Anchorage Museum

Davin and I visited the Anchorage Museum on Sunday. It reopened in May after renovation and will continue to open newly renovated wings and new exhibits over the coming year. Mostly it contained Alaska artwork and an exhibit celebrating Alaska's 50th year of statehood, but it was definitely worth the visit. It's just blocks from my place, so I look forward to going back when a Star Wars traveling exhibit opens this winter featuring props from the original movies. The girl working the front counter said fans plan to attend the opening in costume like a midnight movie showing. One of her friend in particular has a Chewbacca costume ready for the event.

My balcony

 

Last night we saw a rainbow from our balcony. A silver lining to living in such a rainy city, if you will.

Little tomatoes are growing in my balcony planter. I hope they ripen before it freezes.

More of what I do

We published a contracted special section for Social Security and Medicare on Sunday and I designed it. Here's a link to an interactive PDF.

Blueberries and an aptly named hill

Blueberry Hill Trail is a branch off the Flattop trailhead in Southeast Anchorage. We took a walk up there Thursday evening and found wild blueberries really do grow up there.
Moose print.
The wind, rain and year after year of Alaskan snow and ice erodes the hillside. This granite is so soft you can break it with your bare hands as Josh did with the pieces above.
Davin chips away at the soft granite trying to find a piece for his rock collection.
I sometimes can't believe I live in such a beautiful place.

The location

We're going to have a wedding here in May: Alaska Heavenly Lodge in Cooper Landing. It's pretty and located on a very scenic portion of the Kenai Peninsula east of Anchorage. There's lots of event space and enough rooms in the various cabins to sleep the wedding party and immediate family.

We saw a black bear running down the hill the evening we stayed here. We visited for a day and a half to check it out and decide it's perfect.

A peek at what I do

The Anchorage Daily News published it's annual Back to School section Sunday. I assigned the stories, picked the wire content, edited, designed, wrote headlines etc. It can be viewed here.

Other projects I'm working on are: A new health and fitness magazine called Alaska Pulse, reader voted Best of Alaska Awards, a fall arts guide and more. I'll post links to sections as they publish.

Alaska Zoo and Alisa's family

Alisa's mom and sister were in town in July and we all went to the Alaska Zoo together. It's right here in Anchorage, but I had not been yet. There were all the typical Alaskan wildlife: Black, brown and polar bears, moose, musk ox and even a bald eagle. Almost all of them were there for refuge due to some kind of injury -- some from the wild, but many from being shot or in a traffic accident. There was also a camel and some other species not native to the far north.

McHugh Creek

McHugh Creek is just 20 minutes east of Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm. My dad was in town in early July and took Davin and I out there to explore. A group of kids were actually swimming in this pool of glacial melt. The view was gorgeous. My dad showed us the spot where he had picnic dinners around a campfire with his family as a kid. It's fenced off now, and the pathways weren't paved then.

Davin and I took Joshua back there last weekend for a picnic dinner. It was so windy we ended up eating in the car.

Kittens

We adopted two kittens this summer. Their names were Jasmine and Juneau, but Jasmine turned out to need a new name ... Simon. He's the fuzzy black one. Joshua refuses to call them by their names, instead they have been nicknamed black kitty and sister.

They are from the same litter, half siamese, half tomcat.