Airports and Governors and Bears...

but not necessarily in that order.

WOW! It is just 2:30 here in Alaska this lovely Friday afternoon and yet a lot has happened already today.

The girls and I rolled out of bed reluctantly at 5am to take Greg to the Juneau International Airport for his hunting trip with his younger brother Steve. Greg flew into Anchorage where Steve picked him up and the two drove up to the Palmer area where they are hiking in to about 5000 ft elevation to hopefully fill Steve's Dall sheep tag. We have our fingers crossed that he'll get a big one and the hunt will be a blast for the guys. Here are the girls saying their goodbyes to Daddy. Smile, girls! When we got home, we sat in the driveway for a few minutes, thinking we might be able to hear Daddy's airplane take off, even though we could not see it through the fog. Instead, we saw this through the windshield:

Yep, ol' Yogi just moseyed through the yard, very close to the car where we were just staring at him.

Holy smokes! Thank God I was so exhausted from getting up so early (and also staying up late sewing a neck gaiter for Greg) that I made up a reason to just sit in the car for a few minutes, or we might have had a much closer encounter. So, those of you who scoffed at the teeth marks on our trash can lid (see older post) should be red-faced now.

And because it is such a pleasant surprise and an exciting time for Alaska, we're jumping on the Palin for VP bandwagon. Here is a picture of Gwen meeting Governor Sarah Palin last fall while we still lived in Valdez. Palin was pretty darn pregnant in this photo it turns out, but that still didn't make Gwen (Palin's very biggest fan in the world) want to smile or even look at the camera. I kid you not, when Palin was newly elected Governor in early 2006, Gwen would be running through the living room and come to a screeching halt in front of the TV, cock her head to one side and say, "Did somebody say 'Sarah Palin'?" It was so adorable considering Gwen had just turned two at the time. Also considering that neither Greg nor I voted for her.

Palin was so charming and personable at this event. She stayed and talked to every last person who waited in line, much to the dismay of her aides who were nearly beside themselves and jumping up and down, trying to get her to the airport. She gave Gwen a big hug before I snapped this picture. While we like her immensely and feel she would be a great President, let alone VP, we are sad to see her go so soon. We aren't quite ready for her to leave Alaska yet, but she would be a great leader for our country! Go Sarah! Please note: I am mum about McCain; I don't have an opinion on him yet. Heck, I just got interested in this presidential race this morning! :)

It's Just Another Rainy Tuesday (woah,woah)

It has been a chilly downpour in Juneau for what seems like months straight. Oh wait, it HAS BEEN months straight! This blurb is from our local radio news desk:

[2008 summer in Juneau tied for fourth coldest so far. Juneau's summer has been unseasonably cold overall. That description of Juneau's summer, if you want to call it that, is from Meteorologist Corey Van Pelt in the Juneau Forecast Office. He says between June through August 18th, its been 2 point 2 degrees below normal which ties 1974 as the fourth coldest summer on record. The coldest came in 1949 when the temperature was 3 point 6 degrees below average. This July was the third coldest on record since records have been kept at the airport since 1943. It was also the second wettest July on record.]

Gwen and Amelia have apparently not noticed this weather phenomenon.

And yes, that is about 4 inches of standing water lying against the foundation. Sometimes renting seems like a good choice after all.

Glory Be!

Well, we've finally done it, at long last.... we've been diligently searching since we moved here in April, and today we found it!
Nope, it's not a house, but good guess since we are looking for one of those too, just not as seriously yet.... here's a better picture that is kind of obvious...

Yes, that's right... it's our new church! Juneau Emmanuel Baptist

We have been to services twice so far and we feel right at home. In a bizarre twist (or just business as usual for God) Emmanuel Baptist's (Editor's note: OK if you see the abbreviation "EB", it does not mean Easter Bunny) former pastor and his wife, Earl and Shannon Midkiff, are fairly good friends with our old pastor and his wife, Glen and Nancy Little, from Valdez First Baptist Church. We are so happy to feel so at home here with these new friends.

Since we have bounced around Alaska so often, we have fallen in with the US Coast Guard crowd and have many dear friends of that ilk, so it's a no-brainer that we like our new Coastie pastor here in Juneau, Adam Gray. We will have pictures of all of our new EB "family" and activities soon. We hope to dive right in and help out wherever we are needed and where He directs us. Greg was thrilled to hear that "90% of this church hunts and 80% fishes."

For now, we are content to say "Praise God for His wondrous ways!"

BEAR ATTACK!

OK, it's been a while since I posted anything, primarily because we've had a fairly ho-hum week.

