We be clammin'

This past weekend was another fun-filled trip at Deep Creek. We had quite the crew with both sets of grandparents, Brian and Lynn's family, my sister and Abbi, and the Hansen family. We even ran into some old high school friends camping close to us, so we, our kids and dogs played all weekend. We had a great time riding the four wheelers and hanging out around the fire, even though we didn't eat any smores (Aaron and I are on a serious diet right now). Of course Aaron took the guys out on Saturday for some halibut fishing. The low tide was great for clamming digging, so we (I should say Miles and Bex) decided it would be fun to take the kids clam digging.

I grew up clam digging with my family. I still have many wonderful memories clamming with my dad and sister. Our job was to spot the clam divots in the sand and point them out for my dad to come dig up. That poor man would run from hole to hole as we would shout "I found another one, Dad!!" at the top of our lungs. Aaron has never really had the desire to take our kids out clamming. Let's face it...it is a lot of dirty work for something that you have to clean and that no one really wants to eat.

Anyway, we had a blast!! All the kids were trying to spot clam holes, while Bobbi and I found most of them. Miles was the chief digger, and did a great job even though he was a little rusty at first. Becky, being the true outdoors woman that she is :) decided she needed to get a clam of her own. I almost wet my pants watching her freak out after she shoved her arm down the hole and felt the clam's neck. After she lost that clam, she tried again, and eventually got one. Props to her, because I only use a clam gun to do my digging. The funniest part of it all was the total Rednecks out clamming with us. It was only 11:30 in the morning, but they had their beers in hand. One lady that was showing the kids how to get the clam out of the hole told Sydney to hold her beer for her! She did say not to drink it, but it was quite hilarious. The guy she was with had a radio hanging off his belt playing some sort of old 80's rock music. So funny, but they gave us a lot of great pointers.

The kids had a blast getting dirty, finding all sorts of creatures including hermit crabs, sand worms, dead crabs, and of course, clams. We ended with around 10 clams which I cleaned a few of and even cooked one up for Brady. He loved it, (mostly because it was fried in butter and covered in ketchup) so I guess we need to go again! Sorry, Aaron.The kids helping Miles play tug of war with a razor clam. He said it actually helped!

Chloee and I with our haul. Chloee was a great divot spotter.

Bex with her well earned catch...not that she will eat it.

All the kids showing off the day's haul.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day everyone!! We had a great weekend with all the family in Eagle River. Originally, we planned for everyone to come down and go camping at Deep Creek, but Aaron's grandparents from California, who are in the eighties and nineties, would of had a tough time negotiating the rocky campground. We decided to go to Anchorage instead and it all worked out for the best because it rained almost the entire weekend, and rain is much more tolerable in a warm house rather than in a wet motorhome. The kids were so excited to see their cousins, especially Addie, Sydney, and Mac, who live in Germany for half of the year.

We had a great time hanging out with Great Grandma and Grandpa on Friday. The kids played Sorry, Jaron's version of Backgammon, count the coins, read stories to Grandma Jean, and all of the things that I don't have a lot of time to do with them. Saturday was full of food and fun at Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Ron's house. They put on quite the spread of grilled chicken, steak, deviled eggs, Grandma Pauline's rolls, and yummy rhubarb cake. We were hoping the kids could play in Uncle Rizz's new water skim board slide, but it was too cold and rainy. After opening all the Father's Day cards and gifts, we had a blast taking family photos (yeah, right) and watched the kids ride bikes on Grandpa's basketball court/hockey rink. If that wasn't fun enough, all the Swanson kids went to see Kung Phu Panda (mine for the second time) where they gorged again on popcorn, soda and candy. They all did really well in the movie, even Mac, and we loved listening to Addie's big belly roll laughter at all the funny parts in the movie. She was just as funny as the movie. We couldn't tear the kids away from each other, so Addie and Syd spent the night at Grandma Lynn's house with our kids. They all slept in till around 8:00 am, which is pretty good considering they were all so hopped up on sugar from the night before. After assembly-lining them through breakfast and baths, I did the girls' hair to be "twinners" and we said our goodbyes.

