Thanksgiving

Since moving to the states, Thanksgiving has risen exponentially on my list of favorite holidays. It was always kind of a non-holiday in my family, so I never feel like I am missing anything by being away from them. So whatever happens always feels like that Thanksgiving is the Best Thanksgiving Ever. This year was no exception. It finally snowed a ton the day before while Paul and I were enjoying our annual jaunt to the Carrs Safeway Great Alaska Shootout college preseason basketball tournament. It's a longstanding Rigg Family tradition and we like to carry it on. For Thanksgiving we were invited to eat with the Walthers, an older couple from church. They invited all the young couples over, so we got to hang out with a bunch of our friends. It was really really fun. Great conversation, easy warm people to be around, delicious food, LOTS of delicious food. Good times.





All this snow is from while we were at the game.



This is the fabulous rabbit pot pie Paul made for our contribution to the feast.



This is what happens when Paul gets tired. He'll fall asleep wherever is, even if he's upside down on the couch. Poor poor tired Paul.

I just realized that this is a picture of me on the night that our heater was broken. There was a plumber under our house with our landlady for hours. Lots of freezing hours. So Paul bundled me up to my neck the multitude of blankets we have. The white one was a wedding gift, beautifully made by my Grandma and the green plaid looking one was a wedding gift lovingly quilted by my mom and the ladies in the Weyburn branch that I grew up in.

Chinook

I don't know if you know this...but weather forecasts lie. I know, I know...most of you have that figured out by now. But still, I feel gypped. There has been zero snow since my last posting. Zero. I'm aching for it. It did warm up though, with a fierceness. With a chinook, actually. The online dictionary I just looked at defines it as "A warm dry wind blowing down the eastern face of the rockies." Well, there are chinooks other places too, like Anchorage. It rained last night and this morning it's still above freezing.

Weather

It's been consistently around or below 0 for the last while here. I looked at the 10 day forecast this morning, wondering where the snow is. Don't worry. For 8 out of the next 10 days there are snow showers predicted. Thank goodness. And the temps go from 0 to 28. Yes!

For Griff

I thought of Griff a lot this year when the peaches were round and fat and juicy. This is one of my favorite poems that I burned onto an old crate I found in the garbage. It's from a book she gave me, so I'm sure she knows it. But I'm going to post it anyway because I'm in charge of celebrations and I would like to celebrate the end of summer, since it is the end of fall. And Missy's poetry inspired me.

From Blossoms - Li-Young Lee
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peahces
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at teh roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background:from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

The Mother Load

We pretty much scored in our garden this year. More lettuce than anyone could possibly handle, a windowsill full of tomatoes, a million baby carrots (I will thin them better next year), peas all summer, approximately 6 beans, onions, swisschard, 5 sunflower plants that never got to blooming, and a passle of potatoes. Beautiful red round potatoes. Please notice the one triumphant zuccini that outlasted the awful horrible slugs that ate up every other zuccini we had thanks to Paul's diligent slug hunting efforts.

Just So You Know...

I, your very own 'Jen Rigg,' have been awarded for the second time (drumroll please) EMPLOYEE OF THE QUARTER!!! That's right. This is no piddly Employee of the Month award. This is for the entire QUARTER. My lovely workplace has given me $50 and a paid day off, plus another certificate for the fridge. Sweet.

Magic

I have used that word before to describe our life. And well...it's just right. We went to the Alaska State Fair for the 2nd time in our two years of marriage. Paul is like a little kid there...pure glee. Which is good times. Again we saw the lumberjack competition and again, we ate whatever we wanted. It was sweet.

For Labor Day we went to Whittier, which is only accessible through a tunnel that opens every half hour. This tunnel is cut through the bottom of a mountain. It's the mountain on the left of the picture below. It's pretty crazy. The ceiling of the tunnel is not far above your car, it's one skinny lane and you drive on the train tracks as the tunnel is also for the railroad. The ceiling and walls of the 2 miles+ tunnel is jagged rock which looks as if it was freshly blown. It's enough to make even the stout-hearted a little glad to get out of it when you Finally come to the other side. Especially when the cave drips water onto your windshield.



Once we got to the Whittier side of the tunnel, it felt like we were very very far away. It was foggy and there were glaciers in every mountain top. We hiked the single most intense hike of my entire life. And it was beautiful. We climbed over the mountain we just came under and saw the glacier from behind. A big full beautiful view. It felt like we were in every adventure book we've ever read. It seemed like a dragon would fly out of the fog.

What this picture doesn't quite capture is the absolute DROP of death into the valley where the glacier lake is. We went down a completely overgrown "trail" on the way down. It turned into what looked like an old river bed or snow run-off or something which consisted of round smooth slippery wet rocks which we clambered over while battling the thick alder bushes blocking our faces and bodies while we headed straight down the mountain. We decided to take the active riverbed's path back up, because even though we had to battle water, we didn't have to battle the bushes. We probably saved about 3 hours going that way. (It was Paul's idea!) And besides, once you're wet, the stakes don't seem nearly so high for not falling off the rocks! You can really only get so wet.



When we were back in the car eating the best peach of our life, Paul points out that my face is turning blue. I didn't believe him until I looked in the mirror. Yup, like a blueberry. (Which were plentiful and huge at the summit. HUGE! Those are blueberries in Paul's smile. So that was neat.

I didn't die. We did something hard. It was great. Perfect.








And yes, I made that touque I'm wearing!

AND we saw a whole pod of beluga whales surfacing right next to the road on the drive down. We've been looking for belugas there since we first met and this is the first time we've seen them. Beautiful. They are my new favorite.

AND we shared the biggest best sweet roll I've ever tasted. It blew my mind. It made me want to share it with everyone I know. Instantly. Like Lehi. So...you all must come! Just for the sweet roll.