Mom and I had lunch with Laurie since she's in town (she pretty much lives in California now, but she still has a house and friends/family up here)..this curious bee landed on my hand and started licking it!! It must like cinnamon rolls too. :P Mom was laughing because I kept saying things like "it's so fuzzy!!" Laurie was completely freaked out by me just letting a bee casually crawl on my hand lol, but I wasn't trying to harm it or threaten it, so it had no reason to harm me. It was pretty cool hehe. We also hung out with Ingrid (she's going back home soon *sniff* She'll be back next March though!) and when we were saying goodbye she was like "you're a great pet owner!" Aw, that's one of the best compliments you can give me <3

( August 12: Green )

Mom and I had lunch with Laurie again today (her poor baby was fussy!), so here's a pic of her kitty El Gato:

His face is different, but he looks a lot like Abby!

And this hilarious street sign near her house:

I've also seen "Angry German" and "Loose Moose"..someone had fun naming our streets :P

( Name your best friend )

Today I went to the fair with mom and her friend Laurie (we went with her last year too). It was chilly, but at least it didn't pour down rain like last year. We had lots of yummy unhealthy fair food lol and pet lots of animals (Laurie loves the goats, so she went over there multiple times lol). In one of the pavilions was people selling stuff and one guy was like "wanna try my cheese graters?" and I just had to LOL cause it sounded like a pick up line or something haha! It seems like there were less vendors and stuff this year..I heard it's expensive and not well managed..sad. I'm exhausted and my feet hurt but it was fun lol

( 5 Day- A Screenshot of your favourite youtube user )

Today's trivia: Michigan is home to a floating post office, the boat J.W. Westcott II, which delivers mail to ships on the Great Lakes. It is the only floating post office in the world that delivers mail to ships as they are underway

I love how her eyes match the grass hehe. I wish I had gotten a pic of her rolling around in the grass..so amusing :P


His eyes kinda match the grass too. It amuses me how you go outside to give one cat attention the others come running too haha

Today's mom's 59th birthday..her friend Laurie's gonna come over later and make her tacos..yum!

( DAY 11: Favorite beverage )

Hii I am in Anchorage! On Sunday we left for Talkeetna. We wanted to get there at dinnertime since mom's friend Laurie wouldn't be available till then. It was quite warm (20 and 30s) so the road was really slushy..the car got SO dirty. We need to find a car wash haha..it feels gross touching it. :P While driving Laurie called and said she was stuck in Anchorage and would be back the next morning, but we could make ourselves at home at her house. Mom wasn't very happy with her. We got to her house, dropped stuff off, walked by the river downtown (too cloudy to see McKinley. The sunny weather hadn't caught up to us yet ;)) and had dinner. I met the mayor there! He happens to be a cat named Stubbs, who drinks water with catnip out of a wine glass (really..he is the legal mayor of Talkeetna..the residents voted him in and everything haha). The bartender must have thought I was insane squeeing over him. :P After dinner we went back to Laurie's house and watched Eight Below. It was good, except for the glaring inaccuracies (I don't know a lot about sled dogs/mushing, but I do know they NEVER take their dogs inside..it would kill their winter coat. If it was -30 in Antarctica, you would so not be wearing jeans, an unzipped coat and just a baseball cap on your head. And in the winter scenes, it was bright daylight. Umm no, there's not much light there at all in the winter, and it definitely wouldn't be bright. Oh well :P). Then we went to bed

Yesterday (Monday) we slept in, had breakfast and just waited for Laurie to come. She eventually did..but she was all grumpy and was complaining about how she needed to clean the house cause she had more company coming. Mom was like "well..we can leave later if you want" (we were gonna stay another night) and Laurie was like "yeah I'd feel better." Oook..she seems like a really flaky person. :/ Mom said she was about done with her too. She's always rubbed me the wrong way. Oh well. The weather was amazing outside..sunny and warm. McKinley was out in its epicness haha. Laurie and mom went skiing and I had lunch and browsed the shops downtown. Talkeetna is super quiet..like I was in the middle of downtown in the afternoon and it was silent! Wow haha. I saw Stubbs in the General Store..he was drinking water out of a fishbowl haha (the fish didn't seem to care..they swam right up to him :P). I got the best pic with him hehe. Mom called when they were done skiing and we went back to the house, packed and left. We were headed to Windy's (from BOW) house this time. She had been wanting us to come visit her, so she was happy to see us (she lives in Wasilla, maybe an hour to an hour and a half drive from Talkeetna). Windy is much more pleasant than Laurie. Her house is full of crafty things, knickknacks, scrapbooks, etc..fun to look at! We had a nice evening visit and went to bed

