Canada Born-Alaska Grown-On The Road

The blue is the caldera of the supervolcano. Pozzuoli is us 😳🫣🫠 *My first attempt at a post from my phone as the computer has journeyed to Djibouti for a few weeks.* This morning I was awoken in a weird combination of familiarity and newness. I was laying in bed, doing my morning Italian lessons, when loud rattling and rumbling filled our apartment quickly followed by Olaf sounding his own bark alarms. I instinctively identified the clattering as the earth moving beneath me - the shifting and slipping of tectonic plates. Although a foreign, and honestly terrifying noise 30 years ago, when we moved to Alaska, I hardly take notice anymore.  Earthquakes are common in Alaska, where North America’s highest peak is the result of tectonic collisions along an active fault line. Occasionally these earthquakes cause road cracks or for a knickknack to fall from a shelf. Even more rarely they do actual harm like building damage or scaring the poop out of a 12th floor hotel guest! Usual...

🇺🇸🇮🇹🇮🇹🇨🇦 Our parents, independent of each other, planned trips at the same time to come visit us. They both wanted to show support, beat the high season, avoid the dead heat of summer, and help us get settled into our new apartment. A little rearranging lead to four weeks of parentals and some much needed familiarity in our days.  Chachos came first, and were our complete guinea pigs on how to be hosts, with Sniders soon after and oddly enough our days led to different itineraries and experiences. Brian's delayed first departure to Djibouti meant he had much less leave accumulated than we expected, so while he degradedly went off to work most days I got to enjoy the banter, catch up, walks, and snacks with Jackie, Ed, Dad, and Lanie.  In North Pole, after my parents slept on a blow up bed, we got a real bed for the spare bedroom and had a place for guests. Turns out that people coming to North Pole, in general, plan on going home that night and traded the guest bed spa...