Priceless

Hours of overtime worked in the last month: 48
Hours spent working on taxes, trying to get the best refund possible: 18
Hours browsing craigslist, searching for the right raft at the right price: 372

The dopey smile on Scott's sleep deprived face the whole way home from picking up the raft: PRICELESS!

It's a 14 foot Aire self-bailing whitewater raft capable of class 5 rapids (although we are not capable of class 5 rapids, yet). Anyone wanna come float the Kenai?

You can't change a fuel pump during breakup

The fuel pump went out in the truck last week. On Saturday, I started to fix it. Part of the way into the project we suffered from breakup. Breakup is a term for when all the snow and ice melt and the state turns into a big mudball. The driveway doesn't drain very well and ended up flooded the garage, at which point we figured saving the stuff in the garage took priority over the truck being able to run. Mason thinks breakup is awesome - big puddles and warmer weather. We saved the garage and put the truck off. I just worked a 60 hour work week, so only having one vehicle was a pain in the neck. Now I'm off for a couple of days (and will soon fix the truck) but I'm exhausted and decided there's an easy way to entertain Tate. The kid loves to swing.

Is it okay to let your five year old pick up chicks?
Yes, that chick really is blue. Happy Easter.

Home Sweet Home

Quite a few of you have asked questions about our house. I'm not ready to show the pictures of the inside yet - we still have a lot of work to do in order to show off the before and after pictures. But I love to share the pictures of the REAL reason we bought our home. These pictures were taken in the fall when we found it. As soon as we pulled up the driveway I told Scott this was the house I wanted. After watching the slideshow I'm sure you will agree with me. Here are the stats on the home: built in 1982, 1620 sq. ft., sits on an acre, 1/2 acre fenced in, has rhubarb, strawberry and raspberry plants, has a shed, woodshed, and greenhouse...need I go on?

http://s678.photobucket.com/albums/vv144/christinky/house%20photos/?albumview=slideshow

Gettin' some food fer the table!

Monday we had an ice fishing adventure with over a dozen preschoolers. Yikes! All the kids caught fish and had a good time. Three feet of ice over a lake allows you to park a lot of trucks out there just in case kids need to warm up. Fortunately they didn't need it because the weather was perfect. The kids also got to go for sled rides behind snowmobiles (or snow machines as they call them in Alaska).

Grip n' grin with a whopper:



Takin' a ride behind a snow machine with classmates, quite the ladies man, isn't he? That plane in the background was the grandpa of one of the kids who dropped by to say hello.



We all had a good time





Christina was a little wiped out this morning - Tate has been grouchy and the puppy is, well, a puppy. I'd been itching to get out anyway, so I piled the boys and the dog in the rig and headed off in a sleep deprived delerium to chase critters.

Mason harvested his first spruce grouse:



The dog has received a name. We're calling him Chako, short for cheechako - an Inuit term for someone who hasn't been through a winter in Alaska. He ain't the best birddog yet, but we're hopin' he'll be trained up by next year.





An sorry, ya gotta type with a redneck accent when you're tellin' a huntin' story!



As a disclaimer, I may come under some fire for posting hunting pictures. Please know that I work very hard to instill in Mason an appreciation for the animals we harvest. We focus on gun safety and also teach him to respect that not everyone is comfortable around guns and hunting.

Only in Alaska Post #2

Today we took a drive down to Settler's Bay. What do the locals do on a sunny (but chilly) Saturday afternoon in Settler's Bay? They take the upside down hood of a 67 Dodge pickup, mount a couch to it and tow it around a frozen lake behind a truck, of course.
We witnessed this affair and were told it is found on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5r8nfnLuFQ

When the (crazy @$$) fellers doin' it offered Christina and Mason a ride, they strapped on some helmets and brought a whole new meaning to the term "couch potato." Only in Alaska...

Here they are being towed behind the truck.


Gettin' ready to roll

The Junior, Junior Iditarod

So the Iditarod is underway as of Saturday. Some friends of our friends made the paper by handing off hotdogs to the mushers as they made their way out of Anchorage on Saturday. (There are a lot of cool race photos on that site.)
http://www.adn.com/2010/03/06/1170971/iditarod-ceremonial-start.html#id=1171078&view=large_view



I have had to work the last four nights, so we didn't get to see the Anchorage start or the start from "the Valley," where we live. There were plenty of festivities on Friday in Anchorage before I had to get to work, so we made the most of it. Here is a pic of Christina impersonating the goddess of fire and volcano carved out of ice.

We found a nice cool (or ice cold) spot in the shade to sit down and take a rest: (FYI for those of you who are familiar with the book "Flat Stanley," this is Flat Leah from our niece in Sandy, UT.)

Check out the newly initiated mushers:

Dog Blog

No, I didn't kill the rabbit in the yard - but I did catch it. I built a hutch for it, and Mason loved playing with it...until it died. Mason was very sad and kept saying, "But, Mom, we were almost friends." What do you do when your pet rabbit of two days dies? Apparently you get a dog. The unnamed mutt (mostly lab with a little pitbull):

The Iditarod starts in Anchorage tomorrow and they run a few miles to Eagle River. On Sunday, it really starts in a little town called Willow, just north of Wasilla. Is our little pup ready? We'll just be happy if we can get him to just quit peeing on the brand new carpet and go bird hunting by next fall.