A Ride to Homer

Saturday morning I was up bright and early at 6am because of the sleepover, and waited for the parents to pick up their kids (there were 6 adults that were chaperones) and then at 9am I rushed home, picked up my bike gear, and headed to town.  I stopped at our famous "Kaladi" coffee shop and picked up my friends gear and raced out to meet them becuase they had gotten a 45 minute head start.

That day 5 of my friends road their bikes 80 miles to Homer, and I would stop every ten miles for them to pick up stuff or drop it off!  I was going to ride a little bit of it as well, but fear and the cold stopped me from attempting it.  Now that I have driven the course in a bikers perspective I know which sections will be hard and which parts will be ok and next time I will ride, maybe not the whole thing, but more than half of it!

When they were finished and had reached homer we had the most amazing lunch at a little place I had not been to or heard of called Mauries.  The best sandwhiches and soup ever, and I bet that their salads were really good too.  When I got home I was exhausted, I think because of the night before, and so I was in bed by 9:30 and I slept pretty soundly until 9am the next morning!

Homer

Homer

The 5 that road to Homer :)

Silver Salmon Swim Team Sleepover!

 On Friday evening about 25 kids arrived here at camp to have their swim-a-thon sleepover.  They had all worked hard to raise money for the team, and swam even harder, and now were being rewarded with a sleepover.  We had a wonderful time playing games and getting to know each other better.  Emma had a good time as well, although she is the only girl in her age group and that makes it a little difficult to make friends.  We were all asleep by about 12:30am, but then the younger kids of the group were up at about 6am so we did not get a lot of sleep.  We are looking forward to doing it again next year!

Emma's coach, Lucas, after loosing a bet...had to have his hair died pink!

Free as a bird!

We are in the process of potty training Mason, and right now he does not like to wear anything, which in a house of girls is not really ok, but it does help trigger the brain when they have nothing on, that they are doing something and it is not being collected in undies or a diaper. So for potty training purposes it is nice.  Today the girls were outside, and Emma opened the door to talk to me and out jetted Mason.  He still had his pj top on, but that was all.  He took off running down our driveway, and I am calling for him to come back and he just turns and looks a me waves goodbye and took off running again!!!  I had to go in and get my shoes and coat on (it was a little chilly!) and then chase after him.  He was loving the feeling of running a naturel, and was not stoping for anything.  I finally caught him just down the road a little ways, and he tried his best to wiggle out of my grip, but then when we entered the house I plopped him down and we had a little discussion about running away from mommy!!!  I don't think it sunk in being that he is still not even a year and a half old yet!  I think he will be in diapers for the rest of the day though :)

Six for Tea

Today Emma and Madison wanted to invite their friends for tea.  They helped me clean and picked out what to have for food, and helped make the tea!  All the girls had a wonderful time, and as you can see they loved the cupcakes that we had :).  Now they are playing well together and it has just been a "lovely" afternoon!

I must say as these six girls grow up that it will be more and more fun to listen in on their tea conversation.  They are lucky to be so close to each other.

Snow

It is April now and we are wishing for spring showers to bring May flowers, but instead we are getting snow. I really don't mind the snow as much as the thawing of all the snow that makes the mud that lasts for months. Even the mud itself is not that bad if it stayed put, but it keeps creeping in my house by the little feet and bodies that bring them in!!! In the last week I have to give my little boy a bath at least three times a day becuase of how fast he wallows in the mud! So even though I am Alaskan and should expect this weather in April (as it is our spring showers :)) I am really ready for sun and May flowers!

Ultimate Blog Party 2010

This is my second year as a UBP attender, and I love participating just to get to know new people, and see their blogs!
A little about me!! I am 29 years old and I have been serving as a missionary in Alaska at a Bible Camp. I found the man I would marry at the camp and we were married a little over a year after I first arrived!! Now after 10 years we have 4 beautiful children (3 girls and a boy) ages 1-7, and we homeschool the two oldest. (This has proven to be quite challenging, but we are persevering!) I love living in Alaska and really love the ministry that we are involved with. I created our blog to share with friends and family our daily lives and the happenings of our ministry. Thank you so much for stopping by. Please feel free to look around!! Happy reading :)

Eye Appat.