But that all changed when we got up this morning and we noticed something peculiar in the driveway.... we had a midnight visitor... a bear! Greg needed to thaw out some halibut bait for a charter today so he put a bunch of fish parts in the trash can overnight. Well, the bear found that smelly bonanza and did his darnedest to get inside at the loot! The trash can was knocked about rather harshly and we even discovered some teeth- and/or bite-marks!

Here's our bear-proof trash container.... if you look closely at the top,....

... you'll see three white divots in the green lid where the bruin tried to pry the lid open.And a bunch of scuff marks where he dragged the can around on the pavement for a bit before either getting scared off or recalling that lack of opposable thumbs and thus giving up.

In other news, my soccer team is officially out of the running for league champions. We played a couple of fantastic tournament games and didn't head down to the losers bracket immediately like we usually do. We have a year-end party scheduled for Aug 31, during Greg's sheep hunt with his brother Steve. Anyway, here's a few shots of the soccer action:

And last but certainly not least, we think we found a church!! We attended Emmanuel Baptist Church last Sunday and are excited about heading back tomorrow. We think this is the place God meant for us to find, but He wanted us to check out all our options so that when we walked in to Emmanuel Baptist, we would know right away that we were "home". We will include more details on this and other adventures (like the sheep hunt) soon. Stay tuned!

Derby and Other Winnings

OK, here are the long-awaited results of our contest for the identification of Lilly. We had one vote for "something furry but not a hamster 'cuz that kind of scary glowing eye in the picture is way too big to be a hamster" and one vote for "bunny". Thanks to all of our entries, or should that read "both" of our entries? Nobody wins, because Lilly is a.....

Guinea Pig!!As you can see, the girls love her.

Maybe a little too much.

That is not the case with Mommy. I do NOT love her too much, especially after scrubbing her cage out for TWO HOURS this afternoon in the beautiful, brilliant sunshine we had today, under blue-bonnet blue skies.... OK, maybe I like Lilly, a little bit.

In other news, I picked up my derby prize after winning a soccer game last night. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of soccer. In fact, right when I was making my strategically-placed, incredible penalty kick to help us win the game (first tournament game our team has ever won in over 10 years of competing in this league), Greg couldn't get to the camera. He was right in the middle of this (warning-graphic scenes to follow):

Yes, that is a naked baby in the wilds of Alaska. Some of my teammates remarked, "Wow, that is hardcore!" and I replied that this was really nothing. Once we changed Gwen on the tailgate of Greg's pickup in Glennallen at 40 below. They get used to it, and you just go as fast as you can. They're Alaskans! They're tough kids!

Ah, and on to the derby winnings.... my prize package consists of $200 cash plus $100 in special prize cash, a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant that we like, a free haircut at a local barbershop, a $100 gift certificate at a local art gallery so I can get something frivolous and fabulous, and (the best part) a free one hour massage. I sure hope Greg enjoys his haircut.

LILLY

Well, Lilly is here! She has been quite elusive and we are having a heckuva time getting some pictures of her. This is what we have so far...

Isn't she adorable? She's black with just a few streaks of reddish brown along her back. Actually, it's hard to say presicely what color she is since we haven't seen too much of her. Hopefully she gets over her skittishness soon and embraces her new family; Gwen is about to burst from wanting to cuddle and hold her...

So since Lilly won't play with us, we found some old friends to hang with yesterday....it's Emma, Ethan, Elise and Ray! They have arrived safely from Valdez so we went over to see them and their lovely new house. Here are some cutie-patooties if I've ever seen 'em...

Left to right, we have Amelia, Ethan, Emma, and Gwen. Just like stair-steps. Emma is the oldest - she is just newly five and will be starting kinderkarten here in Juneau this fall. Gwen is four and still doing preschool. Ethan is almost exactly two years younger than Gwen; he's two and all boy, even in the midst of all these girls. Amelia is the baby at just over 16 months old. They all play pretty darn well together, leaving a fair amount of chit-chat time for Elise and I.

Alright, let's go back to Lilly. The first of our loyal readers to GUESS what type of pet Lilly is will WIN an ALL-EXPENSES PAID trip to wherever they want to go! And pay for! Good luck, contestants!!

Oooh, what a lovely segue into tomorrow's post.... contests..... hmmm.

Today, in a complete departure from my usual posts, I will show you what the girls and I did today (besides, for me, laundry, dishes, bathroom scrub, and boat cleaning out). It has been pouring down rain here in Juneau for several days straight. Over the weekend, we fished a lot of the derby in a downpour and it is still raining hard so far this week. This morning, there was a beautiful, sparkly-blue "sucker hole" in the clouds, but now after lunch, it is still gray, cloudy, windy, and rainy. Thus, this:

They are obviously riveted to something - so excited! Totally enjoying themselves, right? Mom must've really dreamed up something amazing, huh? What is it, you ask? It's this...

