"From Salsa dancing one night to a poetry reading the next, your eclectic tastes call for a variety of frames. When you're feeling bold and sassy, look for dramatic colors and shapes. Nurture your conservative side with a more subdued pair of metal eyeglasses from timeless designers like Donna Karan or Anne Klein. For the social butterfly in you, don't forget about a pair of sexy frames to take you to evening and beyond."
On a walk this afternoon with the pup, I found this pussy willow tree on the edge of the forest behind our building. This is my favorite spring-time plant; they're irresistible! 
Hopping around in the tree was this fuzzy little bird and its play mate. My guess was that they were making their nest out of the softest things possible for their little hatchers. 
Giving adult hockey fans their own personal cowbell is like giving kids their own bubble wrap.
Not one of our better pictures, but it was such a cute place, I couldn't walk away without a picture of us celebrating our hatching chicks.
Mark and I set up his brother on a blind date with a girl we met here in Anchorage, and it was a great time. After the greatest pizza at Moose's Tooth, we went to Color Me Mine, painted our eggs, then went back to our apartment for a game of Golf (if you'd like to know how to play, I can email you the rules) and two games of Deal or No Deal led by Mark (there are no rules wen Mark's in charge). I lost my leftover pizza when Mark decided to put it on the top of the roof rather than pizza-ize our car, we drove away from the mall, I turn back to talk with Aimee and I see this big shiny thing (our pizza slices wrapped in aluminum foil) fall down her window as we were going through a light! Besides that, it was a very fun night for us all. I think I'm going to talk Mark into going back again.
Last night we painted pottery, and celebrated Easter with Mark's brother Michael who had come into town late last night. The cute little peeper back there is the one my sweet Mark did. Mine is the big blob in front with the grey polk-a-dots. We'll pick the finished ones up in a week. Enjoy today, and remember the great miracle of new beginnings. 
The Air Force has many deep rooted traditions for the spouses which lend support and friendship while their husbands are gone. When I married Mark, his mother gave me a book that had every sort of etiquette in order to be an Air Force Wife. It is such a fun book, I love to browse through it and extract ideas for parties and place settings. It has such things as 'how to set proper place setting' to 'invitation cards for different types of parties.' To establish new friendships fast, or just to keep girls busy while their husbands are away, there are things such as "Coffees" where the wives get together for snacks, and a couple of games of Bunko. It is a 3-die game where you role for different numbers and rotate to different tables depending on your 'win-lose' status. I had a great time, and this silly game brought out my competitive edge. Normally only tennis or catch-phrase can do that! On the Bunko link provided above there are score sheets you can print off, and you can play without drinks or money (like we did), ad there is a way you can do without 4 people at your table. You just play with a 'ghost partner.' If you ever need an idea for a Young Women's or Relief Society Activity, this game comes highly recommended. It's a great way to have fun and get to know your table-mates... if you're not glaring at them through dice-glazed eyes. 
Hope everyone had a happy St. Patrick's Day! Today we thought we had a touch of Irish luck, but we decided we were being scammed. O happy day. Why can't there just be a lucky chair? 
The past two days here, it has been above freezing = it has been 40 degrees, so the "break up" has begun. For now. This weekend it should fall to freezing again. The break up is when the ice starts to melt and break apart, as does the snow. Because I meant to take a picture for you all of these extreme roads and parking lots, I had to run out tonight at dusk when I remembered (hence yet another grey set of photos) my mission. You see how thick the ice is? And in the morning when it's all frozen again it's all nice and rounded because of the melting. And that means it's even slicker. How is everything not bashed in? I'm still trying to figure that one out. 
This morning after breakfast, I had an overwhelming craving for chocolates. Last week (the day we boarded the ferry), I got a box of See's Chocolates, which are my all-time favorite. They had been frozen the whole journey, so I had to wait for them to thaw. They're delish. And while I was enjoying a sweet piece filled with the softest caramel, I was reminded of what else had happened that day. I had attempted this blog-post last week, the day of, but the internet on the boat was not the best. So a week and a half ago, I wrote: 
Today I had my first blog-meet with my blog-friend Aubrey; she is a cousin of my friend Mauri's. I have now put a face to a blog. It was my first, so I have to admit I was a bit nervous, but she was such a sweet person, she made me feel like we've known each other for a very long time. Very enthusiastic and encouraging. I can tell her kids love her for it. Her sweet children came a long as well and loved to watch Buckwheat and hold his leash as he traipsed around the park. 
We stopped off the side of the road to wait for the other two cars in our caravan before driving to the hotel. The water was still that slate grey because of the cloud cover, and there were so many bald eagles. At the hotel the next morning when we were packing up the car, Buckwheat got really nervous and would stand on top of his kennel so he wouldn't be forgotten. Poor guy! 
When we were driving through the part of Alaska before British Columbia, Canada, we counted 15 bald eagles, and 1 golden eagle in only a distance of 20 miles or so. They were everywhere. When we drove into British Columbia we saw these two tractors plowing and blowing snow off the highway. It looked like they were trying to make a bunny hill or something.
I had to use the restroom a short distance into Canada, and the only things they had were these little outhouse rest stops off the sides of the highway. That was the coldest seat ever! My family and cousins will know what I mean when I say it is even colder than the Judd cabin's toilet seats early in the morning. 
After British Columbia, Canada came the beautiful Yukon:
After leaving British Columbia (which was desolate tundra nearly the whole way - awfully depressing!), we made it to the Yukon. It was beautiful. Below, this is the largest lake in the Yukon. It was all frozen. In one part of it, there were parts where an actual wave had frozen; almost like it had been frozen while it was crashing. It was bizarre. The caps were even frozen. It reminded me of The Day After Tomorrow. Sorry about Buckwheat's blatant sniffing. How about that hoodie on him, eh?
About 80 miles outside of Anchorage, there was the biggest glacier we have seen yet. It looked a lot like the lake in the Yukon that was frozen because it looks like it has white caps like the ocean would. It came spilling out of a mountain, about 4 miles behind us (you can't see it in the picture) and kept going! We pulled over to all get a picture with it. Where we were wasn't even the end of this glacier. I'm so excited to see it in the summer time when it's green around it. 
These pictures are some of my favorites from the ferry-cruise. The above picture I took Sunday morning when we pulled in to Ketchikan. It was the first stop we made, and the first thing we saw after we passed through Canadian waters. This next picture would fit the right of the one above; the sun had lit up all the fog on the water. The sunrises were beautiful!
In Juneau the following morning (Monday), Mark's cousin Shelly came out to visit us; it was extremely nice of her because the ferry docked at 4:3o! She and her two kids had to wake up so early. But they came out with their beast of a car and took us through the dark snow to the glacier and told us about this "friendly" black wolf who plays with other dogs who are on walks with their owners. Mark says he must have realized that it was easier to get food if he was nice. Makes me nervous (especially if you remember the 7 things post).
The first night we were on the boat, I woke up at 4:00 because it felt like I was falling downwards in my bed (feet first because we were rocking a bit). I woke up to find our first light house. I woke Mark up to see this ghostly white lighthouse with it's beacon light shining our boat every 3 seconds. The lighthouse above we saw on Monday morning after leaving Juneau. The scenery was picturesque.
This picture above is full color, it's not in black and white. Everything looked like Ansel Adams photography. We kept seeing little glaciers every now and again, but this one took the cake this day. 
Here's another light house we saw on Monday before we docked in Haines. It was pretty far away, so it's sort of fuzzy because of my crop job. 
