Uffda!

I apologize. I'm not as good of a blogger as I thought I would be. But, we've been pretty busy these last couple of months.



As mentioned in the previous post, we got the roof fixed. We have a new water heater and furnace installed. We put storm windows in. We have a new screen door. We've picked an outside paint color for the house, which we will hopefully get done this spring. Oh, and we redid all of the outside front landscaping!



We picked up the laminate for the countertops a couple weeks ago -I had hoped that maybe it would be done sometime in January, but now I'm thinking sometime in Feb. By the time everything is done this will be pretty much a brand new house! Hopefully next time around on the market it might actually sell!

Christmas and New Years was exciting. It was so fun to have all the little cousins together. They played pretty well together too. There were lots of parties and running around. Something to do every weekend from Thanksgiving to after New Years! So it was no small wonder that the boys and I got sick after everything calmed down. Luckily, Alexander avoided everything.

Noah is getting to be quite the little kid. He's learning to read (Thanks to his Nana!), and now recognizes about 10 different two and three letter words! He also got a learning toy ( I have NO idea what it's called) that has 8 different functions and he can spell about 20-30 three letter words! He also has quite a sense of humor, and keeps us laughing with his observations of the world.

As for Christopher, he is all boy. He loves to follow his big brother all over the house, and gets himself into all sorts of mischief, i.e., climbing on the piano, sliding down the stairs and "cleaning" out his bedroom closet! Learning by association, he can "spell" a few words too (I'm sure that somewhere in the world there is a language that recognizes P-T-D as a valid word!). He is also my little singer - I catch him often singing parts of "Jesus Loves Me" or the refrain from "Angels We Have Heard On High."

That's it for now - we (well, mostly me) are really looking forward to spring...especially on days like today where we are supposed to get up to 12" of snow in a 24 hour period. At least I haven't had to shovel yet! :)

'Til next time!

Playing Catch-Up

Wow, have the last 6 weeks gone by fast!

We've just been doing a LOT of catching up around here....I think that the lawn is finally under control and we can see all of the flower beds again!

We had discovered some water damage to the kitchen when we got back. Long story short; we wound up putting a new roof on. The guys put in 23 hrs in 2 days - but the weather cooperated and wasn't too hot or too cool, and no one fell off! Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have the new cupboards and countertops in the kitchen. Then THAT whole project can be done.

Last weekend brought on a whole new set of house problems though...by way of putting in a new dryer vent, we discovered that not only did the person(s) who built this house did not use flashing under the patio door...but also that our water heater had been leaking for quite some time and we'll need to get a new one. Since the furnace will have to be taken out to replace part of the sub-floor, we decided to upgrade that as well. Both are original to the house, so apparently are in the age range to be going out anyway....but is still a major headache to have to deal with going into winter.
We hope to fence in the backyard and build (or re-do the current one) a new deck next spring; We've also picked out a paint color for the outside...don't know if we'll get to that yet this fall or not...

On to happier news...We got a PIANO!!! We had the tuner here last night, and will have to have her back at least twice more to get it where it should be...but it sounds goods and is now in tune with itself; planning on long sessions on the bench, haha! The boys seem to be loving having something to make noise on too. They currently like to play random notes and sing "Hallelujah!" as loud as they can. However, I noticed this morning that they're branching out to include Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. :)
Now that the piano is in tune, I plan on starting Noah with some simple lessons. And who knows...I might even try to find some more beginner student too.

Well, my coffee cup is empty so that means that I better get to the "work" part of my day!

As for posting...all I can say is just keep checking back. Eventually I'll get on the other computer to upload pictures of everything, I promise!

Update

Hello everyone! We have made it back to the lower 48 safe and sound. Beautiful fall weather the whole way down, with the exception of some rain the first day or so.

The house is getting set up, slowly but surely. Lots of little hands wanting to "help" :)

Sorry for the short post, but I'll work on going through photos and writing out our return trip soon!

All the best to everyone out there....

Getting Ready

Whew! You'd think that packing up would be fairly easy since most of our belongings were still packed from before; but after looking at some of the totes and boxes we could tell that some of it needed to be repacked. Our new best friends are bankers boxes and stretch wrap!