On Wednesday, April 7th, the whole family loaded up in the car and headed to Anchorage for an eye appointment for Chad. We went to a few stores and ate lunch before making our way to his appointment. It usually is about an hour long and I like to take the kids for a walk during that time, since there is a great path to walk on just a few blocks away. We dropped Chad off and headed down the road. They just happened to be moving cars around on the railroad tracks next to the trail and the kids were enthrauled with that! The engine was right next to us at one point and the conductor blew the horn and the bell for them. I knew it was coming, but Mason did not of course and it scared him so bad he fell over!! Poor little guy.....he was not fond of the horn, but the rest of the kids thought it was cool! Mason was getting a little cold so we headed back to the car and seeing as it was only like 20-40 min. before Chad usually gets done, I sat in the car with the kiddos instead of traveling anywhere around town. Allas it was an hour and 15 minutes later before Chad made it outside to us again, because they took pictures of his eye to see how it was doing, and they pulled 17 of 28 stitches out. Needless to say that has still caused great amounts of pain. :( We had dinner at our favorite spot (the Moose's Tooth) before heading home.

Heidi Turns 3

Heidi had a wonderful 3rd birthday! She had her friends over and then two of them spent the night. The bigger girls were a little mad and jealous because their friends were not allowed to spend the night too :) They had so much fun though and all slept very well! I can not believe that three years has gone by so fast! Here are a few pictures of her growing up! Thank you Heidi for all your hugs, smiles and kisses.....We all love you so much.

Heidi at 6 months old

Danny, Heidi, and Tomi hanging out on the swings last summer!

Her Caterpillar I made (stole the idea from a friend!) for her cake.

Here are all the kids that hang out at the house! We are only missing two in the picture, but the rest were having fun eating cake!!! :)

Gold Nugget Triathlon

This is my favorite race to do, not that I have done a ton of them, but it is very low key and just a fun day all around! The hardest part is getting into the race. Every year on the 1st of April the racers wait for the time (most years it is at 12:01 am on the 1st, but this year they changed it to 8pm on the 1st) of the opening of registration and then type as fast as they can to enter. Last year 1400 people entered the race in less than 8 hours....today it filled up in less than 2 and they have allowed 1500 to sign up this year! At 8:45pm I was sitting on my couch when I saw the writing on my hand ( I put that there to remind me to register at 8!) .....I looked at Chad and jumped off the couch exclaiming that I would be too late! I ran to my computer and of course it was loading slower than usual. I sat frantic as I waited for the page to load. I clicked on Entry at the top of the Page and then I clicked on the button "enter the gold nugget" and nothing happened. I clicked and clicked and nothing was happening. At the bottom left of the Page I got the error on page sign and now I was really anxious! I jumped up and turned on our laptop hoping that that would work better, but it was loading even slower and read the same. As I was calling a friend to see if she got in, I realized that the registration spot was at the bottom of the home page!!! AHHH, was all I could say :) I got in with only 278 spots left. When I had started there were 698 spots. In a 15 minute span 400 spots slipped away!! That is how crazy this race is. The neat thing about the race is that it is only for women. You can do it at your own pace and nobody knows if you are last or first. We each have a chip band and that is how they keep track of every one's times and the race starts at 8am for the elite racers and finishes at around 3pm for the rest of us! You can race with your daughters or a team or with friends or by yourself! You can have a great time and meet lots of new people while you are on your little journey. The swim is 10 laps/500yards, bike 13 miles, and run 3.1 miles and a feeling of accomplishment when you are finished, but maybe that comes from any race! All I know is that I love it and I am glad that I got in :)....Now time to step up the training!