Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween. Davin did pretty well on his Trick-or-Treat adventure. He was a penguin, but people kept asking if he was an "Angry Bird." Sign of the times?

If you look back, you'll notice there was no snow when we carved our pumpkins just Thursday. That is no longer the case.

 Over the weekend we went to the Monster Ball at the Museum where our friend dee-jayed the event.

Can you guess what our costumes were?

And it begins

Just when we were all thinking Anchorage kids might be lucky enough to have a snow-free Trick-or-Treat this Halloween — this happened. Anchorage got it's first measurable snowfall last night. Goodbye green. Hello white for the next six months.

The cats didn't know what to make of this strange cold stuff.

 The pumpkins looked a little distraught too.

Carving pumpkins and roasting seeds

Halloween is Monday so it's pumpkin carving time. We drove all over town looking for the perfect pumpkins after early release from school today and ended up getting these beauties at the Carr's [Alaska's Safeway] down the street. Bell's Nursery, which advertised a pumpkin patch on the radio only had discounted, tiny, Charlie Brown pumpkins left.

The ones at Carr's were huge and of course Davin wanted the one at the bottom of the crate. So we rearranged nearly every pumpkin in the stack to get to it.

Above, the victims before carving.

We also toasted pumpkin seeds, at batch of sweet and a batch of savory. The savory were coated in olive oil, garlic salt and cayenne pepper. The sweet were coated in olive oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, savory and a spoonful of brown sugar. Just spread on a baking sheet at pop in the oven at 400 for 20-30 minutes. If you do sweet, watch that sugar, it will burn if you don't pay attention.

Happy Halloween.

City moose everywhere

We read that the Aurora Borealis (aka Northern Lights) was especially active last night — even reports that it could be seen in the southern United States. Did anyone see it? We decided to drive up to Flat Top and see if we could see them. It was too cloudy, but we did see these moose on edge of Hillside Road. We've been spotting them all over town the past couple days, including a monster sized male a block from Davin's school this morning.

Nearly three years in Alaska and I've yet to see the Aurora. The city is too bright to see them, so we have to look outside of town. It's on my Alaska bucket list.

Open for business

Well, it's official. I am a full time freelance graphic designer and photographer. In a series of amazing events, my dream of taking Kern This Studio from a side project to a career became a reality — months, perhaps years sooner that I ever dreamed possible.

Some of the great folks I worked with at Alaska Newspaper and Camai Printing have kept in touch and connected me with some great opportunities. I have taken on the design of the weekly Cordova Times and First Alaskans magazine on a contractor basis.

I have an especially courageous woman to thank for offering me what seems like the best visual journalism gig in the country — at least for me. When Calista Corporation announced it was closing Alaska Newspapers she couldn't bear the thought of Cordova, Alaska losing it's hometown paper. So she bought it. And then called me and asked me to help. So I agreed and here I am typing away at my new Mac sitting in my HOME. I love it.

The last couple weeks have been a blur of setting up my home office, learning about taxes as a sole proprietor, bookkeeping, private heath insurance and all kinds of other fun stuff.

I'm thrilled to begin this new step in my life and have found a personal silver lining a difficult series of events that included the closure of the company I worked for in August.

I have been incredibly inspired by several woman business owners, entrepreneurial spirits and freelancers out there and would like to publicly thank them for their guts and creativity. So thank you:

• Jennifer Gibbins of The Cordova Times
• Victoria Barber, writer, editor, photographer journalist extrodinaire
• Beth Skabar of Beth Skabar Photography
• Margie Bauman, the quintessential Alaska journalist
• Meghan McCausland of Entrepreneur Alaska
• Allison Doty of Allison Doty Graphic Design
• Sara Gray of Sara Gray Photography
• Jonalynn McFadden of Turn Up the Rad Creative

I will also be forever grateful to my parents for their support, encouragement and go-for-it attitude about my decision. As well as their lifetime of being great examples of entrepreneurs, hard workers and all-around fantastic people.

I also owe everything to my husband and son enough for: (1) Putting up with me when I madly thought I could run a business AND work a full time job, and (2) equally supporting me when I decided to quit my job and focus on my business.

Well, I think I hear the speech "wrap up" music now.

UnWINEd Grand Opening

I had a great time taking photos and lending a hand at the UnWINEd Grand Opening last weekend. UnWINEd is Anchorage's newest boutique wine shop and when Joshua went in to sell them advertising a few weeks ago a short chat turned into a career change.

They were so impressed with his wine knowledge combined with his advertising and business management experience they recruited him to be the store's resident wine expert, or sommelier. One of the owners was recently telling me how happy he was to have my husband join their team. He felt the way Josh explains wine is a unique service he doesn't think you can get just anywhere and a key component to the store's future. I told him I was just so pleased to see him doing work he's passionate about. And it doesn't hurt that I'll have to help him with his homework (read: tasting).

At the Grand Opening celebration there were tasty treats, tons of customers and even the mayor came down to do a ribbon cutting. The owners hope to cultivate a store where you can find unique wines that aren't distributed everywhere else in town. They also carry a variety of gifts such as cork purses and jewelry, specialty foods including tapanade and flavored olive oils, and a plethora of wine-related accessories.

I'm excited to see the store grow and have a connection to such creative, hard-working business people in Anchorage. If you live in Anchorage, I hope you drop by sometime to check it out.

 Anchorage Mayor Sullivan cuts the ribbon to commemorate the Grand Opening of UnWINEd, with the store's owners at his sides.

It's here: Entrepreneur Alaska

My lovely friend Meghan called me back in August and told me she needed more journalism in her life. So we decided to start an online magazine: Entrepreneur Alaska. It's an online publication dedicated to celebrating the success of business owners in our great state.

Today, our first feature is up. A story about the inspiring triathlon trainer and athletic event planer, Lisa Keller. Read her story here. Meghan wrote it and I made the pictures. I'm having so much fun with this and hope you take a moment to check it out, leave a comment and come back for future stories.

Our goal is a new feature every Monday, plus supplemental content throughout the week. Stop by and let us know how we're doing!

Thanks and have a wonderful Monday.

A moment for Steve Jobs

They call him a visionary. A giant. Someone who revolutionized how we use our phones, our computers, talk to each other, find directions, read magazines.

For people in my profession, he shaped much of what we do and how we do it. In more ways than I can imagine my life is easier and my job is better because of Steve Jobs. Thank you and rest in peace.

This really happened

This is a real text conversation I had a with a friend the other day based on the fact that Burlington Coat Factory was selling denim jumpsuits and zebra-print, one-shouldered skort, onsies. It was so fabulous I convinced my lovely husband — who was not only tolerant enough to GO to Burlington with me, but allowed me to take the priceless photo above. Although I'm sure he'll never oblige me on either again after finding it on my blog...

Me: (With top left photo) Denim bodysuit anyone???

K: Hahahaha. Is it sad that I have already seen that?

Me: What!?

K: (Another friend) and I saw that same outfit the day before she left.

Me: (With top right photo) OK, but have you seen the zebra pantsuit?

K: She wanted us to get matching ones.

Me: That's awkward, because I was going to get our husbands matching ones.

K: That's sexy. Are you at Burlington?

Me: Yes. Not sure how I ended up here ...

Me: We ran out for cat food and a bracelet for our goddaughter's Quinceañera.


K: That is beautiful.

Me: It didn't seem weird until I wrote it down.

K: I think it is a perfect day.

Me: It kind of is!