Oh Sweet Summertime

Two of the best things about summers in Alaska is lots of sunlight and fresh salmon!  I was not able to go fishing last year, but this year I was totally ready! It's my duty as an Alaska resident to go fishing.  ;)

We left for our trip at three thirty a.m. (which was way too early).  After everyone arrived at the house, we piled our gear in the Jeep and were off! It was a two and a half hour drive to Kenai.  The best part of the drive was getting to watch the sunrise over the mountains.  Watching the sun rise or set during the summer is a rare occurrence for me. I think the last time I watched it set was last year after I had dropped John off at the airport for a trip.  The pictures don't do it justice

After arriving in Kenai and unloading all the gear we headed off to find our fishing spot.  We checked out a couple of spots before deciding on one and gearing up.  I've never worn waders before... but I think it makes Brittany and me look like true Alaskan Chicks :)

We all piled in the river and set out to find our own fishing spots.  While waiting for John to put the hook on my fishing rod I discovered a  blue fish right in front of me!  I bent down to catch it with my hands and before I could reach it the current carried it away.  I was little bummed about it. :(   After a unsuccessful hour in one spot, we headed down to the spot were the Russian River and the Kenai River meet.

There was quite the crowd.  I was a little jealous of the guys who had their setup on one of the islands. They had a nice little fillet table set up and seemed to have a sweet spot considering all the salmon they were catching.  Alas, we ventured into other parts of the rivers.  Brittany and I headed toward the Kenai River (which is wonderful shade of blue), but holy moly was it cold!  Mind you, I was sockless in my waders, and once my feet get cold... they stay cold.  My line got caught on a log, and I had to venture out into the Kenai River to untangle it.  For a few minutes I thought I was going to be swept away.  That's exactly why you use the buddy system while fishing.  I knew Brittany would catch me if I started floating away :)

Near the end of our time fishing I had given up on catching anything.  I opted for a nap on the dock. :)   After an exhausting six hours, we finally packed up our bags and started the trek back.  Although I'm a little heart broken over not catching any fish, there was one perk.  When I got home... I didn't have to clean any smelly fish.  :)

In other news

John and worked on the basement again Friday night.  It was my first time sanding. Poor John. lol.  I started out in sunglasses because I couldn't find the safety glasses I wore last week while mudding.  I couldn't see a thing so John tracked down a pair of safety glasses, but they were tinted yellow.  The color threw me off and I couldn't tell if I was actually doing a good job or not. Then I was getting dust in my eyes so I had to take my contacts out and try to wear glasses under the safety glasses.  We found the missing safety glasses... on Saturday

By the time we were done sanding  it looked like we had a mini snowstorm in the basement and we looked like the abominable snowman!  The basement is coming along and hopefully by September we will have John's man cave the entertainment room finished.

Alaska's weather has been amazing! It's definitely making up for last summer. Anchorage set a new record for the most number of days above 70 degrees in the month of June. We have had 17 days compared to the 14 they had back in the 1936. John and I are definitely trying to enjoy summertime while it last!

The monster of a basement

I've been meaning to start a blog since I moved to Alaska back in January 2012, but I never got around to it. Sometimes there is so much to be said... I might as well blog it.  Better to start now than never!

Back in January when John told me he wanted to finish the basement before we move- I didn't really think it would be that hard of a project.  At the time, I was more excited about painting a giant room than I was about all the other work that went into it.  John prioritized and bought a projector for the basement.  After all, if you are going to be spending a lot of time in a room working on it, why not have some form of entertainment? ;)  Honestly, the projector has come in handy when it comes to playing Dead Space 2.  It helps being able to see all the aliens in giant form. I still have to ask John to slay aliens for me on occasion.  :)

Putting the drywall up seemed to be no problem, but then came the taping and the mudding. In late May John worked on taping and mudding for six days straight. Six days = lots of tape and a coat and a half of mud.  I think the whole process was taking longer than we both anticipated.  He ended up taking a break for a while from the basement.  We checked out carpet, debated on what to do for the bathroom downstairs, but no mudding.  I finally  begged for John to get me supplies was recruited to help. John bought me my own set of supplies and I was really excited about learning how to mud.

For the record... I tried, I really did.  During the four evenings that I helped John with mudding- I'm not sure if I got more on myself, the floor, or on the wall.

Yeah...I was pretty much coated in mud.

I got mud everywhere.  "Oopsie", "Oh crap",and "Whew!" were frequently said as I attempted to mud the walls and ceiling.

Thursday evening I was all gung ho about finishing the basement. We were so close! Half the basement needed the final coat of mud.  I got home from work and began working on the basement. It was a very bad night for me to do any scraping.  No matter how hard I tried, something always went wrong when I went to scrape the mud. I got lines in it, random pieces of grass got in it, I botched corners,it just looked weird, etc.   I ended up coating the wall with mud (which I could handle) and John scraped for me. It was perfect :)

John finished mudding Friday night (HOORAY!). It seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel now.  Today, he spent the afternoon sanding walls.  I "helped" by scraping globs spots of dried mud off the floor.  There were a lot of spots :(

Hopefully this monster of a basement project will be done soon. This experience has taught me a lot... like don't quit my day job because I stink at mudding :)