only in alaska 2nd edition

This picture comes to us from last fall, but worthy of a laugh. I went to the Palmer Fred Meyer and recognized the burley mountain man guy from the leather/fur shop in Palmer. This particular day it happened to be raining out, so what does the aforementioned grizzly adams do to keep his mane dry on a day wrought with liquid sunshine? How about a pink shower cap! I couldn't hold the camera very still for a ninja-like picture in passing, so this blurry one and your imagination will have to suffice.


Got a sibling wedding today and moose huntin' next week!

8 shifts in 9 nights

I'm in the middle of a 4 on 1 off 4 on work schedule right now. My one night off we decided to let Mason choose the activity. He wanted to go berry picking, but it's still a little early in the year if you don't want to drive to the interior of Alaska. We headed up the canyon anyway and had a nice hot dog roast. Another couple of weeks and it ought to be prime berry picking season.


Mason had fun watching the cow/calf moose and Tate had fun playing in the back of the truck during dinner.


Packing up to head home.


The rain that keeps the mountains green has been wreaking havoc on our lawn. It's covered in fungus! (Although this one is poisonous it's Christina's favorite.)

winter is coming

They say there are three reasons people live in Alaska: June, July and August. July is almost over and a quarter of August is going to be spent in Utah for the third sibling wedding in less than a year (those guys should have coordinated it a little better). Well, with winter on its way, we're trying to get the most out of summer.
We're getting the woodpile in order:


We're fillin' the freezer:


We made a trip to Seward, but didn't bother to eat at this place:


Mason was happy to spend some time with the wildlife getting some rehab. Tate, well, Tate made it through the day:



Oh yeah, and Tate turned 1:

Gulkana River

We left Monday morning at 4:30 and drove about 3 1/2 hours up to the Richardson Highway (interior Alaska). We dropped off our car at the Sourdough campground and rode to Paxson Lake with some friends. We got the rafts in the water and rowed across the lake, through the outlet and into the river. Over the course of 4 days we floated around forty miles total.
We caught some grayling:

We estimate over three days that kid probably caught around 100 fish. If he wasn't fishing, he wasn't happy. Wonder where he gets that from?

Mason got stung by a bee (we're thinking he may be allergic):

There were king salmon and red salmon and Masons:

We floated through class 3 rapids. Our expressions right after the rapids:

It rained so badly the last day we rowed downstream to get off the water a little quicker (and stay a little warmer). Christina fights off delerium as we float under the transalaska pipeline:

There was an "incident" with a salmon carcass and an eagle that proved interesting. Click on the link; you'll be glad you did:
http://s282.photobucket.com/albums/kk248/slv3x/summer2010/?action=view&current=MVI_1842.mp4

Gardening is for the birds

Thanks to the electric company we had to do a little landscaping this last week. We pulled four spruce trees that were supposedly too close to the power lines. When Christina cleaned out the back of the truck the boys had a good time. By the way this is where our driveway meets the road.


The greenhouse has become a jungle with tomato plants growing much taller than Mason.


Good thing I didn't drop Tate; it would have been tough to find him.


This gardening stuff is for the birds:

We thought this guy was going to be Thanksgiving dinner, but he's eating us out of house and home. He also picks on the chickens, so he may have a date with the oven a little sooner than later.

the infamous kenai river

We spent a couple of nights down on the kenai river this week. It was nice to get out camping, it's been a long time. After getting the kids to bed, I went fishing with our friend Nick. I took this picture sometime around 1 am:

We floated the river and had a great time:


We even saw a bear while floating the river:

We fished a little and played a lot. We didn't catch any fish in the infamous kenai river, or the russian river. We made a hail mary attempt at a little lake on the way home and our friend Nick caught his first fish, a really nice dolly varden:

how to get in deep $h!t with the wife while she's at girls camp

Take the boys fishing and rafting every one of the three days she's gone:




Grind mortar off the kitchen floor and throw cement dust around the house, covering every dish in every cabinet in the whole kitchen with the aforementioned cement dust. How about a pathetic attempt to make things better? Get dessert delivered from the local pizza joint and tell her that her girls camp braids look great.

After the mess is cleaned up, you can lounge around in the hammock.




Better get off the computer, we're headed to the kenai for a couple of days.