Testing something new :D

Etsy TheArcticNomad

Adventures in Baking, and other Frivolities

Since my last post I purchased some books, The first being this wonderful book on baking breads by Bernard Clayton:


The book is HUGE and certainly has every type of bread i've ever heard of plus hundreds more. I was super excited to start using it so the first thing I made was pita bread.
The dough was very simple and I ended up with these beautiful and delicious flat breads! We filled them with grilled chicken, cucumber and red onion salad, lettuce, and fat free home made tzatziki sauce(a great sauce made from plain yogurt, lemon, cucumbers, and dill.). YUM!Next tried some bread from the book, it turned out AWESOME!

Other than that, I took a huge leap and created an etsy store on etsy.com.

PLEASE check it out here:

www.TheArcticNomad.etsy.com

I would LOVE any feedback as this is my first venture into the whole online store trend. SO, PLEASE tell me what you think!
Also, no pressure for you, my friends, to buy stuff. But, I'd appreciate it if you shared with all your people! I'd adore the extra traffic to my site.

TaTa for now!

Happy Birthday to Jake!

So it was Jake's birthday on the 25th... He's 26! So old! hehe.

I made him a cake and we decorated the house in Halloween Decorations to celebrate. We went to a local butchers shop and he picked out some big steaks that I cooked up for his Birthday dinner.
We didnt have any birthday candles so I made him blow out some tea lights :D It was silly but fun!


The cake was super yummy! It was double chocolate cake with a german chocolate filling. mmmmmm!

Here are some of our Halloween decorations:
Trick or Treat!

Newest News

So, I'm back from a WONDERFUL time in Utah. So great to see my family and a few friends. We spent a weekend at Bear Lake, stayed in a big cabin and played around on the beach... They said it was too cold to swim, but it didnt seem so cold to me!

My Grandma and Edward came to stay at the cabin (that is a barn in the picture, not the cabin!) with us and we all went for a drive to spend the day at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The drive was really nice with all the fall colors and gorgeous farmland. We drove a little outside Jackson to get a view of the Grand Tetons and this old barn:
When we got back to Pleasant Grove from our trip to Bear Lake I got to stay with the Johnson family and it was so much fun to see them all! We did lots of fun stuff, I got to take engagement pictures for Sierra and Mitch who were recently engaged. This one is my favorite from the bunch:
Later we all carved pumpkins.... I like the spooky blurry picture!

Now I'm back.. MAN I sure missed Jake!

Around the House...

Well, I got the garage here cleaned out, and found a few treasures! One of my favorite things that we found are these awesome vintage 70's dishes. Check em out!
Lately I've been baking bread just about every other day. I have not seemed to get it down just right. Every loaf is either too crumby, too flat, or just not very pretty at all! Luckily they all taste great, but I haven't gotten one perfect just yet. I'm thinking that It's because the yeast I bought is a little defunct. As soon as i get a pretty AND delicious loaf, I'll post a picture!

Also I've been making jewelry and trying new styles. I learned how to make wire wrapped bracelets and I invented some clasps so I dont have to buy any. Here's a couple of them, What do you think? I'm contemplating starting up an online store at etsy.com.


Hmmm fun stuff, I cant quite get the photos on here as large as i'd like, but you get the Idea.

Well that's about all... except...

I leave for UTAH tonight!

So excited to see everyone :D

Kenai... We're here!

Alright so, since its been so long since my last post, lets catch up on the last month! I'll try to keep it entertaining as it appears my blog has begun to seem quite stale. :P

This past month
WE...
No, Jake was not trying on old maternity clothes... But we did throw a fun baby shower for my friend Carrie in Denali! It was good to be able to do something for her before she left for Texas, AND she got lots of Alaska themed baby clothes that will make Absolutely no sense down there in Texas... but whatever, it was a great time.

NEXT:
We went to Chena Hot Springs with, Carrie, Julie, Teddy, Morgan and Robin(Morgan's Mommy!). It was great to hang out with everyone, soak in the hot springs, and give them a tour of the whole place!I wore the pretty new dress that my Mom(thanks!) sent me, it was such a warm and beautiful fall day!
We got a tour of the Ice Museum and Dog Kennel(Thanks for being awesome, Chena friends, I miss you!).... Wrong way!

THEN:
It was time to leave Denali, our employment contract is over! Jake headed down to Kenai first to get a vehicle and then came back to pick me up. We packed up our stuff(didnt take long), said good-bye to Denali, and all the incredible people we met, and started driving.

Denali even showed up to see us off!

Well hello there, Mr Mountain!

AND AT LAST,Here we are! And, for the past few weeks since we got here, I've been cleaning, cooking, baking and crafting up a storm! I'll post photos and stories of those goings-on later.

Trip to a glacier.... on an HELICOPTER!

That's right!!! I got to go out on a helicopter tour to the north fork of the Yanert Glacier. It was practically free because I still kinda work for the front desk. Jake wanted to go too, but when we called them they only had room for either one large person or two very small people.... So, only one of us could go. Jake was sweet enough to let me take the seat!! (I think it also had a little to do with the fact that it was very early morning tour too!) I still felt bad leaving him behind.
This is the other helicopter flying through the high mountain passes to get to the HUGE glacier.

The Yanert Glacier is just one of many in the Alaska mountain range and Denali National Park area. Each of the larger glaciers here span 20-30 miles! It was really amazing to look straight down from the air and see all the lines and crevices in the ice, it resembled really wrinkly skin, like an elephant. Its very hard to describe just how awe inspiring and beautiful they are!
I really enjoyed the flight-seeing in a helicopter compared to a small plane, there was much less turbulence and bigger windows so we could see better and take some great photos!! I was able to get some awesome shots of the fall colors on the tundra and also of the beautiful ice blue glacier ponds. I'll be posting those photos on the facebook page soon!

