FINALLY, THE PLACE TAMI HAS BEEN DYING TO GO TO.....

The Double Musky Inn in Girdwood, Alaska!

The Double Musky is a  YUMMY Cajun restaurant.  Tami has wanted to eat here for probably five years, since the last time she was in town and heard about the fabulousness that is the Double Musky.  She finally had her chance in June.  I love this restaurant so much.  I have waited literally hours for a table in this restaurant. 

Happily. And would do it again happily. 

(me = happy, husband = not so happy)

Girdwood is about a 45 minute drive south of Anchorage.  But wait!  Isn't that close to  where I took Tami to the first day she was here?  Yes, it is.  She flew in on a Monday and the Double Musky is closed on Mondays.

So after work on Thursday we loaded up and headed back down the scenic Seward Highway. 

This is Burnt Island.  There is nothing on Burnt Island.  It is really small. 

I can see it from my house, see?

Then we saw a Dall Sheep.

I can see those from my house, too:

See those tiny white dots?  Dall Sheep.  Not snow, like my husband likes to tease me!  I guess I could use a telephoto lens.

Hi Tami!

One of the many waterfalls along the highway.

We saw a couple of guys wind surfing.  I don't know if it is officially called "wind surfing".  It is some form of wind surfing.  Maybe kite surfing?  I really don't know what this is called. 

I call it crazy.  That water can not be warmer than 45 degrees.   Plus, boats don't even go in this part of the inlet.  I don't know how it's safer for surfers, but my dentist has wind-surfed out there for as long as I've known him, 20 years or better. 

At least they look like they are having fun.

We went to the restaurant and had dinner, which was exceptional as always.  I totally forgot to take any pictures of inside or the food!  Tami had the fresh caught King Salmon and I had the French Pepper Steak, my usual.  I always order the same thing when I go to the Musky! 

On our way back to Anchorage, we hit the mother load:

Two flock of Dall Sheep with at least 10-15 sheep in each flock.

When we were almost back to Anchorage, we stopped at Potter's Marsh, a local waterfowl habitat just outside of town.

Two Canadian Geese parents and 3 goslings.

They are pretty to look at, but Geese are dirty creatures!

This concludes Tami's trip to Alaska.  I'd say she was genuinely blessed to have been treated to a few of the many wonders in God's Alaskan creation during her short 4 day trip. 

Next I will do a post about Homer, Alaska (the end of the road) where my husband and I went in July.  Along the way we stayed at the Kenai Princess Lodge and fished for Red Salmon on the world-famous Kenai River. 

Check back soon!

MY JUNE MINI TOUR OF ALASKA CONTINUED....A TRIP TO THE ALASKA ZOO!

If you are new to my blog, click here to go back to the beginning of this little tour I took a friend on when she visited Alaska back in June. 

My friend who visited, Tami, is a real trooper.  On her first day in Alaska, she left Minneapolis at 9 am (so you know she was up early getting ready to go), arrived in Anchorage at 11:30 am and was ready go sight seeing when she hit the ground!  I don't know about you, but flying wears me out. I would have been ready for a shower and a nap!  But not Tami!  She was ready to go!  That was the day we took an ultra-scenic drive down Turnagain arm on the way to Portage Glacier. 

The next day (after work of course, as she was here on business) we went to the Alaska Zoo!  I love to visit the zoo when I am travelling to places that have big or neat zoos.  To my delight, Tami feels the same way, so we made a night of it - at the zoo!  I always like to see the animals, but at the same time, it always breaks my heart a little bit to know that they never get to live a full life as God intended them to.

Bald Eagle

These were Tami's favorite:

  Wolves

Tiger  

Dall Sheep

Grizzly Bears.  They live wild in Anchorage ya'll.  I am not even kidding.  I have never seen one in the wild anywhere in Alaska in the 25 years I have lived here.  And I do take it for granted that one could be  sitting on my front porch any time I open the door....I shudder at the thought!  

Grizzly Bears strike fear into my heart like Great White Sharks and Polar Bears do.  Guess what?  I just saw on Shark Week that Great Whites travel into the waters of Alaska.  Yay, now all my biggest (wild animal) fears are together in one state! 

Ah.  That's better.  Llama.  Nice Llama.

Oh my goodness, this was the smelliest creature at the zoo!

Pretty flowers.  I wish I new what they are called.

Black Bears eating dinner.

They are not as scary to me as Grizzly, although, I recon they should be.  And I have had close encounters with these bears in the wild.  Click on the photography button at the top right side of my blog, or click here, to see pictures of one of them stealing bird seed off of my front porch. 

Two-humped (Bactrian) camel - most of the population left in the world of these kind of camels (1.4 million according to wikipedia) are all domesticated.  Fewer than 1000 wild remain.  Sad.

Red Fox - They are so cute, I wish they were domesticated.  I would have two of them if they were!

A pretty cactus.    I don't know what it is called either :-) 

OK, now, prepare yourself for a scary beast: 

 

Polar Bears. Oh my.

Seriously, they ARE scary.

Seems harmless enough right?

Dare I say cute, even?

Did you ever hear of Binky?  Binky was a bad bear that bit (mauled) a tourist at the Alaska Zoo back in 1994.   The tourist foolishly climbed over two fences to get close to Binky's enclosure.  You can click here to see the video footage - warning - it is pretty graphic.  The tourist lived, but sadly Binky died of an infection in 1995.  The infection was not related to the tourist, as far as I know. 

