The leaves are starting to change

Days have been just flying by. I have come to realize that I swing from excited to exhausted within days. It is always a busy time in this household but it seems as the boys sports come along it goes into hyper drive. It is football season!

Both boys play football for their high school and the first 3 games were away. One of them being a 600 mile road trip. The other two were only 300 miles but still a challenge to drive 6 hours then play a game then pack it up the next day and head back home. The last two games my husband and I drove down to watch and of course I took 100's of photos then turned around and headed back home. Between the pile of laundry and getting the house situated again became such a chore that it left me pretty much exhausted by the time I found some quiet time. But it is well worth it for the boys. This weekend will be our first home game and I hope that it will be a good one.
My boys







On the last road trip as we headed home the Parks highway showed off its beautiful scenery. It was a nice surprise considering we went from smoke to rainy days. We couldn't help but stop along the way to take pictures of this majestic land we live on.







Riley Creek Denali National Park





My husband composing his pictures with our smaller Canon Power shot. :)


Here are a few of his shots.











The landscape is in the process of change again. We have had frost a couple nights ago and the temps are starting to drop at night. With that comes the changing of the leaves. I always love the process when the leaves change their colors then fall and also when the trees are bare in the winter then the little buds of leaves show up in the spring.

Here are some tell tale signs that autumn is on its way...







With fall colors in mind a necklace and a pendant came into the making with the leftover pearls of my Grandmother's old necklace.

Pearls and Crystals pendant and chain for my Cousin in law.





After making the bracelets and the earrings in the last entry and finally the pendant above for family members...I was finally able to use the rest of the pearls for a necklace for myself. I barely make anything for myself but this one has sentimental reasons to be mine.



After spending time making pearl jewelry. The copper on my pendant sparked new ideas when I received more materials from Jatayu Connie Fox's site. Here are some of the results from a day of playing with copper, brass and sterling silver.




Although fall colors can be pretty...I am not ready for that to happen yet and still find myself falling back on colors that remind me of the sea or of summer. This is a new necklace that started as an experiment. It turned out better than I thought and may be continuing to keep this design in mind. I like how this simple design draws the attention to the beautiful glass beads my husband makes.




The summer here is fleeting. I am trying not only to enjoy the last moments of green grass, colorful flowers, but also my boys and their high school days. Our time here is limited now. We finally have our orders and we are not headed to Kansas but to Ft. Knox, KY. We have been there before and are excited not only to return but also the trip out of Alaska. As it comes closer to that time I will share our goals for this new adventure.

The holidays will also be nearing soon and that means the Holly Days Bazaar at Ft.Wainwright. Yes I will be there with my jewelry. If you come out please stop by and say hello. The dates this year will be October 23rd and 24th at the Ft. Wainwright Physical Fitness Center.

I hear the rain outside my window and see that the time is late...I better be heading to my bed...5am comes way too soon for me.

Eerie skies.....

Our skies last night...with an eerie orange glow from how much smoke was in the air.


Our summers have been busy but we have also dealt with the forest fires. Last summer it rained a lot and was gloomy most of the time. This year started off with beautiful sunny skies and temperatures that ranged up in the upper 80's. But with that comes the forest fires because of how dry we are.

The Jamboree for HS football has already been canceled twice. With how it looks today they are not planning on having it anymore since the boys will be taking a road trip to Kenai for their first game of the season.

This weekend will be the start of our State Fair and in tradition it ALWAYS rains around then. For once I am actually hoping it stays that way maybe the rain will help our firefighters and smoke jumpers put out these nasty forest fires.

Smoke Jumpers plane passing through last night.




For those of you local I hope you are dealing with all this smoke okay.

Some pictures from last week.




Praying for some rain and blue skies....

Watching my little garden bloom...

This summer has flown by. I feel like it never started in the first place. The months were filled with visitors and trips and events. Around here you spend as much time trying to enjoy it because the months are not long enough and the weather is always unpredictable.

We have had such a bad fire season though. You try to enjoy the beautiful days with blue skies because you don't know if you are going to wake up to a morning full of nasty smoke and falling ash.

Our one main trip this year was to Valdez. We enjoyed a full weekend of relaxing in such a laid back coastal town. We experienced watching a Grizzly fish and visited some interesting places. The best part of it was just spending time with each other without phone calls, work, internet or a hectic schedule.

We came back to 2 a days starting for HS football and I also enrolled in the Summer Arts Festival. I took an Adult Middle Eastern dance class and we performed this last Saturday along with Ballet dancers and Modern Jazz. We did a Saidi piece with is very energetic and folkloric so our costumes were pretty but hot to be in. Either way our group had a great time and I finally conquered my fear of being on stage. I am hoping to take more classes before we move away from here.

In the midst of all the events the one thing that put me at peace was tending to my little garden. The wildflowers on the side of my deck were grown from seeds and my pepper plant and tomato plant from a small sprout from the greenhouse. Since I live in a place where I can't have a "real" garden. I just spruced up my front yard with a potted garden and some lining the sides of my sidewalk and the side of the deck.

Here are some pictures of the progression.

June pictures




My pepper plant when it started growing.


July Pictures







Blooming flowers

















My tomato plant








I am patiently waiting for my sunflowers to bloom. I also had to put a yellow jacket trap by my flowers because I am allergic to them and they came in this summer in full swing not leaving my plants alone and mad at me for watering them. Thankfully I did not get stung at all.

I have more recent pictures of my flowers to download. They are blooming new ones by the day. It is not only peaceful to look out and see such beauty but also very rewarding to see them grow.

Now that I know I can grow flowers from a seed I cannot wait to have my own garden in my little plot of land and make is heaven to spend time in. So I have a small binder of my future goals and what flowers I would like and plants to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. :)

On the jewelry side I have been just working on small things. I did finally order up some tools for metalsmithing and hope to get going on certain projects this week now that my dance class is over for now.

But before I leave I wanted to share some earrings and bracelets I made with pearls that my Grandmother handed over to me. She gave me a set of Philippine pearls strung on a necklace and told me it has been around for a while and that I may have it and do whatever with it. Well I couldn't think of taking it apart without sharing it with the ladies in my family. So I made earrings for them to choose from and for my Aunt a pearl bracelet to choose from. Now everyone has the pearls with them also.

Pearl Earrings


Pearl Bracelets





I hope to be working on more things within the near future. I am so sorry for my absence it is just when your time is limited it is hard to be on the computer when you should be enjoying your family or the beautiful weather. But I will try to keep this up a bit more often from now on.

Have a great rest of the week.