Wanderings and Ponderings

Alaska

24 June 2015

Yesterday I met a nice lady. And she casually asked, “so what is your passion?”

The question surprised me and I didn’t really know how to answer. What a good thoughtful question and an excellent way to get to know someone.

When I’m cleaning boats, a lot of people pass and we exchange the fairly empty “how are yous”, but there are plenty of people I have great conversations with in the harbor too. What a great workplace it is.

My kitten is attacking me right now. She’s so cute. :)

What is your passion?

Alaska

Mothers and Flowers

23 June 2015

Both are beautiful and wonderful and have a grandiose purpose. Being a flower would be quite nice, but I can’t wait to become a mama bear! I love having my mother and mother in law here in Homer together. What great women.

Alaska

Seeing Amigos

17 June 2015

I’ve ran into some good ol’ amigas lately! Lately means the past four months. Today I went to two sisters bakery with Kathryn and met her precious one month old girl. I’m grateful for friends and for catching up and seeing the great things people do, and the great ways they are.
Also, my bestest buddy Carlita gets here soon!

Alaska

Polar bears

14 June 2015

Ah… Blissful (and busy) Alaskan summers. It’s so nice when some of the ice melts so we can go swimming! ;)

We had a combined girls camp/scout camp last week and it was so wonderful. Wednesday we hiked here to Grewingk glacier lake, and it was a beautiful day with not very many bugs! The main purpose of camp was the grow closer to the Lord, and I believe everyone did! Success. And lots of fun.

Alaska

back to boat cleaning

2 June 2015

Edelweiss has been my boat cleaning buddy lately, which is lovely. Chris will be my boat cleaning buddy tonight, which is most superb. I really need him down there with me tonight; it’s been a busy bee day. Life has been pretty busy for both of us lately. I suppose that’s how our AK summers are right meow. We’ve got lots of visitors all summer long, lots of work, lots of play, and plenty of church commitments. Girls camp and scout camp are next week, and it’ll be fun and wonderful, but takes work to get ready for. Work is good though. You now what else is good… chocolate bread and kittens and green and sunshine, and the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is even kinda good. :)

Alaska

3 am trip to the loo

28 May 2015

I went on a camp out with the Center for Alaska Coastal Studies with some fun girls to a beautiful place. It was wonderful! It was so nice being separated from normal life and in the wilderness. :)

At 3 am I woke up sooooo toasty warm and with a full bladder. And this is what it looked like at 3 am. Dusky and preparing for sunrise, which is at about 5 am right now. Sunset is about 11 pm.

I’m just sitting in the car in the harbor parking lot, trying to convince myself to go get boat cleaning done so I can go home and be with my bff and we can get ready for our youth conference workshop tomorrow. But I’m tired and allergic and wish I had started boats two hours ago! Guess I best mosey on down there now and scrub a dub away. I’m grateful for boat cleaning. It’s pretty good in the hood.

And I can’t believe summer is here. Where did winter go? Oh, it never really came. :) But everything is green and growing and my allergies are bad and it’s beautiful outside!

PS what’s slightly not normal about this picture? (Other than my hair looking orange) (Hint: meow)

Alaska, Favorites

Living the Kitten Dream

18 May 2015

Okay. So THIS KITTEN IS MAKING MY DREAMS COME TRUE! Dreams I didn’t even know I had. :)

She’s slept in the bed with us the past three days and I love it so much. And this morning when I woke up, it was all just so perfect and I didn’t want to get out of bed.

Precious Piper alert and awake cuddled right next to my head. And my sweet honey boy snoozing at my side.

Alaska, Hawai'i

throwback to tanner days and adventures

27 April 2015

I’ve been blessed all winter to not notice how white my skin is. But today, for the first time in a long time, I wore my favorite Hawaii sandals, then took them off and walked around barefoot in the soggy grass. I noticed how very white my feet and legs were (and hairy too – legs, not feet, I’m not a hobbit). It was so nice being barefoot. And the weather was splendid today and I was able to get a teesy bit of sun exposure.

Anyways, I think I will always miss Hawaii like and the beloved Oahu. My last semester there was one of the greatest times of life. Though each semester there though was so super duper fantastic and I will be forever grateful. Here’s s a couple Hawaii pictures in case you’re missing it too.

Alaska

Uuvm kI miss Chris. I’m Zzzzzxxxxxxxxxxx and

27 April 2015

*disclaimer: I wrote this post as I was falling in and out of sleep. I was going to rewrite it, but I think I like it in its semi sleepy form.

