Fabulous Friday: Frosting

The colder it is, the more of this seems to build up. Just a couple of images to send you off into the weekend with. Happy Friday!

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.

Fabulous Friday: A welcome sight

I got a little nostalgic on our road trip from Eastern Idaho to Eastern Washington. Maybe it was just my thirst for a view that wasn't snow-covered, but I kind of love the rolling, sage-brush and tumbleweed covered hills of my youth. The windmills keep springing up like dandelions. Every time I go home there are more.

Now that I'm back and almost unpacked I'm resolved to post a little more often. Plus I have tons of pictures from my trip to share, so stay tuned for that. And probably some serious snow photos soon too as this is the third snowiest winter in Alaska on record. Oh goody.

Cheers have a wonderful weekend!

Carol's maternity shoot

 

My beautiful and awesome sister-in-law Carol and I did a maternity shoot of her while visiting the Potter family in Idaho Falls. We had fun playing with lighting and shadows while capturing her third pregnancy. Isn't she gorgeous? This was probably one of the most fun photo shoots ever. Moms-to-be: I would love to do your maternity photos.

A sunset walk in Idaho Falls

Joshua and I took a sunset walk in Sportsman's Park in Idaho Falls on New Year's Eve with his brother and his finance. We were doing an engagement shoot for the other couple (more pics to come), but we passed the camera to them for a moment to get a vacation picture. It's it lovely?

We've been having a very relaxing and fun vacation. A great way to kick off 2012.

Happy New Year!

And we shall name it Triceratree

We put our Christmas tree up Sunday. I have fond memories of driving to every tree lot in the greater Tri-City area as a child to find our perfect tallest, Charlie-Brown-y-est Christmas tree possible — only to return to the very first lot and buy the very first tree we saw. But since moving to Alaska there are not billions of tree lots on every corner. So we simply go to Home Depot, because it's cost effective.

This year our tree had three tops. So we appropriately named it Triceratree. One was taller in the beginning, but it had to be lopped to fit in our living room.

My sweet mom made us some very special hand-beaded ornaments this year, including the one above. The beaded wreath frames pictures from our wedding on both sides. She has a similar one from hers and my dad's wedding which makes it extra special.

 Triceratree in all her glory.

Davs and I made paper snowflakes out of coffee filters while watching Elf and the Christmas episode of "Glee."

3-D movie glasses are so much cooler than when I was a kid. Pop the lenses out for a fashion statement.

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

I jumped the gun and started to put up Christmas decorations last Saturday. But I thought I would spare you the sight of them until today, the day after Thanksgiving. I love decorating for the holidays, especially in a new place. My dining room/kitchen area is already super colorful: An orange wall, orange, red and blue tiles in the kitchen, and bright tiles inset into the table, so I thought bright red and green might be a little jarring in that area. Instead I went with blue, gold and silver this year. 

 Upper shelf of the wine rack.

That pretty little genius was eating the gold berries on my garland moments earlier. This troubles me. Garlands hang in all my front windows this year.

My "pre-Thanksgiving" dinner table. We were visiting on Thanksgiving Day, so we had our special family dinner with a couple friends on Sunday. Those are handmade napkin holders: A spool of ribbon and leftover ornaments from the centerpiece.

Now when to get the tree?

Carving pumpkins and roasting seeds

Halloween is Monday so it's pumpkin carving time. We drove all over town looking for the perfect pumpkins after early release from school today and ended up getting these beauties at the Carr's [Alaska's Safeway] down the street. Bell's Nursery, which advertised a pumpkin patch on the radio only had discounted, tiny, Charlie Brown pumpkins left.

The ones at Carr's were huge and of course Davin wanted the one at the bottom of the crate. So we rearranged nearly every pumpkin in the stack to get to it.

Above, the victims before carving.

We also toasted pumpkin seeds, at batch of sweet and a batch of savory. The savory were coated in olive oil, garlic salt and cayenne pepper. The sweet were coated in olive oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, savory and a spoonful of brown sugar. Just spread on a baking sheet at pop in the oven at 400 for 20-30 minutes. If you do sweet, watch that sugar, it will burn if you don't pay attention.

Happy Halloween.

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.

A moment for Steve Jobs

They call him a visionary. A giant. Someone who revolutionized how we use our phones, our computers, talk to each other, find directions, read magazines.

For people in my profession, he shaped much of what we do and how we do it. In more ways than I can imagine my life is easier and my job is better because of Steve Jobs. Thank you and rest in peace.

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.