"Elvis was seen wearing RED panties..."

At last. What we have all been waiting for has begun. Starting at around 10:30 PM (?) Sunday night until 5:30AM this morning Mt Redoubt emitted a series of 5 explosive eruptions. Now the funny thing of this is we had no idea. None. I walked out this morning to let the dogs do their morning constitutionals and thought to myself, "Man, Tesoro must be doing something this morning" as a foul smell was wafting about in the air. Minutes later, I get a call from a friend asking what was happening. I'm figuring, nothing much, just out pottying the dogs....whats happening with you?! This is how we found out. A phone call from outside!! Maryann and I began our prepratory volcano chores and then stood by. As of current, most ash is blowing NorthEast and is not affecting us at this time. Flights were suspended in and out of Anchorage's Stevens International Airport. Areas North of us are so far affected by the ash fallout. We did have a peninsula wide electric outage this morning for several hours, due to the main station in Anchorage having issues, more than likely to do with fallout I am assuming? Some of our cell service was intermittently affected throughout the morning. We did venture into Kenai a little while ago, and everyone is going about their day. You would never know anything is wrong, and hopefully it will stay that way. The AVO www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php website is not keeping too much information updated, or at least what I can tell (I just got back online just minutes ago so I am just catching up on things) and with the overcast there is nothing much to see. The NOAA website (you can link it off of the redoubt Activity page of AVO) is keeping an ash fallout warning updated and as well a chart of the projected ash flow, but as I said, we are in good condition right now, so lets hope it all stays that way. The winds are blowing pretty good right now and they are our saving grace, so we will keep you posted on any continuing activity and lets hope for the best!