I feel like an imposter.

I feel like a sham. A cheat. A liar. A fake.

I have stage 4 breast cancer, and yet I am not a victim.

I am not suffering. I am not sick. I am not dying. I am not battling.

I am not being brave or fighting a good fight.

I play soccer twice a week.

I am training for a sprint distance triathlon.

I hike. I shop. I run. I giggle.

I homeschool my kids.

I praise! I laugh. I love.

I live!



A-Shrimpin' We Will Go

Hello - just a picture post today as we are busy, busy, busy up here. Two weekends ago we went shrimping. Only got sixteen shrimp (and a homeschool lesson.... how many do we each get if there are four of us?), but I also got some great pictures. It was truly a gorgeous day. We set the pots, then went to a beach and had some lunch and run-time for the pooch, then pulled pots and went home. Fun, amazing day and our first boat outing of the season. Hopefully we will have many, many more.

Since you couldn't join us, enjoy these snaps of our day.



Sunny day at last!



This is our hot dog, Keta.

We've reached the super secret shrimping grounds
and the water is like glass - amazing!

Ready for some yummy shrimp, Dad! Would you look at that sky?!

Hooray for shrimp!



Okay, this is the part where Daddy does all the work.

Pots are set; let's go have a picnic on the beach!

Woo hoo! Lunch! Land!



Oh, does that mean I can finally go potty?

Hey, what's that?

Steller sea lions on a buoy. They are always there. In thirteen years of living in Juneau we've never gone by this marker without seeing these snoozing sealions. Well, maybe not these exact ones, but it's pretty much a guaranteed Kodak moment for all our visitors.

We've landed at what we call "Cherry Tree Beach". Several years ago we landed here with my mom in tow and had a big bunch of Yakima Valley Rainier cherries. We spit out so many seeds that we decided to name our special spot. We didn't locate any cherry trees yet.

Lots of running room at the beach. Lots of fun things to find. Gwen found two pieces of Japanese tsunami debris in fact. Kind of neat to see that strange writing on beach trash in little ol' Juneau Alaska.

 

Greg made a wonderful fire to warm us after a chilly breeze kicked up a bit.



It was the hottest fire I've ever experienced. That drift wood burns so hot.
 I couldn't stand any closet than this when warming my um, er, buns.

Quite an incredible way to spend an afternoon.
No phones, no email, no dishes, no nothin' to do but relax. Sigh.

Greg anchored the boat out in front of the beach a ways and when it was time for him to paddle back out to get it,
someone was feeling a little anxious.



Never fear! Cap'n Greg is on the job!

Beautiful sunset after getting our measly sixteen shrimp.
Good thing we had such a great afternoon or we could have been really disappointed about the poor catch.

Back at the dock, I was taking this cute picture of the girls in some fantastic sunset light and we all got scared by a big porcupine who came to visit us during the shoot. I didn't have my glasses on so I thought it was a bear and didn't pause to get a picture. Trying to get the girls to safety without scaring (or scarring) them, plus wrangling the dumb dog... well, no picture of the porky, but lots of memories of a day that only five months ago I never thought I'd be around to see.