Call it waiting to the last minute, but Joshua and I went Christmas tree shopping yesterday. We were waiting for Davin to arrive, but snowy weather cancelled his fight again yesterday. The soonest they could rebook his flight is for Christmas day. It changes our plans for Christmas Eve and morning, but at least he will get here ... hopefully.
So after work yesterday, we set out to find ourselves a tree. Having seen no tree lots, we drove to Fred Meyer to check out the non-live selection. Everything was in the $200+ range, and totally out of the budget. So we asked a clerk were the tree lots were and she said to check with Lowes.
We drove to Lowes and they had no live trees. We asked where we could find one. A Lowes employee told us to go to "Minnesota Bob's" next to Fred Meyer. While expaining that we had just come from Fred Meyer a women walked up and interrupted.
She said "Minnisota Bob's" is out.
"The only place with trees left is Bell's Nursury and they are going fast. And they're NOT cheap," she warned us with what seemed like an unneccesary urgency in her voice.
So we found Bell's Nursury. Cars leaving the parking lot with no trees seemed like a bad sign. We got inside and a woman was sweeping up pine needles in an empty greenhouse. There were no trees left.
We went to four stores looking for fake trees. Everyone was out. Alaska is sold out of Christmas trees.
I finally resigned myself to the fact that our presents might just have to pile up in our living room Christmas day.
But today I decided to check one last place -- maybe I could just find one of those baby, table-top trees. Target came through for me, there was a small selection left and I found one that's 6 feet tall and it was on sale too.
Next year we might just go chop one down ourselves.
It was negative 8 degrees yesterday with a windchill factor of 25. The inside of our window frames had about a half an inch of ice built up. The ice was getting between the openings of the windows and sliding glass door and growing ... pushing them open ever so slightly. We took the blowdryer to them.
These birds are abnormally large here.
Ball fields and mountains across as seen from our apartment parking lot.
Along the Anchorage Greenbelt.
Snow on chain link.
Brrr.
The ring is an aquamarine with white and chocolate diamonds. Aquamarine is Joshua's birthstone. And gemstones.org says about Aquamarine: "according to the old traditions this promises a happy marriage and is said to bring the woman who wears it joy and wealth." Maybe it will bring on an economic upturn.
It appears Seattle is having more severe weather than Anchorage. Or at least the weather is causing more of an uproar down South.
For the first time, I played hostess to Thanksgiving dinner for my parents, friends Tony and Alisa, and our new friend Tony Ellis.
My dad checks out a bit of old foundation near the lot of of his old house.
The lot where my dad thinks the house sat.
The view of Cook Inlet from Earthquake Park.
Someone has decided it's safe to rebuild on land that has been deserted for more than half a century.
It was cold.
My parents arrived in the wee hours of Sunday morning and spent the week showing Joshua and I around memorable parts of Anchorage and introducing us to old friends.
Yesterday was Joshua's day off, so we spent it hanging pictures and assembling our new dining set. It was an early happy-birthday-to-me gift.
Those are my paintings on the wall in the background.
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Yesterday work was a circus. Halloween is a big deal at the Statesman. All the departments compete to have the best Halloween theme. Employees bring their kids though to trick or treat. Last year Advertising won as Harry Potter.
