they FINALLY tied the knot!

Dave and Shi's wedding last weekend in Arctic Valley was really beautiful. Perfect weather, very intimate ceremony, all the dresses for bridesmaids and the moms were absolutely gorgeous (from their trip to Taiwan last year), and it was a great reunion of old friends... it was really a great time. Of course the blogging paparrazi were out in full force, lots of photos...

the cool thing about alaskan weddings is that anyone can marry somebody (not enough priests in this lawless land). jeff did a great job as 'officiant', and I don't think he looked this good even at his own wedding!


it was great to have the bensons back in town, and to meet their latest addition - marit.
wyatt had some stiff competition trying to be the cutest baby at this party, but he was still a ham.

now those are dancing shoes!

of course there was some trauma and stress involved with the cake frosting/assembly/decorating but adrian and i pulled it off - we were especially proud of our alaskan resourcefulness - little did you all know there was duct tape IN the cake!

dipnetting

Just back from the annual trek to Chitina to dipnet on the Copper River. I went with my friend Kyle who managed to squeeze in the quick trip 4 days before he leaves for his wedding! So we didn't have much time... left Thurs. after work and got home 3 in the morning on Friday - 12 hours of driving and 12 hours of fishing packed in that time! Fishing was slow, and challenging with really high water - as always a shit load of hard work. but it was a gorgeous day to be on the copper and in the end we managed to pull out enough fish to keep us from going hungry this winter...


best line of the day - when Kyle said "This is SO Alaska", not sure you non-Alaskans can appreciate that sentiment, but it is just... SO Alaskan!

we both landed huge kings! kyle broke his net in the process, and my king somehow broke the carabiner it was attached to and float away - very upsetting.



dinner at home only 24 hours after the last fish was caught!
the lettuce and nasturiums are from my garden, the tomatoes from BC, and my favorite mexican summer beer. - I'm (still) reading - The Omnivores Dilemma, great book, point is we rarely have the privilege of knowing where our food comes from.

the garden

my little garden is doing great this summer - i've had more lettuce than i can eat for over a month now, plenty of basil for pizzas and mint for the mojitos. a moose destroyed all the broccoli but that's all - very selective forager. i'm especially proud of the tiny green tomatoes and peppers i've got - no small accomplishment when you don't have a hose on the side of the house!

audrey's house

girls night friday night - drinking beer and playing with power tools, working on the latest house project with audrey. this weeks project was prepping the stairs for staining. you can tell it's just the girls by the cool pink respirator i'm wearing! i go out to help Auds just enough to cure me of any dreams i have of building my own place. audrey has done an amazing job building, but it's 3 years into the project now and still a ways to go (granted she's also working on a phd at the same time).

babysitting anna

one of my favorite things....

picking a handful of these every morning for cereal, and again every evening for ice cream. there's plenty right here behind the cabin. super tart right now, yum.

4th on the chena

absolutely perfect day on the upper chena. despite the really low water level it was a fun float. super hot, but no bugs... great weather, great friends, great food, and a great day for the dogs!

caz and turtle spent more time in the water than in the canoe...

reds on the grill.
do not let this guy in the stern of your boat after a few g+t's!!
caz trying to hitch a ride
can i please get back in the canoe?? i promise not to shake.

happy birthday SPENCE!

remember the train cake? check out this moon cake my sister made - pretty cool eh? and it came with a 10 ft tall space rocket, sounds like fun - bummed i missed the party!
(shi - i don't have my sisters/nephews talent for cake decorating, maybe i should recruit some little manning-pearce's or little short-schmutz's to help me with your wedding cake??)

jeff's RAAM

Ran into Morgan at Lulu's yesterday and got to hear some of the crazy stories from Jeff's RAAM - bike race across america. 3000 miles in 10 days, he averaged 11 miles an hour and 2 hours of sleep a day. Crazy crazy amazing accomplishment - check out his blog.

solstice backpack

Great 5 day backpack with CO Tim over the solstice - near Tangle lakes off the Denali highway. No trails and very rugged terrain, but great weather and a short route.


i drew in our loop and camps on this map, but still it's hard to get a sense of the steep terrain from this map.





solstice sunset from the tent - this photo was taken around midnight.

bday

I had a great birthday. We had this phenomenal campsite at the base of this cirque, I hiked up to this ridge and was treated to watching a small group of caribou in the saddle below for over an hour, and to top it all off - tim packed in lots of chocolate as medicine for my bum shoulder.




amazing - my birthday cupcake didn't get crushed in his pack!

anchorage

after the hike i spent a few days in Anchorage for work and to meet the newest babies. Anne (Thomas) and Chris had a boy on June 20th - Corbin Spencer, and Anne Remick and Tim had a boy as well - Micah Schoen, in May. All of them are doing great, and both boys are absolutely adorable. Caz wasn't too interested in the babies, but she did get to meet her first grizzly - fortunately from the comforts of the car! This is on the road less than a mile from anne/tim's house in eagle river.

trail run

nice weekend round town. my friend caroline from anchorage is in town for a month taking a wildlife toxicology class, nice to have her around. we got in a great trail run/hike today...
caz is more interested in the marmot's alarming than the camera...

ira in alaska

NPR's Science Friday was broadcast from UAF yesterday. It was pretty interesting to 'watch' live radio. I know most of the panelists they interviewed - I worked with Torre several years ago on the YKD, Terry is a prof in the biology dept, the guy that calls in from Barrow is Mette's boss... Unfortunately they all seemed a bit nervous to be on national radio and didn't seem like Ira got them to go out on a limb and say anything bold and alarming about climate change - like and seemed he wanted and I agree is needed at this point.
Now if only we could get NPR's other Ira to come up here...

delta weekend

it's hot here! a very dry interior 87 degrees yesterday. fairbanks feels kinda crazy when it's like this, makes me crazy to get outta town. so i headed out to the mason's farm last weekend to help with the latest projects and see the little wyatt man....
ellie and i built a gate to keep dogs out of the garden, with supervision from wyatt and caz. the big project was we moved that shed behind the cabin to make room for the new addition coming later this summer.

i guess ellie was bored with only 3 dogs, 2 goats, 12 chickens, 1 baby, and 1 husband to take care of - so now she also has 1000 bees!

no visit to the farm is complete without a good dogfight.
mama and her babies.
hopefully - for papa's sake - wyatt will outgrow this hair pulling phase pretty quickly. but i must say he is pretty darn cute these days with his one tooth.