A hard day fishing, AND.......

We went fishing at Gwen lake on post. We caught nothing there, but a bunch of grass!! But Jacob went on the other side of the lake and said that he saw some big flappers. This is how big he said they were. All I know for sure, is that he can't stand people talking to him while he is fishing!!! He kept gesturing for us to be quiet!!!



Since we couldn't catch any fish at Gwen, we headed down to Clunie, which I think is pretty picturesque of Alaska. This is the picture of Nana trying out her luck. We could see these dang fish swimming in the water and nibbling our nightcrawlers(which the princess did NOT want to touch), but no real bites!!

So, Dad and the girls decided to take a walk. I could not resist this one!!! I love him holding both the girls hands taking a walk and talking. Notice Emily pointing out things to him.... They were looking for a good camp site. Not that the princess would ever sleep outside......

Now to the BURNING question, Who is the next American idol???? Why, none other that NANA!!!!!! This is Nana being silly with the McDonalds toy microphone. We had to sing our hearts out!!!!

Sorry for posting this many pics, but with Nana here and only one camera, we have to fight for pictures!!! And the reason, AMY, that I haven't posted, is because mom takes all the good ones while I am sleeping, I guess!!! LOL. I had to sneek this one on here!!! (She must still be on EST). We are going site seeing tomorrow, we should have some good ones!!! Hopefully enough to go around!!

4 Generations

I know that I haven't blogged in a while, please don't get upset. We have been tremendously BUSY. We come home at night and fall asleep. This was taken at Emily's recital, which by the way was so good!!! They are all so cute. Notice the makeup on her. She was lovin' it!!! She knew all of her moves, she did wonderfully!! She also has graduated from kindergarten and thinks that she needs to start first grade TOMORROW!!! Too funny. Jacobs last day was today also and he is ready to fish. So, now we are waiting on the weather to cooperate!! We are having such a good time visiting. Wish you all could be here with us... And by the way, I think we have taken about 150 pics already!! I have a pic of the next American Idol too....... just take a guess who that could be!!!

BOB-big orange ball

For those of us stuck up here in this arctic climate region of the world, when we want some of this...............................................
We have to go to a place like this!!!!!!

This is one of my most favorite places to go to!! Being up here all the time in the darkness and the cold temperatures, it really does your body good to go get some UV rays!! At least for about 10 minutes I get some much needed Vitamin D poured into my blood and skin. Up here, truly, alot of people have to come to these tanning salons for depression issues. I really took for granted all that the sun did for me. For 25 years, I had tons and tons of sun, and when I moved up here, I had none. It does wonders for my mood!!!! =) They also have "happy lights". You just sit under them for a specific time and it improved your mood. Crazy, huh??? What sealed the deal for me at this place is that everytime you go, they have a towel, your goggles and an ANDES MINT there waiting for me!!! HMMMMM, I think I will go again tomorrow!!!

P.S. bob is a military acronym!!! In case you were wondering if the tanning bed had gotten to me!!LOL.

Bears, Bears, Bears

My friends husband went bear hunting over this past weekend. This is what he came home with. A black bear!! I saw one of these bears the other day taking the kids to school and wanted so badly to take his picture, but of course I didn't have the camera with me. Who would've thought that I would have seen this going to school? Well, in Alaska, I guess any animal can be seen anywhere. I came straight home and went on a search for him(in my car of course.) Needless to say, I didn't find him. He was already gone. So, this is the closest that I have come to seeing and being able to take a picture of a bear this year. Now, this bear is off to the taxidermist to be made into a rug or wall hanging. Shane saw this, and is wanting to go now more than ever!!! They said that it will take about a year for this bear to be made into the rug. I thought it was pretty cool, and thought you guys should see what I live with in these parts of the world!!! Being from SC, I think I would rather have snakes and gators anyday!!!

