An October weekend

We started Friday 5pm ish with a meeting from the YFU representative. Had to make sure we were people with whom they would want to place a student. When that piece was done ... we moved on to celebrating Alyx's 18th Birthday! Wow!! Can't hardly believe it. Liz & Leroy, Amber & Ryan and Wally came over to join us. Fun stuff.

After our visit with YFU on Friday, we found out that we could pick up Samuli on Saturday. Jari headed down to meet him in Girdwood and bring him "home". Luggage got tucked into the house and we headed for Play It Again Sports. Hockey season was starting on Saturday nite ... timing was perfect. We found him the things he needed to start playing the American kind of hockey. These skates here are for Anna. When we moved up here, us girls (note that I DID include myself in that!) all got figure skates. Anna doesn't like them at all. She's been wanting hockey skates ... so we did the trade thing. No free skate before hockey yet, but we'll see plenty of ice this winter.

Home for some piano, violin and flute time. Samuli has incredible talent. It will be fun to listen to throughout the winter.

While they played ... I kept snitching out of this bag. Haven't had these in a very long time!

I won't make it to too many of the hockey games this year. This may have been the only one I go to ... always fun to watch a few here and there. Brock has been very anxious for it to start ...

Blayde ... I can always find him out there on the ice ... breezer strap is swinging in the breeze!

Today I took the camera outside for a bit. This is about what it looks like around here. A few leaves here and there. These berries just seem to hang around until they freeze and fall. They're really tiny ... and haven't figured out if we can do anything with them or not.

The sun peeked out ... should have gone and shot some mountain/cloud pictures, but this is as good as it gets!

Is this ingenious or what? (Jenny, I know you're sitting there chuckling at my pictures!) We did the massive tree trimming and I think I like this unintentional cord hanger. I'll certainly be able to find them! They won't be buried under the snow someplace.

When the green goes, the neighbors become visible. This is the one we can see the most. Still a whole lot further away than it was in the land of "city living". (In case you're wondering ... the neighbor would be the one up on the hill behind the trees. They have the view. We don't. We have the cabin tho'. )

This would be the goofy lilac. It is seriously deranged. It doesn't bloom until late in the season and will still have green leaves on it once the snow flies. Maybe it's meant to be that way. I'm thinking it is just a bit of a crazy tree.

And my last picture for the day. Last winter I didn't get the hose off the spigot before it was frozen solid. This year. It. Is. Off. These cold weather living things a person gets to learn. I'm learning tho'. Problem is that I keep forgetting!

If you made it this far, you've suffered through salmiakki, power cords and water spigots. You are persistent! I think you deserve a prize. Let me know you dropped by and I'll see what I come up with!