in the spirit of st. patrick's...

...i decided that i'd share with you all the fact that i've moved into the third place in juneau ("why do you move so much, are you like, on the run or something?" ~coworker)...and pictures of "my" new beagle puppies!

 

ok, not the best quality pictures, and i only managed to get pics of one of the two puppies, but they are the most adorable things and will rest their heads on your lap for hours and give you kisses on the lips. 

but anyway, i spent this st. patrick's day hiking (of course), and hanging out with my new housemate (we saw "love and other drugs," which was actually pretty terrible, but that is another story), so i didn't get to drink anything green, BUT the following excerpt pretty much sums up how it's done in alaska:

"Colleen wanted to make margaritas— she’d schlepped all the necessary ingredients to our U.S. Forest Service cabin hidden in the woods along Shoup Bay just outside Valdez. But we’d been camping for days, spending the afternoons kayaking the bay, reading good books while tucked in our sleeping bags and talking by the campfire...

And we had no ice. You can’t have a good margarita without ice.

So, while gazing out at the hazy turquoise waters that lead to Shoup Glacier, we hatched a plan. The small icebergs bobbing in the water had been drifting within site of our camp, and they beckoned us to come put them to good use.

We climbed into our kayak, with a length of camp rope tied in a lasso, and approached the first piece of ice, clear as glass and about the size of a small cooler. The sun had melted the ice in the middle, so it formed a natural barbell with fat ends and a skinny center—perfect for capturing. Within a few tries, we had secured the ice and began hauling it back to camp. For the remainder of the trip we were able to chip away at that natural ice and enjoy our margaritas in style.

Now that’s what I call camping."

~"It's Better Outside" Alaska Magazine