OK, so we finally harvested the garden. I knew we would get cabbage, some lettuce, maybe a raddish...but to my surprise, we also had peas! And they were pretty tasty, too! I thought I would show you the pictures. Just remember that these girls are as tall or taller than me! It was a lot of fun, and they're already talking about next year's garden. I'm glad they're excited! If we only had a couple more weeks, I'm SURE that we could have had zucchini and cucumbers, too! Oh, well! hopefully next year... Our nurse at work quit, so there's just 2 of us. Now I'm working a lot of overtime, and feeling exhausted almost all the time! We had our ward talent show 2 nights ago, and I decided to sing "Simple Joys of Maidenhood" from the musical "Camelot". Well, it was a last minute decision...I decided after I got there, and I couldn't remember all the words. So I called my sister to have her look them up on the internet. So after I got them, I told the person in charge that I would sing something. To say that I "sang" it is a stretch. It was AWEFUL! But, I got one of the loudest cheers all night. Of course, it was probably because it was over. But it was A LOT of fun!!! I'm glad I did it. But there is DEFINITELY a reason why I don't sing solos!!!! The leaves are changing even more, and they are falling everywhere. We also have snow in the mountains. I'll get pictures, but not until the clouds are no longer covering the mountains. I hope everyone is doing well, and that they are enjoying their weather...wherever they may be!

Well, today was the first time I could smell fall in the air. I've been able to feel the cool, crisp, "nip" in the air that you can FEEL, but today was the first time I could SMELL fall in the air. Now, this is not necessarily a pleasant experience. I remember growing up in Utah, smelling the fall leaves while the dry ones crunched under your feet. Mmmmmm...I can remember it so clearly! The nice, cool, autumn days that make you want to bring out your sweaters, and take walks on the mountain trails. Well, up here the smell is not DRYING leaves, but ROTTING leaves. Yeah... big difference. I mean BIG!!!! The smell of dry leaves is fabulous. The smell of rotting leaves is as if a million dogs went and did their business all over the city! No matter where you go, you can smell it. My first whiff was in the grocery store parking lot. Then I got home, and there it was again. Mmmm, mmmm, good! Seriously, you don't step out your door and take a nice, long, whiff of fresh air. Nope, not up here! It's kind-of hard to, actually, when your sense of smell is acosted with the smell of doo-doo. Anyway, the colors are changing, the rain is falling, and the leaves are wet and rotting. Life is GREAT! Tomorrow, the Beehives are comming to harvest the cabbage out of the garden. That's all we were able to get. There might be a couple radishes, but it's just cabbage. It's sad, too. I went and looked tonight, and there are some FABULOUS blossoms on the cucumber, zucchini, and crook-neck squash plants. Also, the tomato plants are as tall as I am, and the pea plants are even taller. The flowers on the pea plants are so pretty, too! If only we had a couple more months, we would be able to get the other stuff, too. Oh, well!! Hopefully, next year we'll be able to get an earlier start, and actually get something other than the stuff that grows no matter what. Did you know that cabbage can grow in the winter? Maybe not up here, but down in "The Lower 48" it can! So, if anyone decides to give it a try, let me know! Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures of the garden tomorrow, and the changing leaves another time. There is a lake within walking distance of my house, and it's surrounded by trees. It's really pretty in the fall to have the mountains in the background, and the changing leaves in the foreground, reflecting in the lake. Well, have a great day everyone, and until next time... Love ya!!!!