OK Binky wasn't bad, he was just being a bear, doing what bears do.  Especially Polar Bears, who happen to hunt humans.  To eat.  For Dinner.   

I'm sure these bears would bite you if they could.  As a matter of fact, this one is starting to look interested in me.

I think he was trying to catch my scent because he would like me to be on the menu for dinner! Yikes!  This concludes our trip to the zoo.  Thank goodness we were near the exit!

On a related note, about 3 years ago, I was blessed to get to travel to the "North Slope" - Alaska's North Coast, where the oil drilling operations are - for a tour.  Part of our tour included the Seawater Treatment Plant (STP), a facility that is located about a mile off the coast (yes, it is in the ocean). 

The Seawater Treatment Plant is a facility that brings seawater (salt water) inside to filter and treat it (by removing marine life among other things) so it can be piped over to the oil wells and pumped down a hole to the reservoir to displace the oil while it is sucked out, or something like that.  Basically, this keeps the pressure up which helps get the oil out. 

(Thank you to Cold Cliff for use of this photo!)

This is an aerial view of the STP.  They had to install a metal cage on the outside of the exit that you step into when you leave the building, because the Polar Bears will sit and wait for someone to come out so they can eat them.  In other words, they are hunting us.

The cages look like this:

That just freaks me out!

My Testimony: From Teen Mom to Jesus Freak!

(I will continue with our mini-tour of Alaska in the next post, I just had to take time to post my testimony for Kelly's Korner's "Show Us Your Life" tour. )
Here's a couple of pictures of what's ahead:

I'd like to start this post by saying that as I sit here and type this out, I am suffering with a terrible sinus infection {and my husband is too} so, if something doesn't make sense, it's due to my loopy head and I apologize in advance!

This is hard for me to admit, but I used to be the kind of person who made fun of "Jesus Freaks", or Christians in other words.  Seriously.  I am completely ashamed of myself and the only thing I can say is that I didn't know better.  I am so thankful that God's grace is so great that He willingly forgives my wretchedness and sins, in all its forms.

I am an only child who grew up mostly in Texas, in a home that did not go to Church.  Ever.  The only times I can recall either of my parents at a church was when a relative or friend was getting married.  It makes me sad now to think how different our lives could have been had we been involved in a church as a family.   

 

My mother's mom (my Nanny) however, was a Christian and she loved to take me to church.  I don't remember being too crazy about going at the time, but now I look back and have fond memories of being there with her.  And amazingly, in that short period of time, that is where I learned the foundations of God's Word.  

In my teen years, I had a tendency to be rebellious and as a result, found myself unmarried and pregnant at 17.  I went into labor the day after my 18th birthday and I graduated high school a week later!  It was a busy week, to say the least!


  I lost a lot of baby pictures due to a flood, but here is my son when he was about 9 months old:As I said, I grew up mostly in Texas.  When I was five, my mother married my step-father and we moved to Oklahoma when he took a job with an oil company.  I have often thought that oil company families are very similar to military families.  At least my family was.  We lived in Woodward, Oklahoma.  Then we moved to Burns Flat, Oklahoma.  Then Mineral Wells and Gainsville, Texas.  

Love that smile!

Here he is at age 2:

William and me:

Grandma, Grandpa William and Me:

Oh my gosh, my glasses were HUGE!


Age 5:

William and Grandpa camping:
(age 6)

William at Disneyland:
(age 7)

Graduation 2009:

I can't believe how time flies!  The old cliche is true; it really does seem like just yesterday that I was changing his diapers and rocking him to sleep!  Now he's a foot taller than me!

We lived in Gainsville, Texas the longest, and it was my favorite place. I was very sad when at age 11 I was told we were moving to Alaska. The word "devastated" comes to mind actually. Talk about culture shock. I didn't even know I had an accent until I moved to Alaska. The kids in 6th grade made fun of me relentlessly and the people in Texas now think I sound funny!  But I digress...

 

In my early twenties, I partied and went out to bars, slept around with different guys and basically was as far from being a Christian as you could get.  I decided at one point that I didn't even believe in God.  That decision made it easier for me to justify my immoral behavior and sin, but it left me empty inside because deep down, I knew that what I was doing was wrong. 

I attended church with a neighbor's family when I was 12 and 13 at a Christian Church in Anchorage.  It was at that point that I asked Jesus into my heart for the first time.  But, because my family didn't go to church and we soon moved to a different part of town (and I began hanging around with the wrong crowd), my spiritual life suffered.  I drifted far away from God and more into the world until my early to mid-twenties, when I met the man who would become my future husband.  If it wasn't for him, I likely would not have ever gone back to church.  (Thanks honey!)  

We have been married almost 5 years now and are one third of the way to our goal which is to distribute one Bible to every person in our town (hence the name of my blog)! 

Click here to read Part One of our wedding story, which was also my very first post on this blog.  I met my husband through a mutual friend who recommended me to him for bookkeeping.  That was the beginning of our friendship and the beginning of the end of my back-sliding ways.  

Click here to read Part 2 of our wedding story and find out how I was the first person to receive a Bible from my husband (who was just a friend at the time) when he began his mission of giving away Bibles and how that led to our first date: our wedding! 

(We have stacks of Bibles in the entryway of our business with a sign that says "Free, help yourself")

I love Jesus Christ with all my heart and I hope that my testimony will be an encouragement to anyone who struggles with their faith in Him.