ALCAN HIGHWAY

A couple days after we arrived, we went and watched the start of the iditarod sled dog race to Nome. The start is just north of Palmer, where we live.

68 teams of 16 dogs each! This area will need plenty of pooper scoopers come spring!

Somewhere in Canada?

Approaching St. Elias National Park

Buffalo grazing in 3 feet of snow just off the highway

Camping spot in Haines AK.

Icy Road on pass into Haines, AK from Haines Junction Canada.

British Columbia

Get off the road please!

The 3500 mile trip up the Alcan in February was a lot of fun, even considering some major plan changes mid trip that caused some delays. The scenery was incredible, the wildlife abundant, the knuckles almost always white, and the conversation dull (since I was alone this trip)! I would do it again in a heartbeat given the opportunity, although next time without an over loaded trailer if in the winter, and preferably with a co pilot! This way the trip could be done in as little as two days with three drivers, or three days with two drivers. The winter time road was surprisingly in good condition, and the only traffic was around the major cities of Edmonton and Calgary, and occasionally in other areas where oil truck traffic was heavy.


This was entering British Columbia

Wild Wood Bison were all over the place in BC. The first one I saw was at night, right on the road and I could barely make out his eyes and a large dark shape, taller than my truck! There was a couple feet of new snow, and the bison were using their heads swinging back and forth to clear away snow to get to some grass to feed on.


About 800 miles of the trip were on entirely solid ice roads, but the highway department cut grooves in the ice about 1 inch apart, that provided for surprisingly good traction. I began staying at hotels, but got tired of paying for 7-8 hours of sleep, the same I got on the mattress in my truck for free, so I quit using hotels and took advantage of the 25 below sleeping bag I purchased for the trip. A wise investment, and some of the best sleep I have ever had! Each night when I quit driving, I would usually pick a parking spot at a hotel to sleep for a few hours, if it was super cold, I would plug in the truck, and hope I wouldn't get caught. I never did, I don't think any hotel managers ever knew who's car belonged there and who's didn't. A substantial amount of mental preparation was required to make the big move from inside the sleeping bag to inside of the truck cab each morning, especially one morning when I woke up to -40 degrees farenheit in Dawson Creek Canada! Long story short, we all made it to Alaska just fine, only one alternator went out along the way, and we ended up having the trailer brought up on a flatbed from Edmonton Canada because it was too heavy, and it's brakes were ineffective on the ice you see in the pictures. Summertime would have been fine. We will post picts of the house soon. Another adventure in itself!

snowmobiling

shoveling out the snowmobiles!

snowmachining

snowmachining with gramps. mom and dad have the perfect yard for the kids to drive around on the snowmobiles! the boys were driving the machines by themselves and loving it!! it was nice because all their yard is contained in fences so their was no traffic for the kids to have to worry about. by the end of two days there was no powder left anywhere!!! the kids just rode around and around and around!! their routine for the few days we were there was this: wake up and ask to go outside - then look at the thermometer and see that it was below zero and that no adult was going out with them until it warmed up a little bit:) then around 10:00 we'd go out and sled for awhile. then eat lunch and go snowmobiling. the kids had a blast!! thanks grandpa and grandma! oh, and all of this wouldn't have happened if we didn't have jud to start the machines for us:) thanks jud!

oh, and quinn's basket! quinn loves sitting the basket on the back of the wide track. if she was in her basket she was content all day! but she did not like to get out of it! she was ok sharing it - so sometimes fiona or kinley got to sit back there too:)

more sledding pics

sledding

here are more sledding pics - kinley, fiona, and riley

jumpin on the bed

riley got a camera for christmas and has been loving taking pictures. :)

christmas pics

here are some christmas pics taken outside at mom and dad's house. renee made the dresses for the girls - you are awesome renee! it was freezing when we took these pics - can you tell:)

more sledding pics

here are aj and riley sledding

sledding at grandpa's and grandmas'

around christmas we went to grandpa and grandma's house and they have a wonderful sledding hill right in their front yard. the horse (that you can see in the picture of kinley) stands right next to the top of the hill, and once he bit kinley's hat right off her head:) the first day we got to the hill it was all powder and by the third day it was all packed and very very hard:)

christmas 2008

christmas morning:)

cousins

these are renee's kids and ours:) it's always interesting when the three girls "sleep" together! they finally get to sleep after a couple of hours - after quinn settles down and kinley quits kicking the covers off (she's always in the middle so when she kicks them off fiona and quinn aren't happy about it)! then it's a few hours of sleep until quinn wakes up and then it's HELLO WORLD!!!!!! Quinn does not wake up with a morning voice:) oh my goodness, quinn is a fireball!

i'm sure renee could write a book about quinn. one morning she wanted an apple but she would never just ask for one. i was seeing how long she could talk (of course it's non stop talk) before she would just ask for an apple. she never did just ask - it was hilarious! here's how the conversation went: quinn - "ya sometimes i like apples in the morning. me and mom have apples in the morning. my mom lets me have apples. sometimes fiona and i eat apples in the morning. i like to eat apples. my mom gives me apples. (she goes and gets one out of the fridge) oh look, here's an apple. i found an apple. i like to eat these apples in the morning ..." i could barely hold back my laughter. she talked like this for 10 minutes!!!!! and it is non stop! i can't believe how she can think of so much to say:)

one day she was at our house and she was a yapping dog! and when's she a yapping dog you don't want to be around:) it was driving riley crazy so i told quinn that she was an inside dog and she needed to yap a little quiter. well, she didn't want to be an inside yapping dog so she just became a very loud cat! oh, she makes me laugh.

