For The Love Of Snow Days

As per usual, on Tuesday morning I woke up, walked the dogs, and started a roaring fire in our stove. I noticed the snow was particularly deep and heavy when I took the dogs outside, but I didn't think anything else of it at the time.  My main concern was the chilly house and the need for a fire to be started quickly. Then, as soon as I got the fire going, the phone rang. The call informed me that school was cancelled, and after I made the rounds calling my students, I crawled back into bed.  Ahhh...sweet, sweet freedom.

The day was wonderful and relatively uneventful.  Windchill had us sitting below zero, which is typical for northern Michigan in January, and the drifts were forming like mad. The dogs could care less about either of those things though. so we ended up on multiple lengthy strolls throughout the day.  It was a beautiful day for it, but we were all frozen by the time we made our way back to the house.

The majority of the day I spent pouring over books, both educational and relaxation related.  I just started two college classes and spent some time perusing through my texts. I am currently doing a reread of the Harry Potter series for enjoyment too.  I read about 75% of book three over the course of the snowy afternoon and evening. 

I must say, it was wonderful to have an extra day of relaxation this week. Although, I'm not hoping for many more days of cancelled school.  We are already going to be running into the middle of June this year, which makes for a very short summer season. I'd be happy with just one more, little snow day...

Your turn...How do you like to spend snow days?

Currently listening to...First Time - Vance Joy

Alaskan Snow Day!

Juneau was blanketed with 13inches of snow on Thursday.  I looked out my front door and immediately thought, "uh-oh."  The snow was DEEP and very wet.  Me, being a midwesterner, figured this would mean the closure of JSD (Juneau School District) but I was sadly mistaken.  Schools in Alaska don't close unless they absolutely have to.  Their answer to the snow…chain-up your tires, slap some spikes on your boots, and enjoy the weather!

Snow falling on the driveway. 

Sadly, the following day it warmed up to a toasty 40° and most of the snow melted (yuck).  This also meant that I didn't manage to get a single picture of our deep, wet snowfall.  The temperatures cooled back off over the weekend though and we found ourselves with a couple fresh inches of powder.  I did manage to take a few pictures of our lesser snowfall, which is much less impressive but still pretty.

Slippery roads outside of the school. 

Frozen waters in "the valley." 

On another snowy note, Juneau's own Eaglecrest Ski Area is competing for a top spot in Powder Magazine's Ski Town Throwdown.  If you're interested in learning more about Eaglecrest you can read this post or this post, both written by me.  You can also check out their website.  I've been voting for them to help support my local ski town/business.  If you have a second, stop over and do the same! You can vote by following this link and liking Powder Magazine on Facebook.  

Questions:

Do you ski or snowboard?

What's your favorite winter activity?

Bipolar Weather

What a difference twelve hours can make.  This first picture below was taken at 8:00am on Sunday morning.

This next picture was taken just before 8:00pm.  Freak snowstorm in the morning and an even more freak occurrence...nice weather! Alaska, have you had too many drinks?

Cody and I spent most of the weekend cooped up inside relaxing.  It was seriously nasty most of the weekend so we laid low indoors.  Snow days are the perfect excuse to have a movie marathon (which we did).  Late Sunday afternoon the weather FINALLY cleared up so we took Specks out for a jaunt at the beach.

Other than that I have just been slaving away at school.  Fridays cannot come soon enough.  Don't get me wrong, I love my students.  But, it is data collection/testing time.  This means I spend more time calling kids up to my desk than actually doing anything awesome with them.  Super lame.  At least we get to enjoy these awesome views from our classroom.

That's right, my classroom sits at the bottom of one awesome mountain.  Oh, Juneau…even with all of your inconveniences and Alaska-isms you still manage to amaze me regularly.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekends!

Snowy Saturdays

After a week of beautiful weather and decent temperatures I had high hopes that spring had arrived.  I was wrong. So, terribly wrong….

We got about 4inches of snow last night out of the blue.  Specks is thrilled, Cody and I not so much.


Anyways, I tucked into this delicious breakfast this morning.  I mushed the recipe together from a few different blogs that I read.  It was AMAZING.  Seriously.  If you are a breakfast person, you need to try this out.  Check out the recipe.

Ingredients
1/2cup oats
1cup water
1tbs chunky peanut butter

Directions:  Cook oats to package directions on the stove top.  Cooke until almost done (2-3minutes).  Then, remove from heat an stir in peanut butter.  Top with fruit :)

After that we spent most of our day being lazy.  We ran some errands, checked out a local bookstore, and then headed back home.  We bought Les Miserables, which we are planning on watching after dinner.  I am excited to watch it because I loooooved the book.


For dinner we enjoyed a little Warm Quinoa Salad. I will post the recipe later this week because it was truly delish :)

**We woke up Sunday to some serious spring weather and we are headed out on a big hike this afternoon.  Pictures to come!

Snowstorms and Christmas Spirit

It has been a little while since I have written in my blog.  But, we are alive and well up here! We are surviving our first bought with Alaskan snowstorms.  I am sure by standards up here, it has been a teeny, tiny storm.  But, to those of us who are unused to the snow, it has been a bit of an adjustment.  We have also been hearing rumors that we are now in avalanche country.  So, I think our snow fights could get more intense as the season continues. For now, Cody and I are enjoying the change :)  

View from my schools playground. 

We have also been getting into the Christmas spirit.  This is pretty easy to do with a foot of snow on the ground!  It has been nonstop Christmas music, baking, and decorating at Casa de Thompson-Middleton.  We went for a small tree this year but it is still awfully cute (and real, my favorite!). 

Our first Christmas tree! 

Finally, we have been busy moving!  As I posted before, we found a house with ocean-front property!  Granted, we share this property with the other three people living in our complex.  But, still it is a peaceful little place.  We can literally walk out to the water.  Specks is loving being next to the woods as well.  It has been wonderful so far! 

One of my amazing ocean/mountain views.

Thanksgiving in Juneau

Happy Thanksgiving from the Thompson/ Middleton gang!! Thanksgiving was a bit of a challenge this year for the two of us.  It was the first year that either of us had celebrated without our family.  Skype provided us with a chance to chat with the family live. But, we were sad to not have family around for the actual holiday and celebration.  Together, we worked really hard to make it an incredible holiday and I think we succeeded :)

In the morning we drove up to Eaglecrest Ski Area.  The ski runs and lodge aren't technically open yet so we were able to go up for free and hike/play in the snow.  Here are some amazing pictures from the trip!

Greetings from 1500ft! 

Cody being blown away by 60mph winds. 

Me, stuck in a snow drift up to my thighs. 

After our eventful morning and afternoon we tucked in to some cooking. Thanks to cooking for only two people and the lack of meat involved, we managed to cook our feast in only 2.5 hours.  We then enjoyed ourselves a vegetarian feast!

Me, posing with a pumpkin pie in our messy kitchen! 

Stuffing and  Vegan Cheesy Potatoes were just two of our dishes. 

All in all, it was a fun day.  We made the most of our time together and enjoyed making some new traditions for the holidays.  I hope everyone else had a truly wonderful Thanksgiving! Gobble, Gobble!

Specks, the family turkey!