OK, so it's been a while since I've posted an update. Of course, I didn't realize it had been THAT long! My sister told me today that I needed to update my blog, and I agreed. Then I pulled it up, and...sorry!!! So, what have I been doing over the past month? Not writing on my blog! Ha, ha, ha! Seriously, it has been a pretty crazy month. The battle of the garden has concluded, and I have won. Yes, the cat hasn't dug any holes since I put up my cat repelling devices. It's called "Catstop" and it runs on a 9 volt battery. If a cat...or anything...triggers the device's motion detectors, the cat gets scared away by ultra sonic noises. Anyway, I truly didn't think it would work, but it does!!! Next year I will be putting up the motion detector controlled sprinkler. Forgive me an evil chuckle...Moi-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Anyway, that's the most recent thing. Before that, my Beehives challenged the rest of the young women to a Book of Mormon Challenge. We are reading the entire thing in 90 days. I'm pretty dang proud of my Beehives!! They're right on it! I also went hiking again. This time it was up a mountain called Flat Top. I'll bet you can't guess why! Just picture a mountain...with the top part sliced off. I would have gotten a picture to show you, but it was too cloudy. However, I did get some pictures that I am only too happy to share with you! In some of them, you can see the mist choking out our view. In others, you can see a sunny sky, but not the mountains that are right in front of us due to the cloud cover! OH, and also...there was still SNOW up there! Yup...SNOW!!! So, of course, I had to get pictures of that. Usually, there isn't snow up there this late in the year. But... I've already complained about the weather in my previous posts, and this was further evidence of the crappiness thereof. However, I was bound and determined to go for a hike in shorts. It is Summer, after all! It's just been too cool to wear summer clothes. So, this was the day to wear summer clothes. It wasn't too bad, thankfully!!! Now we're headed in to fall. We've grown a garden, and sometime next week will be the day of harvest. I think we'll only be getting cabbage and a few radishes. Hopefully next year will be better. I do have to say, though, that our peas grew to be over 5 feet tall. The blossoms are really pretty, but no fruit for our labors! It's pretty frustrating, actually. But completely out of my control. Live and learn...live and learn. Another exciting thing that has happened over the past month is that a neighbor a few houses down had a fire. So I'm sitting in my house, and all of a sudden I heard these sirens. I didn't think anything of it until they got really close. I look out my window and there are 3 or 4 firetrucks going down my street. One of them was parked right in front of my house...blocking my driveway and everything! AND, guess who was on those firetrucks? Yup...FIREMEN!!!! It was pretty fun, actually!!! I had to call my friends that live down the street and ask them how they were missing all of it. They showed up at my house not too long afterward. After all the excitement, they wanted to see my garden. So I took them into the back yard, and what should we see? My neighbor 2 doors down...PEEING IN HIS YARD! Why he couldn't go into his house and use his bathroom is beyond me, but there he was. I would have gotten a picture, too, but my friend laughed too loud and we were busted!! Oh, well! I'm sure there will be another time. Well, that's the excitement over the past month. I will try to be more faithful about keeping everyone posted and keeping up on my blog. In the meantime...

Well, I survived my one night of girl's camp. It was cold and rainy, just like the rest of the week. The sun did come out as we were leaving, though. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the ice cream cone. As I drove in to where I get it, I saw 2 or 3 tour buses, and the tourists were lined up out the door and accross the parking lot. I quickly decided that the ice cream would have to wait until another day as I was not willing to wait THAT long! I can always drive up and get it another day. And don't think I won't! However, I do have a picture of this ice cream cone, but it's from last year and it's with my nephew, Blaine instead of me. Girl's camp was a lot of fun, though. We sang songs, ate food, did skits, and the girls received their certification. When I arrived, one of my Beehives ran up and gave me a great big hug. When she asked what I was doing there, I found myself saying "Because I wanted to see you guys. I've missed you this week!" The smile on her face was AWESOME!!! And the thing that shocked me was that I meant what I said! I really did miss them this week! So it was a lot of fun to hang out with them at camp. They were very excited to show me their cabin. There were 5 young women in this cabin, and let me tell you...it STUNK!!! After swimming in a slimy, leech-infested lake all week, they really got to be pretty rank! But they had a lot of fun, and I'm really glad that I was able to share part of their week with them. When I got home, the sun was out. So, of course, I took my dining room chair, stuck it out in the middle of my yard, and read a book. When I got tired of the book, I stretched out and closed my eyes. After a week of rain, highs in the low to mid 50's, and lows in the high 40's, I just needed to bask in the heat. It was great!!! I've also just discovered exactly how many mosquito bites I've received this weekend. It take me back to the times that we went to Alturus (sp?) Lake in Idaho when I was younger. When we got back, we all counted our mosquito bites to see who had the most. All I remember is that we always counted more than 20 of them. Good times! Good times! Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend and you were all able to get out and enjoy your weather. I know everyone outside of Alaska had hot temperatures and sun! All I can say is enjoy it!!!

