/Dryer sets? That's commitment. We would have arrived earlier if we did not stay until the bitter end of the Lions's Thanksgiving loss. C'mon guys...you were so close to winning AGAIN!


Anchorage also has Target, Play-It-Again Sports, and every other chain store we might "need" to visit before Christmas. I've never been out shopping for Black Friday. I guess I lack the drive to navigate the crowds and I hate getting up early. I do, however, think that Black Friday shoppers in Alaska are much more devoted than their counterparts in the lower 48.

Tangent: People here refer to the lower 48 as if it's one state. I do this often when I talk about New England, but somehow that seems legit to me. If someone says they are heading to the lower 48 for the holidays that leaves a great deal ambiguity as to where they are going.

We stayed at the joint Army/Airforce base in Anchorage. When there is space available, we can stay in their furnished apartments for a very reasonable price. Having a bedroom or two where we can put the kids to bed early and a kitchen makes for better sleeping than the four of us in a standard hotel room. We can shop at the Commissary on base and load up on groceries and drug store supplies. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant/cafeteria on base. Unfortunately, the stuffing and pumpkin pie ran out just before we arrived. Those are the only items I care about, so in the end I probably will make a Thanksgiving dinner for the four of us at a later date.

We spent the next couple of days wearing out the kids and shopping for winter gear like used skis and snow shoes. Kate and James both took a downhill ski lesson. Kate spend 1/2 hour on the bunny hill and then was ready to head up on the lift. We could hear James badgering his instructor to take him on the big swing with Kate. Brian and I almost fell over 15 minutes later when the instructor said he was ready to go up (or he just lost an arugment with a 3 year old). But he went up and came back down and loved it. Kate wanted more, so Brian rented some gear and skied a couple more hours with her.

The kids spent the next day jumping their little hearts out at Bouncin Bears while Brian and I took turns shopping. On our next trip to Anchorage we will drive directly here so the kids can jump after the car ride. We did pay them $1 and a piece of chocolate for every hour of good car behavior on the trip. I don't care how ridiculous it sounds, I'm not above good old fashioned bribery for my sanity in the car. I often feel like the Griswold's on any road trip except Kate and James argue more than Audrey and Russ.

Even Brian and I got in some jumping and sliding.

The morning before we left, we hit a sports bar in town to have breakfast and watch the Michigan v. Ohio State game. We were pleased to walk in to a bar full of Michigan alumni complete with inflatable wolverine and maze and blue decorations everywhere.

With a $10 in singles, a bag of Hersey kisses, a DVD player, and the iPad, the drive home went well. The best part was running into a mess of Dall sheep hanging out in the rocky, mountains of Turnagain Arm driving out of Anchorage. Why do I never have my good camera? Like all photos in this post, these were taken with my phone.

I stuck my face in here as proof that I'm not stealing these photos from the interweb. This was a band of male sheep (we saw at least 8).

We also saw a few moose on the side of the road as we got closer to homer. This is only my second moose sighting so still exciting.

The sun was setting in Cook Inlet as we drove down the Kenai Peninsula. This is Mount Redoubt.

 

A dusting of snow and a bit of rain mixed with cold temperatures equals a town full of ice. Our driveway is a sheet of ice. Now I know why everyone here was blathering about their studded tires as soon as the first snow hit in October. Thankfully, I followed suit and bought studded tires for my car. I am happy to report the Subaru is driving well on the ice. My new boots appear to have a lot of tread, but it must be purely fashion tread. I looked like Benny Hill in the parking lot of James's preschool trying to get from one side of the car to the other. I let myself slide to the back of the car, but could not take a single step up the very mild incline to get around to the other side. Finally, I lunged for the bumper and held on the the underside of the car, scooting around like a 3 year old does on the edge of a pool.

Future embarassing and potentially hazardous incidents have been mitigated with a pair of ice cleats that stretch overy my shoes. I keep them in the door of my car. It's no surprise that Kate thinks the ice is cool. She has been putting on her skates after school and skating around the driveway.

