The City of Flowers

Anchorage is called the "City of Flowers" and for good reason. There are flowers everywhere! Especially in hanging baskets, as shown above. I took that picture when we were downtown with my mom.

The next picture was taken at about 9 'o clock at night and the third was taken around 10 or 10:30 pm. As you can see, the sun stays up for a pretty long time. I need to get up some day at 4 am to show how bright the sun is at that time as well. My mom and I had brought sleep masks and wore them for the first two nights, but that was it. They did work well and definitely made everything dark, but my blinds in my apartment are really good at blocking out most of the light so I don't need it.
One thing that I am having to deal with at night is my cat. He sleeps during the day of course and is ready to play at night, like most cats. When I was at my mom's house, he was usually really good at sleeping with me when I went to bed, but would usually wake up at around 2 AM ready to play, and would want to attack me. No problem, because I would just kick him out of my room and close the door. Well, in my little studio apartment my bedroom is the living room, and there is no door to close him out of. The only room with a door is the bathroom. When I get home in the evening I play with him a little, but it doesn't get all his energy out, and he's still a bundle of energy when I go to bed. He usually entertains himself for a while, throwing his toys around and chasing them, and getting on an occasional tare around the apartment. But then, without fail, he turns his attention to me and jumps on me and bites me over and over. I scold him, spray him with water but nothing deters him. The last couple of nights I've ended up locking him in the bathroom so I can sleep. Yesterday morning when I was in my bathroom I looked at the curtains on the window, and saw little holes in the bottom where Max had bit through them! My shower curtain also has holes in one spot where he chewed on it. Argh...he is a brat.

It's pretty hazy out right now because there are more than 60 wildfires currently burning in Alaska. The weather has been pretty warm (for Alaska) and dry so it's been hard for the fire fighters to keep them from spreading. A bunch of clouds came in today, so I'm hoping it will rain soon and give some relief.

Tim and I leave at 2 AM next Monday to go to Phoenix for a day and then on to Texas. Kristen, my matron of honor, and I are going to look at bridesmaid dresses while I'm with her in Phoenix, which I'm excited about. Then we fly home the next morning and will be there two days. At some point while we're there, we are meeting with Wayne, the preacher at Webb Chapel, who is marrying us, for an initial pre-marital counseling session. He has a couple of tests for us to take, that will tell him if there are things he wants to talk to us about.

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is having a good week!