Saturday night, Alexander's cousin flew in to Anchorage. Sunday they went on a Salmon Charter - they hooked a lot of fish, but mostly Chum (?) which I guess looks a lot like salmon, but is not good for eating. The nice salmon that they did catch they couldn't keep - snagged on fins or on the back are against the law to keep...but they took a few pictures that we'll put up later.


Monday we took a trip down to Seward on the Kenai Pennisula. On the way there we stopped at Alyeska Ski Resort and rode the Tram up the mountain. That was a lot of fun. Really awesome views and we had beautiful weather to boot! On the way back to the car, Christopher said, "Mommy, I liked that train ride!" So cute. :)

Took a lot of pictures driving along Turnagain Arm. The foliage is starting to turn, and the the water was so calm it almost looked frozen.

Got to Seward, and drove along Lowell Point for a ways. Saw a Sea Otter playing in the water ~ he kept rolling over and over again, and was turned away from us, so I hope the picture turns out ok.

Went back into town with the intention of going to the Alaska Sea Life Center, but after checking out the prices, we decided not to do that! I'm surprised that they get anyone to go in there!

Drove out to the cruise ship dock to see the ship that was there. Not sure if it was directed to us, but they blew the horn three or four times! Loud! The boys got a kick out of that.

We headed back home, stopping in Anchorage for some supper. Got back to the valley just in time to go to bed.

Doing all of the last minute packing today - almost done! All of the "Boys" are hiking in Hatchers Pass today and throwing rocks in the river. We're planning to hit the road very early in the morning as we want to stop along the way towards Glennallen and Tok as that was all driven in the dark on the way up here. Will be interesting to see just how steep the Glennallen Pass is!

All for now; no more posts unless I get a chance to update during the trip at one of the motels.
Can't wait to see everyone!

Big News

So it's been a while since the last post, but I have good reasons for the lapse, I promise!

Anyhow, the long and short of it is that we're moving back to Iowa! Alexander recieved an excellent offer from his preveous employer, so we'll be living in our house in Newton.

(There are extenuating circumstances we took into consideration on whether to stay or go back; however, I won't go into details on here. Sorry for being cryptic - if you really want to know more, call me).



So I've been busy re-packing some of our stuff, and packing up the rest of everything.

Don't exactly know the timetable yet - for now we're leaving next Wednesday and arriving in Newton the following Wed. or Thurs.



In between packing, we've been doing some fun stuff too. We went out to the State Fair last Thursday. It's a lot smaller than you'd think, but someone explained that the state is broken into regions and each region has their own State Fair. We do have pictures but I don't have access to them at this time. I'll post them later when we get set up in Newton.



We've loved living here in Wasilla, even with the rainy summer they had this year. The people are wonderful, the scenery is beautiful, and we'll miss the friends we made here. But we look forward to being close to family and friends Outside as well.!



Till next time....

It's Official

"As of Monday Anchorage has had 30 consecutive rainy days, beating its previous record of 27 days set in 1951.

If the overcast weather holds up, Anchorage is going to smash that record. Meteorologists say we can expect rain through Tuesday and Wednesday, and possibly for several days after that.

It doesn't need to be a downpour to count as a rainy day: all it takes is a trace of rain at the airport, or the National Weather Service."

- from KTUU Channel 2

Here's the kicker....Fairbanks is 300 miles NNE of Wasilla, and it has been sunny and in the 90's for most of the summer! Maybe we'll get up there yet this summer and dry out for a weekend!

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Last Saturday, we went for a drive. We went north of Palmer and found this scenic pullout:




These pictures really don't do it justice...



You can't really tell from the picture, but it's a long way down to the bottom!



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My children have an obsession with "Mack Trucks" stemming from the Disney movie "Cars." The last few days there has been a lot of truck activity in the dirt lot that our window overlooks.


Hours of watching out the window. Christopher loves that bulldozer. :)

Can You Guess...

...What our weather has been like? Yep. RAINY! I heard that this summer has been the third rainiest and fifth coldest on record! This is our typical view out the window every morning; and yes, there is a mountain in there somewhere!

At least it will clear up at some point during the day, but everything is so wet we haven't been able to go do much. When it is nice (read not raining), we do go out for walks. The pictures below we went to a new walking trail and found really pretty flowers. It took a while to get anywhere because the boys kept wanting to stop and smell all the different flowers!




