The adventures of Rosey and Riley: Tights

are something I usually associate with baby girls, with ruffles and frills covering their well-padded and diapered bottoms. I think of them in white, usually worn with a Christmas or maybe an Easter Dress. Then there are tights worn by a slightly older child along with her shiny patent leather mary-jane shoes. Maybe they are more colorful, but still holiday themed with candy canes or holly berries embroidered in contrasting thread. Therefore, it came as a surprise to me to find myself standing in front of a display of tights at my local Target store (yes, we have a Target!) and buying not just one, but 3 pairs of tights. They are basic, a couple of black pairs, but the grey pair is slightly fancier and actually called "sweater tights". And while I only bought some simple ones, they were also available in pink and teal, lacy and non-lacy. Even argyle. I am thinking there is at least two more months of winter left here before spring comes around so I think that I will get lots of use out of how ever many pairs of tights I purchase. Me. Wearing tights with a skirt. I never would have imagined myself as the tights-wearing type and especially not at the age of <cough cough> 50.

I think that winter is going to last at least until April because the community rec program offers learn to ski lessons beginning in the middle of March. To me, that's a pretty good inidcator that the cold weather is still going to be here. After that, it would be nice to think that warmer weather will start to prevail. Well, I guess it will get warmer here, but not as warm as I might like. There was a discussion held at work the other day about summer temperatures and how they hover between 65-70 degrees. I expressed that I was glad there weren't going to be days into the 100's as that is too hot for me, but I wouldn't mind temperatures hovering in the 70's. I was told to go to Fairbanks because in the summer the temperatures there get to be 95. I am scratching my head over this one because Fairbanks is the same place where it currently hits -40 F. Welcome to Alaska, the land of extremes.

Our weather got a little warm and a little rainy in the beginning of the week. The temperature actually got to be about 40 degrees and the rain washed away some of the ice that was on the road. I was glad of that because some parts of the street had ruts in them formed by the ice and when I would drive my little car down the street I would rock from one side of the street to the other - making me feel as if I had lost all control of the car and that I was going to crash into the car in the next lane. Just about the time panic would set in the ruts would run me back to the shoulder and just as suddenly they were gone. At least the problem was gone for a couple of days but then the temperatures dropped and everything iced over. Yesterday I think we topped out at about 15 degrees and today was slightly warmer. Some of the people I work with are heading to or coming from, Hawaiian vacations. I would be lying if I said that a tropical vacation didn't sound good right about now.

This week we did what so many parents have done, including us, for so many years. We attended a band concert for Jake. The concert was very enjoyable, but for me, there were some huge differences between the concert here and the ones that we experienced in Burlington. As usual, the kids had to be at the concert quite a bit earlier than the start time. I dropped Jake off and hurried back home so Steve and I could get there in plenty of time to get a seat. We needn't have worried as the band is quite a bit smaller then the one at BHS and there was lots of seating available. In fact, another Anchorage HS came so the two schools could play together and there was still lots of seats available. Dimond HS has a swing band of about 20 kids and a concert band, also with about 20 kids. And the bands don't join to play together. The guest school was Service HS and they had essentially the same set-up with about the same number of kids. Since both schools are slightly larger than BHS I really thought they would have larger bands, but maybe it speaks to the success of the music program at BHS. The other odd thing for me at the concert was not recognizing any of the kids but Jake. Part of what I enjoyed every year at the school events was watching the kids grow and change over the years. So many of them I have known since they were in kindergarten and I really missed that. It's surprising the things I discover.

Here is a photo of the band on stage. I wasn't able to get a picture of Jake playing the tuba.

Dimond HS Band

Combined Dimond and Service HS Bands

Yesterday the three of us went to our favorite Music Store - (hope you are practicing Sue as I learned how to play two chords!) and ran some other errands. On the way back we drove through Kincaid Park which is at the end of Raspberry Road (the main road we live off of). We didn't get to far into our exploration but I did get these shots

We are in a parking lot in front of some sort of field. Maybe soccer? And folks were obviously practicing their cross-country skiing skills. There were lots of trails visible, some of them lighted, and I know the park promotes well-groomed trails. Whatever that means. We passed lots of folks cross-country skiing, some of them with their dogs. I think I even got Steve interested in giving it a try. I know I certainly would like to! At the edge of the parking lot was a sign with information about trails, facilities, usage, etc and these handy-dandy tidbits of info