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!!

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.