Not only is Homer filled with interesting people, but extremely friendly people. As I've said before this is our ninth move and I do think it is a bit easier to meet people with school aged children, but still the peope here stand out as genuinely friendly. A girl I met one time at the gym invited us to her Christmas party where Santa would be arriving by helicopter to hand out presents to all the kids. She lives "up the hill," about 4-5 miles up and outside of town. There are breathtaking views and abundant snow up there for anyone willing to brave the drive throughout the winter. The dusting and rain that turned our driveway to into a skate pond left just enough snow up the hill for the kids to sled at the party while waiting for Santa to circle around. The helo landed on their hot tub deck and Santa came inside to pass out toys. It was the coolest.

December was also the start of our classic ski lessons. Classic Nordic = what anyone else would call cross country. There are over 75 miles of groomed Nordic ski trails in Homer. The town is crazy about skiing. The Women's Nordic Club has organized workouts twice a day six times a week. There are organized night ski outings with tiki torches, races, and more. The ski community is also very inviting. There are many highly competitive racers, but they still invite us to ski and seem to take pride in the number of people who use the trails. Our first lesson was at a resevoir since there was not enough snow for any of the trails. Although well frozen, warmer temperatures early in the week made the frozen water groan and echo. At first, I thought the ice fisherman across the way had bass thumping music coming from their tent. It was a little eerie. Despite cold toes (toe warmers are a must for me in the future) the lesson was great. Our instructor was a retired Humanities Professor and local artist.

We ran into Atz Kilcher again skiing on the resevoir. He stopped to chat with our group and again I failed to get a photo. The Last Frontier show is a bit overly dramatic and staged, but I have to admit I still love watching it.

Each week, we would ski a new spot. Week two was a small loop (3 kilometers) at the top of the hill with some breathtaking views of Kachemak Bay. There were more downhills than I would have thought and it was a lot of fun.

Week three we tried skiing in groomed tracks. This felt a lot more like the Nordic Track at the gym. There was a 2-3 kilometer, relatively flat loop with tracks (used by our class) and also a very technical course with lots of valleys. It is the home course is used by the high school Nordic team. Although my skill level is not there yet it is kind of my goal now. I have no idea how to get up such a steep hill on skis...yet. Hopefully I'll be able to try it out at some point. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures from either week two or three because it was unseasonable cold (or at least I hope it was), and it's quite difficult to get your mittens and poles off to get the camera out.

We returned to the resevoir later to cut down a tree for Christmas. Alaska opens up most state forests for tree cutting (one per family, cut by hand) between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most of the evergreens here are tall and very skinny.

 

I thought it would be cool to have a sparse, Charlie Brown-esque tree, but Brian was determined to find a full one, and he did.

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Nice looking tree! We are ready for the holiday to begin!

 

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Hickory Returns

Daddy's back...back again. Daddy's back...tell a friend. Daddy's back Daddy's back do do doot.

We've been singing this song for years and must thank Eminem for the Slim Shady tune that we love so much. Hickory pulled into home port October 24. They were out for 7 weeks this summer, back for 3 weeks and then out for 8 more. It goes without saying that we are glad the ship is back.

Both the kids were in school when the ship pulled in, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and started snapping pictures. It was just after 9am and the sun was still rising. The late sunrise has turned out to be an unanticipated bonus for me as I am not an early riser. I get the watch the sun rise and set behind the mountains everyday. It never gets old.

I realize the days are getting shorter, but sunrise just after 9am and sunset at 6:30pm is not so bad. So, the ship spun around and tied up at the end of the Homer spit. The spit is a very thin, 5 mile strip of land that juts out into Katchemak Bay. The Homer boat harbor is at the end of the spit along with all the deep water docks.

Docked behind Hickory is the oil rig Endeavor. It arrived in Homer in mid-September for a two week stay, but they are still here updating structural components, trying to secure permits to drill in Cook Inlet, and generally making Homer residents hot and bothered. Understandably, drilling for oil is heavily debated around here.

