My new favorite breakfast

I've been eating a lot of eggs for breakfast recently. Cereal just hasn't seemed appealing. I love how versatile eggs are, how good they taste in many different forms. I like looking in the fridge and figuring out what kind of omelet to make based on the ingredients I have. That's how this delicious discovery happened:

It's a spinach, spring onion and gruyere omelet. The first time I made this omelet I used goat cheese, and I think I prefer that but really, it would be good with almost any cheese. Fresh spinach and spring onions from the Farmer's Market help a lot. Here's a rough recipe:

Beat two eggs in a bowl. Set aside.
Chop a handful of spinach (however much you want)
Slice a spring onion.
Get the cheese out of the fridge.

Melt some butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Pour in the eggs and cook briefly. On one half of the eggs sprinkle the spring onion, then the pile of chopped fresh spinach. Crumble the cheese on top. Fold over the top half of the omelet and cook for a little. Flip the omelet and turn the heat to low. Cook until it's done (I like my eggs a little browned). Serve with salt and pepper. Yum.

Wolverine Peak

Probably all these hiking photos start to look the same after awhile. Oh, another gorgeous panorama of Anchorage and the oceans and the mountains. Haven't we already seen that? :) But I must keep posting them in the hopes that somehow I can convince more people to come visit us here in this strange and beautiful land.
Yesterday I hiked Wolverine Peak with John David and Cindy (another church friend). Krestia was gone in Portland, Oregon for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Conference. It was a long hike, 11 miles total, but we only did about 10 miles. We made it to the ridge below the peak, but by then the intense sunshine had sapped us of the energy to reach the summit. It was almost 80 here yesterday, a little too hot to be comfortable while hiking. Still, it was gorgeous and I'll go back again for the whole thing someday.

Near Point, about a mile from the summit of Wolverine.

This is Cindy. She's from Ohio. She teaches in the Yup'ik School District in Akiachak, Alaska (outside of Bethel) during the school year. During the summers she lives in Anchorage. She's taking classes towards her speech pathology degree.


This is John David with Cindy's dog Jake. Jake was so energetic the first half of the hike. Then his paws got sore and started to peel from all the rocks (he's used to the ground in Akiachak, which isn't rocky). Cindy carried him a little and we took it slow on the way down.

The summit of Wolverine, taken from the place where we stopped hiking.

My attempt at a close-up. Not sure what these flowers are, but the mountains are covered with lovely summer blooming.

Hiking Flattop

Yesterday we hiked Flattop Mountain after church. It's the most popular day hike around here because it's so close to Anchorage but offers world-class mountain views. The climb itself is short (it took us about an hour) but a good workout with some scrambling over rocky sections at the end. At the top there's a great view of all of Anchorage with mountains and ocean surrounding it. On a good day (like yesterday) you can see Denali. Once on top, the mountains keep going and going in all directions. It's tempting to keep climbing the next ridge and I think Krestia would have gone all day unless we stopped him. I can't blame him, the mountains are so incredible here. We hiked with the pastor of our church up here (Prince of Peace Mennonite Church), John David, and Benjamin, a church friend who is a volunteer with AmeriCorps. It was a gorgeous summery day, 70 degrees which is cause for celebration in Anchorage!

Here's some pictures from the hike:

A view of Anchorage from the top of the mountain

Krestia goes exploring

John David (with the hat) and Benjamin take in the view

These are the mountains behind Flattop...we could have kept going and going....