Saturday Update

Yesterday was a mixed bag. The biggest bummer of the day was that the unpackers did not show up -- since the telephone company confused our phone lines, they called us on the wrong numbers and therefore did not schedule us for yesterday. So, we are once again left with boxes throughout our house and a lot of work ahead of us.

We got Frank's computer working yesterday, which was great. It was more difficult than it sounds. We needed a wireless network adapter for the computer, which we had bought, but unfortunately Windows ME is apparently really bad at binding new adapters to TCP/IP. So after a few tries with customer support for linksys (first time some guy hung up on me, the second time they just told me it was not their problem), I finally just blew away the dial up adapter and suddenly things worked great. Apparently Windows ME only can bind a certain number of things to TCP/IP at a time or something. I'm not asking too many questions, just happy that it works.

We're learning a lot about our new home. Believe it or not, it is a bit chilly here. At 5am, the rooms downstairs (where the offices are) are very cold...I've worn my new norwegian sweater once and a sweater/jacket combo already. I can't imagine what it will be like when it is winter -- I'll have to wear gloves and my down coat I guess :).

The neighborhood is great -- teaming with kids playing on the street and dogs. Galileo has already made incredible amounts of kid friends -- they actually ring our doorbell to see if he can come out and play :).

The weather is funny, because you can look over to the mountains and pretty much know what is going to happen in an hour or so. Plus, no big monsoons, just drizzles of rain and sun, so rainbows are all over the place. There was one yesterday that appeared right over our house, which I thought was a good sign :).

Thursday Update

So, this week we finally made it here!!! The movers came on Tuesday to move us in (you should have seen them move the piano upstairs) and we are waiting for the unpackers to come back on Friday to help us with some of these boxes.  They did ding the entranceway a bit, but it is so narrow that it certainly makes it difficult, and they will be sending a guy to fix that.

Here are some pictures from our house in AK...notice all the boxes (and the mountains) 
Backyard Garden


Great Rm looking into the Piano room


Fireplace


Kitchen


Great Room


Upstairs hallway


Office View


Outside of office window



Puppy is doing well...he survived the journey, and we made it to pick him up yesterday from the boarder.  The boarder lives on the very south edge of Anchorage, along a dirt road, and the road listed is actually not the road that the boarder lives on (one of the many quirks of AK).  So we spent about a half hour finding the boarder.  When we found it, we picked up puppy, but he was really acting strangely -- scooting about, hunched over, ears back.  He would not even come to us at first...I had to get on my knees to get him to come forward.  I assume he was just confused, and that his fear of little doorways got the best of him. But, once he got out of the car, he looked just fine.

Backyard pics with Puppy 
Puppy 5


Puppy 4


Puppy 3


Puppy 2


Puppy 1


Speaking of the car, we got one of the new 2005 Subaru Legacy's.  This one's a limited edition, so it's got some cool stuff like heated leather seats.  It's my first car ever with a remote, so I'm very excited about it. 


New Car Interior


New Car 2


New Car 1

The big success of the day was getting the smoke detector in the office repaired.  I think I broke it trying to change the battery, and we had to go three times to Home Depot/Lowes to find one that 1) we knew how to operate and 2) would work in the socket that the old one was in.  It took all day, but we did it!

In other news, a volcano about 80 miles from here is rumbling according to CNN, but I didn't see that in the Anchorage paper, so I won't worry about it too much :). 

My brother Will just got accepted into law school at Cooley (http://www.cooley.edu)!  We're very proud of him and hope things go great.

Still learning how to post pictures...they should be below somewhere but you might have to sign up for hello.  It's actually pretty fast and doesn't seem so far to cause any problems for my computer.