( today )

I'm back from Talkeetna! On Friday mom went to Laurie's house to load up the car with her stuff, Laurie came to mom's house to have breakfast, then we left. It was an uneventful drive down. Besides McKinley (which was cloudy then), I find the Parks Highway rather boring. I've driven the Richardson too many times haha..it's way more exciting. :P We got to Laurie's house, unpacked the car, hung out a little, then had dinner. We met up with another air traffic controller, his wife, a girl who played basketball with the controller, and another lady that I'm not sure what the connection was. I was rather annoyed..I was tired, hungry and it was really loud. Once I had some wine and food I was better though haha. There were cool mountaineering mementos on the walls (Talkeetna is the jump off for mountaineers flying to McKinley. I'd love to go in the summer when all the mountaineers are there!). Talkeetna is rather quaint. After dinner, we went back to Laurie's house, had more wine (we bought a bottle..Red Rock Merlot) and played Trivial Pursuit haha. Funn. After the game we went to bed

Yesterday I got up and when it was light enough started checking the webcams to see what the weather was at McKinley. It was clear over Talkeetna but I could see a thin layer of fog/clouds (depending on where the camera was) at McKinley. I was confident it would break up though. I checked later and..I was right! The clouds were breaking up and I could see the top of McKinley! I have good weather skillz I swear haha. ;) After breakfast we went over to K2 Aviation and they said once the pilot got the plane ready we could go flightseeing! Yaaay haha. While he was doing that we went over and checked out the flight service station where Laurie's gonna work (the guy from the night before was working then too). After talking with him we went back to K2 and went flightseeing! We opted for the Denali Grand Tour. :D (Don't worry, I saved up for this haha) One of the best feelings everr is taking off in a plane and seeing everything around you. THE FLIGHT WAS SO AMAZING!! Denali, Foraker, Hunter, etc were so clear and pretty!! Even the pilots were amazed. I could see in the distance it was cloudy over Anchorage and I heard it was snowing in Fairbanks. WOW haha. A good weather hole, just for me. ;) We got SUPER close to Foraker and other mountains..so amazing to see the detail!! Seeing all sides of McKinley was pretty awesome too. All the glaciers were awesome too..so cool seeing icefalls, crevasses, moraines. *drools* The mountains looked like ice cream haha. I took over 100 pics up there!! It was just amazing. <3 Laurie met up with us after we landed and had lunch and dessert at two different places haha. Ouch..I ate horribly yesterday. :P That just happens when you travel though. We also checked out the Talkeetna River (which had an AMAZING view of McKinley and co.), went to a gift shop, went back to Laurie's house and showed her our pics, then left to go back home. It was like 4:15 when we left! Oops haha. There was a nice mountain sunset though. The WORST part of the drive is after Nenana you just wind and wind through hills and you're so close to home BUT THE HILLS NEVER ENDDD haha. But we made it back to mom's house, unpacked the car and went to bed haha. Pics tomorrow or whenever I get them all uploaded :P

( 72. Mischief Managed )

Yesterday for Easter dinner I went with mom and Laurie (her friend at work) to Chatanika Lodge. I was excited when mom came home and told me "we're going on a drive!" haha. I think it's on mile 20 something on the Steese Highway. I had only been out that way once before..mom said we were picking berries but all I really remember is miles and miles of burned hills. it was nice and sunny so it was a good day for a drive. The lodge only had a tiny buffet till 7..it was good but we were disappointed cause we wanted to order off the menu. The owner had two very fat old beagles haha..they like to visit you when you were eating hehe. We'll have to go back to see their regular menu

Today was my first day ever of jury duty. It was interesting, though the questioning process and waiting for stuff took foreverrr haha. We were on the 4th floor so it was cool seeing Fairbanks (and the mountains!) up high. I'm probably not allowed to talk about the trial till it's over though. I'd never been in a courtroom before..it was cool hearing the court lingo haha (objection your honor!). I was STARVING though..I was happy they didn't select me just so I could go eat something :P (and this is my last week with AmeriCorps *sniff*). It was around 1:30 when they let us go and I went straight to River City Cafe for a smoothie so I wouldn't die of hunger. :P I went to work for a bit too..it didn't feel right not going haha. I wonder if they'll call me again..

( pics from yesterday )

Would you rather on a first date, wear a t-shirt that says "I'm with stupid" or a t-shirt that asks "who cut the cheese?" The first one..maybe

Today's trivia: The first automobile to cross the US took 52 days in 1903, to go from San Francisco to New York