Alaska: Land of the Summer Daylight Hoarders

Happy summer solstice!  To celebrate we had a mostly cloudy day.  (But yesterday was sunny and 70...Silly Alaska!)

Today was also a Hiking Group Day.  We went to Thunderbird Falls.

 It's a lot greener than it was the last time I went there!  (And there were a lot more mosquitos too...)

The trail

Thunderbird falls from the observation deck.  There is a trail that goes down to the falls, but due to high water and children safety concerns we decided not to venture down there.

Snack time!

On the way back...

And tonight my friend Brooklyn had a Summer Solstice Party.  It was also her birthday today and I knew that she likes chocolate/peanut butter treats so I made some delicious no-bake peanut butter bars to take to the party.

They are super easy.

Ingredients are:
1/2 cup butter
2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs (I buy the pre-crushed kind...cuz I'm lazy I guess...)
2 cups peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar (Thank goodness for my neighbor Lezlie...I only had 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar before she saved the day...)
1 package (about 12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

The directions are:
Melt the butter in a pan, add crumbs, sugar, and peanut butter.  Mix. (which may be the hardest part)  Press into a pan (whatever size you want)
Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or the microwave (I choose microwave...it's super easy.  Luke disagrees.  But he just doesn't know.)
Spread the chocolate over the peanut butter mixture.
Let set.  (That's the hardest part.  Especially if you didn't allow enough time.  Putting it in the fridge helps!)
Take to a party and/or large gathering of people (just so you don't end up eating the whole pan)

Anyway, I left Brooklyn's house just after 10 p.m. and this is what it looked like outside.

The news said the "official" sunset tonight is at 11:45 p.m.  And since it's the summer solstice, now we'll start losing daylight.

Tomorrow's daylight hours will be 5 seconds shorter.

And soon I'll be writing about how it's always dark here.  But lets not think about that yet...