Friday Theme - Six Month Checkup

Since me and W went to Chicago last Friday I completely forgot about the Friday theme. Some of the themes this year have been hard for me, and others I just haven't had time to sit down and write them. But one theme I do love is the six month checkup. Because you go through six months of your life, and present some pictures that you feel represent the different months and what you were doing then.

July:

July came and we finally had a real summer, with temperatures around 30 C frequently. It got that hot already in June too, which is pretty rare. Of course everyone were worried about the forest fires. But this year wasn't as bad as one would have thought. Although we did have a fire close to Fairbanks....but that one was caused by the military who had an artillery training during red flag...(no comments...)...  so yeah that fire continued during the whole summer, along with a few others of course. The weather was hot, the mosquitos and black flies were really bad, and the smoke was pretty bad from time to time.

I always take pictures of the cats, this one on the left side is one of my favorites of Olive. The light was really special because of the smoke from the fire. And Tycho of course, above. 

I also had a wonderful garden and made jam and pickles throughout the summer :) 

I had long field days, early morning and late evenings

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August:

In August it started to rain, and by the end of august a naked Fall had arrived. In early August i went down to Ninilchik to see Trampled by Turtles and Brandi Carlile. It was a typical Alaskan festival, with rain, Extra Tufs, and a little bit of sunshine.

As the leaves were turning colors temperature were starting to drop and the last leaves of the fireweed flowers were soon gone too. I shipped Olive to Madison and Tycho was wondering what happened to her. And then I got a full load of wood for the winter that was approaching. 

September:

September came, and I went to Missoula and saw one of the most beautiful weddings ever! Such a beautiful location to have a wedding. I really want to move to Montana!! 

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In Fairbanks the temperatures had already dropped significantly [gallery type="slideshow" ids="1135,1390"]

October:

October arrived with Aurora of course

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November:

November arrived with snow, finally!! And colorful sunsets, and sunrises.

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December:

December came with freezing temperatures, but beautiful sunsets and sunrises, and Aurora again.

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And then I got to Madison and me and W adventured out to Chicago for some real spring weather, around 50 F!!

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Happy New year to you! Hope your year was as awesome as mine!

And then summer arrived...

Since I have been so busy lately, I haven't had time at all to update. I was updating so infrequently as it was before the summer, so yeah, the updates have been closer to zero than anything else. But summer finally did arrive, late, much later than what I have been used to. W left in June to do his PhD in Madison. So we have two cats, Olive and Tycho, but Olive is his cat, and Tycho is my cat (even though i secretly think Olive loves me more...). I had both cats for a while and then I shipped Olive to Madison in August. But I will see her soon enough :) This below is Olive:

And Tycho, Tycho was a stray cat and he lost his ears because of frostbite (like many other cats at pet-pride in Fairbanks).

This summer was so dry, almost no rain all summer, and anyone who knows Alaska knows what that mean, fire.

One of my favorite flowers, fireweed, the color is just stunning when it's all in bloom. I love seeing the color of fireweed, makes me realize summer is here for real.

They say that when the fireweed has bloomed out, summer is over.

This summer did feel extremely short and long at the same time. Short in the sense that I kept busy, and long cause I felt like I had so many things to do, and I missed W of course.

I had a nice garden this summer too, I grew potatoes, cucumber, zucchini, beets, lettuce and basil. The cucumbers did great, mostly cause this summer was so hot.

I didn't do that much hiking this summer, I guess I was too busy. I did get to travel south, to Ninilchik, close to Homer. That was a blast. Not the 12 hr car ride it involved, but the trip itself :)

The sky in the summertime is beautiful, well I guess that is true in the fall, wintertime and spring too....but the summertime is the only time you get amazing colors and shapes even though it is really late at night.

Often times I don't have my "real" camera, only my iphone, but I use it a lot more than the regular camera. And the pictures do come out pretty well there,

Hope you are having a wonderful week!

Friday Theme, Cooking Food

About that, I have gotten into this tendency to not cook food. W is doing that most of the time, it's not that I don't know how to, it's more the fact that W always takes the initiative for it. When I go to the store I buy all sorts of different ingredients, with no specific dish in mind, or at least my head knows what I can make with all the ingredients. W on the other hand, always writes down exactly what meal it will be for each day of the week...So I usually pick up around the house, chop fire wood, start the fire in the woodstove, feed the cats, do the dishes (most of the time..), and then when I am done I usually have an awesome meal to eat. Very balanced eh? I do know how to cook though, as I said. I love having nice dinners with friends, and when W was gone Marie came over and I made pizza dough, and then we created our own pizzas, Beautiful Marie who moved to Seattle, I guess Fairbanks winters does that to you...

The end product was beautiful

W was gone most of the summer and I didn't only eat ice-cream ;)

I also had a garden, so I got some vegetables from there, Got some potatoes when we got back from the trip down south We also made some pickled beets...which we still havent tried....I really hope they are good and we bought some meat chickens that we processed this summer. We got some Halibut in Homer So this is what we use for our dinners, as much as we can. And, right now our freezer is pretty full. Halibut fish tacos...mmmm If you only tried fried halibut before, you totally missed out. I had only tried fried halibut before and I can't believe how someone can destroy this nice piece of fish by frying it!!

Speaking about the summer, we actually celebrated midsummer too, at Maries place, and there was some cooking involved in that, even though I probably wasn't the one who did the most. But I had a fabulous time.

Happy Friday!