What I Did on My Summer Vacation (2012)

This past summer went by in a blur, as it always does up here.  We’ve already had our first snow this year (though it didn’t stick, thank goodness), and more is coming soon.  I’m already feeling a bit nostalgic for summer, so when I had a few moments last night I went through my backlog to make sure I had all my personal photos from the summer edited and ready for relatives.  This post is really for them – but in case you want to know some of what we were up to this summer as well, read on!

Some of our featured activities: balloon wars with friends; playgrounds and watering friends’ gardens; painting canvases; berry picking; camping on the Denali Highway; more berry picking; and visiting the critters over at LARS with visiting friends and family.

Summer Means U-Pick Raspberries - Fairbanks Lifestyle Photographer

It’s only November – and the very beginning of November, at that – but I already find myself ready for a bit of a vacation. Some sun, some green, maybe even some flowers. This is, of course, a long way off, but I do have access to virtual, visual vacations by way of revising some summer photographs not yet blogged. Even though I just took a break from writing this to go load the woodstove, it was surprisingly refreshing to spend an hour in early August. It turns out the backlog of personal photos from this summer and fall sitting on my harddrive is not the result of disorganization or too little free time, as I had thought, but rather – a stroke of genius! I may have just enough to keep me in visual vacations all winter long.

Today’s vacation is brought to you by the U-Pick Raspberry farm and the month of August. My friend Jeanine and I met out there with a collective four kids and picked for a solid two hours, resulting in a full gallon of berries each – which, given the kid-wrangling (and kid-snacking) that took place, I thought was pretty impressive! They (the berries) currently reside in my pantry in the form of Raspberry-Cilantro-Jalapeno Jam and Raspberry-Plum-Almond Jam – tastes of summer to last me all winter long.