Spit Bike Ride

Last night, I went for a bike ride on the Spit with a friend. I actually have only ever done it once before, and that was only one way. I was a bit intimidated by the thought of a probably 8 or 9 mile bike ride, but I figured with my new bike, it would be a breeze. It was!

We went to Finn's Pizza, a lovely place on the last boardwalk, and got a split margherita/pear pizza. It was wonderful, as always!

We finished our meal and then headed back. It was a lovely evening and I stopped a few times to take some photos. I wished that I had brought my DSLR along...next time :)

It was a lovely ride and I can't wait to do it again!

Puppy Parade!

A friend of mine invited me for a beach walk on a gorgeous February day, and she was caring for 5 puppies at the time!

It was chaos at its finest, but so fun!

Attempted Beach Walk

The warmth has continued, and we have continued to see 40F this week.

Huge natural snow berms at the beach

I went to the beach with a friend on Tuesday, but it was a bittersweet trip. The beach was full of snow, and I mean FULL! The waves had created humongous natural snow berms. I have never seen the amount of snow on the beach like that day. It was crazy.

I call it a "sheet cake" of snow....another good size pile!

It was impossible to have a leisurely beach walk, as it was all snow, and soft snow is not easy to walk in. It didn't help that some of the piles were several feet high, resulting in sinking boots :)

My friend brought her new Vizsla puppy with her, and she is darling! Despite the awkward conditions on the beach, it was still fun :)

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!

Goat on Steps

There are days when I see the most random things, and am so happy that I already have my camera out and ready to go. Hello, random goat!

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I had an adventure a couple weeks back, that I really don't want to repeat! I went up the road to go shopping with a friend and her two daughters (3 and 1). I have made several trips with them in the past and knew I would be on partial babysitting duty. We took my friend's truck, and everything was fine until we were ready to leave town about 3:45pm. Someone let us know that both of the brake lights were out! Cue frustration, and confused children. We spent an hour at Napa, where various people looked at the truck and tried different things, only to rule out most of what could be wrong.

Thank goodness for portable DVD players! The kids were fine for the most part, and so at 5pm, we decided that we had to head home, lights or no lights. The kids fell asleep on the way, but we had one more stop to make 40 miles from home. Everything was fine until we were about to leave there, when the gear shifter refused to work. We finally got it to cooperate (turns out it is related to the brake light problem!) but not before the baby started to wail. She proceeded to scream and cry for the next 20 miles.

It was such a relief to get back into town, but when we pulled in next to my car....I had a flat tire! It was quite amusing in the end, but not so much at the time!

Ashley's Ice Cream!

Ashley invited me to share some of her homemade ice cream a few weeks back! Strawberry ice cream is amazing, especially homemade and on a beautiful afternoon! Thanks again, friend :)

Thrown Together See Saw

C and I went out to dinner last week with a couple friends. We ended up at the beach, and immediately gravitated to walking on the driftwood logs. Seeing one on top of and perpendicular to another resulted in a makeshift see saw. Soon, we had created our own.

I stayed off of it, though a tiny part of me wanted to join in.

We spent a lot of time with this thing. It was fun to see how to get it to balance.

Yay, we are all balanced! Good, clean fun!

Beach Shoot

An old friend of mine came to town last week and wanted to do some photography with me! It was a great opportunity for me to learn how to instruct a tiny bit (something I am not gifted in) but also to hang out with an old friend. We waded in the low tide (thank goodness for boots!) and just enjoyed ourselves and our cameras!

There is something really great about seeing old friends years after they move away. Anyone have any cool stories?

Blogger Meetup!

Seems so formal to call it a "Blogger Meetup", because it was really a friend meetup! Susan and her husband (who I met 2 summers ago) were down last week and we met up with them and Richie (who I knew already) for dinner! It was a great time to chat and enjoy a great meal!

Have any cool meetup stories to share? I love meeting online friends!

Lupine Hunting

The general consensus seems to be of late that this summer's flowers have been less than stellar, unfortunately. I have been comparing the lupine that has appeared to last summer's, and this year's has not been as good. It has been a rather dry summer so far, but with clouds, no sunshine, so I assume that has something to do with it.

A friend from high school let me know that she knew where some lupine was in bloom and offered to go with me in search. So, off we went. It was a fun afternoon with someone I had never actually hung out with before, but it was fun! The lupine was unfortunately not very good at the location, but it was better than I have seen so far this summer!

We stopped at the museum for some more flowers that we could tell were actually in bloom and had some fun on the train!

I really hope the fireweed blooms a lot this summer! Above location had lots of plants already growing, so I am hopeful!

Sea Sponge and Seaweed

I found a sea sponge on the beach at the sunset a few nights ago. I wanted to capture it, so I changed my perspective a little and took some long exposure shots of it.

