Birch Lake

Birch Lake, AK

A couple weeks after coming back to Alaska we decided to take an afternoon and go down and check out Birch Lake. This is about an hour south of where we are but there is a military recreation site there and we wanted to see what was available and play at the beach. When we first showed up it was windy and rainy and down right cold!! I pulled out a sleeping bag and huddled under that while the family explored the beach. Soon the sun came out though and my children assume that if there is sunshine and water then they should be swimming. The crazy little people ended up jumping right into an Alaskan lake,brrrr!! They had a blast though. There was, of course, dunking competitions.

Well after watching Harm thump on his brother for a bit my hubby couldn't stand it any longer and joined in the fun. He started chasing the children down if they came out of the water.

For some reason he started stalking me but I think I made it pretty clear that me entering that water was NOT going to happen.

So he went back to playing with the kiddos.

It was a great adventure that we would love to repeat again.

Christmas 2011

This Christmas has been kindof crazy. The month of December its self was insane since I was helping bring home the unit I work for. Somehow I managed to still get everything together for Christmas. The week of Christmas brought out a few wrenches. We managed to make it to Christmas on Ice on wednesday but thursday morning began with Giggles throwing up. And since then we each got the stomach bug in one way or another with Sassy finishing us off on the morning of Christmas. Even with all the sickness we managed to have a good Christmas. We didn't get to do all of our traditions but we did make sure and write letters to Santa and leave hime some cookies and hot chocolate(hey it was -24 that night, he needed to warm up)

The kids all enjoyed opening presents while Daddy watched on Skype, what a blessing that was. It felt almost like he was there. I am so thankful he stayed up so late to chat with the kids while they opened their presents. Although I can't wait for next year when he can be with us I think we all enjoyed this year.

Christmas in Ice 2011

One of the most beautiful things that happens up here is the all the ice sculptures. In North Pole, Alaska they do a Christmas in Ice next door to the Santa Claus House. We have made sure we have gone both years we have been here and I am always amazed by what they can do with ice.

Both years we have attended there has been a sculpture right outside the gate that has something to do with Santa. This year you could sit in his sleigh. So here are my bundled up munchkins.

Alot of the businesses around here use ice to advertise themselves. Love it, this year has been a bit rough on them though since we were averaging 20 degrees for most of December when we are usually in the single digits. Here are some of the sculptures that were in the display.

And of course they made a playground with the ice. They had multiple slides that the kids could use their sleds on or go down without. They were so fast it rattled my teeth just watching.

And of course they created merry go rounds out of ice. The younger kids loved these!!

Sassy Ballet

So we had another first today. Sassy had her first ballet recital today. I took her to the beauty salon first to let her get all prettied up. Then we ventured out to the performance. I was able to get a pic of her in costume before we got going.

And of course we had a little down time before the performance started so I had to get her lounging around.

The performance itself was great. We chose to go with a program that is religious based and she worries more about the kids enjoying themselves and having a great experience and it really showed. The kids loved it. Of course our video camera died the night before this performance so I had to adapt and overcome and used my regular camera. I will upload it to a separate post later.
The ballet praise ballet company was able to pose when the performance was finished and the group did such a wonderful job!!

Well when all was said and done she was very proud of herself and she had every right to be. She worked hard and loved doing it. I can't wait to see her spring performance!

Venting

I have a confession. I have been working on getting back in shape and losing weight but unfortenatly it has been a half-ass effort this summer. I have been working out every day(minus a week or two). I am definitely more in shape than I was at the beginning of the Summer. I can now get through a workout video without having to stop and catch my breathe. Which is great but I would really like to start seeing some results and I know that that is not going to happen until I get my eating under control. I have good days, mostly during the week, and then I have bad days(pretty much the weekends). I so want my husband to come home to someone he can workout with and that we can do all the activities that we love to do and hopefully some new ones like rock climbing and scuba diving. Okay I am done with my vent!

Horse ride at the fair

The one ride that Sassy just had to go on was the carousel. She loves horses and she was practically jumping up and down to get to ride on the carousel. As far as these go it wasn't that great but she loved it. I can't wait to take her back to Spokane so that I can take her to the one that's down town, she would love it.

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.