A Summer with Wren

This summer we got to watch our friends' dog Wren a few times.  I've never had a dog before but I loved taking Wren on walks and runs and playing fetch with him.  We have such a beautiful town that loves dogs and doesn't care if you put the dog on a leash or not.  So we had fun taking him around in what Drew likes to call "a dog's paradise."  Portage Valley is one of our other favorite places to go.  If it wasn't already owned or forest land and it wasn't so far away from work we would build a house there.  It's our favorite of the four valleys.  Drew came home from a kayaking trip this summer and we decided to do a hike together, but Drew was so exhausted that he didn't really feel like hiking up a mountain.  So we decided to walk the Blue Ice Trail, which is about as flat of a hike as you can get along the valley floor.  Wren and he had such a fun time being off leash and jumping into the water and the snow.  We had another gorgeous day.  He loves to splash in shallow water but he won't swim.  It was absolute torture if we through a stick in the water too deep for him to reach.  It was fun to watch him find ways to get the stick without having to swim.  He also loved the snow by the avalanche chute that still hadn't melted.  He is such a great dog and we love whenever he comes to see us.  Hopefully soon we can get a dog of our own that's just as good.

Dipnetting

As Alaskan residents we get the chance to go dipnetting every year.  This year in July we took advantage and got a group of friends together to drive down to the mouth of the Kenai and catch us some fish.  Since this summer was freakishly sunny, we got lucky and had a beautiful hot day.  We packed a picnic lunch, brought a tarp and camp chairs, a bunch of borrowed gear and a couple of coolers and spent the day on the black sand beach there.  It was so fun!  It was like my Alaska life colliding with a trip to the Jersey Shore. Unfortunately we lost our set of pictures we took that day, but we have several from friends that we managed to get.  I wouldn't actually kill the fish myself but I did gut them and everything so I feel like I did pretty good.  We just got a few little pinks but the experience was awesome.  Hopefully our long lost pics will show up again soon. In the mean time....

It's a beautiful day on the beach in Alaska...

Believe it or not, this is not really that crowded.
It's supposedly is shoulder to shoulder when it's really busy.

Holding the net steady in the water against the current is harder than it looks.
I got my muscles worked out that day holding it steady.

One of my fish.....so proud!

Our friend Fay in the water...

This is one of those moments that 10 years ago
I never would have guessed would be a part of my future.

We ended up staying up half the night processing the fish and of course eating some of it too.  It's not the best salmon ever, but we know what we are doing better next time and we have already arranged our summer plans around dipnetting again.  Now if we can just get weather that's this good again!