Trick or Treat & Kennedy Creek

It's been a great autumn around here. The colors have been great! I overheard someone say this was due to a few early (& light) frosts, combined with a general lack of precip for the past month. Some old timers have said this is the best year for fall colors they can remember. We'll take it! So will Matty. We decided to take a quick trip to Kennedy Creek today to check out the November Chum Salmon run. And to check out the massive maple leaves. And to let The Mighty Matanuska run wild & run free - just the way a puppy should live.

Abigail has been fun lately. Sure, she has her moments, but it's fun to see her develop. For instance, this morning in the living room she handed the cracker box to Melis, saying 'dgish' - which has become her standard word for everything from 'what is this' to 'I want this.' Melissa told her to get a plate to put some one, so she walks confidently into the kitchen where I am, and starts looking in the tupperware cupboard, where she grabs a tupperware and brings it right back to Mom for her bowl of crackers. Kids learn so fast!But I digress. Here we all pose for a big-happy-family shot.

My three favorite girls!

Finally Abee gets let out of the backpack so she can run wild & run free too!

This area is about 15 minutes NW of our house, just off of Hwy 101. There's a thick web of old logging roads that go every different direction once you get back in there a ways. But we didn't go too far past the area best for viewing salmon. Supposedly, there are around 30,000 chum salmon that come up this small creek every year. I'm not sure how they all fit! This is still pretty early in the season, so we only saw a handful of them. Anyone care to make a puzzle out of this? Melissa was thinking of Halloween a month ago already. She saw this tiger costume in Costco and couldn't resist. For the last month, we've been asking Abee 'What sound does a tiger make?', to which she often replies 'Raaawwwwrrr!' (with varying degrees of ferocity).

Melis & I took her over to our neighbors house, where we visited for quite a while. We reminisced about Halloween three years ago, when Melis & I got access to our newly-purchased house. We spend the evening cleaning the floors, walls, & anything else that needed it. I seem to remember us both having sore backs for the next few days. Yeah for our house! She wasn't a big fan of the hood, but tolerated it for a few pictures.

She isn't always this happy when she's tired, but after a while, she'd just lay her head down on the couch or the floor for a bit and rest, before regaining her energy for a few more minutes.