Since I posted last, I have watched my friend's neighbor chase a moose down the street with a rake (now THAT'S entertainment!), I've discovered that birds are eating my strawberries (BLAST!), and now I'm getting ready for Girls' camp. I actually have to work this week, and Girl's camp started 2 days ago. But I get to go up tomorrow and spend the last night. I'm really excited to go up, not to be at Girl's camp, but because I get to stop at Miller's Market and get the biggest ice cream cone I've ever seen. Seriously...it is HUGE! I'll have to get a picture of it. I'm taking someone up with me, so this shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, I get this ice cream once a year, and tomorrow is the day. YEAH!!! More to come on that... I talked to my friend who is already up there as a stake leader. She has a cold, the stake YW President has a cold, and a couple girls have already almost drowned in the leach-infested lake (yeah...I'm not a lake swimmer). It's raining and cold. BUT, it sounds like everyone is having a blast. I'm a fair weather camper, myself, so I'm not really looking forward to the cold and wet. But it's just for 1 night, right? I can do it! It's at a church-owned camp called LaDaSa. Cute, huh? They have cabins, a lodge, an amphitheater, a lake, and railroad tracks running right through the middle. So, the train runs through camp a couple times a day. Sometimes it's a train full of tourists, other times it's cargo. It separates the lake from the rest of the camp. Overall, though, it really is a nice place, and it's always fun to be there. It is used a lot and has been the victim of vandals more than once. So there are MANY service projects there to clean it up and repair some of the damage from vandals and over-use. I'll post pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. Well, I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I will write again sooner than later. I have to keep you posted about camp, right?

