alaskan friends

we recently hosted our friends andy, jenny, maia and blaise for almost two weeks. they live in petersburg, the island in southeast alaska where aaron and i spent the summer after our wedding.

they just built this gorgeous house there.

the winters in petersburg are cold and dark, and so our friends came south to spend a few months in ashland, OR with jenny's family. and bellingham is a convenient stop on the way.

(to read more about their housebuilding project, go here to the cool blog of a friend of theirs in portland.)

the cowans were here two and a half years ago as well, during the weeks before, during and after noah's birth. then, as now, they were great guests--cooking, cleaning and generally being helpful. it's been hard to get back in the kitchen since they've gone!

they brought special treats like smoked salmon, black cod, alaskan coffee, and best of all, a ton of yellow cedar and hemlock boards aaron will use for trim and kitchen cabinets in the house.


noah had lots of fun with little blaise (about three months younger than him) and maia (five years old). there was also a good deal of bopping, grabbing toys and general unrest. it's hard to share your home and your things with friends. but we know this about community living--the good parts make the hard parts worthwhile.

we had a fun trip to the pumkin patch at stoney ridge farm.

jenny chillin' in the yard.

maia and isla--two girls in pink.