Squirrels

I took this picture when we went to the zoo on Friday. Of all the animals that were at the zoo, I thought this little squirrel was the cutest and the most interesting. All the rest of the animals were being LAZY!!! This little squirrel reminds me of a little pest that I once had. I had a squirrel that lived in my yard when we first moved up here. He would go into the big dumpster right outside my fence and get trash and take into the tree in MY yard. I had all kinds of things in that tree. From empy things of toothpaste, to banana peels, to old paper towels, strewed onto every branch of our tree. Everyone that drove by kept looking into our yard and I couldn't figure out why. Then one day, Jacob was looking out his window and said there is a banana in our tree. I just blew it off, but he kept persisting. So, finally I looked out of the window at the tree, and saw all this MESS!!! And finally came to the conclusion that, this SQUIRRELS mess was what everyone was looking at. They probably thought that I just threw my trash up in the tree. He also stored pizza, paper towels, and all other treasures he could find in the trash, underneath the hood of Shane's truck. (He was in Afghanistan and I didn't drive it.) Boy, was he mad. I should have taken a picture of it, but didn't think about it at the time, as I was FURIOUS!!! Even Jacob said "It was those damn squirrels again!"

My mother's day treat!

Happy Mothers Day, ya'll!!! Today I was treated by my kiddos singing a Mother's Day song to us at church! After the song, they gave me a white rose that smelled so good! I had tears in my eyes, it was so beautiful! After that, I was treated to neon bowling with my good friend Eileen. We had such a good time! Pizza, bowling and ice cream, does it get any better than this? The first pic is of me and Eileen. Emily took this picture, maybe she should be teaching me how to use this new camera!! The second pic is of Emily making a crazy, funny face. This is truly Emily!! And the third is of Jacob and his bud Justin, Eileen's son. It was a good time had by all! My bowling was not up to par today, but who cares, it was mother's day! And, I enjoyed it with my whole family!!!

BUNS!

This coming weekend is Emily's ballet/tap recital. We had pictures this morning. I am so proud of myself, I have successfully created a bun of all buns. I was able to put up a bun at around 9:00am and I took it down tonight!!! I haven't ever been able to do this before. She looks so cute in her outfit. She has about 8 girls in her group. They are doing a routine to the song, Shine on your Shoes. It is soooo cute!! She practices all year for this one afternoon! We will take the summer off, and then we must choose between tap, ballet and jazz. I think it is a close race between jazz and ballet!! We shall wait and see!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLIE!!!!!

Missed another one!

I want you guys to know that I missed a shot yet again of the Alaskan wildlife. There were 2 moose in my neighbors yard eating away at the grass this morning. I couldn't believe it. I was taking the kids to school, so I couldn't be late again getting them to school!!! Anyway, I thought the next best thing to moose is Mackie!! She is definitely turning into part of the Alaskan wildlife! Isn't the second shot too cute of her and her daddy? Priceless! That is the reason God brought daddy home safely! Tomorrow I should have some good pics. We are going on a field trip!!!!!! TO the ZOO!! (no, not my house, a REAL Alaskan zoo!)

ALL DAY!!!!

I took these shots today when the fix-it guys came over to fix our linoleum in the bathroom. These were some of his tools. One guy estimated that it would only take him an hour to do this. 4 1/2 hours later, he left. Apparently, this turned out to be quite the project. They had to replace part of the wooden floor beneath the linoleum. Yeah, I guess they weren't real happy with me.

This is the finished product of the 4 1/2 hour job. You can't see it too well, but if you look real close on the brown wall, you will see that the guy tore my nicely painted bathroom wall off and all that is left is cardboard looking stuff. It is right next to the baseboard. I just wonder how long this is going to last. The baseboards weren't even glued all the way on. As my boss always told me when I worked at the day care center and needed things like construction paper, and crayons, "there's a war going on, ya know." That meant that we had no more money to spend. I guess that is what has happened in this case too. (As you can tell, I am not real thrilled in the job they did.) HOWEVER................

This was what my sky looked like as it was setting last night at about 10:30. I love the rays that are coming up from the sun. Look at the sun reflecting off the clouds. Pretty cool!!! This helps take my mind off of earlier today!! Thank heavens!