We came around a corner and as soon as they saw the benches they needed to "Take a little rest, Mom!"


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The first week of this month we had VBS at church. The theme was Zip Zap and Zoom For Jesus which had 5 different bee characters that told the story of the day. The kids don't have just one teacher; instead they go around to different stations, and each station incorporates the theme of the day into what they are doing. I got to be the Snack Leader at the Sweet Honey Bee-stro; it was fun but not easy to keep the attention of hungry kids! It was also interesting because we had 6 or 7 kids that had some type of food allergy that we had to work around. This is the snack area:

I had three other helpers which was really good. They distributed the ingredients to the kids while I read the story and asked them questions. On Thursday the theme was Jesus' Tomb. We made trembling Roman Soldiers:

When it was nice out, the kids got to go outside to play games. Here Noah is learning how to play Hopscotch - he's in the foreground in the red and white shirt.
Noah did really well for his first VBS. The first day he had a tear or two because he couldn't stay with his brother and play with the toys. Once we got him into the classroom with all of the other kids (12 kids ages 3/4!) he pretty much forgot about me or the toys!
Sunday during service they all went up and sang two of the songs that they had learned. He didn't catch on for the first one until it was pretty much over...I think he was nervous as he kept lifting his shirt up and watching the bigger kids! Of course, he was also standing in the front doing this!

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On Monday, we went to Lucille park. We blew up the big soccer ball and took the bubble blower too. Noah loved the bubbles, but Christopher was more interested in the slide. The other kids there also thought that Noah's bubble gun was pretty cool. :o)

Shortly after I took this picture, Noah and Daddy got a soccer game going. Everyone played for about a half hour. I was with Christopher at the slide. He'd climb up to the top and watch the soccer game for a while, then go down and do it all over again!
We've been having fun inside too. Lots of Legos and train track building. Wednesday I got out an old sheet and built a fort for them. They had so much fun pretending to go camping! They'd load up their backpack with toys and climb up the mountain (the chair and couch) to get to the tent. Then for a while it was a garage for their trucks. They'd take turns coming out and doing a lap around the room and then go back and knock and announce "I'm back!" I don't have any pictures of this because the batteries died. Next time though... : )

Thursday they went in for their doctor checkups. Noah weighs 36.4lbs and is 39.5" and Christopher is 34.6lbs and 36"! Both are very healthy and growing/developing normally for which we are very thankful.

Until next time....

Rain, rain, go away!

In between rain showers on Saturday, we went over to Lake Lucille park to let the boys play. There was a big birthday party going on, so we decided to try out one of the hiking trails. Turns out that the "trail" that we chose wasn't actually one of the hiking paths there, just an old four-wheeler trail that didn't look like it had been used in a while. The boys didn't really care. They had fun looking into the woods for moose, and Noah asks "What's this, Mom?" about almost everything!

He had ventured a little ahead of us...


...and then started yelling, "Mom, Mom, come here! Come here!!!"


He was so excited about finding that mushroom!

The trail ended a little further down at the lake, but there was a big dip in the trail that was full of water. I got them to stand together for about a second for a picture:



Yesterday at church we received some sad news; our pastor has decided to accept the call he held from St. Croix Lutheran High School in St. Paul, MN, where he'll be teaching world religion and a language. He said that they'll be here through the end of August, but we'll certainly miss having them here. Their daughter Meredith and Noah play together, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to explain to Noah that she's not going to be here.


Anyway...to end on a happier note: Happy Rainy Monday!

Carnival Fun

Last weekend, we ventured over to Eagle River to the Bear Paw Festival. We didn't really stay for long - it was threatening rain again, and we did manage to find a few rides that the boys could go on before it started to rain.

Riding in Dumbo.




On the Animal Train.


Christopher hanging out in the stroller with Daddy while Mommy and Noah went on the Spinning Apple.


Thankfully rides are new to the boys...I couldn't really get our apple to spin, though to be honest, I didn't really try after a while - I was getting dizzy just sitting there!

Mountain Climbing 2

A few more pictures of our adventures in mountain climbing...

