Anybody else suffering from severe Grey's Anatomy withdrawal? Anyone? Anyone? Well, I ran across this fun bracket this morning where you can vote for your favorite Grey's clips. I'm just slightly embarrassed that I actually puddled up once...and then laughed hysterically once. Or twice. Seriously.
It's here again. It has a new head coach. A new game plan. But the same crowd of crazed, obsessive fans of which we consider ourselves a proud part . So GO BIG RED. Show us whatchya got.
I have this thing for cookbooks. I love them. I'm the nerd at the Pampered Chef party that buys the cookbooks instead of the cool kitchen gadgets. But I simply HATE to plan menus, make shopping lists and grocery shop. So anything to streamline the process? Hey, I'm all for it. And since the price of groceries continues to rise (and rise), I have committed to only grocery shopping at the commissary. It saves money, but because it is too far away for quick trips, I have to plan well so I'm good to go for the entire week. Since it is finally time to start the change from summer salads and lighter fare to yummy cooler weather dinners, I put together a new 8 week meal menu for our family. I also include shopping lists and the name of the cookbook and page number of each recipe so it's easy to find when I need it. Remember, I have a thing for cookbooks.
Here's how it looks. I laminated each page with Scotch brand Self-Sealing Laminating Pouches so that I can make notes, cross off ingredients I already have on hand, and mark completed recipes with a dry erase marker. I use the same lamination technique for my kids' morning charts). That way I know in a glance what to include on my shopping list. It is a bit of work up front, but I tell you what, this system has saved me so much time overall.
Here is a close-up...you can click on the picture to view it larger.
Today was my first 5K road race. Ever. I mean, I ran cross country in high school, but that was through the wilds of Alaska, on soft rolling trails, surrounded by beautiful scenery and the occasional moose. So today was a challenge. It was humid. It was hot. And I do, um, (let me think about this for a minute) ALL of my running on my treadmill. Granted, I do run on an incline, but it's different running outside.
But I did it. And I did great. I posted a new personal best by 3 minutes and 35 seconds. And I learned to train at least one day a week outside. But the best thing I learned today is that I have the loudest, cutest, most devoted cheering section. And I finished stronger because they were there cheering me on.
So, I've been avoiding Target like the plague lately, trying to be good about sticking to our budget. But I did go yesterday and they had loaded the $1 bins with new stuff. CUTE stuff. I like to try and get a simple, little gift for Sam's teacher at the beginning of the school year, and these darling sticky notes and notepads were perfect. 
I used some paper scraps and made a tag with a cute embossed back to school bus on it (shared with me by the fabulous Jeni) and tied it on with twine. Sam was so excited to take it to his teacher today!
Also, Kawaii Crafter over at Zakka Life was kind enough to pass along this award to me last weekend, and I wanted to share it with two of my favorite bloggers. Sydney over at Deadlines and Diapers is a recent find. She is a mommy. She is a runner. And she cracks me up. And also Sonja from Wonder Years. Another mommy who takes lovely pictures and has great taste in children's names (we both have a Sam and an Anna...). There you are, ladies. Thanks for brightening my world with your wit and wisdom!
Well, Sam started back to school today in a brand-spankin' new building that still isn't completely tiled...but done enough for school to begin. Sam's class has only 17 kids in it (instead of 24 like last year) and is in an actual classroom (instead of a office-turned-into-a-classroom). He was so excited to be stretching his brain. I'm just happy to be starting a routine again. Yes, my friends, that makes THREE different school in THREE years. Man, how resilient these kids are. 
And sensing the quiet this morning, and perhaps a little lonely for her brother, Anna turned on the cute today. I was sitting at the kitchen table making a grocery shopping list and she was tapping away with her fingers on a notebook. Like an actual notebook of paper. I couldn't understand what she was doing until I took a closer look. It's a computer. Notice it even has a Skype camera.
We met up with the Broughs waiting for the shuttle...
...LOVED the fly-over by the stealth B-1 bomber (just try and tell me that it's not the coolest looking thing you've ever seen)...
...and got up close and personal with an A-10 Warthog.
As we got closer to the 1st birthday of our family blog, I started to panic. I mean, there are a lot of precious memories, photos, recipes and kidisms all spun into this neat little package online. But if something ever happened to Blogger? And it lost everything? So I started to research sites that publish blogs into books. I chose Blurb because their publishing options gave me the chance to choose book size and to have as little or as much (and knowing me, I wanted MUCH) control over page layout as I'd like. Lots and lots of options. They also have a little tutorial video that helped getting started a breeze. And the pricing is reasonable. You simply download the software and they upload your blog for you and you work on it at your convenience...the changes you make are saved automatically and when you have your book just how you like it, you "slurp" it up to their site and they send you a published book. The only downside I found, is that for Blogger, they can't access your comments and include them in your fnished book.
Tony is a great sport...he generally humors me, but I rarely see him get truly excited about any of my hare brained schemes. Until last night. He sat in our chair and flipped through the entire book, commenting again and again about how awesome it was. Yeah! Now I won't feel guilty for blogging because ACTUALLY, I'm creating our family history. So there.