Chris is gone for two weeks. So here’s our last 2 months of selfies!. I’m usually the one that wants to take a selfie. I just like the (sometimes mediocre) picture so I can create and preserve memories.

Also, I’m in bed with intentions of reading and writing, and I keep falling asleep. That’s why this post has a funny title, because I fell asleepy. :)

These selfies start when Chris flew to Duluth, MN to meet with cirrus aircraft. Lots and lots has happened since then! I’m feel really blessed. And we are happy campers.

Also, Bel gave birth to a precious little girl kitten! More on that later. It’s been my focal point the past week. :)

Alaska

Sprinter

18 April 2015

Spring + Winter = Sprinter

The weather has been kind of kook lately. I wonder why we always talk about the weather. Like when I talk with my grandparents, the weather always comes up in conversation. Or when I casually talk with people at the grocery store, we start talking about the elements outside. I wonder why we humanoids do that.

Anyway, after anxiously awaiting snow month after month and day after day, I finally gave up on winter coming and was preparing myself for summer. It was sunny. The ground was kinda soggy and muddy. And then it snowed. And everything was lovely and white. And then it rained. And then it snowed. And rained. And hailed. And snowed. And rained. And moisture continued to fall from the sky in all its forms. And here we are now, experiencing sprinter.

Husband and I drove down from Anchorage last nights and the elements were on fire, frozen fire. The driving conditions were very far from ideal, but we made it home and safely into our bed. I love bedtime, what a great invention.

Today is Saturday. Remember the days of excitedly waking up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons? I had that excitement this morning, just to be home and play and do whatever. And then some bad and frustrating things happened, so I cried and talked with my honey and my dad and my mom and felt a bit better…

Bel still hasn’t birthed her kittens yet. Anxiously awaiting over here. Her little children and her belly still probably have some growing to do, so maybe they’ll be here in a week or so, but I’m hoping tomorrow is the day before Chris heads out of town for two weeks. We love our animals a lot. They are so good to us and make us laugh and smile (and sometimes get annoyed) everyday. :)

Chris has been working a ton, so much. I’ve been subbing quite a bit. Good things. And all that makes saturdays at home much more delightful. I’m hungry.

Alaska

‘Ello Poppet

31 March 2015

So let me tell you…. We’ve got a pregnant kitty right now (on the right) and I’m so excited for kittens and for Bel to become a mama. The picture on the left is of Luna, the stray cat we adopted in Hawaii who got pregnant and I was so excited for her kitties. For probably a month, everytime I’d come home or wake up, I was hoping there’d be kittens. But I never got to meet her kitties, but she became a good mama and even adopted a little stray kitten that her new family found or something like that.

We sadly had to give Luna away when we left Hawaii last April. It was so sad when we took her to her new family. :( But it worked out really well and felt right. We would’ve liked to bring her home with us but it wasn’t working out, especially since she was so pregnant. She was a great backpack loving cat who could climb the screen door really well. Luna made our Hawaii days even better. And she started to get so cuddly and would follow us around, even out to the beach! That was because of her pregnancy hormones and such.

Anyway, Luna is in the picture on the left, a year ago, and the other picture is of Bel yesterday! Cracks me up that they look so similar and all this is just a year apart. Kitties yay! We’re excited for Bel to have a litter of kitties.

Also in case you were wondering, I made some grand cookies on Sunday, and ate like 200 of them yesterday. Cheers!

AND OMG yesterday I got a Facebook call, my first Facebook call, and it was Patrícia, her sister Fernanda, and her mom Miria. Those three are some of the beloved people from my mission. Oh it was so good and happy and unexpected to talk with them. <3<3<3 I can’t wait to go back to Brazil, to take Chris with me, and to reunite with my wonderful mission peeps that I love so very much.

Lower 48

Tacoma, WA to Cannon Beach, OR – February 24th

30 March 2015

Road trippin’ with Chris is great (except for the beef jerky that smells like poo; it should not be allowed in cars/airplanes/confined spaces). Last month we spent 10 days in the Pacific Northwest and drove around a lot. We ate some fantastic food and spent quality time with good people. Here’s some of our wonderful moments we had on the ro-ad.

Our first stop was in Olympia, WA at a little food truck village. We were hungry. And Arépa provided us with some nice Venezuelan cuisine as well as a super neato star wars mural on the wall.

The aforementioned beef jerky. Sick.

One of our best stops was in this super magical forest with wonderfully splendid trees. We unfortunately didn’t take the nice camera with us on our hike, but fortunately the iPhone takes pretty grand photos. Wow, I loved our journey through the forest.

