Stress...

So I figured out that I needed a day planner of some form. I managed to forget a ton of things I wouldn't usually ever forget - the house payment, the monthly budget, etc. I was a bit depressed by the fact that, it is nearly May and all day planners for 2012 are probably nonexistent........texted my boss and asked if she happened to have one lying around and I was in luck! I got my hands on it today and it is quite attractive and small enough that I could carry it around often. Tonight I realized that I scheduled two things to overlap next week. I normally would not have done something that dumb, but it's obvious I'm not thinking clearly right now. *sigh* So I immediately grabbed the planner and started writing in it. So hopefully I can make use of it and form a good habit to keep track of things!

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I went aurora hunting the other night and before I came home, I was desperately in need of a bathroom break. I was parked along the side of the road, in the dark, in a grassy area. I contemplated several times going the Alaskan way and going outside (not the first time...can't grow up here and not have that experience!), but I resisted :P I was telling C about it later...

Me: "I almost peed outside. So I was almost an Alaskan."
C: "So if you aren't Alaskan, then what are you?"
Me: "...Canadian."
C: 'Oh, they don't pee in Canada?"

I hope that wasn't too awkward or idiotic, but I laughed pretty hard.

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Yesterday, I said goodbye to my coworker who is moving. It was super short and not very sweet - literally a hug and "Bye!" and she was on her way. It was a bit sad for its brevity, but I realized how nice it was to not be tearing up and feeling sorry for myself! Later that day, we said goodbye to one of C's brothers. It evolved into a nice family evening and we ended up staying until 11:30pm. We had both ridden our bikes to work that day and so rode to the in laws' after work and just stayed. I ended up playing board games and chatting with my mother in law while C had a great conversation with a brother. Needless to say, when it became 11:30, we needed to get home so we could go to bed. We tossed around several ideas, but in the end, we decided to ride home in the dark. There was still a little bit of daylight above the trees, but not much. We did fine, riding under street lights until we got to our street. That was a bit spooky and I was concerned about moose, but it was uneventful. I don't plan on doing that again, but it was an adventure for sure!

4th Anniversary Getaway: Land's End Resort

Tiny bedroom

Tuesday night, C and I took off on a "staycation" for our 4th wedding anniversary. I had originally wanted to run up to Anchorage for 4 days, but C couldn't get the day off, and after my boss's injury, it's just as well. Since our anniversary fell on our weekend, we decided to keep it simple and stay close to home.

Looking to the door from the far wall

I have always wanted to stay at Land's End at the end of the Spit, and so we planned on it :) They run a Getaway Special every winter and that is what we booked: a room, dinner, continental breakfast, glasses of wine with dinner, as well as a couple other services that we didn't utilize.

The balcony!

I initially booked the cheapest room I could get - one overlooking the parking lot! WOO! Justification was that a view was around $40 more, we see the view every day, and it would likely be raining/snowing/foggy and we wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. I stuck to my decision, even though I had little wishes of dealing with it and paying more.

Back of the hotel, on the beach

We left Tuesday afternoon for our adventure on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon, effectively wiping out my visions of cloudy skies. We arrived, and the front desk girl ended up upgrading our room for free, for a reason that I didn't catch!!!!!

Chilly beach walk!

We headed up the narrow stairs and to our room with a view!

I....was less than impressed with the room, to be honest. It was tiny, but all the space was used well, so that was fine. But the decor and paint and such just seemed so out of date, like it had not been updated since the 90s. I really didn't care, but I was surprised at how such an "elegant" resort had such unelegant quarters.

Looking at photos online of the better rooms makes me think they are nice looking, so who knows. The bathroom was very tiny and the lighting was terrible in there.

The wing with our room on it

But we had a balcony! And a view! We headed downstairs and outside for a beach walk in the sunshine. It was a bit chilly and windy, but the sunshine was welcome and good company made it nice.

We came back inside after a bit and went downstairs for dinner in the restaurant. We have both eaten there countless times before, but usually for Local's Night (for cheaper fare).

With dinner included in our room rate, I was happy to not inwardly wince at the prices. C decided on a "petite tender steak" - "bacon wrapped steak with a port demi glaze". I chose chicken gnocchi - "grilled chicken with potato pasta, spinach and mushrooms in a blue cheese cream sauce with spiced pecans".

