Friday update

This morning when I parked my car in the lot at work and opened the door, a huge BANG went off and I was just about ready to duck and cover, ninja style! After a moment, a big flock of Canada geese went flying off into the distance and I realized that the small plane airport (which borders my workplace) was herding the birds off the runway so they wouldn't cause any major accidents. I guess a "shoo, bird!" doesn't really cut it with 50-100 geese.

My last health fair of the season is tomorrow (woot!) so I'll be working late today. This is so random, but when I get stressed out my eyelid usually twitches, but this week it's been my lip and the muscle near my nose. I don't think it's noticeable because no one has mentioned it to me and it's not like my face is constantly twitching 24/7, but I still feel a little weird about it.

As we speak my sister is out running wedding errands for me -- in California, no less! She's picking up table linens and napkins for the reception. Thanks Risha!

Poufs and pompoms

I went to girls' craft night yesterday, hosted by my friend Cindy at her home. I didn't have any pressing projects to work on but decided to practice making paper poufs and pompoms for the wedding. Not sure where these will go, but I love that they can be created in any size and then suspended from the ceiling or made into garland to string across the room or placed on the table.

I forgot to take a photo of mine, but here are Martha Stewart's:

I know that people have had questions regarding accomodations during the wedding -- everyone is really being proactive, I love that! Our wedding website is super close to being finished (I'm creating it from scratch in my non-existent spare time, so bear with me!) and it contains a lot of suggestions for lodging, things to do and what to bring. I'm working with three hotels in Seward for discount blocks of rooms: Seward Windsong Lodge, Breeze Inn and the Seward Harbor Holiday Inn Express. Plus there are options to camp or rent a motorhome or reserve a cabin for the weekend.

If you want to get a head start on booking a room or cabin, email me or leave a comment -- I'll forward some of those links!

Puppy love

Our nice neighbors to the south of us have a gray weimaraner and they sometimes bring him over to play in our backyard with Drift. Oh man, the puppies have so much fun! It's a pretty constant "you chase me, no I'll chase you!" circus back there, with some biting and lots of jumping thrown in for the good measure. I think Drift is at least 3-4 years older than Clyde, so our dog gets tired a lot sooner than theirs.

I'm spoiled for all other dogs now; Drift is so happy, sweet and mellow, and overall a very good dog. Clyde is great but that dog has jumped up on me I don't know how many times and almost bitten my ear off by accident. Discipline is not the name of the game next door, apparently. But the dogs have fun together and it's good exercise.

Here they are wanting to come in - Drift just stood patiently while Clyde went crazy clawing at the sliding door!

Triple the fun

No health fairs this weekend, but it was busy nonetheless. A going-away party for a coworker on Friday night, then a birthday party for another friend on Saturday night. But for about 5 hours on Saturday afternoon, I had the opportunity to help babysit TRIPLETS! A friend of a friend gave birth to triplets (2 girls, 1 boy) about 5 months ago and three of us went over to give the harried parents a baby-free afternoon off. My friend's 2-year old son also came over to play with the triplets' 2-year old -- so we had five kids total to watch.

It was crazy busy all afternoon. The babies were in good moods for about 30 minutes after the parents left, then they got fussy. Usually two would cry and one would be fine -- then they'd trade off. The baby boy is the smallest of the bunch, but man can he spit up! He's a champion, that one -- I was sporting spit-up all over my shirt. I now recognize the importance of a rag on your person at all times.

After a big meltdown before feeding time we let the babies nap for a bit and then took them for a short walk outside since the day was gorgeous. Oh they looked SO adorable bundled up in the fleece jumpers! I got my girl in a sling contraption and she fell right asleep. We got the 2-year old boys dressed and situated in the double stroller and took a nice 30 minute jaunt around the neighborhood. Another friend who had a baby boy about 2 months ago stopped by and also walked with us. Such a lovely day.

Oh and we found out later that we had been calling the girls by the incorrect names all afternoon! They totally look alike but the parents are not sure if the three are truly identical. I guess there is some test the babies can take but they haven't gotten around to it yet. I definitely came home with a touch of baby fever!