We will miss Great Grandma and Grandpa and hope they will be healthy enough to get here next summer. As for the rest of them, it's camping next weekend at Deep Creek...we hope.


As for the Father's day stuff, I just want to say how lucky I was to be given such a wonderful Dad. He taught me so much growing up, from homework, to gutting fish, he was and is always there to support me in whatever I do. Some of my fondest memories are sitting around the breakfast table before school, eating the pancakes he had made Bobbi and I while he tried to put pigtails in our hair. What an awesome man I have for a dad!!

Then there is my sweet husband. I literally could not have chosen a better man to have children with. He is the MOST PATIENT, LOVING, AND FUN dad I know. He always makes time to play with and show love to our children, even when it's hard to. He is their hero, and mine too. I love you always, Aaron!!

Enjoy the pics from the weekend, and Happy Father's Day!!


My sweet hubby with his kiddos...and mug we made him.

All but 2 of the Swanson great grandchildren.The Swanson clan.The Souter side of the family. Gotta love Jaron's happy face here. He was obviously done with pictures at this point.

The Swanson girls...Gotta love the bows in their hair...I only wish Haylee would still let me put some in her hair! :)

June already??

So, it's been a while since the last post. We have been busy out enjoying the quick Alaskan summer, which leaves little time to do the necessary things like clean the house, weed the garden, and post on your blog. Many exciting events have happened in our family, all of which I hope to get pictures of and post later, but I wanted to start documenting the process of building our new house on Whisper lake. So far, we have met with our builder and have viewed the first set of plans. They look good, but our issue is trying to take the house we need and making it fit on our long and narrow, one acre lot. We made a few changes to the first set of plans and Jeff (our builder) hopefully will get us the next set in a few days.

Part of the process of building our home is to liquidate most of our assets, more specifically our rental properties. We just sold one of our four-plexes a few weeks ago, so all we have left to sell are 2 more four-plexes, a house in Eagle River, and the home we are in now. This is all a little scary, but I am sure it will be worth it in the end. Aaron and I both are getting tired of being landlords after doing it for the last 5 years, so we will be happy when the rentals are sold. Aaron is also selling his river boat that we hardly ever use (he would rather be in a drift boat, but I want to keep the river boat for dip netting). Aaron is also selling his play car, the BMW convertible (it is worth a well and septic) so if anyone is interested, you know who to call. :)

Besides the money issues, the first phase of getting our house built is the lot prep. The guy we bought the lot from was kind enough to cut down every single tree on the lot (I haven't decided if that is a good thing yet) and he left the trees in a neat pile. We are in the process of cutting that huge pile into logs, hauling the logs down the lot via 4 wheeler, and stacking the logs in a pile where they will eventually need to be split into firewood. We have invested about 2 Saturdays so far and we are about half way through the pile. Thanks to the Hansens, we have been able to get a lot more done, and if anyone wants a good work out by hauling wood, you know who to call. :) (again, boy I sound like a salesperson in this post). This project is proving to be a daunting family project where we hope we can teach our kids the value of hard work, sacrifice, diligence, and long suffering. Mostly Aaron and I just hope to get through this with our sanity still in tact after hearing "Are we done yet", "I'm... (tired, hot, thirsty, you fill in the blanks)", "So and so is picking on me", and "can I quit now" about a million and one times.

Here are some pics of the first weekend Aaron tried tackling the wood pile.

On a side note, Brady and I ran our first run of the summer yesterday at the Kenai River Festival. I did this 5K last year when Jolee was 7 weeks old, and this year my Brady ran it with me, or should I say, ran ahead of me and totally kicked my butt. He started about 10 feet in front of me and about a 1/4 mile in I yelled to him, "Brady, pace yourself", and that was the last I saw of him. I figured he could follow the crowd and I would either find him passed out along the course, or see him at the finish line. He did me proud, finishing first in his age group with a time of 29:06. I told him he might think about switching from hockey to x-country running, it sure is cheaper. He did great and we both had a blast even though we are walking pretty sore today.