First Snow in Juneau

It finally came - our first snowfall!  10+ inches and it did not disappoint.

Let there peace on Earth!

As you can probably tell, both pictures were taken from my car - safely, I promise! The first is a street in our neighborhood.  The second is the road in the Lemon Creek area of Juneau.  Lemon Creek is where you find shopping.  Costco and Home Depot to be specific.  You can see the Home Depot sign in the distance.  But in classic Juneau fashion, the road to Costco and Home Depot ends at a trail head.  This trail, marked by the peace sign clearing, is 6 miles in length, climbing 2000 feet in elevation and leads to the Juneau Icefield (meaning, source of many area glaciers).

Our Efel

This is an Efel oil burning stove.  It heats our house.  The guys who came to teach us how to use it service it told me all about it.  See that glowing orange thing in the middle, generating the blue-ish glow from "boiling" oil.  That's called a dragon.  Cool, huh?  Little scary?  Yes, to me anyway.

Why is this Efel stove such a gem?  It requires no electricity, which is important when you live in a place where the power goes our frequently and for extended periods of time.  The oil is gravity fed.  Even the fan on top that helps circulate air is powered solely by the force of the rising warm air.  I've been told it's very efficient.  And you can cook on it, which we had to test out to believe for ourselves.  So we did.  Corn for our Thanksgiving dinner.

The Rock Dump

The Rock Dump, Juneau's indoor climbing gym.

I'm not sure I would have made my way to an indoor climbing gym on a random Sunday afternoon a year ago.  But with Juneau's persistent rain and winter's increasing darkness, I'm game for a new challenge.

After some training for Graham and I on how to belay, all four of us were outfitted in climbing shoes and harnesses and we were off.

It really should come as no surprise that Addy took right to it.  From the very first time she climbed out of her crib, before she could even walk, we knew she was part monkey.  

What did come as more of a surprise was how well Cora took to it as well.  A little more hesitant but just as determined, Cora wanted to show she is one mighty girl, too.

The kids finally let us have a turn.  I'm not going to lie, I was a little scared.  You quickly are higher off the ground than comfort allows and I prayed that rope was really going to hold me.  It was also more physically demanding than I realized.  But shaking arms and all, it was exhilarating.  

Guess who also made it to the top of this particular climb?  Yup, Addy.  Thanks for showing us up, kid.

Overall, a really fun Sunday afternoon.  Just hanging out.

Parking, Juneau Style

Juneau, particularly downtown Juneau, is built into the side of mountains.  Everything is on a hill.  This was parking for church one Sunday morning.  Notice all the tires, turned and up on the curb.  I guess as a backup to your emergency parking break?

We did our part to fit in - that's our minivan third car back.

A Night at Hermitage Cabin

"Let's go camping!"  Graham and I declared as we thought about what we could do with an odd mid-fall break in the girls' school schedule.  Sure, it's November.  In Alaska.  Who wouldn't want to go camping?

This was our cute, little cabin - the Hermitage Cabin at the Shrine of Saint Therese.

You can see the cabin just poking out through the tree line, with a view to the wide open frontier.  

Happy campers

We saw beautiful shore birds and lots and lots of sea lions.  And let me just say, sea lions are noisy things!  We heard them from our cabin while we were making dinner.  And then on into the night.  

It was a one room cabin, with two twin beds (a luxury for our first "camping" trip, really) and wood stove.  We cooked dinner and had s'mores by the wood stove.

No electricity, just the light of our lanterns.  Which was still enough light by which to read :)

We were so ready for the cold.  We wore our long underwear, packed fleeces, sleeping bags and many, many blankets.  Turns out, we grossly underestimated the power of the wood burning stove.  The cabin was more like a sauna.  We ended up sleeping in nothing but our underwear; and not the long underwear kind!

The next morning we set out to explore.  One of the things I love about many of the beaches and shoreline areas is that there is so much room.  Just room for the girls to wander and discover.  Here Addy is just a speck out on the rocky beach, collecting sea weed and cool rocks.

Like this frosty seaweed specimen.

Addy and Cora have always been close.  Through this move, and now on these family adventures, their relationship really has grown even more.  Cora has a little difficulty walking and balancing on all the slippery algae-covered and/or barnacle-covered rocks.  But Addy doesn't let that hold back her sister and is just as willing to help her along as anyone.  Or when we took a hike, marked only by the bright green crosses, and which turned out to be much more challenging than Graham or I anticipated, they helped each other along.

Alaska is so big.  The size of it and its many treasures - the mountains, the glaciers, the sheer wilderness - but there is such beauty in the small things, too.  This tiny dew laced spiderweb.  And this rock covered in mussels.  I love capturing it all.

The Lanz Ladies take on our first Alaska cabin camping adventure?  The smiles say it all.

And just for your viewing pleasure, I even included the picture of us doing our best sea lion impressions.

Uniquely Juneau

Uniquely Juneau

In sorting through the collection of pictures I've taken, there are just a few that don't fit into any larger post other than to say that they represent the uniqueness of this place we now call home.  Like this flower arrangement above.  Everyone wears rain boots, particularly xtratuffs, to any and all occasions.  I've never seen such versatile footwear.  It can get you from walking the dog, to church, even out to dinner & a movie.  It seems only appropriate that it should be part of your home decor as well.


This is the view at preschool drop-off.  Cora checks out the status of the lake every morning as we drive by.  Is it clear and glassy, is it choppy and rainy, is there fog covering it...and then, a reminder not to miss the driveway for her school.

There are these coffee drive thru's.  It's like an ATM for coffee.  They are everywhere.  Here's one of our favorites because not only does it have great coffee for the grown-up, the girls get hot chocolates complete with whipped cream and lollipop lids.

And this sign has cracked me up since the first time we drove Egan Highway back from downtown.  As it turns out, I guess I shouldn't have laughed too hard because the used car Sherry bought when we moved here came with studded tires.  But more about that later; snow preparations definitely merit their own blog post.