I'm pushing Jake to get out on a tour ASAP because, this is one of the coolest things I have ever done!!

Silly Me!!

Yesterday, we went out to a place near the end of the park road called Wonder Lake. 6 hour bus ride in, and then 6 hour bus ride out. Fall colors were out and marvelous!! Don't have time for a full blog post on it right now but I'm feeling silly and disappointed about a photo I took, Check it out:

DOH!

How perfect and awesome would this picture be if the wolf was in focus?! Grrrrrr....

And of course he was running too fast for me to set the focus right and catch another.

OH YEAH!!

AND

I tried using Henna hair color on my hair for the second time(first try was successful) was going for a strawberry blonde-ish and I got....

....

ORANGE!

HEH.

Three great books!

Lately i've been doing quite a bit of reading and I've been lucky to find three GREAT books in a row! Thought I'd share.

The first book is called Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay. My Grandma recommended this to me and my Mom. I really enjoyed it and read it in just a few days. It was a bit heavy and at parts, a little hard to read. Its placed in France during the German occupation and details what the Jewish families living in Paris went through that fateful July of 1942. I really had a hard time putting this book down, If you get the chance to read it... Do it!

Next I read She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb, It's a humorously written book that follows the sad life of Dolores Price. It is full of love, pain, renewal, and is so accurate to the inner workings of a coming-of-age female brain, that I have to say that I was very surprised to see it was written by a man! My good friend Julie gave me this and said it is actually one of her least favorite of his books. I'm excited to read more of his work!!

This last book, my Mom mailed to me. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen, is an intriguing story of love, murder and friendship about a depression era traveling circus. The first day I carried it around with me everywhere because I could NOT put it down! I was really surprised by how many people stopped me to tell me that they also read it and loved it. So, if YOU have not read it yet... you should!

Oh yeah, I just found out they are making a Water for Elephants movie!!

Way too long!

Wowee time flies! It has been way too long since my last post! We have been up to lots of fun and fantastic things lately.

I started a new job working nights, we moved to a nicer room with a restroom attached(YAY!), we decided where we are going at the end of the season here in Denali, we attempted fishing in Kenai, Saw the aurora for the first time this year, and went camping many many fun times!

Having a new room with a full bathroom attached makes me feel like:

This crazy picture is of some mountain climbers on the top of Mt Mckinley... I cant imagine what would make ANYONE want to do that!

My good friend Julie and I went for a bike ride inside the national park. It was such a gorgeous day!

Jake and I went to Kenai to visit his dad and grandpa, while we were there Russ, Jake and I drove to Homer for the day, it was gorgeous!

We attempted some dip-net fishing in Kenai. It is an interesting way of fishing that includes standing on the shore where the ocean meets river, wading in, and holding a net out and hoping a salmon swims in! Everyone around us was having great luck on the first day but we didnt have the right equipment so we did not really try. The next day Jake got some new waiters and tried again but there were no fish... so sad! But here is jake in his cute fishing outfit! Ready for next year right!?

We saw an eagle with a HUGE salmon in its talons, it was really cool.... till I scared it away! We were tempted to steal its catch since we had some bad luck in Kenai and did not catch any of our own >.<

Summer Solstice

Here some photos from our summer solstice celebrations!!

Jake had to work until midnight, I took this photo at abou 11:40 PM! The sun is still up!

Shortly after midnight as I was walking up the hill to meet some friends I spotted this gorgeous moon coming up from behind the mountains.

Mandy, Kalisha and Laura drove down from Fairbanks to spend solstice on the tundra with us! We drove to Healy, AK and took the Stampede trail road out until just before it stops being a road and becomes a trail. We found a spot near 8 Mile Lake and had a campfire all night long!

This picture was taken by Jake, its Laura, Me and Mandy, hanging out around the fire watching the sun starting to rise at around 2:30 AM!!

We made some hotdogs and Haggard, the big dog on the right of Jake) would not leave Jake alone! That dog stared at that hotdog until it was gone!

At around 5 AM Mandy gives her dog, Solo, a little love. (She's a musher, they do these things)

After a few hours of sleep its time to get up and greet the day!! 11AM comes real quick when you dont sleep till 9!

Sleepy Jake with 8 mile lake, blue skies and tundra behind him!

A day of hiking and exploring near the Savage River

So this day was really awesome, but a little traumatizing for me!! Here's some pictures from the day and then i'll tell the story!!

Jake on the shuttle bus to Savage River, 15 miles inside the national park.

So, if you didnt know it already, Jake is actually a mountain goat(see proof).

Here we were hiking along, trying to get to the top of a nearby ridge and following a footpath up the side of Mount Margaret, When this "path" turns into a goat trail up a cliff.

So what does Jake do? He runs right up it of course because that's what mountain goats do!

No problem.

And then there's me.

Right about now, i'm realizing that i am indeed afraid of heights!!

Each rock i step on falls from under my feet, Princess-Bride-style, to its doom, down a huge ravine!

Here I am, all alone with Jake 30 feet above me and a river and some other tiny looking things WAY down below me. I tell Jake i'm scared, and what does he do? Teasing me, he runs down the other way and takes a picture!
So here I am, mad and afraid!

- So, A little later -

Me enjoying a delicious sammich after a big climb!

Next to a frozen river... still frozen in June!

Jake checking out the scenery!