"Take your, uh, wife to work" Day

So because I'm the luckiest girl on Earth, married to the most wonderful boy on Earth, today (my day off), Charley had to go into the office for an hour or so, and decided to take ME with him. yeehaw.

Some of you may know, Charley works for himself. He and his brother Toby own a company called McKinley Mortgage and Real Estate (among two other companies in the real estate/investment arena- yes, he's one ambitious man). For McKinley, he travels down to the office 3 days a week located in Girdwood, about 30 miles South of Anchorage in a little hippie, greenie community mostly known for our popular Alyeska ski resort and hotel. It's GORGEOUS- but somewhat obnoxious with the over-abundance of sloppy, liberal, dreadlock-sporting, pot-smoking hippies (gross). Eventually they will move the office to Anchorage, but since it was founded (by his brother in the 80s) there in Girdwood where Toby lived, and they still have some really wonderful employees that live and work there, they've yet to relocate. All that said, normally Charley doesn't go down on Mondays, but he needed to today, so as I mentioned earlier, he took me with him. I like going down there because even though there are some *unique* individuals, the area is really amazing. As we pulled off the highway onto the main Girdwood road (there's really only one main 'Girdwood Rd'), we saw something large and black crossing the road. As we neared, we saw that it was a bear, and this time, we not only had the safety of our car where we could stop and watch it, but we had a camera!!

Here are a few pics of the curious fellow...





Cool no? I sure like living here (sometimes... you know, those times I forget how far away I live from my sister). I like it when I see bears OUTside of the city. Once we got to the office, I just went over to the bake shop, got a mocha and sat outside and read. It was fabulous. I always feel like I'm in another magical world when I'm down there, just drinking in all the beauty from the towering mountains all around me. This was my view from the little picnic table I was sitting at in front of the bake shop. Isn't is awesome? I just love this place. I wish it were more of a conservative little homeschooling community. Oh well.


Here's the bake shop where I got my tasty mocha... isn't it quaint?


This is the part of the mountain we snowboard and ski down during the winter when it's covered with snow... (obviously. It'd be kinda hard to ski it now).

About 45 minutes later, Charley came out and let me know he was ready to go. Boy it sure went fast! I asked him if I could get a picture of him in front of his office... he said sure, but I presumptuously already started snapping pics before he was ready. Opps.


Aw, that's better.


Once we got back to Anchorage, we went and picked up a pair of hockey skates for me since I start my women's "Discover Hockey" tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes. Part of me is REALLY excited, and the other part of me is terrified since I've never really done this before. We'll see how it goes. We also went over to the college to get some books I needed for a couple of culinary arts classes I'm enrolled in this semester. I'm really stoked about this semester. We are going to a new church now and are starting up a young marrieds group there since they don't already have one. I'm also getting involved with Awana again which has been a passion of mine since I can remember. There are just so many neat things going on.

Today was a good day.

:)