Fathers be good to your daughters (and sons!)....

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!! I am so blessed to have an absolutely, unbelievably kind, generous, godly father. I love you, Dad!! Plus, I was so blessed to have married into a family with another amazing father, John Wright....I love you too!! Thank you both for loving us so well, day in and day out. I know we both are a challenge to deal with, so thanks for putting up with us in all of our 'moments'. We would not be who we are today without you both.

Papa John always watching and staying the course...
Dad Miesner leading us on...
Dad and sons...it looks like they like each other a little, huh?
I love my daddy!!
Can you tell we're related...
Here's a pic of them together reading scripture they had chosen for us to guide our marriage...
Also, Happy Father's Day to my brother-in-law, Richard!! Thanks for being the best dad to my fave niece and nephews! Look what a good daddy he is...
Love you all! Thank you for being the best at the hardest job in the world!

Renovations in Progress

We have been spending some time to make our little condo look a little more 'lived in', i.e., no longer having bare, empty walls! So, here's a pic to remind you that we will upload more pics once we actually have made some progress...slow and steady wins the race, right? The slower we are the better then, right? Anyway, here's to whet your appetite...

Jane + Holly = JOLLY

We had so much fun with Jane (Justin's aunt) and Holly (his cousin) here earlier this month!! We saw lots of moose, including even an elusive baby moose, touched a glacier, hiked a ton, and laughed even more! This probably is best told by some pictures (however, I didn't take as many as I normally do with Jane and Holly being the tourists and all!):

Jane with some really big bluebonnets...
Close-up of Alaska's version of a bluebonnet (they call it a forget-me-not, I think, but I forget), but it's the same exact flower just a ton bigger!
Holly in iconic pose....
View from the top...

Resting spot, especially designed for....
...especially for Holly!
At Beluga Point, Just looking for some belugas...
You gotta be careful on these dangerous mudflats...as much as they look like a black, sandy beach, they are NOT!
Wannabe-artsy close-up of the flats...
Jane on her way down to the beach....
The RAILroad goes on forever...in Alaska....
View of Mt. McKinley from Earthquake Park in Anchorage. To the left of the behemoth of 20,320 feet is Mt. Foraker, at a mere 14,000+ feet....FYI, this picture at dusk was taken at midnight...
Baby moose from afar (Holly got much better pics than I did! Can you pass those along, Holly?)...
Holly at the "toe" of the glacier in Seward...
Thank you for coming and being our "guinea pig guests"!! We loved having you...come back again!

P.S. Thank you, John and Annie, for Justin's b-day present...as you can tell he is definitely getting a lot of use out of his fancy sunglasses...

PETA

Here's a little video we took while halibut fishing...a short PETA advertisement. PETA, as in People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.



Doesn't it make you want to come and get your own tasty animal? (Don't forget your baseball bat!)

I saw this short video over at Team Alexander's blog, which is an absolutely unbelievable journey, so check it out. I also wanted to post it because I was so touched by his passion and message.

Kickin' butt with the Halibut!

WOW!!! I have never caught such a huge fish in my life, nor has Justin!! Plus, I have never been so completely frozen while fishing either!

So, we tried a little halibut fishing last month (May), which is supposedly a little early in the season to catch any big fish. We left at 3:00 in the morning, picked up our friend Nick, and headed down Highway 1 to Seward, which is rated the #1 most beautiful drive in North America (or at least somewhere in the top 10). I slept the whole way down since it was 3:00 in the morning unfortunately....the joys of being a resident, not a tourist. You don't feel quite so compelled to do everything today...there's always another weekend trip!

Once we got to the ocean, we hopped aboard, flashed our fish licenses, and staked out our spot in the back of the boat. For some brilliant reason, all the other passengers sat in the heated, dry cabin instead of being frozen solid under layers of wool, gore-tex, and other non-cotton materials. (A common saying in Alaska is "cotton kills" since it doesn't dry out easily when it gets wet and facilitates hypothermia or something like that. Ask your local REI specialist...not me! I like cotton!)

We sped away through the gorgeous, mountainous straits of Resurrection Bay and watched the sea lions, otters, mountain goats, and other wildlife along the way. After 3 hours of breakneck speed on choppy arctic waves and only one sick passenger, we came to a stop and anchored off of Montague Island (the largest uninhabited island in North America, for you Trivial Pursuit nerds!). We threw our lines overboard and waited and waited...this is lazyman's fishing. You don't do a thing...no setting the hook, jigging, or any of other kind of sportsmen's lingo. So, I kinda like this!

After a while, you feel a little nibbling at your bait. You wait a little longer, then start reeling. After 90 feet of line being fought over, the mammoth appears. Here are some pics to whet your appetite in case you've never tried.


Onward ho!

Aggie connection

Captain Hook

Fish bigger than me! Can you believe I caught that sucker! Must have been the polka dot boots!!

Straining with our two carcasses...

Not the prettiest fish...but look better in sepia!

Chillin' (literally) on the ride back to port...

B-E-A-Utiful!

So, I am pretty much the worst blogger ever. Sorry that I have not done any posts in a LONG time! We have been house-hunting...or rather, condo-hunting. We finally found one the end of April and have now just moved in...and love it! For those of you who may be familiar with Anchorage, it is on the west side of town by Westchester Lake and just south of downtown. We love being close to all of the fun trails; I even get to ride my bike to work now! Moving in wasn't much of a challenge since we left all of our furniture in Texas....I think that's the way it should be!! My apologies to all of you incredible interior decorators out there, but why can't we just all sell our houses furnished...package deal! Life is so much easier that way. Leave the big stuff. If you don't like the way it's furnished, don't buy it. Anybody else with me on this one?

I will definitely put some pics up from around the house. We don't yet have any art up on the walls yet, but you can at least see some "before" pictures, and then I'll post once we finish decorating... probably when we decide to move out, right? ;)

It is slooowly starting to feel like our home. We have 2 guest bedrooms if anybody is headed up here this BEAUTIFUL time of year!!