Chris’s face means he doesn’t want to smile for pictures anymore and wants to keep walking.

We saw lots of beauty all over and would just make perfect little random stops.

Cape Disappointment was a great stop. It was beautiful and it was fun seeing another lighthouse. It’s nice to read plaques and info cards at the places we go, but that doesn’t always happen. When we were here, there was a nice lady just seated on the ground, looking up at the lighthouse and doing some sketches. What a good time.

After we crossed the Colombia River from WA to OR, we hit Astoria! That meant we booked it to THIS GOONIES HOUSE and also the elementary school from kindergarten cop, what a classic.

And then came Seaside, Oregon for a little sunset and dinner. We couldn’t find a place open that we wanted to eat, so we had gelato to dinner. What a delight!

Alaska

The Aurora

23 March 2015

Oh my goodness, the other night the leprechauns spread some very magical green lights in the sky to welcome in St. Patrick’s day! Wow, the aurora was indescribable. These pictures capture some magic, but when the lights are dancing across the sky and pulsing around, you just can’t take a picture of that. Btw, with my own eyeballs, I couldn’t see any reddish hues, but they do come up in the pictures because the camera was taking in more light than my own eyes, also making the picture more vibrant.

I was in awe.

About 11 pm, our friend Steve texted us and said their were red aurora up the inlet. This is cool. So we got un-ready for bed, put on warm clothes, and Chris packed up some camera gear and laptop and stuff. As Chris was walking out the door, I made some toast; I was hungry. And I love toast.

So we took about a ten minute drive went up to Diamond Ridge to watch the light show. :) The colors that came up were exciting and lovely.

After about an hour, we came home, got ready for bed again, and then I looked out our front window and it was fantastic. Northern lights watching from the comfort of our lovely home! Chris went to bed, but I couldn’t. So I grabbed the camera and my snowsuit and a blanket, and Edel and I went outside. It was so awesome possum. Wow. Normally the northern lights aren’t so incredible right in town. But it was amazazing. After about an hour, Chris came outside too. And then we decided we better head up to Skyline to get some pictures of the aurora dancing over Homer.

Up at on skyline, I really enjoyed laying in the snow in my snowsuit, just looking at the sky. It was superb. And when we decided to leave our house, the northern lights started flashing and going from top to bottom like the earth was in a time warp or something. So cool.

With the dancing and flashing northern lights like they were the other night, I felt like a cat chasing a laser. It was perfect.

In my 26 years I haven’t seen the northern lights very much. Chris and I have together a couple times this winter. And other than that, I have a few goo childhood memories of my dad waking me up to look at the green glow out the window. And I have a memory of super good and colorful lights when we were driving up the Al-Can (aka Alaska Canada Highway) when I was about 12. We were further north in Alaska then, and it’s usually better up there. So the other night with the grand St. Patrick’s day show, it was pretty unusual and I was so amazed. Thank you solar storm!

Chris and I put some of our pictures on fireweedphoto.com. Here’s the link to a few more of the aurora!

Alaska, Hawai'i

Under the Sea

13 March 2015

I shall always miss looking out my window and seeing the enticing blue sea, putting my suit on, walking out my door, across the grass, touching the sand and getting sand all over my feet (and body), and plunging into the Pacific Ocean.

For a few of my years at BYU-Hawaii, I lived in rundown beach front houses. It was a dream (except the cockroaches… sick). I’m so glad Chris and I could share six months of that magic together. Goodness, it was so so good and happy and healthy. I’m so grateful for that island and it’s wonderment.

Btw these pictures were taken with a canon 5d markII and an underwater bag, before we got the GoPro. The GoPro really takes superb underwater and everything pictures and video!

PS I’m really happy here in Homer right now. Though I do miss being tan, I’m trying to embrace my paleness. And I’ll always miss Hawaii, and Jerusalem, and especially my mission in Brazil, but I’m really happy to be HOME right now. I love Alaska and being Alaskan. :)

Alaska

Right meow.

12 March 2015

So apparently our kitty drinks out of the toilet now…

Chris and I are watching Big Hero 6 tonight. It’s super great so far! I’ve laughed out loud multiple times. And then Chris fell asleep. So I paused it and am working on making a couple of Chat Books now! Which I’m excited about. :) I want to make a book for each transfer on my mission, but for now I’m just gonna do like two books with a bunch of the special peeps from my mission, because I don’t ever want to forget them! <3Another thing we shouldn’t forget, is that “Jesus está voltando: prepara-te!”