So last night, my 4 year old friend, Lilli, slept over. As we were saying bedtime prayers, I asked her to ask Heavenly Father for a nice day "tomorrow" (meaning today). I did this thinking that He couldn't say "no" to Lilli because she is so dang sweet! Well, it worked. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, and perfect for hiking. It started to get "hot", meaning 70's, towards the end of the hike. See? Prayers ARE answered!!! Anyway, the hike was a KILLER!!! Oh, my gosh! It was brutal!!! The thing about hiking in Alaska is that the people who blazed the trails were apparently in a hurry. I say this because there is no going back and forth, gradually going up the mountain. No round-about way. Nope, not here! It's straight...and I mean STRAIGHT up! It is the shortest distance after all, right? Don't get me wrong, though...it was AWESOME!!!! So on this killer hike, you have to actually hike a couple miles to the actual trailhead. Then it's a couple more to the top. Then you come back down, and hike back a couple miles to the car. The peak is called "Near Point", but it is anything BUT "near"!!!! And to give you an idea of exactly how steep this trail was, I put some duck tape on my heels because I have a tendency to get blisters. Duck tape is the best blister prevention because it REALLY sticks to your skin and generally doesn't come off. Anyway, my hiking boots actually wore the duck tape down and I still got blisters on BOTH heels. When I took the duck tape off, there were my blisters and the duck tape was worn REALLY thin. Well...that has NEVER happened before! Next time I'll have to put on 2 or 3 layers!!! Anyway, while we were hiking to the killer trailhead, we came upon a black bear. He was just lounging in the middle of the trail. So, of course, I took out my camera. As soon as he saw the camera, he got up and started to walk away. So I only got his body...his head is in the bushes. After he got off the trail, we made some noise and kept going. I'm telling you...I LOVE THIS PLACE! Anyway, there were some really pretty wild flowers on the way up, too. So I took some pictures of those because they were such cute little wild flowers. One of them is called a "Chocolate Lilli". Sounds good, right? It is a really pretty flower, and it looks almost black. However, it truly amazes me that something so pretty can smell soooooooooo bad!!!! Seriously, I would like to not have to ever smell that smell again!! It was AWEFUL!!!!! My friend Marjory mentioned that she couldn't smell it above her own body odor (we were sweating pretty dang good!), but then she realized that the smell she was smelling was actually the lilli! It was pretty funny! We finally had to pull out the mint balm just to get the lilli smell out of our sinuses. It wasn't pleasant at all. The irony of it all!!! There were some other really pretty flowers that I don't know the names of that we didn't smell. Why would we after the unpleasantness of the first one! On our way up, we saw another black bear, but it was across a small gully and on another hill. We could see it walking our way, so I got a bit nervous. Then some people started walking down from the peak towards the bear (2 different trails to the peak). So I stood there, resting, completely enthralled by what was going on. They were walking right to the bear, and the bear was walking right towards them. Then they came to an abrupt stop, and the bear wandered off back up the hill. I still there thinking "Bear...bear..bear!!!!" We FINALLY made it to the top of the peak (I'm a rather slow hiker when it's that steep), and there were so many different flies and bees swarming the top. We had to back track a few feet just so we could relax for a bit. Then we hiked back down, made it back to the car, and talked about how tired we were, but how good it felt. All in all...not a bad day! I love spending holidays doing stuff like this, you know? I really do love to hike, even though I'm not in the best shape. I may feel like I'm dying on the way up, but I'm always grateful to be able to get to the top. It's such a sense of accomplishment, and the view is unsurpassed! Enjoy the pictures!!!

ADDENDUM: My friend Marjory just called and said she found out the stats on Near Point. It's a 2 mile hike to the actual trailhead and 1.5 miles to the top for a total of 7 miles. We start at ABOUT 1500 feet from the parking long, ROUGHLY 2000 feet at the trail head, and 3300 feet at the top. OYE!!!!

So first of all, I must say that yesterday got up into the 70's. It was GORGEOUS all day long, and I kept looking at the mountains, longing to be in them. However, I couldn't go because I was watching Lilli and Brenna. Lilli would have been OK, but I couldn't figure out what to do with Brenna. So we went on a nice, long walk instead. I could still feel the heat from the sun at 9:00 last night. It was awesome. Then...the clouds rolled in. Cloudy all day and raining. Of course, it will be this way tomorrow, too. Great way to spend the 4th of July!!! Now that the weather report is done, I have to tell you about the excitement tonight. I was going to dinner with a couple of friends, and as we turned the corner from my house, we counted 8 cop cars. So I called my friend who lives in the house that they were parked around and asked her what was going on that she would have 8 cop cars at her house. She didn't know because they were walking down the street just to the north of mine. So we drove down there and saw some cops crouching behind cars and pointing their guns at a house. So, I called my friend again and told her NOT to walk down the street. We drove back up the street (it's a dead end, so we had to turn around to get out), and parked in her driveway. One of the cops was walking back to his car, so I said something along the lines of "I was going to ask how's it going, but with 8 cop cars it can't be good." So he told me what happened. Someone saw a man crawl through a window and called the police because they thought it was a robbery in progress. As it turns out, it was the owner of the house who locked himself out. I said "Well, that's a good ending to the situation then!" And we laughed. Anyway, it was pretty cool!!! That's the excitement for today! More to come tomorrow. I'm going on a hike with a couple of friends. It should be fun, especially if we DON'T come across the female bear that keep charging people and mauled a teenager earlier this week. We won't be hiking in the area that the bear has attacked, but bears do travel! Wish me luck!!!