Weather and weddings

Usually by this time of year I would have photos of snow on the ground or tales of woe about the cold temperatures, but the wacky weather has brought us mid-50 degree temps and rain. I'm not complaining because we'll have plenty of time to play in the snow as the season progresses. I don't think we've even had a really hard frost yet, and some of my container plants and flowers are still alive! Honestly I can't remember ever having Halloween without cold weather and snow.

If I can get my act together, Save-the-Date reminders for the wedding will go out soon. That means I need to work on the guest list, ugh. We're also putting together a website with pertinent details for guests: travel info, accommodation recommendations, things to do, etc.

We met with a photographer on Monday -- um, love him and his team's work. Joe answered all of our questions and eased my many fears (e.g. what if the equipment konks out or a memory card is lost?) Our photographer (Karen) is currently in Antarctica but will be back in the spring. My big question was, what if she gets sick? And basically, unless Karen is dead, she'll be there -- you don't bail out on a bride on her wedding day. Alrighty then!

Getting to know you

A blog that I often frequent asked the question, "what chore don’t you trust the other person to do?" That got me thinking -- and I think I would rather not have D do the laundry. Or more specifically, any laundry other than his own clothing. And there is a specific way of loading the dishwasher that I like.

D would probably prefer that I not tackle any home projects having to do with specific measurements or level surfaces. I got all the way up to calculus in high school but for some reason practical measurements are not my forte'. And I like to eyeball stuff that should really be done with the use of a level. All of this is a living nightmare for a carpenter, I'm sure!

Currently enamored with...

The "all things loved in September/October" list:

1. A wonderful fiancee': D works so very hard and is being a real trooper with all of this wedding craziness. I think he's learning that these events don't plan themselves...

2. Our new sleigh bed: a friend from work/book club is moving down to the Carolinas (boo!) but is selling most of her furniture, so I snatched up her dark wood queen sleigh bed (yay!). Since a small part of it was sanded down and still needs to be stained, we got the whole shebang (headboard, footboard, rails, supports) for a steal - $125! I think D even likes it. It's nice to have an adult bed after living with such a plain setup for so long.

3. My CHI hair straightener: um, if your sister ended up with the beautiful straight Korean hair and you got the weird half straight/half wavy mop, then you need a CHI. They're a bit more expensive than ones from the the drugstore, but totally worth it. I got mine on supersale from a salon and it seriously takes me only 10 minutes to flat iron my hair stick-straight. With a $30 iron it would be at least 20-30 minutes and my hair still wouldn't look right.

Monday update

Sorry for the sparse posting lately. I've worked the last two Saturdays (health fairs) so these have been 6-day weeks and I'm busy busy busy. And tired. This weekend is a free one but I am scheduled again on the 24th. I'm a bit burned out on work at this point.

I just realized that I have over 100 hours of vacation saved up in my PTO bank and can only carry over 40 hours to 2010 -- so somebody needs to take a bunch of time off before the end of the year! Sometime in the last few months I hit the magic mark and bumped up my vacation accrual rate from 7.54 hours earned per month to 15.08 hours/month, which is super fabulous but troublesome at the end of the year when we're busy and I don't have room in the schedule to take the time off. Gotta make time for it!

Happy blog-iversary

Wow, today marks the one-year anniversary of my little blog!

 I don't have a ton of readers but the ones who have stuck around are pretty faithful! Thanks to all of you who come back week after week to hear about our adventures of living in Alaska with an animal menagerie. A lot of events, both happy and not, have occurred over the past year but it's been good overall (and cathartic) to use this blog to let everything out. Here's to another year!

Money, honey

Yet again I have realized that I am working in the wrong line of business. After getting price quotes for day-of wedding coordination it has occurred to me that people are correct when they say the wedding business is quite the profitable little racket. One woman wants $1,200 to oversee the wedding day. Another charges $125 per hour, plus travel expenses. I think I work pretty dang hard but I don't make $125 per hour! I'm thinking we'll do without the day-of coordinator. I'm organizing everything else, but thought it would be nice to heave the mantle of responsibility and stress on someone else for the big day. :-)

On a happier note, my permanent fund dividend (PFD) check arrived today! It was deposited straight into my bank account, where it will promptly be applied towards car insurance and various wedding items on my checklist.

