Lake fun

For all of you wondering if it's possible to swim in Alaskan waters, the answer is yes...with a wet suit. Last weekend, we just had to get out on the lake before fall hits. We decided to make Saturday the day, no matter what. Luckily the weather cooperated, and even though it wasn't sunny, the air was still pleasant. The Brewsters, Hansens and a few lake neighborhood kids came along. With wet suits donned, my brave family had a blast innertubing, riding wave runners, swimming, and playing in the sand. Yes, we had our excavator build us a sandy beach with all of the extra sand he dug out of our lot. It is almost like Hawaii, well not really, but we can pretend. It was a great day at the lake, and now we have even more incentive to build our house faster so we can have more days like this sooner.

Here is our best sand castle builder, Miss Chloee.

Aaron is suited up and ready to make some waves. He is still not able to hear 100% because of the water he got in his ears after one too many wipe outs.

Dave, taking Aaron for a drag. Sorry the pic looks weird, our camera is on its way out.

Haylee and her friend, Bristol are holding on for dear life. Bristol and her 3 siblings live about 4 lots down the beach, so we are really excited our kids will have such great friends to play with in our new house.

First day of school

Another "first day of school" under our belts. This year we have an eigth grader, a fifth grader, and a first grader!! How time flies. Only two at home with me this year, although Chloee really wants to be at school like the big kids. Instead, she has to settle with "playing school" with mom and Jolee. She has her own school notebook where she is already pracitcing her letters, writes her name, and is now sounding out three letter words.
With two days down, so far so good. Jaron has not pulled any cards yet, which is always a good thing. They were all so excited to see thier friends and the new playground equipment that was installed over the summer. Haylee has already started cross country running practice. The homework is already coming home to. It's nice to be back to a routine schedule, but I could do without making lunches and driving carpool everyday!! At least we have one more year until 6:00 a.m. seminary!! Good luck to all you parents this year.

I swear, I'll never get Jaron to smile right for pictures, but hey...that's him.

Chop, chop honey

After ho-humming for several weeks now, Haylee finally decided to go for it and chop her mid-back length hair off. Just in time for the first day of school, Haylee went with the ever popular short, A-line cut with some high and low lights. She looks so cute. Take a look:

Holy cow, that's a lot of hair, Haylee!! The price we pay to be beautiful!!


Getting the finishing touches, and voila...she's gorgeous!!

Gettin' dirty

Last weekend I drug Haylee with me to run "The Mud Run", a 5k in Nikiski. The twist is that this route is all dirt trails along the highway and included mini obstacles like army netting, tire jumps, bails of hay, and a finish of a long, gravelly tube to crawl through, ending in a big splat mudbath at the end. I have completed lots of runs over the years, but this was definately one of the more memorable. Haylee really didn't want to go, but the money was already spent so we headed out the door. She did great even though she has troubles with her ankles and knees. The best was waiting at the end for her and jumping in with friends, Becky and Angela. Of course we had to have a mud fight in the pit, but we still didn't win the prize for the dirtiest runners. Maybe next year. Thanks agian Haylee for putting up with your old mom! And thanks to Erik for taking all the great pics.

Here we are before the run...nice and clean.

Here I am waiting for Becky and Haylee to emerge from the tunnel. Observe the lovely dismount from the dirt mound into the mud pit. (Haylee and Becky both attempted summersaults)

Let the mayhem insue...it started with a huge take down by Becky.

Here I am coming to my daughter's rescue as Becky is caking on the mud. Angela was the only smart one to stay out of that crazy mess! Of course, Becky made sure she got a little mud on her face.

We only got this dirty because we knew we could shower at the gym that was sponsoring the run. We had such a great time that we are planning on it next year. Anyone wanna join in??

This past weekened, Aaron and I decided to brave Anchorage to tour the annual Parade of new Homes. We have never done this before, but we figured if there were ever a year to do it, this was it. We really enjoyed the alone, grown-up time as we tried to get ideas for our new house.

Here are some pics of stuff we liked.

This is a picture of a house that most closely resembles what I think our's will eventually be as far as exterior layout goes. The garages are off to the left side and ours will be layed out differently, but as far as front entrance and roof lines, it is very similar. This made me really excited because I have been a little nervous with trying to envision the final product from looking at a few drawings.

This is a house that is in Eagle River and I actually took the picture for siding ideas. I love the stone colors and our shingles are about the same as on this house. We are going with white vinyl windows, and I liked the way these colors worked together.

This front entry is very similar to ours, except the column on the left on our house will be connected to the house, leaving the column on the right open like this one. I also like the stone and siding colors on this house.

Here Aaron and I are with some random tour goers in a master bathroom. I really like the way this vanity used the corner of the room. I like all the mirrors too. Aaron has already told me that there will be a dividing line right down the middle of the angle.

This is one of my favorite features!! I love love love this mudroom bench/locker setup. I want this to help me organize all my kids' junk.

This kitchen ceiling was in a way over priced condo, but very cool with the lighting and dry-wall accents. That's Aaron looking at the quality of the cabinets. The next pic is a better shot of the kitchen light...too modern?

Aaron is striking a lovely pose on the exposed agrigate sidewalk similar to what we want to do.

Check out this awesome cherry built in!

I thought this built in bench/plant holder was a great entry way idea.

