Cold, but beautiful. Cheesy, but fun.

Here's a snap I took of frost fringed tree from the parent car line-up waiting to pick my son up from school Wednesday. I used photo+ for iPhone, my new favorite photo app for iPhone, which I first found out about from Mashable. You can take regular pictures and then add kitschy filters and effects afterward. Cheesy, but fun all the same.

Cue music: Snow, snow, snow, snow

My Facebook and Twitter networks are abuzz with reports of the weather in the Pacific Northwest this week. Friends from Seattle to Portland to Boise are reporting the stuff snowballs are made of causing early release at work, school cancellations and delayed flights. We've had snow for months and dealing with it becomes second nature here. So all the commotion made me want to take my camera for a run around the neighborhood to share what our accumulation looks like this time of year.

Drive safe out there, friends. Oh, and it's minus-10 degrees here today!

 Sometimes I take these stately evergreens for granted. I'll try to be better about that.

Snow berms block sidewalks, houses and impede the width of the road by feet. It actually changes the look of the streets. We almost missed out street turn multiple times after coming back from vacation to more snow. Sad, I know.

We are lucky to have a snow service included in rent, so this little walkway along the house is courtesy those fine folks. My front yard is flush with the walkway, so this best illustrates the snow level here.

 Davin plays in the vacant lot next door.

Alaska Christmas

 

Davin got a Kindle Fire for Christmas in Alaska and the next day we hopped on a plane to visit our families and friends in Idaho and Washington. Travel photos to come.

Josh and Davin watch a movie on the iPad while waiting for our flight in the Anchorage airport.

Snowy days

Davin played in the snow until it was dark yesterday. After a failed attempt to make a snowman on my part — snow wouldn't pack — I gave up and took pictures.

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween. Davin did pretty well on his Trick-or-Treat adventure. He was a penguin, but people kept asking if he was an "Angry Bird." Sign of the times?

If you look back, you'll notice there was no snow when we carved our pumpkins just Thursday. That is no longer the case.

 Over the weekend we went to the Monster Ball at the Museum where our friend dee-jayed the event.

Can you guess what our costumes were?

And it begins

Just when we were all thinking Anchorage kids might be lucky enough to have a snow-free Trick-or-Treat this Halloween — this happened. Anchorage got it's first measurable snowfall last night. Goodbye green. Hello white for the next six months.

The cats didn't know what to make of this strange cold stuff.

 The pumpkins looked a little distraught too.

City moose everywhere

We read that the Aurora Borealis (aka Northern Lights) was especially active last night — even reports that it could be seen in the southern United States. Did anyone see it? We decided to drive up to Flat Top and see if we could see them. It was too cloudy, but we did see these moose on edge of Hillside Road. We've been spotting them all over town the past couple days, including a monster sized male a block from Davin's school this morning.

Nearly three years in Alaska and I've yet to see the Aurora. The city is too bright to see them, so we have to look outside of town. It's on my Alaska bucket list.

UnWINEd Grand Opening

I had a great time taking photos and lending a hand at the UnWINEd Grand Opening last weekend. UnWINEd is Anchorage's newest boutique wine shop and when Joshua went in to sell them advertising a few weeks ago a short chat turned into a career change.

They were so impressed with his wine knowledge combined with his advertising and business management experience they recruited him to be the store's resident wine expert, or sommelier. One of the owners was recently telling me how happy he was to have my husband join their team. He felt the way Josh explains wine is a unique service he doesn't think you can get just anywhere and a key component to the store's future. I told him I was just so pleased to see him doing work he's passionate about. And it doesn't hurt that I'll have to help him with his homework (read: tasting).

At the Grand Opening celebration there were tasty treats, tons of customers and even the mayor came down to do a ribbon cutting. The owners hope to cultivate a store where you can find unique wines that aren't distributed everywhere else in town. They also carry a variety of gifts such as cork purses and jewelry, specialty foods including tapanade and flavored olive oils, and a plethora of wine-related accessories.

I'm excited to see the store grow and have a connection to such creative, hard-working business people in Anchorage. If you live in Anchorage, I hope you drop by sometime to check it out.

 Anchorage Mayor Sullivan cuts the ribbon to commemorate the Grand Opening of UnWINEd, with the store's owners at his sides.

It's here: Entrepreneur Alaska

My lovely friend Meghan called me back in August and told me she needed more journalism in her life. So we decided to start an online magazine: Entrepreneur Alaska. It's an online publication dedicated to celebrating the success of business owners in our great state.

Today, our first feature is up. A story about the inspiring triathlon trainer and athletic event planer, Lisa Keller. Read her story here. Meghan wrote it and I made the pictures. I'm having so much fun with this and hope you take a moment to check it out, leave a comment and come back for future stories.

Our goal is a new feature every Monday, plus supplemental content throughout the week. Stop by and let us know how we're doing!

Thanks and have a wonderful Monday.

Ekluna daycation: A hidden paradise with ice cream

 

Perhaps it was the angle of the sun on one of the last warm summer days or the way the color of glacial melt is oddly similar to that of tropical waters, or maybe it was just my imagination. Regardless, for a brief moment on Sunday, laying on my back on the rocky beach, I closed my eyes and transcended to a tropical beach. Ekluna Lake is not very far from Anchorage, and standing on the beach I was trying to figure out why, why, why we had never been there before.

After taking a hike at Thunderbird Falls, we weren't done with our Sunday afternoon adventure and decided to drive on to Eklutna Lake. We passed the campground, stopped in the day parking and wandered on to the trail, which opened up to the beautiful site below. 

We also discovered the sweetest little ice cream shop, Rochelle's. They offered Alaskan flavors such as Fireweed & Honey and Birch Walnut. They also had classics like oreo and chocolate mudslide, and serves burgers, fries, onion rings and a variety of drive-in style fare.

 

You might be wondering where I acquired an additional child. If so, he's my son's best school buddy and a regular fixture at the Potter household these days.

Thunderbird Falls

I've driven past the exit for Thunderbird Falls pretty much four times a week for the last two years. Despite the sage advise from my grandmother to go there, we didn't make the trip until last weekend. I figured if my friend's willful three-year-old could do the hike it would be super easy and flat. So the first big hill surprised me, but it wasn't bad after that. The 20 minute drive northwest of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway is totally worth the crashing sound and refreshing view of the 200 foot falls. There is an upper viewing point and a short trail to stand near the bottom of the falls where I could actually feel the mist. It was a great afternoon trip that took us on to an Eklutna adventure. More on that later.

Word is the falls freeze in the winter creating beautiful nature-made ice sculptures. Perhaps we'll have to venture back for a cold weather hike in a few months.

A hipstamatic fair time

I realized on the way to the Alaska State Fair yesterday that I had forgotten to put the Scandisk back in my point and shoot. So I decided to document our day at the fair with the Hisptamatic app on my iPhone. Hipstamatic is kind of one of those guilty pleasure things that I hate to admit I like. Like the Kardashians and Katy Perry. The photos look cool. In fact I got far more comments on one of these pics on Facebook mobile upload than expected. But I prefer a truer image. I wouldn't submit it to the Pulitzer committee of anything ... But it did make a fun set of pics to remember our day.

 Davin and his best buddy.

 The rat race.

 Award winning giant cabbage.

 To the birds.

 Cotton candy.

 The masses.

 It was windy and chilly, but my Alaska jacket from Homer kept me warm.

One non Hipstamatic for the mix, the kids while by on the highest part of this ride.