https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThriftDCreationsFall is my favorite season.  I love seeing the colors change and the crisp feel in the air.  It makes me want to grab a cup of cocoa, light a fire, snuggle up in a cozy sweater and watch the leaves fall as I start to plan for the upcoming holidays.  But fall is also usually one of my busiest seasons so it’s pretty rare when that actually happens.  This time of year I’m prepping for the holiday bazaars, creating family portraits for client’s holiday cards and preparing our home for winter, which will be here before we know it.

I will admit that I did attempt to ignore the initial signs of fall.  Alaska’s amazing summers are hard to give up and those first few cooler days are not well accepted because we know it means our days of endless sunlight and amazing landscapes will soon be replaced with darkness and cold.  But once I accept it I always fall in love with this wonderful transition season.

Now that I’ve conceded that summer has passed, I’ve embraced fall and carved out a bit of time to get out and photograph it’s beauty with my photography Meetup group.  We went up into the foothills of the Chugach mountains where the colors are more pronounced due to cooler temperatures.

I love the vibrant colors seen in the plants, which are offering the last of their harvests and one last burst of beauty before the first frost arrives.

And our beautiful fireweed has now released it’s seed to blow in the wind and begins to display a variety of colors including green, red, orange and even purple on it’s leaves.  This was one of many I spotted along the trail recently.

In fact a colorful autumnal fireweed is one of my favorite shots to date.  It literally screams fall every time I see it.

I took Friday off to make the long holiday weekend even longer so I can wrap up a few outstanding projects around the house, like getting the deck prepped for cooler temps, cleaning up the garden, reclaiming the garage for parking and of course decorating for fall!  I’ll also be updating my Etsy shop inventory, revamping my photography marketing and testing out new designs for the holiday bazaar I’ll be selling at after Thanksgiving.  But I’m determined to squeeze in a little fall relaxing too.  In fact I already purchased all of the s’more making materials needed for our firepit’s fall debut, and I can’t wait!