Wedding details

Hi blog readers -- D and I have decided on a date and location for the wedding. I know it's impossible to make the circumstances work for everyone, but please know that we put a lot of thought into this celebration and we would never intentionally want to leave anyone out. We hope everyone invited to the wedding can make it up, but totally understand if you are unable to join us. Maybe between now and June we'll hit the jackpot and can charter private jets to fly everyone up!

Save-the-dates and formal invites to follow, but here are the basics:

Date: Saturday, June 26, 2010
Location: Inn at Tern Lake

D and I love the outdoors -- big surpise, right? :-) So we picked a location that we think reflects our personalities and my vision for this wedding. It is 90 minutes from Anchorage, off of the main highway. The closest town is Moose Pass, with Cooper Landing 15 minutes away and Seward about 35 minutes down the road.

Looking towards the back of the Inn -- the Seward Highway is beyond the building.

The property has a large lagoon for kayaking, canoeing and fishing.

Bridge from the Inn to the ceremony location.

Putting green / ceremony location

Keeping a level head

Currently really enjoying this website -- A Practical Wedding  With an abundance of wedding-related sites out there, this one is refreshing!

Kenai Peninsula trip 2

Since it was so nice last Saturday, D convinced me to go on a short hike to Carter Lake, near Seward. While I was in the car he talked to this woman emerging from the trail who said it was about a 30 minute jaunt. Great!

So off we go -- and what do you know, the first mile of this "easy" climb is all UPHILL. Like huffing and puffing uphill. 30 minutes my ass, lady! But it evened out at the start of the second mile and finally we were rewarded with the sight of Carter Lake in the distance. D also spotted a few dall sheep or mountain goats (I can't remember which) on one of the high mountains.

Hello termination dust! (That's what we call the first snows on the mountains - since its appearance means the termination of summer).

So sad that it's getting darker in the evenings. We're losing about 6-7 minutes of light per day, until December 21st. We had to bundle up a bit since the temps were hovering around the high 40's.

I can just imagine how amazing this field must have looked when the fireweed was in full bloom!

On the way DOWN the trail -- I'm in a happier mood!

Kenai Peninsula trip

In my head, I already have outfits picked out for our future little kidlets. "Alaska Grown" t-shirts, Carhartt overalls, SmartWool booties and of course, XtraTuffs! I had no idea they made these boots in kid sizes -- SO CUTE.

We saw these last weekend at the hardware store near the Seward harbor. I love Alaska hardware stores -- they have all sorts of random things.

In downtown Seward, looking out over the beginning of Resurrection Bay. It was an unusually nice sunny day, with calm seas to boot.

Mount Marathon -- where the super hardcore mountain runners flock to on th 4th of July. The race starts from downtown Seward and competitors run to the top peak and down. Some people can even complete it in an hour.

This area is called the "Ball Diamond" by Moose Pass and Seward locals. Apparently it's a free, first-come, first-served RV and camping area.

The ring!

It's here, on my finger! FedEx tried to deliver the package yesterday around noon (which is way earlier than we expected) so no one was home to sign for it. I had book club with my work ladies last night so there was no way I could get it and I told D that I would just go home around lunchtime to wait for the delivery man. the next day

Well, when I got home D came over and presented me with a dark red ring box! He had driven all the way over the the airport where the FedEx hub is located and picked up the package -- what a wonderful man. He opened the box, and let me tell you, the ring just about took my breath away! I was so nervous that it wouldn't look the same in real life but it is totally amazing.

I'm over the moon happy about it. D is happy too, but he'd probably be happier if I left the ring in its pretty box and secured it in a safety deposit box somewhere. :-) I need to call my insurance company and get the ring and my wedding band (we bought both at the same time so they would match) on my policy.

Obviously I am not a professional photographer, so these images do not come close to capturing the sparkle of the diamonds.

I was really impressed with Blue Nile. The build-your-own-ring feature lets you pick any loose stone and then place it into a variety of settings. It's free overnight FedEx shipping and free re-sizing if you need it.