C's steak, potatoes and veggies

We were less enthused about the wine included...we both hate the taste of alcohol. We both were curious to try something new though, so we asked the waiter for some recommendations. I chose an Alaskan Chardonnay from the local Bear Creek Winery and C got a glass of Marietta Old Vine.

My chicken gnocchi

The food was excellent. C's steak was incredibly tender (like a steak is meant to be!) and the mashed potatoes it came with were just divine. They were both of our favorite parts of the meal! My gnocchi was wonderful as well. The wine....was ok. We didn't drink nearly enough of it (so I'm glad we weren't paying for it outright!) I'm sure it was wonderful to others, but I just can't stand that alcoholic flavor :( It was definitely more bearable with food though!

C at the top of the stairs, overlooking the Bay

We ended dinner stuffed to the max and went back up to our room. We watched our yearly dose of TV (we don't have TV at home) and decided it was bed time after a while. I spent a few minutes taking some night photos from the balcony. I was still in the midst of my awful cold and I ended up coughing so much that I kept both of us up for a long while :( We finally fell asleep, but it wasn't too restful (I hate that about being away from home!)

Us on the balcony outside the room

The next morning, we got up at 8 for the continental breakfast downstairs. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was located in the restaurant, and was a decent spread. When we arrived, there was a group of young men there, laughing a bit loudly, but they were the only others in the entire restaurant, and they quickly departed.

The empty restaurant for breakfast

Muffins, bagels, waffles, instant oatmeal, biscuits and gravy, and scrambled eggs were the main foods available (maybe more?) and so we were satisfied. We ate leisurely, with a few more people wandering in as the morning went on, and then we went back upstairs to get ready to check out.

One side of the continental breakfast

All in all, we had a nice stay. I don't know that we will ever stay there again (on our money at least) but it was a nice experience and I'm glad I can recommend it to others. The food was probably the best part :P

Other side of the breakfast

I will say how happy I was with a view room....I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would...though I really should have known it would be important to me since I was constantly gazing outside for wildlife, and watching the sunset and such.

Land's End

It was great to get away and celebrate our relationship, and I'm glad we did it! I'll post another post hopefully tomorrow of more nature photos I took on our getaway, and not just photos of the hotel!

Snow Just Keeps Coming!

I had an excellent birthday! I haven't edited the photos yet, but it was great! When I finally get to them, I'll give a recap....hopefully it won't be too long from now!

Life has been busy in my neck of the woods. Seemed like last week was a whirlwind of appointments, and small stressors. I hung out with a friend for a scrapbooking date, and it was wonderful. She and I both had not scrapbooked since the last time we got together....around a year ago *wince*.

Winter continues to hang on here. The rest of the country seems to be having a wonderful spring, and temperatures way above normal, but we are having a typical winter here. I have not seen any official numbers for snowfall for the winter yet, but the local paper has gotten us a bit closer, and it is insane! My favorite part is the description of how the tallest snow berms may stick around until the end of JULY. We have had several nice, teasing days here, and the next day we get several more inches of snow. I'm tired of it, but not getting worked up over it like some locals. It is, of course, snowing today :)

The next couple weeks are set to be busy as well. We've got the local high school play to attend, a dinner with friends, C's little brother coming for a visit, and our 4th anniversary. And that's just what I am aware of today!

I hope you weekend is wonderful!

February Happenings

C went on a work trip a couple weeks ago.....and this is all he brought with him for two days. I'm a bit jealous :)

He left bright and early the morning after Valentines. I wanted to celebrate, but I had to work that Tuesday, so we were going to go out the week before. I dressed up, and then it started to pour rain outside!

So we stayed home! We had some tasty food already and some sparkling cider, and our evening was complete :)

We had a nice evening. C had a nice trip, but I was glad when he was back home. February seemed to fly by, and was pretty busy overall for us. We have gained a lot of daylight now, and I am so thankful! I took a nice shopping trip up the road with my parents last week. I really needed to get out of town for my sanity!

Our gas price has gone up 35 cents in the past week, up to $4.50. What's yours? We have continued to get lots of snow. I was walking down our driveway yesterday, and we had around 4 inches of new snow, and it occurred to me that we have stopped caring about shoveling the snow now. We have had our quota and a measly 4 inches will just have to stay there and not be moved. I found it funny but also sad that we still have 2 or so months of winter yet and I am DONE clearing snow.

I went to see Big Miracle this week, and thought it was great. Go see it if you haven't!

I'm happy it is March! My birthday month, more daylight, one month closer to no snow!