Three days after the Hickory pulled in, my parents arrived. My dad should get some special award for coming to Alaska twice in a three month time span. Not sure if it's the grand kids or the fish that's got him hooked.

Brian's parents spent a half day charter fishing during their visit in September and they packed our freezer with halibut for the winter. It's so tasty and I feel lucky to be in the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World because I don't particularly care for salmon. I keep trying it in all its forms though. Several neighbors and new friends have given us smoked, canned salmon as a welcome gift. One jar was canned with jalapenos and it was my favorite thus far, excepting the salmon bagel sandwich from the Farmers Market (unbelievably delicious).

So my parents we lucky enough to be here for Kenai Peninsula's famous Haunted Hickory. Brian's ship has been turning itself into a haunted house for the community for well over 10 years. I walked through with a group that drove 2 hours to see it. The ship collects canned goods in exchange for a tour and stocks the local food pantry for the winter. This year, there were over 700 people who came through and 2200 lbs of food collected. Kate has been talking haunted hickory for weeks and thoroughly enjoyed the PG tour given during the first hour for kids. James not so much. He bailed after a few minutes. It's near impossible to take photos in a black room with a strobe light, so I tried to take a picture of the pier as people started to line up and the crew was lighting 55 gallon drums to warm and light up the pier.

The sunset was a bit ominous looking that night as well. It was very cloudly so the sky was dark except this small space on the water where the sunset was burning through. This photo was taken with my phone so I couldn't capture the outline of the mountains that we could see in the orange sky.

Halloween was the next day and thankfully the neighbor's tipped us off that our neighborhood is THE place to trick or treat. We had somewhere between 200 and 300 trick or treaters. It was very fun and also a bit hazardous as the streets were crowded with kids and cars as most everyone drove from rural areas.

Carving pumpkins with Grandma

Trick or treating in the snow

This month James has also started doing a half day a week at Yurt Preschool. A yurt is a wooden platform round tent. There is usually a window a the top to let in light and let out smoke from the wood stove. They are pretty popular in Alaska as temporary or permanent dwellings.

This yurt is loosely connected to a woman's house and is used for tumbling classes and preschool. I think it will be a perfect compliment to James's other preschool. One is overly religious and academic for a 3 year old while the other promises to be non-academic, has a trapeze, and marimbas (of course).

The inside of the yurt is crazy good times. James's new schedule also allows me to get to a gym class at least once a week. Once a week is better than nothing.

This month has also been good for celebrity sitings. We saw Atz Kilcher from Alaska: The Last Frontier at the coffee shop. Much to my dismay he did not ride his horse into town and barter for his coffee. For all its ridiculousness, I will continue to watch the show though. Brian and I went also to the world premier of The Alaska Sessions, a local surfing documentary.

We've always enjoyed surf films, but it was even more fun in a packed theatre where the film maker and the cast of characters are all locals. The surf around here is surprisingly good (if you have a very thick wet suit). We haven't tried it yet, but I feel like I might give it a go sometime within the 3 years we are here. I can pretty much guarantee Brian will do it. Cast members included that guy from the Farmers Market that we like to talk to and buy stuff from and a girl from my gym class. Here is a brief description of the film and a link for clips and photos.

Mr. McCune sells his house and buys and old fishing boat to embark on an epic surf

adventure. He and his eclectic crew travel up the isolated Alaskan coastline in the

dead of winter. It’s cold, it’s dark, and these guys aren’t exactly pro-surfers,

but in the words of one crew-member, “when your stoke is hot, you can endure a lot.”

To see more check out www.alaskasessions.com.

 

We have also started watching a show called Buying Alaska, essentially House Hunters in Alaska. Most of the house searches have taken place in and around Homer. One of the home buyers checked my parents luggage on their outbound flight to Anchorage yesterday and we bought our lawn mower from a featured home. I find the "celebrity" sitings are much more interesting here than they were living outside of LA. Small town for sure.

