A long overdue update

Hi Everyone!!

It has been a few weeks since our last update and we have done A LOT, so this may be along blog.

Here is what we have been up to.

A few weeks ago we went and hiked to Byron Glacier with some friends. It was a beautiful, sunny 70 degree day and e just had to be outside. The hike to the glacier is pretty easy but it is beautiful once you get there! The glacier comes down from the surrounding mountains and a river flows right through it creating this awesome blue ice cave! Here are some photos from that trip.

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We also went to Homer for a weekend with some friends. Homer is an amazing little town located about a 4 1/2 hour drive from Anchorage. It is located right on the water and is surrounded by mountains and glaciers. It is one of Alaska's best "coastal" towns for sure. We stayed in a great little vacation home, the Little Fireweed Cottage, that had all the comforts of home. It also had a hot tub on the deck that overlooked the water and mountains, it was simply perfect.

On Saturday the guys went out fishing. I caught a small shark and we also caught 1 Halibut and 1 Irish Lord. The fishing was actually really bad, normally everyone gets their limit of Halibut (2 per person per day), plus several other fish, but the weather that morning was terrible for fishing. Sherri stayed at the cottage while we were out fishing and enjoyed what she called a "perfect day", she watched 4 movies, relaxed and did a bunch of painting all while enjoying the view and the comforts of the cottage. That night we all went out for dinner at an AMAZING seafood restaurant, some of the best seafood that I have ever had! Sherri even tried her very first oyster on the 1/2 shell!! Our last day there we went to the Bear Creek Winery. What a hidden gem this place is! It is a small family run winery but they produce some amazing wines! Most of their wines are a grape / berry mix, for example they have a BlueZin that is wild Alaskan blueberries blended with a White Zinfandel or their Shirazzberry which is a Syrah blended with Alaskan Raspberries. We sampled a dozen or so wines, had some great finger foods there and left with 3 bottles of wine!

It was a great, relaxing trip and it really felt like a "mini-vacation".

Here are some photos from the trip!

(The small shark I caught)

(View from the hot tub)

(Homer Small Boat Harbor)

(The Tasting Room at Bear Creek Winery)

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I had a work trip to Fairbanks last week and on my drive home the weather was perfect! Many of the mountain passes that I drove through had already started to turn the fall colors. There is a type of plant that grows on mountains in Interior Alaska that during fall turns the entire mountainside a bright red and it is just beautiful! Also, Denali (Mt. McKinley) was totally out! The mountain is 20,320 feet tall and because of how huge it is it often creates its own weather systems and is normally hidden with clouds, but when it is out, it dominates the horizon, especially in interior Alaska where I was.

Here are a few photos from the drive.

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And FINALLY...this weekend we went to the Alaska State Fair with Jason and Jana. It was another beautiful sunny day (very rare during the state fair), we ate some awesome fair food, played some games and just had a great time!! One of the highlights of the fair are the GIANT vegetables that are grown here in Alaska. Every year world records are broken and this year was no exception. There were 2 new world records set, there was a 127 pound cabbage and an 82.9 pound rutabaga. Some other notable veggies included a 17 pound radish, a 133 pound watermelon, a 12 pound puffball mushroom and a 329 pound pumpkin.

Here is a photo of the new world record cabbage.