Change In the Weather

Things have been going really great here in Alaska. Time is actually going as time goes, passing each day mostly unrealized until one looks at the date and realizes that a whole summer month has almost gone by. It's been well-spent though.

The six of us girls still love each other dearly and have enjoyed many adventures. We hiked Mt. Roberts at midnight (using our head lamps) so we could get to the top in time for a 3:30 sunrise. The very peak of Mt. Roberts overlooks part of the Icefield behind Juneau, all up and down the Gastineau Channel that separates Douglas Island from the main city, as well as over Douglas Island. It was beautiful to watch each mountain top be lit by the rising sun.

We have also gone on many other hikes together, been camping, been climbing multiple times, had a series of dance parties in the car and in the living room, made very good use of the marshmallow gun, and continued to try our best to love and care for each other fully.

What strikes me most these days is the familiarity of Juneau. What was once just a summer fling with my sister, brother-in-law and roommate, has turned into a reoccurring theme that I can no longer deny a place in my heart. Juneau has become just as much a part of me as has any other home I have had. The faces that once had just a "that one summer in alaska" identity, have now taken on their own identity as the person behind the face has let themself be known. I walk around town and know people almost everywhere that I go. I drive past houses that once held people I love and others that still do.

The one thing that always seems to get me is the Tram. I know that sounds odd, but everytime I walk by the tram I am struck with this odd sense of familiarity. How weird it is that seeing it is normal and I can almost picture it perfectly in my mind. So many pieces of my time in Juneau have been spent around that building, all three years. Yet the building itself holds no significance to me, it is just oddly familiar.

And yet, despite the familiarity, I am still finding new things that excite me, either completely new in nature or things that have always been there yet still catch my breath every time I see them, like Mt. Juneau or the Shrine of St. Therese or whales breeching. Even my house, though I lived in it two years ago with the Chilkat family, is new and exciting to me, holding only the memories of this year while allowing the ones of old to be protected and unscathed in their own memory box seperate and apart from the one that holds the new adventures of now. As a dear friend of mine wrote "there is also a sense in which no one in the world has ever lived in that house, the past never happened, and the house and the neighborhood and the town and the mountains are all yours to experience brand new. because the winter came and went, and the new season begins" (Jackson Tandy). And this has been true for me every year, though I keep returning to the same place, it is always new.

IRELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just bought my ticket to ireland tonight. we (april and i) fly out of nashville on november 1st to ireland!!!

basically we leave juneau sometime around october 1st-ish, drive through portland and down to oklahoma, getting there by the 7th. stay in oklahoma until the 17th-ish and go through tennessee and then to north carolina to see the boys (jackson, garrison, joel and brad, and meeting up with chris and jake [possibly] as well as seeing abby and dylan and evan and corey, maybe convince tabitha and jon to join us), stay for as long as it takes until november 1st comes around and we find ourselves in nashville (ben, i will be seeing you then for sure, or the first time we go through, or both..i wish you were coming to ireland with us!!!!) on november 1st boarding a flight to dublin, ireland.

the states will be seeing us again december 16th-ish. i might fly from frankfurt straight to portland. in time for rachel's birthday and christmas with the fam.

so excited.

i just started baking brownies.

and today i am in juneau, alaska baking brownies while its raining outside, my new x-tra tuff boots sitting by the door (thanks greg) and my gastineau girls making crazy comments that i can't focus on while they play backgammon on the floor (i helped them with the rules, i played a lot with my sisters growing up, i was homeschooled, i am also well-practiced in card shuffling if needed) and rosie thomas comforting our anxious spirits through our new tiny $15 fred meyer computer speakers.

only 16 more minutes till the brownies are done.
sometimes when i get anxious i just bake.
but its better when i have ingredients i have to actually add together instead of pouring most of it out of a box, but i still got to lick the spoon and smell it bake so that's nice.

see, i am not even capitolizing or anything. i am too nervous/anxious/excited.
whoo!

Gastineau Girls

All my roommates arrived, finally!! It's so nice to have everyone here!!

This year there are six girls living in the most perfect house up on Gastineau Ave, in the first house I lived in when I was in Juneau. We all get along really well and we love to be around each other. We have gigglefest every night, all of our abs are sore.

We have Alisha Butler, super chick who has climbed every mountain, snow climbed, rock climbed, soccer player and super super funny. She runs hills while buzzed and walks down. "I sound bad ass"

We have Vanessa Magos, the youngest of the bunch, bilingual, world traveler, expert glacier walker, and knowledgable in all things movies and really just in general. super genuine girl.
"just walk like penguins"

Alex "Michele", kansas girl in love with branson who came to work in juneau last summer after taking a cruise and going on the zipline tour. She loves to bake, giggle, owns 25 pairs of nike running shorts and we are teaching her to abbreviate. abbreive. "so crush"

April Scott is a beauty and a gem. Her hands are numb from starbucks work and she brought most of our coffee. Her and I composed a library and she studies about plants every night. We are roommates and talk to each other after lights out every night. "i love pillow talk"

Lynn Ashbey was a schoolmate of mine in Oklahoma City and is super music woman. Sometimes she plays ukulele on the porch and meets the neighbors. She can climb 5.8 climbs and has great hiking boots, things i never knew till we moved to alaska. "oh, ok"

Then there is me, third year returning, book nut and music snob, traning for my second half marathon and learning how to climb though it makes me very sore when i do. "oh whoops, thats perf"

We love each other and look forward to a perfect summer!