Homer, Halibut and Hidden Treasures

Last week my parents got to come up to Alaska to visit us for about 10 days. About half way through the week we planned a trip to Homer to go on a Halibut charter. This was the first Halibut trip that my mom and I have ever done so we were quite excited.


Now Homer is about 4 hours away and since the charter was to leave at 6:30am on Thursday morning we thought it best to head to Homer the day before and spend some time in town and be able to get a good nights rest before our long day of fishing. We had a wonderful time around the town. May parents are both into Geocaching so we found 3 "hidden treasures" along the Homer Spit and were able to locate them using my dad's nifty GPS and Tyler's great hunting skills.

Tyler found the first one and won the prize of free ice cream from my parents. Good job Ty!
We stayed the night at a great little Bed & Breakfast just outside of downtown. Early Friday morning we got up to a wonderful home cooked meal and then quickly loaded into the car to get to our charter boat. The weather was amazing - sunny and warm which made for a great day on the water. I have never seen anyone catch fish as quickly as we were that day. You put your line in the water and as soon as it hit the ocean floor you were reeling up a Halibut- I kept the first two I caught since I was one of 3 on our boat to get seasick I thought it best to keep the Halibut I caught since I was never sure if I would feel well enough to fish later. But even while being sick I had a great time out on the water with everyone.



We now have a freezer full of halibut so I know what Tyler and I will be eatling the rest of this summer - Beer battered hallibut anyone?

Mayor's 5 Mile Run

So several months ago I asked my friend Melanie if she would join me in running the Mayor's 5 mile run on June 20th. She was game for it and so we started training. Melanie was in California for most of the time so we had to train seperatly but we both stuck with it and were ready and excited to do the run.



We both decided that our limit on running is 5 miles - sorry but no marathons for us. The race was listed as a 5.6 mile race however after doing a trial run on the course and clocking the distance we beleive that the acutal race was closer to 5.8 or 6 miles by the time you crossed the actual finish line. What a great accomplishment we felt when we finihsed - we actually ran the entire thing (no walking or resting) and we did it in about 1 hour and 4 min. I know we aren't breaking any records but our goal was to complete it in about one hour so we made it!

Here we are finihsing up the race together over the finish line (don't laugh at how we look when we run - I already said we aren't really runners)



Thanks Melanie for joining in the race with me. It was fun and a great way to motivate me to get into shape.

Happy Birthday Pops

Today is my dad's birhtday and I am wishing him lots birthday wishes.


Dad - I'm sad we can't be there to help you celbrate your special day. I wanted to let you know that you are the best dad. Thank you for all that you have sacrificed for our family thorugh the years, for you dedcuation to mom, you love for us and for the Lord. You are a great example of an excelent husband and a wonderful Dad. Looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks and we'll have have a belated birhtday bash up here when you and mom arrive.


Happy Birthday!

Pet Emergency

So Yawkey had to make a visit to the Pet ER last night around 8:30pm - here is what happened....

We were having a nice evening at the dog park with some friends when Tyler noticed that Yawkey had quite a few bumps (what we thought were mosquito bites) on his face and around his eyes. Yawkey kept scratching his face and when Tyler picked him up we realized that the bumps were starting to swell - Fast forward not even 10 min later and Yawkey is spread out in Tyler's arms with both eyes almost swollen shut his jowels swelling so much that they almost cover his nose and his whole head swelling up by the minute --- (Yawkey looked like Will Smith in "Hitch" when Smith has an allergic reaction to shellfish, only worse) --
- So we finally get to the Pet ER and they immediately take the Yawks back and give him two shots. The Vet comes out to talk with us and asks that we leave Yawks at the office for 2 to 3 hours to make sure the shots get the swelling down. His reaction/swelling was faster then the shots were working and the swelling was begining to move to his legs. So she wanted to make sure that the swelling didn't hinder his breathing any more then it had (poor yawks was already breathing out of his mouth) and felt better having him stay there to keep an eye on him and administer another shot if necessary. His short little snout didn't provide much room for swelling before restricting his breathing.

So at 11pm we returned to the Pet ER to find Yawkey better then before but still a little swollen - but his personality was back (as he was wagging his tail and trying to run across the counter at the office to say hi to everyone) and you could actually see his eyes and nose again. So slightly chubby faced Yawks returned home with us and is now back to normal.


The remedy for this - we now give our dog benadryll every day and I'll be carring some with me when we go camping or to the park next time - Who knows what caused him to have such a reaction but it's good to have him back to his normal self.

