EFAGLEF

There've been at least four adult eagles buzzing the neighbors' house all day. I'm not sure if this is because of their chicken coop or something else.

Source of the post title: Joseph Franklin's Metric Alphabet

reflections: closing in on two years!

So I was sitting here, taking a break from visiting with relatives and preparing for travel, and I saw that someone was reading this post. I re-read it and was pleased to see how many things remain true! Here is the original post:

It's been nearly two weeks that we've been here, and I have some reflections to share.

It's amazing to live in a place like this. JoElle and I are constantly awed by the natural beauty of the Sitka Sound, the Tongass rainforest, the mountains, and the weather. We can look out our front window and see the Pacific Ocean, replete with fishing boats, cruise ships, and recreational vessels, Seren gets to watch planes all day taking off and landing at Rocky Gutierrez Airport, and we can walk to the back of the house and see a mountain covered in forest. Beyond the physical beauty of this place, there is so much more going on.

On Saturday, we had to rush through the first Farmers Market of the summer so that we could get over to the library in time for a children's program. I've been to many farmers markets before, but never one where you could buy fresh-caught seafood, sea asparagus, and salmonberry jam in addition to the usual fresh breads, locally-roasted coffees, and fresh produce. I just made dinner tonight out of black cod and sea asparagus from that market, and it was amazing (not intended to be self-congratulatory). Side note: if you like to cook fish and haven't tried black cod, DO IT. It's creamy and buttery and amazing, and almost the same size fillet and cooking time as you're used to for salmon.

We have yet to meet an unfriendly person here. Almost nobody here wears a tie to work. When they say "Alaska formal" means jeans and a collared shirt, they really seem to mean it. The only thing you need to say to get twice the help you were already getting (which is usually already twice what you'd get in the contiguous 48) is that you're new in town. That immediately leads to questions about where you live, how much you like it, and a sincere wish that you'll stick around. I've been asked a few times what brought us to Sitka, but never once have we been asked that in an incredulous tone. The people here know how good they have it, and are simply interested in knowing what excuse you have for living in such a great place.

Seriously, we've been pleased to find almost everything we've found here. Good Asian food and Mexican food restaurants that deliver, electronics shops where you get real help from the knowledgeable staff, great parks, tons of places to walk or run or bike or simply sit and relax and watch the activity around you. The drivers on the biggest road on the island will actually stop of their own volition to let pedestrians cross the street! For a brief while, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to indulge two of my favorite vices here, though. In my mind, there's little better than a good local microbrewery and an old (think Big Lebowski) bowling alley. Before we left, I looked on BeerAdvocate and Google and everywhere else I could, and it seemed like there was a chance that a brewery might exist in town. The other day, we located it! Baranof Island Brewing has only been in business for part of the summer according to its staff, but it is worth knowing of! When I stopped in, they were out of three of the four brews that they normally keep on tap, but their Baranof Brown Ale was almost perfectly balanced for me: thick (not watery at all), smooth, a bit creamy, with plenty of malt and only enough hops to keep it tasting like beer. This is the beer I kept hoping that Prescott Brewing Company would figure out how to make.

I'm still looking for a place to bowl in town. If we can't find one, we may have to build one. Until then, I can settle for a place that's 99% perfect.

Since then, I can assure you that my impressions remain almost exactly the same. I've learned to live without bowling (although Seren is excited about trying again when we're in Cleveland!) and I haven't had as much time for beer. We'd love to be able to buy a house or some land here, but the prices are so high that it's difficult. We still love the people and places and restaurants and local businesses, and the new additions have made things even better. We've also made some great friends, several of whom we never would have crossed paths with in any place other than Sitka.

On the whole, we're doing pretty well here. I wouldn't recommend Sitka to everyone, but it sure seems right for us!

getting close!

We're getting close to our departure now. About a week from now, we'll be in Canada, starting the driving portion of our road trip. Jo can't wait.

Today is Seren's last day of school. It seems so far away that I can't even remember how it felt, but there was a time when I dreaded letting someone else near her mind. Instead, we found a school that perfectly suits our daughter and a pair of teachers who understand and adore her.

The car has been prepared. Meds have been gathered. Maps came in a few weeks ago. Arrangements have been made for the cats. Netflix has been altered. Our phone plan now includes Canada. Our debit cards won't be flagged for fraud when we go through Canada. The internet will be off while we are away.  We mailed four boxes to Cleveland yesterday and the kids are almost completely packed. We still need to get Nika in for grooming and I still need to suspend our newspaper subscription and we still need to finish cleaning a bunch of things. The parents need to get laundry and packing done, we have a final run or two to make to SeaMart (I intend to get a nice steak so that I can make jerky before we hit the trail), and then we should be done.