C's Birthday

Wednesday, we woke up to more snow that we had to shovel. I am officially tired of snow this winter, and we are nowhere near done yet! And it is also nowhere near what Valdez and Cordova have had, which I am thankful for! It was 1F when we were shoveling, and we had a wind chill down to -22F! It didn't feel nearly that cold, though, so that was nice.

We had a winter weather advisory that day, and there was nothing I needed to take care of that day, so we just stayed home while the wind and snow blew around. Youth group was cancelled halfway through the day due to the weather, which was nice. We stayed in and watched Star Trek.

Thursday morning was C's birthday! We had even more snow, so we had to shovel the driveway again. What a birthday treat!

C had a lazy afternoon, working on projects. For dinner, we left home in the midst of the snow storm that was still going on. We went out for pizza with friends, and I was a bit concerned that we might not make it! A white out most of the way was not fun.

We had a nice dinner, with leftovers to bring home, and lots of new snow in the hour and a half or so we'd been dining!

C had a nice day, so that was good. We both had three days off together this week, so it was a fun extended weekend for it!

Fireweed Shoot!

It is a really wet morning outside today, so my way of coping is to look at the pictures I took just a couple evenings ago...

 I drug C out of the house to a close field of fireweed in the evening light.

I think most kissing shots are rather silly and obnoxious, but I couldn't help but take/share this one.

Then I had C try to take photos like I wanted him to.

It didn't quite work, and I wasn't about to lay back down among the bugs for a second round! It has gotten harder and harder to convince C that we need to do photoshoots every so often, but I keep managing most of the time :)

Amazing Sandwich

C is quite good at coming up with interesting food combinations. The other day he came up with this rather unhealthy yummy goodness:

It started off as a grilled cheese, so he buttered two slices of bread, very lightly. Then he mixed cream cheese with some chipotle mayonnaise we had, and slathered it on one side. He put several leaves of spinach down next, then salami, cut green onions, and finally a little grated colby jack cheese. He lastly put the last piece of bread on top and started it cooking!

We next want to try it with different bread and grill it on our George Foreman!

The Piano

C is quite gifted on the piano, and has been bemoaning the absence of a piano since he moved out. I have tried to get him to look at purchasing keyboards from retailers, but he never was sure what he wanted. Now that we have a house, it was suddenly a much smarter idea that we waited. Less moving of it, as well as tons more room.

Someone in the local area started a "buy sell trade" group which I check every few days. A family friend was selling her keyboard! And better yet, C had actually played it at youth group a lot. He knew its quality, and once we arrived to check it out, he didn't even play it, just said he wanted it.

He is really happy with it, and it has been so nice to see him playing it again.

Too Much Butter

I like lots of butter on pancakes and muffins. C likes to mock me for it....so the other day he asks, "Is this too much butter for you?" Disgusting.

He put the butter back in the container, but he was quite pleased with himself :P

Floating Flower

It was after midnight and we were ready to hit the hay. C says something along the lines that I should take some pics of the flower in water.....and it led to this. Love having him giving me idea and being willing to lose sleep over it!

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It's official that the summer tourist season has started. I had 3 customers on Friday appalled that there was very little made in Alaska merchandise (because most of it is all made in China). That may one day be a post all its own.

Then yesterday, we finally were busy, if for only one day: the first cruise ship of the season! It was nice to have the work day go by quickly! Had a moose in the vicinity too, and the tourists were ecstatic :)

C's Birthday!

It was C's birthday earlier this week! I asked him what he wanted for breakfast: Safeway run for build your own sandwiches, chow mein and sesame chicken. He doesn't ask for much, I guess! Oh and we opened the sparkling cider we had too :) Wouldn't have been what I wanted for breakfast but it was his choice :)

He wanted peanut butter brownies (from a box) for his cake.

All in all, he had a good day. We didn't do too much but that's how he likes it!

Ivory Keys

C is a wonderful piano player. His parents insisted each kid take music lessons growing up, at least for a year. C really enjoyed piano lessons and continued for quite a while. He played for church and the youth group for years, but is not able to at the moment. His parents have a piano at their house and he agonizes over not having one here. We've looked at keyboards several times, but he has never wanted to take the plunge. We don't have room for one at our apartment, really, but that is a small unimportant aspect.

He feels like he is loosing his ability to play, and I really don't want that to happen. Someday, we will have a lovely piano in our house for him to play whenever he desires :)