Top Ten Lists

Cedar Rapids is nicknamed the City of Five Seasons for the traditional four seasons and a "fifth season" which is a time to enjoy the other four. I have only been back in Alaska for 6 months, but I think it is fair to say that Anchorage is the City of two seasons; Wet (spring, summer, fall) and Wet and Cold (Oct-March). Anchorage didn't see one day over 70 in all of July and August this year. The locals say this was a very cool summer and not at all normal, but that doesn’t do much to ease my displeasure.

I lived in Cedar Rapids for almost a decade and I grow accustomed to certain things that I miss.

Now I present the top ten things I miss about Iowa…

10. Long Branch Hot wings
9. Lightning Bugs
8. Tan shoulders
7. Women’s golf League
6. Carlos O’Kelly’s Mexican Restaurant
5. Men’s bowling league (every other Saturday evening I had to myself)
4. Real Farmers Markets
3. Thunder storms
2. Chicago
1. Only 3 hours and 20 minutes for Grandma Schnell’s house


To be fair here are the top 10 things I Love about Alaska

10. The Governor
9. Anchorage trail system
8. The sunset over the bay
7. My home that has the sensation of a cabin retreat
6. Halibut fishing
5. High bush cranberry season
4. The way woods smells
3. Grandma Andresen only one short plane ride away
2. K and E

1. The tiny sweet strawberries in my front yard and the tiny sweet girl that sneaks outside to eat them.

A little background

By some small miracle, Chadd and I managed to relocate our family to Alaska just in time to miss the “500 year flood” of Cedar Rapids Iowa. After moving to Alaska in Feb., we search for 6 months before we found the perfect Alaskan home. As of July 22nd we are the proud owns of a cedar sided, 3 bedroom 2.5 bath home on the lower hillside of Anchorage. Yes, the third bedroom is set up as a guest room. No, you can’t live with us. Missy asked first.

I am glad Chadd had the patients to wait for the right home at the right price to hit the market. If it were up to me we would have been living in a cookie cutter, plastic home in “Pleasantville” Anchorage. I had very little tolerance for the temporary condo in Midtown Anchorage that we were in. The closest park to the condo also doubled as an impromptu homeless shelter and was known to drunken locals as a good place to dump bodies.

The apartments across the street were mainly rented out to negligent parents. I only say that because I never saw anybody over 14 years old unless they were being escorted by a cop. For the most part I didn’t mind the 20 or so kids that play in the street outside the condo. At least they weren’t inside playing Xbox. However, I did get a little irate when a few of the older ones (12 years old I would guess) harassed a young moose that came to rest outside our window. In hopes of getting a great video for, ”When Animals Attack”, Chadd and I had the camera recording as the kids through rocks at the moose. Lucky for them the moose finally just stood up and decided to search for a more pleasant place to sleep.

Kickoff Announcement and Mission Statement:

It seems to be the thing to do, so I have decided the start a blog. I hope to accomplish two things by doing this.

1. Document the mundane: In hopes that when I (or my family) look back on it, we can remember how wonderful mundane truly is. I hope to blog about twice a week. Any thing more then that, and it will become too much of a choir for me, anything less than that and I will probably fail to capture the mundane fragments of our life and only hit the highlights. This is a personal goal and Not a promise, so if you find yourself frustrated with the frequency of the blog just reflect on the time before I started blogging and try to be content.
2. To keep family and friends current with our lives, so that we can have the illusion of closeness even though we are so far apart. Since this is almost entirely to benefit the read, I expect that you will take the time to comment on the blog. If you don’t, I will grow to think of you as a taker and not a giver, a self-interested, rude, fun sucking, blog panhandler.