Tanana Fair

The fair was definitely more than rides and was full of food, booths, and events. We of course loved all the food options and had to try out a pretzel wrapped hot dog(Yummy), kettle corn, funnel cakes and lastely my newest favorite find Flavored almonds!! I found a place that had toffee, mocha and garlic and onion flavors. Oh they are soooo yummy!

We also checked out the animals and the kids were able to interact with goats, pigs, turkeys, bunnies and horses. The kids loved all the different kinds of animals and I am very lucky that none of them were for sale or they would have tried to talk me into having a small farm by the end of the day. Our favorite animal display was a dog pull that we stumbled across. It was a large breed(meaning 125# or more) pull and watching the dogs was amazing. The winner pulled something like 1500#. We were able to go meet the dogs afterward and the Saint Bernards were amazing and just wanted to cuddle with you. They were great!

After all the fun of watching the dog show we headed over to get to snack on some funnel cakes and rest, we had been walking around the fair for over 4 hours at this point. But of course the kids couldn't just sit still and started wrestling up and down the hill we were sitting on. They played for well over a half an hour just going up and down the hill, tackling and rolling all over the place. It was a wonderful way to end the day.

Bumper Cars at the Fair

Another ride the kids just had to go on was the bumper cars. Of course, Sassy wasn't big enough to reach the pedals so she had to piggyback with her big brother but I thought she was going to have a heartattack. She was so excited she was giggling and chanting and encouraging Jack to run into as many people as they could find. Giggles had the driving down patt. The boy was zipping places and plowing people over and heading to the next one. All the kids loved being able to just run people down. They must get their driving ability from their father, lol

Skydiving at the Fair

Well I was able to take the kids to the Tanana State Fair yesterday and of course they had to do some rides.

Thud and Giggles started off the day on a hang glider ride. They were both stoked about doing the ride, even though I think Giggles was a little nervous.

This was Giggles the whole ride, just hollering and giggling. It was great!!

They both LOVED the ride and talked about how they felt like they were in one of their video games. What silly boys

Creamer's Field

We finally had a nice day today, so I decided to take the kids to Creamer's field for the nature walk. But since it was nice we had to start by going topless :). For those of you with dirty minds I was talking about the Jeep's top! Creamer's field was quite beautiful and we enjoyed wandering through the woods and fields.

Another Adventure

Well we are once again off on another adventure. Our three boys went to their first overnight camp this month. The boys started Camp Camo, a camp for kids in the military. The day of drop off was interesting, first off we needed to find the place and Alaska is not well marked!! Once we found the place trying to get the boys into their respective cabins. Then they were ready to kick us out the door. So the girls headed out to begin our testosterone free week, wooohooo! We started the week with some dinner. But of course it couldn't last. I have already received a couple calls from one of the boys wanting to come

Exploring

Well our month of exploring wasn't just done geographically but also physically. I started running again for the first time in years. I am not doing bad, I have managed to make it 2.5 miles a day and keep adding mileage every week. This is also helping me to not only get back into shape but also lose some of my shape. I have managed to drop over 10 inches off my body in the last month and hope to continue in the coming months.

The kids also did some exploring of sports. Giggles is still playing baseball and loving it and he tried out a soccer camp and ended up liking it as well.

Goobers has been doing multiple field trips with the youth center and I think his favorite was the River raft ride down the Chena river, I only say this because he hasn't stopped talking about it since then.

Sassy wrapped up her Tball and tried out a little cheerleading at camp. She was dang cute but she was not quite into the cheering part of cheerleading, she much prefers the dancing part.

While Thud looked into something a little more physical. He decided to give flag football a try. He ended up liking it alot but has decided to wait for next year when his daddy can be home and help coach his team.

He and the neighbor boy seemed to love the sport and it helped him to take a leadership role in a group setting which I was very happy with. The month of June was a very active one for us and I hope to continue that through the following months.

Riverboat Discovery

We finished out our month of Alaskan Discovery on the Riverboat Discovery that tours up and down the Chena River in Fairbanks. It was amazing! I really had my doubts going into the tour, especially since it was a pretty penny to do but it is worth doing at least once while in the area. First of the gift shop was AMAZING! and huge and it had a dining area with it as well. The insides of the vessels were very well maintained, and found that my kids have reached the age that I am no longer that cool mom. So they chose to sit separately from me but still with in my site.

Well the tour started off with a little introduction to a very prominent means of transportation in the interior of Alaska and that was the plane. We received a demonstration of a bush pilots take off and landing and even got to talk to one for a bit over the radio. It was very interesting.

We then moved further down the Chena and got a little history on the area and the family that created this tour over 3 generations ago. Further down the river we were introduced to another mode of transportation that is popular here in the interior and that is dog sledding!!

This was a great demonstartion on how they work with the dogs year around and how they train them from the time that they are born. It was quite amazing and you could tell the dogs loved to run!

After this we headed further down the river until it met up with the might Tanana River. The largest glacier fed river in North America. It was beautiful.

At this point in time we turned around and I figured that the tour was over but I was so wrong. The next area we stopped at is an area of land that they have set aside to show how the natives and early settlers lived. The only way to get to it is by boat and it was beautiful, almost looked like a rainforest rather than and arctic desert.

They had everything from cabins, smoke houses, old snow mobiles to gardens. It was quite amazing. There was also a place to pet the sled dogs and a monument to Granite, a particular sled dog that had the heart and will of a lion. Along with this they had native guides telling you about their cultures from their fish camps, to fur coats. It was very interesting.

All in all I would love to do this again to catch all the little things I might have missed. It was a very cool introduction to Alaska!