First Month/ Trip to Seward

Well its been just over a month since we pulled into anchorage! It has gone by really fast, and not fast enough in the case of living behind KOOT's. That has pretty much become a nightmare, mainly on Friday and Saturday nights when the bass thumps until three in the morning and then 200 drunks file out and yell at each other for whatever reason. But that is all over now for us, as we are moving into our apartment this weekend! We are so excited about being able to finally unpack everything and have more space, and a full kitchen! We have pretty much furnished the place already(its all packed in a storage unit we have right now) with a lot of great garage sale/craigslist items and are really looking forward to being able to settle in (for a while at least, we have a six month lease. We are hoping to find something better at the end of the summer).

There has been so much change from when we first pulled in, break-up is all but over(meaning all the snow has melted in the city) and the street cleaners are working day and night to sweep up all the rocks and sand used for traction during the winter. The days are already getting really long. The sun is up and at 6, and doesn't set again until 10! And its only getting longer! We have had mostly good weather in the past month, which is really exciting for everyone who had to suffer through last summer up here( its sounds a lot like the non existent summer Seattle had last year too). We cannot wait to bust out our hiking and camping gear and hit the trails. And just in case, we took a bear aware class at REI, which pretty much told us to talk in a gentle reassuring voice to the bear, letting him know that everything is OK....and if that doesn't work we have bear spray.

We are both gainfully employed now. Chelsea finished her second day today as a hostess at Snow City. It is a really good and even more popular breakfast/lunch place in downtown. They think that she is pretty much the best employee ever, so hopefully she will be moving up to server in no time. One of the best parts about working there is that it closes at 3, so we will both be free in the nights to enjoy the midnight sun. I have been working the past couple weeks as a painter. I got hooked up with a couple of local contractors through my uncle Brian, who then referred me to Ryan, a painter who needed some help. And being that I needed to make some money, it was a perfect pairing. Along with working for Ryan, I have been working towards stating my own business. Ryan is a really nice guy and flexible so I think that it will work out well.

This past weekend was our most adventurous yet. My mom and brother came up for the weekend to visit. One of the coolest parts of the weekend was simply that Brock was here. He told us that he was not going to be able to make it and we thought that it was just going to by my mom coming (which is completely and totally awesome in and of itself). When I got off work and headed to their hotel room I still had no idea(Chelsea was there and had been surprised earlier when they picked her up from our place). As I walked in and greeted my mom he came in from around the corner and it was such a sweet surprise! It was late in the afternoon by then, so we headed out to show them some stuff around town, and get some dinner. It only took Brock, with his eagle eyes, about 10 minutes to spot some moose. They were in a field by a school so we parked and trekked a little through the woods to get a good look at them. It was really fun to be able to see them so soon and so close. We tried a couple of moose calls, but they were pretty uninterested in us, and Chelsea really didn't want them to be interested in us, so we move along. For dinner we went to Humpy's Great Alaska Alehouse. Lucky for us there was some radio sponsored raffle going on, and all you had to do to get entry forms was drink beer. We were going to do that anyways, so we bought the beer that got us double entrys. Not too long after we entered our first batch of forms did our names start to get called. They did drawings about every 10 minutes. But we were really holding out for the grand prize at the end of the night for 10,000 Alaska Airlines miles. We did not win those, but we did walk away with 3 shirts, 2 Sam Adams hats, a pint glass, a beer koozy, and most impressively, a $50 GC to Sportsman's Warehouse. The next day my mom and I both had to work, so Brock and Chelsea were just hanging around until we got done. That evening we went out for a nice dinner and some more moose hunting/exploring Anchorage.

The next morning is when the weekend really got going. We took off bright and early for Seward, AK. We had booked a night in a great little B&B on the beach in Resurrection Bay just outside of town. We got into Seward and pulled into the chamber of commerce, mainly to use the restroom. It turned out to be a good thing though because the woman working there was full of great information on what to do while visiting Seward. The first thing that she mentioned, and what we already knew we wanted to do was a sea life boat tour. She told us that they start at noon and since it was 11:15 already we grabbed a couple more brochures and headed down to the harbor. Now unfortunately this weekend was pretty much the only time since being here that we have seen rain, but hey, were all from Seattle, so we put on our raincoats on hopped aboard. It was a four hour tour of Resurrection Bay that included, seals, sea lions, dahl porpoise and sea otters. Unfortunately it was pretty rough seas that day so we didn't venture out far enough to give ourselves the best chance of seeing any whales, but it was still really fun and amazing.

After the tour we headed to our room to check in and dry off. Once we got there and saw how awesome it was and that it was right on the beach, we decided to keep our rain gear on for just a little bit longer and walk to beach for a while. There were some of the most perfect skipping stones that kept us quite entertained as we all tried to see who was best. Once we were sufficiently soaked to the bone we headed in to change and get some food. We had a delicious dinner at a seafood restaurant in the harbour. After that we strapped our party hats on to see what kind of fun we could conjure up at the local watering holes. We went on quite an adventurous pub crawl in downtown Seward. First we started at a nice quite pub with a couple of pints of a delicious raspberry beer that the bartender thought Brock ordered. After that we headed across the street to another bar, but after walking in the front door and seeing that there was nobody inside we headed back across to yet another place. Yukon Bar, a fine establishment, that unfortunately still allows smoking. But it was packed with people and had a one man cover band, so we knew we had found what we were looking for. After looking around for little bit for a place to sit, we were offered space to sit at a group of young partiers table. It was a group of military men celebrating the 21st birthday of one of their wives. It turned out to be quite a night with this group. They were very nice and interesting, but they were also there to party. One of the young men took an especially strong liking to us, so much so that he bought us a round of shots. This was fine for us, but for Turd (he started calling himself Turd Ferguson, and so did everyone else) it proved to be the tipping point. He was led moments later to the toilet by his friend so he could call some dinosaurs, he had apparently been drinking long islands before that. All in all it was a very fun and chalk full of excitement evening. We left our mark with a couple of 'tagged' dollar bills and called it a night. In the morning it had cleared up some, so we worked up an appetite with another little walk along the beach. After breakfast we went to the Sea Life center aquarium. It was a really cool place with tons of cool information and animals. One of the highlights was a 1500 lbs sea lion. He was absolutely massive! We headed out of town after doing some souvenir shopping. On our way back in to Anchorage, we stopped by the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. It's a zoo esque place for injured and orphaned animals. We saw bison, moose, brown and black bears, and elk. The brown bears were the coolest part. There was a momma and two cubs, and they were all running around and playing with each other.

Once back in Anchorage we found a place for Mom and Brock to stay and got ready for dinner. After dinner, we tried to rally to show them how ridiculous KOOTs is. Apparently we went a little too hard the night before and were pretty much over KOOTs not too long after getting there.

It was a really fun weekend and we are so glad that we were able to spend time with family and see some more of Alaska! So now we are just waiting for YOU to come and visit us!


PS- Check Chelsea's blog in the coming days for more pictures of our trip and everything else.
http://www.notourlastfrontier.blogspot.com/