**As a side note: Yes, I did say that the sun was setting around 10:30 PM. Soon it won't get dark but only for a little while. And, that darkness is only a dusk around 3:30 AM. So, mom get ready for sunshine all day and night!!

The moose is loose

Today was a rainy, yucky day. I couldn't get much of a picture today! So, I thought that I would look deep into my stash. I found these that I hadn't shared with you before. I took these when we went on our trip down to Soldotna. This first ice cream cone shop is an ice cream/coffee shop. Remember in earlier blogs I posted some coffee shops and said that they are at every corner, they are literally in every corner of Alaska in all shapes and forms. I wonder how well this ice cream cone shop would go over in Beaufort county? Do ya think it would pass county codes?? I highly DOUBT it!!!!! The second photo is of a bakery that the kids dentist recommended. It's name is, you guessed it, THE MOOSE IS LOOSE! It is a fabulous, scrumptious, uuuummmmmmm place!!! In fact I think that I would drive another 2 hours just to go get some pastries!! If you are ever up this way, you definately have to go!!

A glimpse of Heaven

We took these pictures on our way out to Wasilla where Jacob wrestled on Friday. The first one looked so cool to me. It was taken early morning just as the sun was coming up. Sometimes when I look at these mountains with the sun shining above them, it makes me stop and wonder, is this what heaven will look like as you are walking up to the gates? This picture looks to me like you are walking out of the darkness to the bright light ahead!! It is just so awesome! The second picture is typical postcard Alaska, with the lake and the snowcapped mountains right behind it. The only thing that I wish is that these mountains reflected in the water. It usually does, but the wind was blowing kinda hard that day, which made the water too choppy for a reflection. Shane took this picture. (I had to give him credit.)

Monkeys in the tree

Today was a super nice day. Emily finally learned how to climb up in the tree in our backyard. She was so proud of herself! So I had to take her picture! They love this tree. The second shot is of Mackie outside. She loves to be outside. Her and Harley just roam the backyard. I am pretty happy the way these turned out!

STATE CHAMP!

Sorry girlies, this weekend has been so long for us!!! But, we are finally done!! The Ice Man WON STATE!!! So, his title is champion of the Bantam 70lb division of the whole state of Alaska!! We are so very proud!! His head is swelled to enormous proportions! I wish that you guys could have been there. I don't think that my body has ever twisted and turned as much as it did today. My lip is sore from biting it so hard. But, my little man still has the hugest heart! He told me that he kinda felt bad for the boys that didn't win. But, he said that they are probably going home right now and starting to train so they can try to defeat the ICE MAN next year! LOL

The first picture is of his bracket and who won with his state champ medal. The second picture is of all of his medals that we won this year. They are all 1st and 2nd place medals! I took some pics at the tourny of him and the guys he wrestled but they all came out blurry!! So, I had to recreate! Thanks for all the prayers!!! We are done!! Now, we have a title to defend next year!!

A Bargain

Last Friday, Mac and I went to a community yard sale with my friend! We spent the day walking up hill in every direction imaginable. I should have taken pictures of these hills, to you guys in the south, it was probably mountains. But, I looked and looked and this was my only find. But, I was actually really proud of it, seeings how this is what I went to find, and I only paid $20 bucks for it!! (The price tag said $30) YIPPEE!!! By the way that Mac goes up and down this slide, it is money well worth it. (Even the big kids play on it!) Look at how fast she was going. The grass was flying past her!! Maybe her new name should be Dash!! LOL.

Spring Concert

Tonight Jacob, the Ice Man, turned into Jacob, the choir boy! But only for a night. We had to give up going to wrestling practice tonight because he had his end of the year elementary spring concert at his school. This cross was so beautiful. This was their background. I love the blue lighting. Our church had this same color background for Easter and I wanted to get the kids to stand or sit in front of it, but they wouldn't cooperate. Anyway, back to tonight, we took lots of pictures of him, but they all turned out blurry. He and his class sang great and he was the most handsomist one out there in his shirt and "preacher tie." Schoolwork comes first, but it is back to wrestling tomorrow!!!!