Fire and Ice!

The downtown square near the Performing Arts Center was our destination for tonight.  Billy and Amiee had invited us to join them for the fireworks and then return to their house for s'mores and a campfire.  The evening was fairly warm, so we enjoyed the live music (a band called "80 degrees"), the ice sculptures and people watching for an hour before the fireworks began. 

Zach and Sam enjoyed looking at the DeLorean like the one in the Back to the Future movies that was parked near where we were standing.  They had put rope lights behind it to make it look like it just flew in!

The fireworks were the best display we have seen in Alaska.  Anchorage went all out and put on a really good show!

Back at Billy and Amiee's house, Billy and Doug got to starting the fire while Amiee and I chatted and Zach & Sam had a snack.  Aimee had made Zach and Sam some Starbucks hot chocolate, which they were thrilled about.  The hot chocolate at our house is more like "hot, colored milk" with a little whip cream on top.  Zach and Sam weren't used to the real rich hot chocolate and neither of them liked it.  Even after watering it down, it was still quite strong.  Sam was sitting at the kitchen bar and had drank about 1/2 the hot chocolate when he suddenly got sick!  My goodness!  He had on a cute shirt that we had wanted to get a picture of.....I guess we should have been quicker!  The rest of the evening he wore a t-shirt of Aimee's and the long underwear that Zach had on under his sweatpants.  He was just fine and recovered quickly.  After getting him cleaned up, he looked at me and said "I like your hot chocolate better".  So sweet.

A few minutes later, when Aimee was on an important emergency phone call with work, one of their dogs got sick from the stress of the all the fireworks in the neighborhood.  We all just had a good laugh.....kids, dogs....what are you going to do?

We had a wonderful and un-eventful rest of the evening.  Thank goodness.  Sam was enjoying playing with Lego's while Aimee and I sat and chatted.  A few minutes before midnight we joined Billy, Doug and Zach outside for the bond fire and all the fireworks going on in the neighborhood.  Great company to welcome in 2013 with!

Zach wanted to put his head in the snow to ring in 2013!  Ok??!!

Panda!

I am out of vacation for the year, but work had sent out a note that employees who wanted additional time off could take furlough days.  An attempt to save money at the end of the year!  Sam was off today, so I also took the day off.  Good thing as Doug called as we were heading to drop Zach off at snowboard camp.....Hilltop was closed today due to lack of snow!  They would transfer today's camp day to another in-service day for Zach.  So, Zach was stuck with Sam and I for the day.  A few errands and then a quiet afternoon at home. 

On his way home, Doug stopped at Panda to pick-up our favorite Mongolian beef for the New Year's Eve dinner.  After dinner we would bundle up and head downtown for the festivities.

Happy New Year from Illinois!

Happy New Year from Illinois!

Happy Birthday Lachlan!

The Alaska Club West has a great kid area and climbing wall.  It is a great place to have a kid birthday party and that is where we went tonight at 6 pm for Lake's 4th birthday party!  Laurie was super mom and had done a great job on the cake, train center piece with snacks and decorations.  A good time was had by all!  It was fun to get caught up with a few friends we haven't seen in a while.

Happy Birthday Lake!

Laurie, Karl, Nora, Lake & Ollie

Lake was opening gifts and had opened 2 of them when Sam yelled "let's go play" and ran into the jungle gym structure.  Lake and the other kids followed!  I guess open the gifts at home later....now is time to play!

H2Oasis

We usually go to Alyeska for Christmas Eve and enjoy the pool at the hotel.  This year, both Doug and I had to work Christmas Eve.  It was just too much to try to get down there and we had just been on vacation, so didn't need another get-away or more cost, so we stayed in Anchorage for Christmas.

Zach and Sam did miss the swimming at Alyeska! I had bought a Groupon a few months back for a family pass to H2Oasis.  The special price expires on January 1, so we planned to take them there for swimming to make up for a lack of swimming Christmas Eve.  Today apparently everyone else was also trying to use their Groupon before the end of the year!  We had a good time and played on the Pirate Ship and Lazy River.  No water slides today as the lines were just too long.

As I was relaxing in the no-kid hot tub, I had a chance to catch up with Eric Shearer who was also there.  He had to get out a few minutes later as his kids appeared in the Lazy River behind us.  Then his wife, Andrea, came in the hot tub and said "my turn!"....we had a great time chatting.  What nice people, they live a street over from us, we need to do more with them.  With boys ages 8, 6 & 4, Zach and Sam would have playmates!

We ended off our visit with ice cream cones....a fun afternoon!

Snow and ICE!!

From the Anchorage Daily News:

A powerful storm, described by the National Weather Service as a cyclone stretching across the Gulf of Alaska, is expected to hit Southcentral Alaska, including Anchorage, with high Chinook winds on Sunday. Gusts of up to 70 mph are possible in lower elevations, the weather service said, with gusts up to 100 mph on the upper Hillside and Turnagain Arm.

A high-wind warning is in effect across the city of Anchorage to 7 p.m.

Sunday:  For Anchorage and the lower Hillside...southeast to southwest wind 20 to 35 mph becoming southeast 30 to 45 mph with gusts to 55 to 70 mph in the afternoon. Along Turnagain Arm and the upper Hillside...southeast wind 55 to 70 mph with gusts from 85 to 100 mph.In an update posted at 5 a.m., the weather service said winds were at warning levels along Turnagain Arm and the upper Hillside and would pick up in the city by early afternoon.

Temperatures are expected to hit the 40s in Anchorage on Sunday.

We have had 2 nights of strong, warm winds.  The result is a massive melting of the snow in the yard and icy streets!  We hope that there is snow left at Hilltop for Zach's snowboard camp this week!

Blog Readers

Hello to all our faithful blog followers.  We have gotten everything updated in the past few days, including pictures of the Las Vegas Thanksgiving trip.  So....enjoy all the post updates/additions for the past few weeks!

5 hours later

Really......our guests left 5 hours ago and this is now how the kitchen looks?  Yikes!  It was clean this morning.....

Renovation Continues

Doug did an amazing job on the bathroom!  The glass tile wall and tile floor are fabulous! 

Now he is completing the floor in the laundry room.  Hopefully that will be all the big projects for a while!  I somehow doubt it.....

Paylow Visit!

It was 4:30 pm on Friday when my office phone rang, I was somewhat surprised to see that it was a Houston phone number as it would be 7:30 pm in Texas and surely everyone had gone home by then.

"Hello, Halliburton, This is Renee"

"Renee?"

"Yes"

"Renee Huntman?"

"Yes"

"Hey (laughing), this is Kevin Paylow!"  We are in Alaska!

No kidding!  Kevin and I worked together at Halliburton early on and he, Jean and Katie moved to Houston the year after we did. He no longer works for Halliburton, but we all keep in touch and I was able to see them 2 years ago when at a training class in Houston. They were up on a last minute vacation and were having fun seeing all that had changed in the 9 years they were gone.

They came over at 10 am and we all talked non-stop until 3:30 pm!  Zach really had fun with Katie (age 10) and was sad when she had to leave.  His comment was "hopefully we will come to Houston sometime and I will see you again."  Yes, the Paylow's are great people and I wish we all lived closer!