Psychedaisy: Anchorage! Day One

We are having a true Boyd & Mary Ann experience here (with Rob's Delta flight benefits picking up the cost of airfare). We arrived at 30 minutes after midnight, slept, and were up for Amber's YMCA basketball game at a local elementary school.

As you can see, it's a pretty intense spectator sport. The guy on the left of Aaron is in their ward, and is a Bennion, son of another John. Small (Mormon) world!

Here is why all the family's vehicles are out in the driveway, and why they are enthusiastically planning this...

...project, in the foothills above the city. They have put a bid in on a 4.39 acre property with a foundation, well, and graded drive already done. What a project! If I had several million dollars and an army of gardeners and landscapers, I'd go for it for sure. As it is, I told Mary Ann I would probably be showing up on their doorstop to help.

Here's Boyd and the magnificent view. My camera doesn't do justice to it. On a clear day you can see Denali on the right:

Here's the part of the foundation for the swimming pool and the exercise room:

Here's the view toward Cook Inlet:

Here's the view toward Anchorage (and Denali, 5 hours away by car, in this photo hidden in the clouds):

Eric, Mary Ann, Aaron, and Boyd inspect the property (John watches unenviously, having only this year finished landscaping our garden). Boyd's idea is to keep the grounds as wild as possible. There are forests, wetlands, hills, grassland, a stream--it's amazingly lovely. Mary Ann is thinking of keeping the original foundation and the three-story plan, and having a Bed & Breakfast.

On our way to Elissa's indoor soccer game, we stopped at Boyd's second PT location:

Boyd with some of his equipment:

Here are a couple of photos of Elissa's game. Part of the focus problem was because it was indoors and dim, but mostly it was because Elissa was always in motion. Hard to get a shot of her being still.