Seaweed makes for an interesting subject with long exposures as well.

It is so ghostly looking, or something.

I enjoy how abstract this one looks!

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I have had a couple of busy days!

On Thursday, I met up with Ashley to welcome her to town, and I believe I speak for the both of us when we hit it off :) It was fun getting to know her for a couple hours in the sunshine!

After our un-coffee date, I took a drive onto the Spit for one last hurrah before the tourists come out in force. I spent some time walking the beach with the goal of shooting some eagles. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous day, and the wind was calm. I stood on the beach sand for a second and just soaked in the warmth from it, finally!! It was wonderful to stay on the beach, in flip flops no less, and not get cold. Summer is on its way!

I came home from there, and sat in my yard in my lawn chair and read a book for a while. I came inside and immediately realized that my face was sunburnt! Slightly regretting not keeping an eye on it, but oh well! I don't usually tan, so I will likely go back to pasty white.

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Yesterday evening,  we went to a friend's house and watched the new Narnia movie: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I have to admit, I'm glad I didn't pay money to watch it in the theater =/ The deviations and added things from the book kinda messed up the story, as well as the message. Some of it was awesome to see though.

I'm not sure I will be adding it to my collection either. It would have to be a really good deal for me to do so.

Strider?

We went to a friend's house and cooked food over their firepit the other day. Doesn't he look like Aragorn here?!

October Wedding Photos

My friend who's wedding we went to in October posted a ton of photos a few weeks back. There was no credit, but I believe most of them must have come from her photographers, Lauren and Lincoln.

A rather goofy expression on my face, but "my third photographer" :D

The guestbook was based on Polaroid photos of the guests :) Here is C with ours!

Photo booths are wonderful things :) Photo taken by our friend's uncle.

Me at dinner, drenched from the downpour!

Photo by another friend.

Just wanted to share them :)

Beluga Lake Lodge Review

I grew up with some amazing girls in my hometown. We did everything together. C grew up with some fun guys, and they did everything together too. Somehow, our paths all crossed in high school and we started dating each other. C and I were the only couple that stayed together, and unfortunately, we all started to drift apart a bit. But every once in a while, we all get together and it is great! We had a triple date last week, and went somewhere I had never been, but heard great things about: Beluga Lake Lodge.

Festive table decorations

The burgers are enormous. C and I split a Malibu chicken sandwich, with humongous, but delicious Jo Jos. It was a wonderful sandwich!

Festive caribou...

The appetizer menu: We got the Cajun Southwest Egg rolls. They were amazing! The dip was a bit spicy, but man, I would definitely get them again!

The sandwich menu. We got the #12.

All in all, we definitely plan on going back!

As soon as it started snowing here, I started itching to drag out the Christmas decorations. Now that it is officially November, I really want to. But I won't. I put them up just before Thanksgiving last year, and I was definitely tired of them by the time Christmas came around. As much as I love Christmas and decorating for it, I am trying to resist. I suppose I should focus that energy on coming up with present ideas.

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Yesterday was quite chilly. 30ish degrees and incredibly windy. It started blowing snow for a while. I was afraid we would lose power, but it did not happen. Today, however, has dawned partly cloudy. I can at least see the sun, so that helps.

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I spent my weekend (well, Thurs - Sunday) having a Star Wars marathon. I had never watched all 6 movies right in a row before. In fact, I'd only ever watched Episode III in theaters once and never watched it again. Several months back I bought the original trilogy used on DVD. As I watched them, I kept realizing there were some different scenes, dialogue, etc. Turns out, that's the result of the 2004 remastered versions. I was not crazy, but sure thought I was! Most of the changes seemed ok to me, but the ending of Episode VI was uncalled for!! Here is the original ending, and here is the new. Ugh, if Hayden didn't look so creepy here it might be a bit better! But anyway, I'm glad that I watched them all together. I've been wanting to for several months.

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We don't do anything for Halloween, usually. The church has a carnival that we helped out with last year, but we really don't find it to be our thing. Thankfully, our apartment is out of the way, so we turn off the light and no one knows we are there. I plan to go out today and go in search of on sale Halloween candy :)

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We attended a surprise birthday party Friday night that was a lot of fun. I helped set up for it Friday afternoon with a bunch of high school girls, which made it way chaotic, but still fun.

 The birthday boy's wife is extremely gifted in cake decorating and this was no exception....he loves pizza and Pepsi, so she made a cake, with fondant made to look like a pizza! The Pepsi can is an actual can that she put fondant around. It was delicious cake as well :)

Two Months

I have been a busy girl the past two months!

Took a trip to Arizona...

We took a trip to Chicago...

And Portland...

And watched our dear friend get married!