We took lots more pictures, but I won't bore you any longer. Here is my blog poll:

White (or some shade thereof) trim and doors, or stained wood??? I have had both in houses and like both. What is a girl to do? Vote now.

Back-logged blogger

Yes, it has been a while since the last post, but I have been really busy entertaining visiting relatives, stocking my food storage with the bounties of Alaskan waters, all while trying to maintain some semblance of a clean house, weed free yard, and somewhat cared for children. This post is going to consist of shortly narrated pictures from our latest adventures. So here is an update on our new home construction:

These two pics are of the beginnings of part of the foundation and the foundation blocks waiting to be installed. That's me standing in what will eventually be our front entry.

These pics are about a week later with some of the wall blocks installed. The boys are standing in what is going to be the basement of the house. The other pic shows how the basement will open up to the backyard and down to the lake.

This was taken today and it is of our well being drilled. Yeah, we will have water to drink! Still don't know how far this guy has to dig for water, but it shouldn't be too far. Most of the neighbors hit water around 50 feet or so.

Next, we move on to cousin Kimmie and Uncle Matt visiting from Utah. We had so much fun with them, eventhough Kim is a true Utah girl. We had a hard time keeping Kim warm and dry, but she was a trooper and even went out fishing in the rain and caught not only the biggest halibut on the boat, but the most! Way to go Kim.

We took the kids (4 hikers and 2 stroller riders) up to the Russian River Falls to watch all the spawning salmon try and jump the falls. It was a great bear-free hike and the kids made the 41/2 mile round trip like pros.

Then it was off to Homer for the day. We actually got some sunshine which made the trip a great one. We went to the Oceans and Islands visitors center where we tide-pooled and found lots of cool stuff. The best was a dead jellyfish and a eel fish that Haylee found for us. We walked down by all the boats in the harbor and saw lots of halibut being hauled in. Bobbi and I had to laugh at our city slicker cousin when she thought the smell of fish was going to make her throwup. We actually like the smell of freshly caught fish. Little did Kim know that the next day she would go out halibut fishing with Aaron and catch a few halibut of her own.

Once my Uncle Matt arrived, it was off on a hike (one of his favorite things to do in Utah). We started out on the Fuller Lakes trail. I have never done this hike before, but have always wanted to try it. Sidenote: this hike is located in prime bear country of Cooper Landing and the previous day a woman was mauled by a brown bear at the Princess Lodge which is also in Cooper Landing. We got about a 1/4 mile up the trail when we stumbled on some very fresh bear scat right in the middle of the trail. Needless to say we turned around and decided to go on a more heavily traveled trail up to the Russian River Falls. Matt had never done this trail before so we decided to take this safer route. It's just as well because the Fuller Lakes trail is listed as "strenuous" and I was with 2 almost 60 year old men. I know you would have made it just fine guys!

After a few days recovering around my house, we said goodbye to Kimmie, and then headed off to Valdez. We love Valdez because it is so beautiful, has great fishing when the silvers are in, and we can walk to just about everything the town has to offer. Aaron couldn't take 2 more days off work so the plan was for me to drive the motorhome with the kids on the 9 hours (from our house) where he would meet me after making the trip by plane. We made the trip relatively unscathed. Heck, after driving to Utah last year, the kids are champs when it comes to making long hauls in the motorhome. It turns out that Aaron had to make the trip by car too when his flight was cancelled due to zero visiblilty in Valdez. Thanks Lynn for letting him use the Caddy! He loved the "Beaches" soundtrack, especially after the 34th time through!

Here are some pics from our Valdez adventure:

We stopped at a glacier at the hightest point of the trip, just before the downhill run into Valdez. The baby girls loved looking at the glacier through the guardrail. Mostly they just liked being big girls, standing on thier own.

Mom, me and the kids at Bridal Veil Falls. It is gorgeous!

Now on to the most important part of the trip...Fishing!! The first trip out on the boat consisted of Uncle Matt, Papa, Auntie Bobbi, me, and my boys. We knew the silver fishing would be slow as it is still a little early for them. But, after about an hour, Brady hooked into a monster!! We were so proud as we watched him fight that fish. He did a great job, and Aaron netted it after it wore Brady's arm right out.

We got three bags of fillets out of that one big silver. Way to go Brady!! All our poor Jaron got was a baby ling cod, and he didn't think that counted as a "good fish" so we took the kids to a perfect pink salmon hole to get Jaron a "real fish".

Here he is with his first one. He was thrilled. The water is teaming with pinks at this point, so we just let the kids fish to thier heart's content.

Even Grandma got in on the action.

Chloee even got one "all by herself". She then went on to doing what she does best; finding lots of shells.

I had to get one of my own too. Thanks to Aaron for getting all those fish off our lines. He was running ragged up and down that beach. Here is a pic of Jolee being Abbi's pillow in the stroller. Doesn't she look thrilled? Eventually, we let her out where she played in the wet rocks. She had a ball throwing sand in her hair. She even got some in her diaper. How does that happen?

Last, but not least...here is a pic of Jolee pushing Chloee on the Ferry ride home. We decided to take the state "fast" ferry to Whitter to shave off about 3 hours driving time. What a great way to travel! The water was beautiful, and the best part was I wasn't driving!! Congrats, we made it home and you made it through this post!!