**UPDATED**
I've had a couple of requests for some additional pictures of the inside of our blog book. Here are a few...sorry the pictures are not the best, but it will give you an idea at least.
The original posts for these pages are here and here.
The day after our trip to Seward, Tony took the kids back down Turnagain Arm to do a little exploring. While on the way, they actually spotted a pod of Beluga whales...something I have only seen 3 or so times in the 18 years I lived in Alaska. If you look closely at the photo, Tony caught two little white whale heads breaking the surface of the Cook Inlet.
After the whale excitement, they made a quick stop at Portage Glacier. That's a big chunk of glacial ice floating in the water behind the kids.
Next, they took the tunnel over to Whittier. The tunnel has existed for years through the Chugach mountain range, but just recently have they expanded it to be accessible to cars. The tunnel is 2.5 miles long and it gets you to Whitter where you could only get there before by boat or train. 
It's a tiny town of about 400, but apparently Anna & Sam charmed the patrons so well at the cafe they stopped at for fish and chips that they found another lady visiting from Omaha. Go figure.
And finally, Tony and my dad got their favorite fishing trip in again this trip. It's actually a float trip down the lower Kenai River and they fish for trout that have returned with the spawning salmon and grow huge from eating all the salmon roe. They had gorgeous weather and lots of luck...they caught about 50 rainbows from 14"-24" and Tony even caught a 25 pound King Salmon, but couldn't keep it because the season ended August 1st.
Before you get all impressed that I got a kind lunch invitation from the fabulous Michelle at Scribbit, let me assure you that there were familial obligations involved. Remember when I shared what a blessing it was to have grown up with family close? Michelle is part of that family...her father and my father are brothers. When we were young, I remember being in awe of her. She'd let my sisters and I sit in her immaculate bedroom and pour over old code sheets she and her friends had made up. She exposed my sisters and I to The Scarlet Pimpernel (but was kind enough to block the screen when people got their heads chopped off), Raiders of the Lost Ark (ditto for the guy and the helicopter blade) and, yes, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. She's seriously amazing. And I'd still love to be just like her when I grow up. Thanks for the yummy lunch and fun visit, Michelle! Can't wait to return the favor. Give Grace a hug for me.
And there is nothing like endless summer evenings and free babysitters (thanks, Mom and Dad)! Tony and I took advantage of both this past week and enjoyed dinner at one of our favorite Anchorage restaurants, Orso. Tony had the King Crab legs and I had the Salmon Duo of Fettuccine. Yum. There is nothing like well prepared FRESH seafood.
We started out early this morning and headed about 125 miles down the Kenai Peninsula toward Seward. About a half hour in, we spotted a group of Dall sheep up on the cliffs on the edge of the highway. So we pulled over really quickly and snapped some great photos of the sheep. I also panned out to give you some perspective. Along Turnagain Arm is one of my favorite parts of Alaska...you have literally cliffs on one side and Cook Inlet on the other. Gorgeous.
When we got to Seward, we headed straight for the SeaLife Center and ate lunch on the front lawn that overlooks Resurrection Bay...simply one of the most breathtaking sights around. The sun even broke through the clouds today and made the air nice and warm. 
We visited all the inside exhibits with our very favorite parts being the seal exhibit, the sea birds, and the salmon display.
On the way home, we stopped at Exit Glacier, right outside of Seward. Tony and I visited it about 10 years ago, but they have a much nicer trail now that goes almost all the way up to the glacier itself. 
Don't you love this board they have posted outside the ranger station?? 
Real cute, until you run across one of these paw prints on the trail...
If you notice, the glacier is really a turquoise blue because of the way the sunlight is absorbed and reflected. It was a great hike (Josh LOVED his first trip in a baby backpack) and we wore the kids out for the long drive home.
So I know I'm supposed to be on vacation. Along with relaxing, napping, catching up, that usually signifies extra time surrounded by those you love, playing games, watching movies.
I've been hoping to get some good pictures of the mountains to share, but it has been so overcast that I finally resorted to taking some pictures of fireweed today. Since I grew up here, I have always considered it, well, a weed. But the first summer that Tony and I spent in Alaska after we got married, he absolutely fell in love with fireweed. It has a pretty cool story. We call it fireweed because it is the first regrowth in an area after a forest fire. It grows rampantly along the highways and makes a yummy jam. But the coolest thing about fireweed is that in mid to late summer fireweed begins blooming in the middle of the stalk, with each successive flower blooming just above the one before it. As the last flowers are blooming at the top of the stalk, the earliest blooms seed and turn to cotton. When the fireweed turns to cotton, Alaskans say there are about six weeks until winter begins.
And remember Sam's magic trick? Well, when my dad saw his enthusiasm, he hired a magician to come perform for FHE tonight at the house. We had my cousin Emily and her two kids come as well as great-grandpa and great-grandma. The kids (and adults!) were mystified!
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