 

 

 

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First Snow

I think October 16 is early for snow even for Homer, Alaska. Thankfully we got a few inches, so the kids could play in it (and eat it) before heading off to school. Not sure why kids love to eat snow so much, but I've pretty much given up trying to stop them. Before admitting defeat, I showed them where the neighbor's dog pooped in our yard thinking that would surely deter them. They both agreed not to eat that snow, but the rest was fair game as far as they were concerned. We still had a few lingering raspberries on the the vine, so they picked the raspberries, mashed them into a bowl with some snow and proceeded to eat it with spoons.

The sky was so overcast that that we couldn't see the mountains or water, so I took a picture looking North. It was spectacular and a good reminder that there is more to look at than just the mountains.

Snow = sledding, so obviously we gave that a go. It was very muddy since the ground is not completely frozen yet, but an insanely fun time nonetheless. As the temperatures droppped and things started to freeze, Kate could not wait to get on her ice skates. We bought her the skates in May when we told her we were moving to Alaska (that seems like a year ago now), and she has been waiting to test them out ever since.

This is frozen mud in the cul-de-sac in front of our house, but she really couldn't wait. The next day we headed to the ice rink for a quick lesson.

Birdman said he had fun too, so we hope to try it again next weekend. I actually had a preview of the ice arena Friday night when I joined the Homer Broomball League. It was the first time I've had a sitter and been out after dark in months. It felt great to chug a beer and hang out with adults not to mention try a new sport and get some exercise. Broomball is a bit like hockey, but you wear shoes and run on the ice. The ball is a little softer and larger than a softball, and you're allowed to kick it (good for me and my soccer mentality). You are also allowed to bat it down with your hands (who knew). Ultimately though everyone uses their broom (stick with rubber wedge on it) the majority of the time.

Since I was hoping to meet friends and hang out, I left the camera at home, but took a quick photo before leaving the house.

Our new love of ice sports continued today when the kids made up their own hockey game on our frozen mud pond using sticks and a smashed tin can.

 

Our fall has been busy exploring even before the snow started to fall. We've spent quite a bit of time at the city's new park. The Homer community came together and built the park in 7 days last spring.

Of course the park comes complete with Marimbas (above) and a million dollar view (below).

We were unable to find a play structure for our yard before the cold weather set in, but Kate doesn't seem to mind. You can find her on our little swing any time of day and in any weather.

Kate has joined Girl Scouts and I would imagine the Alaska Girl Scouts to be crazy tough and cool. She earned her first badge doing beach clean up. Her stretch of Bishop's Beach was quite beautiful.

It took a good 15 minutes to even find a piece of trash. The 50 foot tidal range makes for wonderfully wide beaches at low tide. After hunting around the sticks and kelp at the high tide mark, the girls were able to find some styrofoam, bottles caps, plastic wrappers etc, but it was still a pretty small haul.

James and I have spent a few mornings on the same beach enjoying coffee and the view.

We even manage to get in a few planks here and there to keep us fit. Well, James does anyway.

This fall, I was lucky enough to accompany Kate's class on a field trip to Beluga Lake in town. The lake is used for float planes in the summer and fall and I hear there will ice skating and car racing (?) in the winter. The class tried a little pond dipping and we walked through the slough, a tidal, muddy marsh connecting the lake to Kachemak Bay.

We've also spent time at the local Pratt Museum learning about homesteading, walking their trails,

and feeding the fish.

Hickory is on it's way home, so undoubtedly my next post will include activities with Brian. I think if he wrote a blog it would be mad interesting. Their most recent trip was to remove, replace, and maintain buoys, but also included watching the crab boats leave Dutch Harbor for the start of crabbing season on Oct 15, searching for a fisherman that went overboard setting a cod pot, and rescuing the crew of a downed helicopter from a beach with grizzly bear in site. And that's just what I've heard about through our brief email connection. James loves to hear stories about Brian and Hickory boat. He was running man zebra overboard drills the other day during his "rest" time.

The kids are beyond ready to see Brian and could use some real rough-housing. Today we went on a nature walk with some friends in the morning and the kids could not stop with the pig pile.

 

 

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