Changing Seasons

It had been about a month and a half now since we arrived in Alaska. We have had so much fun settling in and exploring the area. We have spent every weekend driving to new and amazing places. 

Our backyard has seen some change since we arrived. We have had our first snow and fall colors. We enjoyed watching the wind blow the leaves off the trees, and making piles of leaves to jump and play. The snow day came first! The kids were so excited! We went out and built a baby snowman, threw snowballs, and the girls tried to make snow angels. It only lasted until lunch time before it melted, but it was fun! The kids were disappointed when it melted, but I promised we would be seeing LOTS more snow soon!

The fall colors started just after the first snow. They came and went in about 2 weeks, but it was beautiful while it lasted. We did take a day to do the traditional jumping in the leaves! 

Fall Festival

We have done so much this past month I don't even know where to begin! We went to a farm out in Palmer for a fall festival. They had hayrides and little games with prizes and animals to pet. The kids got a carmel apple and I had some pumpkin pie! 

Hatchers Pass

The next weekend we drove up to Hatchers Pass. We found a trail head and hiked in about 2 miles along the river. It was so gorgeous! It is hard to believe these places are just down the road from our home. The kids did really great with the hiking, but 2 miles was as far as we could go. We didn't want to get stuck out there after dark, so we headed back. On the way out we stopped by the roadside and got out and climbed on the rocks in the river. We really want to go back and drive up the mountain a little further. 
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Turnagain Arm

For our next exciting adventure, we  drove down to Turnagain Arm in search of Beluga Whales. Sometimes you can see them when the tides come in and out. We pulled off the road at a spot called Beluga Point, it seemed like a fitting choice!  Unfortunately, we did not see any whales, but we had a great time looking. The kids were scaring me to death jumping and climbing all over the rocks, but it was fun. We stopped for dinner at the Turnagain Arm-pit BBQ. There is a huge lack of good BBQ restaurants around here, so we get serious cravings. Lucky for us, we got there on the last day they were open before closing up for the winter. It was really good mmmm. 

After dinner we stopped to checkout a waterfall on the side of the road and ended up walking around for about an hour. It was so pretty. The kids picked up these flowers and leaf for me, I thought they looked like a heart! 

Arctic Valley

Two weekends ago we went hiking with some friends in Arctic Valley. The hike was an "easy" one by local standards, but for us newbies and the kids it was not so easy. Mostly because it was 1.5 miles uphill through quite a bit of muddy terrain. It was fun though. There were still some patches of snow and quite a few blueberries along the trail! At the top we had a stunning view of the valley and mountains.  We were exhausted by the time we got back down to the bottom, but soo worth it! 

The drive up to the trail had a really cool view out over the city of Anchorage and the Bay.

No doubt it has been an amazing month. We have spent the weekdays homeschooling, working, and getting into the daily schedule. The days are getting quite a bit shorter. Sun rise is right about 9am and sunset is around 6:30pm. It closes in by about 6 minutes every day!