On the drive up, we saw these three guys having fun circling around each other:


When we got to the top and took a break, the boys started playing with the slate rocks:


People passing by had to laugh at them, especially when they would hear Christopher say "Oh, tank tu, Owa!" every time that Noah would hand him another rock! By the time we left, they had quite an impressive cairn built!

When we got back to the car, we decided to take the loop out to Willow. Every pullout along the road was packed, so we wound up eating our picnic lunch in the car. Not long after we were done eating (well, Noah was still eating!), I turned to check on Christopher:

He slept for most of the ride home!

Mountain Climbing

Today, we went up to Hatcher's Pass- to go mountain climbing... the first picture doesn't do it justice...it's really high up there!

Above is the view about half way up!

Noah and Alexander made it to the top first!

Here is a view from the mountain top...overlooking Summit Lake!


Look how small the cars are...Christopher wanted to be carried on the way down...and I don't blame him.

Here is a view of the other side.

We found a snow drift at the top...it was kinda like a glacier the boys had fun as it was about 70 degrees and sunny today... and the snow was cold.

More pictures and stuff to come...

Parade and a BBQ

Our 4th started perfectly; the boys slept in until 8:30am! That hasn't happened in months! While it was really nice to sleep in, it left us kind of rushed to get ready for church. The service was moved up to 9:30 so that those who were walking in the parade with the church float would be there at 11.

Alexander had to meet the station crew at 9:45; he was in charge of driving the station van and making sure the parade music all worked, so it was just me and the boys - they did pretty well, though I can't say that I took in a whole lot of the sermon!

After church, we all met at the float. We were about half-way in the lineup, so we had to wait for a while. Just as the boys had finally had it with waiting (they were strapped into a side by side stroller), it was our turn to go.

The theme of the float was "American Pride", so the boys had little flags that they waved almost the whole time! It was so cute!

It was 1pm by the time we finished and met up with Alexander at the park. We had planned on staying for the Mayor's picnic, but a co-worker needed a ride back to the station, and by that time we just decided to go home to eat and all take a nap.
Well...all the boys took a nap! I quickly made up some deviled eggs for the BBQ we were going to at 4.

We were invited to Sutton's house for a BBQ. There we met the church's summer vicar and his family. There were also a couple of kids from MLC in New Ulm who are here helping with VBS and Camp Luther (One of the guys now goes to UND in Grand Forks! Small world.). A few members from the church also came.
It was a pot luck - and boy, did we feast! Alexander volunteered to man the grill - 30 hamburgers, 16 chicken breasts, 16 hotdogs and 2 steaks! The other college guy went to culinary school, so he made bbq sauce from scratch for the chicken.
We didn't get home until about 10:30pm - we had a great time! Noah didn't even want to go home!

Monday Alexander technically had off, but he's so busy that he went in for most of the day to do catch up. After he came home, we went out to Lake Lucille park. We were the only ones there, and the boys had fun playing. We chased them around the soccer field until it got too cold out for Mommy!

The only downside is that we didn't see any fireworks this year. The city fired them off at midnight on Saturday, and since we knew we had such a big day on Sun - we didn't keep the boys up.

MIA

So not a whole lot has been happening lately. The summer here has turned into a rainy one, which we've heard happens every couple of years. Lots of overcast skies and rain for part or sometimes most of the day. Even so, the temps have been in the mid-60's and it still feels warm.

On June 11th, Alexander and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! We kept it pretty low key, dinner and a movie - but it was nice to spend some one on one time together!

For Father's Day, Alexander got to go on a Salmon fishing charter on the Deshka River for most of that Saturday. While he didn't catch anything, he had a lot of fun. We do have some pictures - but he took them on a disposable camera that we haven't developed yet, but will put them up at a later time.

Other than that, we've been trying to take advantage when the weather is nice, if only to get the boys to a park. Last week, Alexander came across this one right on Lake Lucille:



Christopher looking off towards the lake...


...to watch the ducks with their babies!




Last weekend, it wasn't raining so we decided to head down Knick Goose Bay Road (pronounced Kha-nik). KGB sort of parallels Cook Inlet and you end up across the water from Anchorage:


On the drive back, I spied this guy:


There were two of them, but I thought it was funny how the one in the picture moved behind the tree to "hide" from us!

