That Smells FOUL and the Criterion Brothers

Good Morning. Well I've uploaded another photo of the deck, from the Adirondack chairs to the newly installed hot tub (we drug it up with us from California) and you can also see bits of the lake and the sauna. The other photo is of our new friend Michelle who we met on the first ferry moving from our old neck of the woods to Alaska too. She will be our first guest to our house here for she is coming up from Homer to stay with us tonight. Very cool. We've missed her exuberant personality, her easy going attitude about life and her laugh. :0) We can't wait to see her. She has a job interview today for student teaching in nearby Homer and we wish her the best of luck.

Greg is still experiencing his Retrograde (where everything that can or will goes wrong goes that direction) NO JOKE!! He is coping with it well. There used to be a time that he would just come back home and crawl back into bed..... :) Yesterday we were able to get 1 thing done without it falling apart. We recharged the soft water tank to help with our well problem. Since we've been here, our water has felt odd, smelled metallic and sulfuric. Nasty. We have found out that the water on the peninsula is bad (mainly iron and other minerals). There is alot of iron in our water here so we experience scraggly, dry hair and a smell of metal on our skin (like working on the engine of the Chevelle). Yeah, that smell. Foul. So we're currently recharging the soft water tank, recharging our well and looking into putting in Charcoal filters on our water. This would be a good thing. You don't know how much I would love to drink, smell and take a shower (not in this order) in our old drinking water on Shoshone. That was the best drinking water I have ever tasted. It came directly from the Stanislaus River and it was delicious. Believe me if I had the money I would send for a 5 gallon container..,... I'm not asking for alot am I? :)

So besides that, John is waiting for his Alaska work permit to start his job at Ocean Beauty fishing. His Thursday class with the fire dept should be in session this week as long as the fire in Ninilchik (we are not threatened by this fire) is contained. This fire started last Wednesday and has been burning all week. Although with the rain and high humidity it looks like they are getting a good handle on it. John will be a happy camper if his class is running, they will be experiencing a live burn (a mock fire of a building on site) and supervision with putting the burn out. Very exciting. He will have 2 yrs of this training and then the fire dept. puts him through the physical testing of firefighter academy and then he chooses his post (smoke jumper, domestic house firefighter, forest firefighter). Yesterday John got to drive over to the recreation center (swimming pool, waterslides, gym, teen center etc. for the neighborhood) all by himself, boy did he have a smile on his face. This was the first time since he received his license that we've allowed him to go anywhere in our truck by himself. John tried containing his happiness before he left but we could still see it. Don't you remember those days? :) John and I have met many of the town folk here. This town reminds me alot of Arnold back when everyone knew one another. Everyone here is very friendly and welcoming. It's amazing. We've already been invited to join the teen's sports (for John) there's an open Dodgeball team (adults only, I would love to see Greg play this)that meets here and plays. There are just so many fun activities, even during the winter. John has already met the Hall Kids (named after their last name) who are trying to create their own skateboarding video to go pro. Some town people have said, " They've had so many concussions that they are harmless." What does that mean....!!!???? :0) So many of the conversations I have heard or been in have reminded me of the Chevy Chase Movie, I can't remember the name, The town of Rosebud or Yellow Dog (Tom and Bea will know because they named there Inn after it.) Help us out here. Anyway, we're waiting for the Criterion Brothers to arrive at our doorstep at any moment. If any of you have seen this movie you would understand what I mean. ;0)

Anyway, I will keep you posted, take care, M.