pics of kiddos

here are some pics of the kids from this winter.
there is a little sledding hill in the field between our house and the school. so when it snows the kids always go out there and sled. i love it because i can watch them from the window of our house!

one night i was playing with kinleys hair - twisting it around - and she said she wanted me to twist it for school. she looked very cute:)

it's official - we're moving

in case everyone hasn't heard yet - yes, we are moving back to alaska!
we will be leaving denver february 22. jud will be driving up and the kids and will take the ferry.

these are some pics of the kids and their christmas concert. the kindergartner's did a little concert and the rest of the kids did a "holiday hoedown"

jump rope for heart

the kids had a "jump rope for heart" day at their school awhile ago. here are some pictures and videos from that day

toothless

we have a lot of teeth missing in our house!!! this year riley can sing "all i want for christmas is my two front teeth"!:)





speaking of teeth ... i have decided, once again, to try to get kinley to stop sucking her thumb. it's so automatic for her she doesn't even realize she does it in her sleep. she says "i just wake up and it's in my mouth" :) i guess when you've been doing something ALL your life (including your life in your mom's belly) it's really hard to stop. so i've told her "kinley i want your teeth pretty, so you have to stop" and i've been taping her thumb each night to stop her from sucking it. after i told her i wanted her teeth pretty she said "i don't like my teeth pretty" as she's crying. then she said even more emphatically, "I hate my teeth pretty" i wish i didn't have to make her stop but i have to. hopefully i'll only have to tape her thumb for a few weeks and then she'll forget what it's like to suck her thumb.

modifications

the other day i was looking at my friend, kristi's, blog and it was so neat! so she told me where to get the backgrounds (thecutestblogsontheblock.com)and slide show. i love the slide shows! but i've learned that if i turn the music on automatically, all the music will be playing. so to listen to the music while looking at the slide show, you now have to click on the speaker button. that way you just get the music for the one slide show.
i put my background on that i liked (my first one)and i kept thinking i had seen that background somewhere, then i looked at tammie baker's blog and it's the same background as she has. i guess i had subconsciously remembered that background from hers:) tammie, we must think alike in some ways - and then i think "oh, my i could never be as calm as tammie!" :) i think of her as always having her tea set out and ready with some nice cookies or cake. and when i do tea it's just not as calm:)

lost teeth

kinley lost her first tooth

costumes

my mom and sister like to get together and make costumes for the kids, so this year i did it with them. they are so talented! riley really wanted to be darth vader this year and i told him that was just too hard of a costume for me to make - i didn't know how i would make the helmet. so we get to renee's house and that night after the kids went to bed she said aj was going to be darth vader!! i said "oh, anything but darth vader!":) she is very creative and loves challenges! her and mom found a darth vader trick or treat pail and she cut it up and used that! and i told riley i would get him a darth vader light saber - that is why is dragon has a light saber:) my mom did the dragon hat - isnt' that awesome! she is so talented. she also helped with the rest of the costume, but the hat is her creation:)

riley painted the eyes - aren't they awesome!
and kinley is so cute - she just wanted to be a butterfly ... again. for the 3rd year in a row; but this time she wanted to be a spotted butterfly:)

here are the things i learned about costume making this year:
1. always buy a pattern for the basic part of the costume - it takes too much time to make a pattern for the suit and it's more fun spending the time on the details of the costume
2. make all "pieces" detachable. it's better to have feet, heads, and hands detachable so they can play with them all the time without putting on the whole suit. and they can take them off it they get too much while playing games.
3. make the shoes no bigger than the kids feet! i saw some cool birds feet so i modeled the dragons feet after them and they were awesome, but riley couldn't walk with them on:) so i just shaped them around his crocs
4. don't put a gusset in the pants - just do a normal seam so it can be adjusted easily!
5. allow more than one day to make two costumes!!!!! i don't know why i even imagine that i can get it all done in one day:)

football

kinley has been playing flag football and loving it!! she is so cute - and aggressive! i will post more pictures when i get some from my friends; it never seemed to work out to get pictures of her! once i got all loaded up ready to go to the game riding my bike (because my car was out of gas) - camera, video camera, chair, riley's balls and frisbee - and we rode our bikes to the park. we got there and kinley wanted nothing to do with playing! she just wanted to sit in my lap:) so no pictures that day. then the next week i was ready with my camera and it started raining. so the next week i was ready again and to get a good shot and my batteries were dead! i'm thankful for prepared moms:)

kinley is so cute! it was fun watching her - she just loves playing and i'm not even sure if she knows what a touchdown is - she just has fun:) once when dad wasn't at her game afterwards we told him that kinley made a touchdown and she was so excited and said "ya! and we got snacks!"