Translated as: Jesus is returning: Prepare yourself!

So I served my mission in Brazil, I’m jonesing to go back, and I love that someone painted this on their house in querido Brasil. Oh how I love so so many people there.

Alaska

It snowed! PTL.

9 March 2015

I woke up this morning (it’s something I do everyday), looked out our window, and omg snow! So I strapped on my bootstraps, put my Iditarod headband on my head, and opened the front door for Edel to book it outside. The morning light + snow was especially beautiful so I grabbed our camera to do some hands on photography studying.

Chris knows a lot about photography, cameras, lightroom… and it’s so nice. I have a lot to learn about it all. I often capture some lovely photos, but Chris usually does all the editing. I took care of it today though! :) I’m thinking of doing some Kelby training so I can learn more about photography/adobe lightroom, because I love taking pictures and having good photos. It’s really important to Chris and me.

Edel and I were lucky enough to enjoy our adventure walk together this morning, and she ended up being the subject of most of my photos. She posed so well. :) I just love that puppy.

Alaska

A Sleepover with a Royal Feast

8 March 2015

I love my nieces. So so so much. They bring me lots of joy and peace and love and harmony and goodness. They came over for a sleepover on saturday and we ended up making a little royal feast for dinner, with all sorts of yummy things. Roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, veggie eggs, sugar snap peas, apples, cheese, and apple juice in the tea pot. While I was preparing food I told the girls to set the table however they wanted and it was so cute. They helped with some food prep too, in between playing the harmonica, recorder, and tambourine.

I have a bunch of musical instruments and music makers in my house, and the girls always go for them when they come over. Sometimes I get tired of hearing a bit too much harmonica blowing, or stick banging, or ukulele strumming, and I want to ask the girls to stop, but I usually don’t. I think it’s great for them to just create music and sounds. And Natalie loves singing too. And Katy is wanting me to teach her some piano, which makes me really happy.

After a slightly frustrating clean up time of dinner and toys, we watched the Book of Life. It was great. And the girls are so funny when they watch tv, or any screen, because they are totally in the zone. They block out everything else by the screen in front of them haha.

Before bed we did a Cosmic Kids yoga video and it was pretty awesome. Super good kids yoga. I really enjoy doing yoga, usually Yoga with Adriene. And then came… snack time. :) This was my favorite moment from the whole day.

*We made them some delicious toast and I cut up a pear for us. After some munching, we got down to the last two slices and I told the girls that was great, one for each of them. Well Natalie and Katy simultaneously ate half of their pear slices, and handed me the other half, making it a whole slice for me. It was so sweet and pure and made me tear up a bit. Those girls are so sweet and kind. Oh how I love them.

Chris slept on the couch (and watched man movies all night haha) and the girls and I slept in our bed. Chris came in and we read the magical book I Like You and then we said prayers together, and drifted off to sleeps.

The girls and I woke up approximately 7:51 sunday morning, and they (especially Natalie) requested I tell them stories of when I was a kid. I remember how I loved hearing my dad tell childhood stories when I was a kid. Stories, really powerful. PS, check out my friends’ Soul Story and pledge a little something. :) Anyway, I told the girls stories of when I was a kid, first days of school, adventures, random memories… it was great. What a great way to start the day.

And then we hurriedly got ready for church, none of us looking our absolute best, but all in fairly good spirits. We didn’t make it to church on time… why is that so hard?! Buuuut we did have a really really great sleepover. And church was enlightening, as per usual. :)

Chris worked the flash like a champ and got these fotos for us. I love our home and família.

Lower 48

PNW!

3 March 2015

We just got back from ten superb days in the Pacific Northwest! It was most excellent. Very beautiful with lots of yummy food. It was a trip with some work and lots of play and my bestest friends! I loved cruising around with Carla and Chris. Oh it was the best. More pictures to come soon, but these get the message across for now. I LOVE THESE KIDS and ice cream!

Older Posts

Newer Posts

Mothers and Flowers

Seeing Amigos

Polar bears

back to boat cleaning

3 am trip to the loo

Living the Kitten Dream

throwback to tanner days and adventures

Uuvm kI miss Chris. I’m Zzzzzxxxxxxxxxxx and

Sprinter

‘Ello Poppet

Tacoma, WA to Cannon Beach, OR – February 24th

The Aurora

Under the Sea

Right meow.

It snowed! PTL.

A Sleepover with a Royal Feast

PNW!

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