First blog OMG

Hello to anyone who happens to come here! Chris, Soren and I are enjoying Anchorage, and I thought it might be a good time to start a blog. We'll see how good I am at maintaining it.

We've been here for a little over a week, and have mostly managed to acquire the material belongings we'll need to live in our apartment for six months. Plus internet access, which is way more important than any material belonging. We've gotten most of our stuff off craigslist, which turns out to be an awesome way to get pretty much anything. My best deal so far, though, has got to be our Krups dual coffee/espresso machine, which ACTUALLY WORKS and cost $7.50 at Salvation Army.

Right. Anyway. We're living in a decent apartment in a very nice area -- right near Westchester Lagoon, which is a great birdwatching spot, and with easy access to the Coastal Trail, which is a gorgeous walking/biking path. We've been taking Soren to the lagoon every day so he can push his walker around:


It's always light outside, which makes it really hard to tell what time it is. At 11 PM, which is about the time Chris and I go to bed, the sun looks like it's about to set, but is probably up for another half hour or 45 minutes. I have no idea when it rises again, since I'm sleeping and all. It's nice, because there's no pressure to do anything before it gets dark, and it doesn't seem to have affected our sleep at all (the apartment doesn't have huge windows, so that probably helps). On the day of the solstice, I'll get out there and take the obligatory "It's midnight and the sun's still up!" picture, so that should give you something to look forward to.

Soren's doing great, and seems to be enjoying the great outdoors (as well as our large living room). I think the light-all-the-time thing was bugging him at first, but we hung a sheet over his window blinds, and that seems to help. He still isn't walking on his own, but he can stand independently for a minute or so at a time! Big boy! His vocabulary still consists of "hi," "mama" and "wadda?", but I think he's starting to pick up new words like "banana," "truck" and "car" (all important things in his life). Oh, and he says "huh huh huh huh" (his version of woofing) when he sees a dog. Or pretty much any animal.

Random fun facts:

- In Alaska, you can make left turns on red from two-way streets to one-way streets. We'll see if I ever have the guts to do it.

- There is moose poop in our yard.

- United recently decided to discontinue flights to/from Anchorage between September and May. This was unwelcome news, since we have a United ticket from Anchorage to Providence on December 9. They say they're going to put us on another carrier, but maybe we'll be stuck here forever!

-- You can get a 16 oz. Americano at Kaladi Bros. (local coffee roaster) for $1.50. Cheap. And good.

-- Groceries are expensive. Unless you like salmon and king crab. I can't think of a particular outrageously expensive product right now, so I can't support this claim, but believe me.

-- There is a salmon fishing derby in downtown Anchorage. I think Chris should enter it and win (he has experience).


More soon! I hope!