Fall

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I'm incredibly thankful for my thoughtful, caring and always inspiring husband.  He's the definition of beautiful, inside and out, and a great person to share this life with.  I'm very thankful for my wonderful family and the times I get to spend with them.  And I'm ecstatic and grateful that my beautiful Grandma has the opportunity to celebrate her 90th Birthday with my wonderful parents tomorrow.

Here are some recent pictures:

In the Neumayer Strait on LMG1609, taking the summer crew to Palmer Station.

We had idyllic weather in the Straits on the south and northbound journeys.

Palmer Station and the LMG from our little Zodiac that we took out to test the engine.

 

A surreal moment from the bow of the Gould, as thousands of cormorants flew overhead.

 

A snowy peak in the Neumayer.

 A magnificent sunset at Palmer Station.  We had a few very golden ones.

 I caught the peak of the Tamaracks; golden color, and wish Dave could have also.

 My first walk back home from Antarctica near the lake.  I saw deer and several foxes.

 This aspen photo was from one of the hikes in Ponderosa State Park.

 A beautiful fall day and colors in our Veterans' Memorial Park.

 Getting to see these wonderful kids was such a highlight.  We had a great trip to North Dakota!

 We didn't get a group photo unfortunately, but here are a couple from our visit.  We went to Isaac & Abby's Halloween parties (Isaac won the costume competition as Iron Man!) and trick or treating.  Played a lot of cards, ate some delicious meals and had a fun gift exchange.  Looking forward to catching up again soon, love you guys and thank you very much!

 Returning to Idaho, Dave and I went to both hot springs and enjoyed some beautiful walks and mountain bike rides in between working on our home.

 I'm pretty thrilled about how much our spice collection has grown.  Which means our recipe repertoire has grown too.  We made homemade hummus this time, homemade calzones with homemade sauce, pesto, squash soup and an 11 layer Mexican dip in the crock pot.  Looking forward to next time's Senegalese peanut stew, french onion soup from scratch, Tom Ka Gai, and Indian butter chicken. 

 Our place looks great, thanks to Dave.  I re-stained the bookshelf top that he built and we ordered the storage Ottoman that has a lot of our books inside of it. The privacy blinds are also new and it's nice how much privacy and light they provide. And great news, we talked the Homeowners' Association into moving the mailboxes from in front of our window, so even more privacy and good views coming soon.

 

Dave stained the bike rack wood pieces that he built to fit in with the rest of the room.

 Here are the shutters that Dave built to hide the tv.  And I stained the wood on top to match. Looks sleek and works like magic.

 

This picture is from the summer, from our neighbor Lilla's birthday (she was born on the 4th of July). We had her and her family as well as our other full time neighbor Judy and her family over for a dinner because Lilla's moving to Washington.  We also had our friends Annie and Damon over the next week for dinner.  I'm thinking we should have guests every Sunday for dinner.

 

This was a big exciting event for McCall.  This year, the Christmas tree headed to Washington DC was cut from our Payette forest just miles from town.  We had a day of festivities to celebrate, including a parade and chili cook-off.  Decorations were made and donated by locals, and our local brewery made a "tree" ale from some of the branches that it is sending along with the tree.

 I liked the atmosphere in town that day, so fun.

 Here is our lake from our last day in town together on a long walk we took. And below is one of my favorite graffiti drawings in Boise in Freak Alley, which has a ton of artwork on sides of buildings.  This one is mother earth holding the new moon. 

Time with Dave is always exquisite and too short.  I'm happy we went to Boise a bit early to enjoy some more fall scenery as Dave missed a lot of that here in town.  All the streets were covered in golden and red leaves, so shuffling around in them for hours was great.  We also got to catch an Independent movie, eat some delicious Basque tapas, see the oldest house built in Boise, have sushi at a place with sushi boats floating around the chef's counter, soak in a hot tub at the Y and shop at the farmers' market.

Dave is back up at work in Alaska, and I'm driving to Onalaska Washington tomorrow to volunteer for 7 days preparing three meals a day for students at a Vipassana meditation center.  I return to Boise on the 26th to spend the day with Julie before redeploying to Punta Arenas and the LMG on the 27th.  Happy Holidays everyone!  Love you!  Happy Birthday Grandma!!!