So that's about it. Hope everyone has a good 4th of July weekend!

Thunderbird Falls

Here is a picture of the falls from the deck landing quite a distance away.




It was a fun trip...it’s about 2 miles stretch up some pretty good hills in the Chugach State Park. Thunder Bird Falls Trail reaches into a beautiful part of Anchorage’s backyard wilderness. The trail winds through tall birch and cottonwoods to a sturdy deck (the above photo was taken on) with a vantage over Thunder Bird Falls, and a side spur leads down to the banks of Thunder Bird Creek. Chugach State Park consists of only about 10 acres around the falls.




Here is a picture from one of the observation decks, it's a pretty good drop off-about 300 ft down


Needless to say, the boys had to "trow wrocks in the waaaater!" so here is a picture...we actually climbed all the way down (there was a rough trail) to get closer to the waterfalls.

Coming down the trail to the water below...

Getting Closer to the falls...and of course the boys all had to see it up close...

Here is a short video of Thunderbird Falls from the bottom.

On the way back we found a huge tree...with a big whole in it....

We had a fun day...but after climbing up the hill and the two miles back...needless we were all pretty tired. Went home and made supper, bathed our dirty little boys, and went to bed.

Weekend Fun

Saturday: Cleaned the apartment and got some laundry done. Packed up some snacks and headed up to Hatcher's Pass.

It is one of the most beautiful drives - Wasilla Creek and the Little Susitna river wend back and forth under the road. Everything is green, and some of the crab apple trees are blooming. Didn't see any flowers blooming yet though. We drove all the way to the top to Independence Mine.

We didn't have any cash on hand for the fee station, and the road up to the Summit Lake was still closed, so we came back down a ways and found a place for the boys to throw some rocks into the river.


After the boys got tired of that, we came farther down the hill and found a calmer spot on the river, and they....threw more rocks!

The water was pretty calm along our side of the river. This is across from where we were at:



Sorry for the abrupt ending! He didn't slow down and went right into the water after that rock he wanted!
Before they soaking wet, we got back in the car and headed back to town. We stopped by one of Alexander's client's house. "J" has a hobby farm - sheep, goats, chickens, horses, and a cow - all of which the boys got to feed, pet, or ride! Noah loved picking grass for the goats, but Christopher was more interested in Alice the cow! They didn't want to leave to go down the hill to see the horses, but as soon as we got there Noah asked "J" if he could ride!

Came home, had baths and supper. 7pm and Noah said "I'm tired. I wanna go to bed." Haha. Shortly after that Chris crashed on the couch, so it was early to bed for all of us.

Sunday: We went to bible study and church. The boys were pretty antsy - and at the very end of the service Noah was even more antsy; he freaked out when he spied a black ant climbing up his shorts! That had the people behind us struggling not to laugh!
After service, we grabbed some lunch and headed over to the park. Tried to get a kite to fly but the wind wasn't cooperating. We decided to go over to the lake park since the wind is always blowing over there. After another half hour or so of trying to get that thing up in the air, and some wading in the lake for the boys, we came home for naps. After the recharge, we decided to check out Lake Lucille park. We'd heard that it's pretty quiet, but as we had anticipated, was really crowded for the holiday.
Let the kids play on the playground, but pretty soon Noah decided he was hungry again, so headed home for supper. We watched Noah's new movie he got for his birthday, had more baths and then bed.


Monday: We slept in and just relaxed for the morning. Packed up a picnic lunch and headed over towards Palmer. Stopped at Kepler Bradley Lakes, and rented a row boat.

We had so much fun! Both the boys wanted to "help" daddy row the boat. Mommy tried to take pictures.

After our hour was up, we headed into Palmer to find a park to eat at. Couldn't find anything, so we thought we go back up Hatcher's Pass a ways, but instead found this spot at Wasilla Creek:



The water was so cold, but Christopher loved it! Noah was content to throw rocks from the shore, but we couldn't get Christopher to come out of the water until he got his shirt wet!

All in all it was a great weekend. And because of that, I want to say thank you to my uncles, cousins (and their husbands, too) for having served our country in various branches of the military, and to everyone I know currently serving! It's so easy to forget the reason behind this holiday, but I thank you for doing something that I know that I would have a hard time doing.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!