Tomorrow, we're scheduled to have Jo's brother and sister-in-law visiting us! They're taking a cruise through Southeast and spending a day in Sitka, and it should be nice to see them. It's a very busy time to be visiting, but if the weather is at all like today, they should fall in love with this place.

Finally, for those of you getting excited over the Copper River salmon that are now being delivered anywhere that Alaska Airlines flies, this was the price board at one of our local processing plants yesterday (and yes, they will ship anywhere that FedEx goes, which is a bit more inclusive than Alaska Airlines). Note that there is plenty of salmon on this board, but also plenty of other delicious stuff - dinner last night was yelloweye, which is as tasty as it is getting rare.

Seren's first post!

i am excited to go to cleveland to see baba! i also want to go to the zoo, the museum, and the library.

i really really really want to go to a hotel. i like hotels because they give us the food that we want and they have nice beds!

i also want to take pictures on the camera! i am excited to go to niagara falls.

checking under the hood...

We're going to get this blog rolling again in the next few weeks!

For those who don't know, my grandfather died about two months ago. In the intervening time, it was decided that, instead of spending a lot of money to fly one or two of us to Cleveland in order to attend a funeral and then turn around and come right back to Alaska, we would save up our money a bit and make a family road trip this summer. Our plan is to load the car up with four humans and a dog and ferry to Prince Rupert, BC, then to drive across Canada to Niagara Falls, ON, where we will meet up with my parents and sister for a couple of days. This will mark the first time in two years that all four of us have left Sitka at the same time and also the first time that more than two of us have visited any family members outside of Sitka since we moved here. Our plan for the month or so following our time in Niagara Falls is to help sort through my grandfather's house, preparing the estate for its final resolution and preparing the house to change hands. We also intend to take some time to visit with family and friends in the Midwest. We will then get back on the road in order to return home with a bit of time before school starts back up for everyone.

While we are away from Sitka, we will be taking pictures and video to share here. We will also be posting daily updates from the road and occasional updates while we are in Cleveland and visiting with loved ones.

Over the next week or two, look for some cosmetic changes to occur on this blog! We'll be giving it a bit of a facelift and getting everything ready for a new travel adventure!

Fall is here...

Fall is a four-letter word. In our house, it means there's a whole lot of work to be done before our schedules sort themselves out and we can settle into our respective roles at home and in the community. From here I'll just go down the list, one by one, so you can get an idea of what we're up to this time of year and how we get ourselves prepared for the next 9 months.

JoElle

I've quit my summer job at Mountain Miss/Work & Rugged Gear and I'm settling into a new job, serving and training to tend bar at Bayview Restaurant & Pub. It's true that working at the clothing stores was just a summer job, but the main reason I left was because they weren't able to work around my schedule, since having Stephen back at work means that I am only available nights and weekends. Truth be told, it's not necessary for me to work, however much our bank accounts are helped by me doing so. I just like having a reason to get out of the house and interacting with different people.

Speaking of getting out of the house, I'm also enrolled full time at University of Alaska Southeast, studying to complete my Associate's degree in Health Education. I'm taking 15 credits this semester, including Introduction to Psychology (on-site), American Sign Language I (on-site),  Weight Training for Women (on-site), Intermediate Algebra (distance), and Music Appreciation (distance). It's notable that this is the first time I've taken any live, on-site college courses, so I am experiencing a little bit of a learning curve in getting everything going, but I've started all but one of my courses (my first ASL class meets today) and I'm really enjoying everything so far.

Between work and school, I'm kept pretty busy running around, but they just fill the time when I'm not at home with Porter during the day and taking care of our household.

Stephen

Stephen is back to work after a long and somewhat relaxing summer. He is working on exciting things for the MEHS music program this year. Besides his regular music, rock band, and choir classes, he is also gearing up for Southeast Music Festival, hosted in Sitka this year, and working on a radio club that will take students to our local Public Radio station and teach them to run soundboards and dj, create radio programs, conduct interviews and share stories, and collaborate with their community for content. This, of course, is in addition to the fortnightly College Radio show he co-hosts with our good friend, Cassidy Patnoe.

If that wasn't enough, Stephen has also involved himself pretty heavily in a community playground project that will hopefully erect a family-friendly, ADA-compliant, and endowment-maintained community-built playground in 2013.

