A Rhino in the Driveway

Imagine driving home... and there, in your neighbor's driveway is a rhinoceros. Wouldn't that be CRAZY?

Well, that's about how shocking it is to look over and see a giant moose in your neighbor's front yard. Today we drove home from Costco. We were parking when TA DA-- I saw the moose. I was speechless. I grabbed John's arm and it took a couple seconds for me to gather my words and my wits. THERE was a MOOSE in the neighbor's FRONT YARD. CRAZINESS!! Anyway, John bravely exited the vehicle and caught these pictures. I took the one from the house... [below] so you can see how close it was. So nuts!!

Very Alaska cool!

Sesame Street: Smell Like A Monster

Silly Old Spice... (Plus, this guy went to A.S.U. and used to be a Sun Devil Football Player.)



A spoof ON the Old Spice commercials to teach kids the word "on".

Anaheim Peppers

In our produce box, we ordered anaheim peppers. These relatively mild peppers are made quite mild when you take out the seeds.

Today I cut off the base and top of the peppers, sliced them in half, and removed the seeds. I cut them into about 3 inch by 1 inch pieces. I then folded all of them into a large piece of foil and baked them in the oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. They came out tender and a little smokey. I added a teaspoon-ish of goat cheese (ours had herbs) on each. They were delicious. They tasted like gourmet jalapeno poppers. Yummmm!

On this note, our school is collecting recipes for a charity cookbook. If anyone is interested in contributing a recipe, comment away! If you want to buy a cookbook (I don't know how much yet), do let me know ;)

Tammy and Steve's Blog

Our best Anchorage friends, Tammy and Steve, have their own Alaska blog--with much nicer pictures. If you want to see, you can go to: http://www.moosespotting.blogspot.com/

"There's a Bad Move on the Right"

John and I have had many giggles over the years about the many misheard lyrics.

Examples:

• From Bad Moon Rising-- There's a bad move on the right
• From Secret Agent Man-- Secret Asian Man
• From Dido's song-- I won't poke my eyes out and surrender

...you get the idea...

Anyway, our friend Steve pointed out this website dedicated to misheard lyrics.

Verbosity

Hayden is a pretty quiet critter... she hardly ever barks. But, Kyle and Tracy's dog, Taro, is quite verbose... He tweets daily. You can find Taro's Site here. You can also see his cute picture here.

Buying?

Our landlord told us on Monday night that he is listing our house on the market. Apparently since we have pets, the showings will mostly be of the upstairs. But, it's still a bit frustrating and no fun. The buyer will still have to honor our lease... so, it's mostly the inconvenience.

So, anyone want to buy our duplex? You'd have great tenants!! ... and future clerks too. Eh? Eh?

Well, if you want to check out the house you can-- our listing.

Cute Pets

Practicing with my new camera... I got to capture our very cute critters :) Nelson and Hayden were ready for pics tonight!

Put a Fork in It

Tonight I cooked my first steaks. They were actually quite tasty. I used the time-honored family cooking tradition... when the juices rise to the top on the first side, flip it; when the juices rise again, it's done!

I also made potatoes (Yukon Gold grown locally) and used plain low-fat yogurt instead of sour cream, which worked really well surprisingly :)

Kinda Cool...

Today I was at a math training and they had us using Meeting Words. Meeting Words is a live text editor... It allows you to type with other simultaneously and update live... kind of like a group chat. We used it to answer reflection questions-- and we could all see our answers pop up. Very interesting.

Drew Barrymore

Yesterday John and I ate breakfast at Spenard Roadhouse. Toward the end of the meal, John noticed that Drew Barrymore was at the hostess stand. I couldn't see her, because she was behind a friend with really large hair. In a moment though, I was able to see her too. She is really small!... not just thin, but tiny. Anyway, we left her alone, aside from the occasional peek. She was still eating with 2 friends when we left. We didn't take her picture, but this is the picture online that was closest to what she looked like. She had on a Mexican parka and she had 7" roots... aside from that she looked just like what we pictured.

In answer to your question, this is an example of what I called a "Mexican parka"... probably more accurately a hoodie. It's a classic home-from-Rocky-Point gift.

Oktoberfest

This weekend was just a touch sad. It's Tempe's Oktoberfest... and, as almost all of you know, I "live" in the Polka Bridge Tent on the first Friday night of October. And so do most of you as the most trusted and awesome helpers in all of the valley. However, of all the years to miss, I'm thinking that current super hot temperatures make THIS the year to miss.

There are options for Oktoberfest here in Anchorage... some of which sound cool and some of which sound terrible. For instance, cool = Alyeska; terrible = Egan Center ($15 for the privilege of buying food and drink). We didn't attend any, though last week's Oktoberfest at Alyeska sounded awesome, as did the Humpy's (a reference to pink salmon) event. Still not home though and the Anchorage Oktoberfest mugs are CREEPY!! :(

Threet, Threet... Time to Fly the Nest

Oh my gosh!! This is not, as you already know, a sports blog. However, it's incumbent upon me as a Sun Devil to comment on Threet's performance as our quarterback.

STOP!!! Stop throwing interceptions. Stop throwing the ball away to avoid the sack (just throw it faster). It's so disheartening. I mean... he actually is not terrible, but the things that he goofs up... he REALLY goofs up.

Why We Don't Shoot Spit Balls

Apparently spit balls were an issue with the sub. So, today I explained to the kids why we don't make spit balls...This was mostly sufficient to get kids to chose not to play with spit balls (and yes, I separated germs and bacteria for effect).

I also told them about the perils of playing with straws (up the nose) and pen casing (ink in the mouth).

I predict a spit ball-less future for our class.

From Arkansas- The Social Network

John's co-clerk Steve entered a contest to see an advanced screening of the film- The Social Network, a.k.a. The Facebook Movie.

Steve won! The representative from the contest called and said, "Congratulations, you're our winner from Arkansas!" ...apparently our state abbreviation of AK was a bit confusing.

However, once it was clarified that he was the winner for Alaska (Steve swears he must have been the only person to have entered the contest), he found out that he got an advanced private screening for 50 of his friends.

So... last night we went to see The Social Network. It was very good. The script was based on a book which was based on court transcripts, so it was an interesting way to have pieced the story together and the filming was quite excellent. I very much enjoyed it.