TV! It's Raffi! We moved in to this rental on April 17th (ish) and this is the first day we've plugged in the TV or VCR. Yes, we are sooo antiquated; we do still have a VCR and we use it a lot. Anyhoodle, the girls were completely mesmerized by a "Raffi in Concert" video from 1988. Over 50 minutes of quiet and time to get some laundry folded without "help" from Amelia. What a day so far!

And I say "so far" because we are expecting one more surprise today for the girls. Her name is "Lilly" and I am picking her up after Greg gets home from work tonight. How's that for a hook? See you tomorrow, with pictures of Lilly.

Herbert Glacier Hike

Just last weekend on August 2nd, we hiked in to see Herbert Glacier. It was a fairly easy hike on a wide, stroller-friendly path. Well, most of the way; we did have to ford a few streams.

We had no idea how far it was to the glacier, so we were totally ignorant which ended up to be complete bliss just like the expression says. Turns out we hiked 4.6 miles. EACH WAY. Gwen, who may I remind some of our readers is only four years old, hiked the entire way out and half the way back. She was incredible and we were so impressed (and surprised!) by her endurance. Of course there was about 1.5 miles of the obligatory whining, but it seemed to be minimal and we all had a great time!

We are hoping to hike every trail in Juneau over the next few summers. Here are some scenery shots along the way. Most of the trail looked like this.

Some pranksters created a natural art piece for us to enjoy. It was too cute not to snap a picture. Like a life-sized Chia Pet.
Gwen and Amelia both thought the moss hanging from the trees was so neat. This tree made a charming silhouette against the sky.

The rest of the scenery was typical for the Tongass National rainforest.

And of course, the money shot. Can anyone say "Christmas Card"?

No, I would not jump off a bridge if all my friends were doing it....

...but apparently I will start a blog. I admit it; I have blog envy. Seriously, I have enjoyed my friends' and family members' blogs SO much, that I hope you will enjoy ours even half as much; it would be worth it.


OK, as a likely presumptuous and conceited addendum to WHY I am now a blogger... we just flat out do some really cool stuff! In fact, this is what we did this weekend.
We left Friday morning at about 7am and we went fishing. And camping. In the boat. With a four-year-old and a 16-month-old, the youngest of whom is still in diapers. We fished for about 12 hours each day, probably more. The girls did so great! Gwen can reel up a silver salmon (as showcased above) almost all by herself now; Greg is so proud. Today, as the girls were napping, Greg and I talked about how much fun it is to be out there, just the four of us with no cell phones, no iPods, no electronic devices at all (except of course for the USCG-approved and mandated VHF and our nifty GPS/chartplotter/fish finder combo deal) in this day and age when most kids need at least some sort of hand-held video game and maybe even a portable DVD player to avoid being BORED all dang day long and a royal pain in the rear end. (Wow, did I say that out loud?) Not our girls. I kid you not, they played with these items for almost two hours:

1. empty cardboard tube from paper towel roll
2. empty cardboard tube from toilet paper roll
3. three hootchies
4. five rocks

First the hootchies got married, then they all loaded up in the cardboard tube to go to a doctor's appointment, then they took turns sitting on the various rocks and riding in each of the girls' hoods, which should have been snug upon their little rainy heads. These girls have such an amazing life and they don't even know it yet!

Earlier, I mentioned diapers, and I'm gonna have to revist that topic. Have you ever changed a soiled (not merely wet) diaper while baby is perched on a cold, slimy cooler on the deck of an open skiff at 22 knots? Bracing! Exhilarating! Nerve-wracking, knowing that at any moment you could feel the warm slap of an air-born poopy Pampers smacking your cheek. It's a skill set I never dreamed I'd employ. I must be getting used to this crazy life though, because all I could think of while I was making funny faces at Amelia and wiping things clean was, "Well, at least it's not raining!"

On another high note, I weighed in a 20.7 lb King salmon, and took the number 25 spot (top 100 get prizes or cash) in the 62nd Annual Golden North Salmon Derby. We didn't get any pictures of the fish, and I have no idea where we caught it, but it was a good fighter and a really pretty fish. We'll find out at the awards presentation on Wednesday evening what prize I get. Check back here to see what we won.

OK, I am still rockin' and rollin' from being on that blasted boat so long, so I'm hitting the hay.

You will enjoy your visits to this ALASKA blog, I gare-un-teee! So, bookmark us and come on back whenever you like; we'll be here!