A weekend in Homer

The first weekend in April Tyler and I decided to drive out to Homer for a relaxing and well needed weekend away. We had great plans to hike trials, walk along the water and just see the area. We found a hotel that allowed you to bring your pet so we packed up our things and brought Yawkey with us and headed out. The trip started off wonderful - nice weather, great music and a very successful and uneventful 4 hour drive to Homer. We got to our hotel around 10:30pm and settled in for the night with high hopes of a fun filled day with lots of hikes and outdoor fun with the dog and each other.

Around 9:30 in the morning I got up and got ready for the day. I looked outside the window in our room and mentioned to Tyler how gray the ground looked saying "Homer must have gotten way more Ash then Anchorage last week 'cause it was still all over the ground." Tyler didn't really believe me until he walked out of our room with the dog and saw that the car looked like this:


That's right good old Mt. Redoubt blew at 6:00am Saturday morning and covered Homer in a nice fresh layer of Ash. So all our fun outdoor plans were going to have to change...

We had some breakfast and then decided to drive down the spit and look at things from inside the car. When we got down to the spit we saw a bald eagle sitting down and drove right up to him to get a closer look. As we looked around we counted 12 bald eagles all round us - on the ground, the flag pole, roof tops and everywhere. Tyler and I got out with the camera to take some pictures and left Yawkey in the car thinking it wouldn't take much for an eagle to scoop him up and fly away. Yawkey as you can see was disappointed to be locked inside.




After the Eagle sightings the wind started to pick-up and all the ash started to blow around making any outdoor activity very uninviting. So we drove back through town and found the "Bear Creek Winery" which was open. We went in and had a really fun time enjoying a wine tasting and visiting with the owners of the winery. All the wines are made from Alaska grown berries and some of our favorite ones were the Raspberry wine and the Rhubarb wine. It was a nice relaxing afternoon and my first wine tasting experience and I loved it.


What a great weekend away and on our drive home it was so clear and sunny out that we could actually see Mr. Redoubt from the road with it's puffs of stream. (pictures didn't turn out to great of the Mt. but you get the idea)






It ended up being a perfect weekend away -

Lunch with the President

A few weeks ago I got invited to "Burgers with Bobbi" at my work. "Burgers with Bobbi" was an informal lunch of about 20 employees with our President at Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. It was a really nice time where the ASRC president, Bobbi, sat around with the 20 of us and talked about the companies strategic plan and founding. I was a bit nervous to have lunch with "the president" but it was delightful. She is very friendly and welcoming to everyone. What a wonderful lunch and fun time to hear from the "top dog" of the company. I love my job


Oh ya and the burgers were from Arctic Roadrunner - Fabulous!

Wildlife Encounter

Yesterday was no ordinary day. It started out as an ordinary day and then I went on a walk with my friend Natalie and our dogs.

We have gone walking several times together the past few weeks and our dogs love to be out. We got out of the car and right away saw two moose right off the path picking at the trees and just standing around. They didn't even seem to notice us. Yawkey's tale was wagging and he would growl and then let out an excited little bark and kept look at me as if wondering why I wouldn't let him off the leash to go play with those large animals. I am sure if he was loose he would go right up and lick the moose on the face if he could. Natalie and I snapped some pictures of the moose and then proceeded on with our walk.



Fast forward about 45 minutes later as we get near the end of our walk and Natalie spots another moose in the woods. We stop for a moment to look and then we notice him starting to walk towards us. So we take a few steps and see that he is starting to come towards us faster. Now I know we need to find something to hid behind and funny enough (though not funny at that moment) the only thing close was a small clump of trees (if you can even call one measly looking tree and a skinny birch tree a clump.) So Natalie and I scooped up the dogs and huddled together behind the few tree branches we could find. The moose came trotting out towards us and stopped on the path staring straight at us and didn't move. Finally he decided to head down the path a bit more and slowly started walking. Practically holding our breathe Natalie and I stayed as quit as possible hoping that he would keep walking. He did but was sure taking his time and kept on the path. So, after what seemed like a long time to us (in reality probably only a few minutes) he was far enough away for us to get out from behind the tree and head back to the car on the other trial that went around the other side of the frozen pond. There was no way we were following that moose all the way back. What a relief it was to get back to the car.

It made me grateful actually that I had been charged by a moose already my first hiking trip up here because this time i knew what to do. Though knowing what to do doesn't really make it much better the second time. We both ended the night saying how much we hate moose.

It sure is nice to back at home safe and sound.