Seren

Seren might be the busiest of us all this school year. She has started full-day Kindergarten at the SEER School, a private elementary school near our house. The theme for learning this year is World History, so she will learn about different cultures and adventurers, get plenty of physical activity while discovering the cultural and natural aspects of our own community, and learn some Spanish from guest instructor, Maite Lorente, who is also the children's librarian at Kettleson Memorial Library.

Additionally, I am going to be working closely with her participation in a brand new 4H program that has been started in Sitka and she is slated to start Pee Wee Wrestling in January, which is coached by MEHS's own Japanese teacher and Wrestling coach, Mike Kimber.

Porter

Somehow, even with all the craziness that the rest of us have going on, Porter only spends ~8 hours per week at daycare. The rest of the time, he and I pal around the house while Seren and Stephen are at school. Porter is still too young to have too much going on outside the home, but he is still in speech therapy and doing well. So well, in fact, that he has been reduced from visiting his speech therapist down from once a week to once every other week. If his ability keeps improving in the way it has been for the last few moths, his visits will drop down to once a month. He now has a vocabulary of around 60 words and uses 2- and 3-word phrases occasionally. Now that he has a vocabulary strong enough to make requests and identify his surroundings, we are working on verbs, spacial awareness, and abstract concepts like feelings and memories.

He is also very close to being completely potty-trained, which means more freedom for him to do the things he likes to do and less hassle for his parents (us), which is always a high priority. Along with the transition from diapers to jockeys, we have replaced his toddler bed (actually his sister's toddler bed, which is now a frame for her full-size mattress) with a real "big-boy" twin-size bed. He loves his new bed and all the extra room it gives him. He also likes that we can sit in bed with him to cuddle, read, or whatever.

...And that's about it. *Whew!* If all that isn't enough to keep us out of trouble, I'm certain nothing will.

We hope all of you are settling into your own cool-weather schedules with ease. As always, we appreciate all the questions and comments everyone leaves on our blog. We enjoy hearing from you and it gives us a reason to write updates more frequently.

Porter's Traveling Harmonica Show

I was about to upload this video to Facebook, but then I decided it was worthy of its own blog post. It's less than a minute long, but here are some things to watch for:

• Continued blowing minus the harmonica
• A brief, yet incomprehensible mid-song introduction by the artist
• An up-turned chair
• Exit over the back of the couch

In other news, we went to a going away party for the niece of Sitka's favorite watercolor artist, Keith Greba, on Saturday. Ashleigh is going to college in Georgia and spent this summer in Sitka, working at Sea Life Discovery Tours, learning to paint under Keith's instruction, helping Keith stage his house for sale (which sold in under an hour of listing!), and occasionally coming upstairs to visit with me at work.

While we were at Keith's place, though, Porter was sitting in a folding camp chair on the deck out back and one of the legs of the chair fell off of the 12" deck, landing Porter on a pile of rocks with the chair on top of him. At first glance, he was fine, if not a little shocked by the fall, with only a bitten tongue. After a few moments, another person pointed out that there was blood on Porter's forehead. Sure enough, there was a 1/4" long puncture wound in his head, presumably from the chair falling on top of him. Stephen took him inside and cleaned him up and we put some ice on his head for swelling. There wasn't much blood and I wasn't all that worried, but we decided to leave the party early and take him to the doc for a once-over, bracing ourselves for this trip to include a couple of stitches.

If I haven't said it enough already, I absolutely love the doctors out here. I called ahead to the emergency room and they ordered Porter's chart while I was on the phone. Then, I went directly into the emergency room and announced my presence. The records clerk dropped off Porter's chart right after me and I was asked if I checked in up front. No, I didn't, but the nurse called up front and checked us in so we wouldn't have to backtrack. Within about 2 minutes, we were sitting on a bed and a nurse was fetching some baby shampoo and wet gauze to clean the wound. The longest part of our visit was waiting for the doctor to arrive, as he was on-call from another department (presumably Maternity, since all of our OBs are family practice doctors). He asked me what happened, checked Porter over in a thorough-yet-casual manner, and commented on how charming he is. The doc then told me that the cut was not in a place that warranted concern about scarring, that head-wounds rarely see infection, but to keep it clean and dry and go on as normal. The only reversal he had on this opinion was that I was to call him if Porter started vomiting. That was it--a quick swab with Bacitracin and a shiny new bottle of ibuprofen, and we were on our way home.

Keith and his wife, Martha, were both very concerned for Porter and have kept up with his healing progress over the last few days. Porter, on the other hand, has not shown the slightest bit of concern for his head since about 15 minutes after the accident took place and he and his sister are back to rough-housing as normal.