My so-called life.

We have actual almost darkness now, but NO SUMMER. It's barely 60 degrees for a high, moments of teeny little bits of sunshine, a tiny bit of rain (it rained the day we went to some glacier between Anchorage and Whittier. It's really cold standing in a drizzle, next to a lake full of glacier chunks. Really.). We have had a couple really nice sunny summer days, but we are working on our second straight week of overcast days. Not really a great introduction to Anchorage, not endearing me to Anchorage, definitely.

There are some consolations. Like my fab new house, with SEVEN storage rooms and areas. There's a big storeroom plus a small closet under the stairs on the ground floor, two storerooms plus two sets of shelves in the garage, a big walk in linen closetupstairs and a walk in closet in the upstairs laundry room. Plus a small walk in closet in each of the four bedrooms.

See the sunshine?
Obviously I took this photo a couple weeks ago...These are the doors to the deck and the backyard, and that's my backyard. And that gray bit between the houses out the right door? That's the Chugach Mountains. We can see them pretty well, and this fall when the leaves drop we will have an even better view.

The dogs love the new backyard, especially the grass. Grass is much better for those surprise attacks.

When the kids and I went to pick Mark up from the airport when he was coming back from Japan -- he went to Japan right after we arrived, and is now in Honolulu. His new job seems to involve a lot of travel -- we parked in the cell phone lot (which is such a great idea -- it's a free parking lot where you pull in and wait for a call from the person you are picking up) which is right next to a lake full of seaplanes. So we sat there for half an hour watching seaplanes land and take off. It was very Alaskan.

This is our house right now -- our stuff has arrived but I haven't unpacked everything yet.

We went up into the Chugach Mountains, where there's a great view of Anchorage and Fort Richardson, and SNOW. Here's a shot of the dogs having a most fabulous time racing across the snow and jumping over a small stream. Mojo crashed on his last attempt. He fell sideways and ended up on his back. No lasting damage, though...