In case you missed it

Hard to believe this time 2 years ago!

Karate

Just a picture of LeighAnne at karate. They both seem to love it. Ofcourse 3 nights a week with your bestest friends (the neighbor girls, not each other) can't be all bad.

As per Kent's Request

"Sir, the colors are present"

Activation Ceremony

The Activation of the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment took place at Fort Richardson on October 13th, 2005. Basically, this means a group of soldiers recently came together to form a unit and took on the history and tradition of a previous unit orginating back in World War II.

Here the Brigade Commander and Squadron Commander and Sergeant Major are unfurling the unit colors.

Just take the d@^^# picture

So, with Tim's parents visiting we headed southeast of Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm to Alyeska and Portage Glacier. A little hiking and sight seeing...when we went with Popa we saw beluga whales...but...ahhh...it is October in Alaska and freezing cold rain blowing sideways kind of takes away from the beauty.

None the less, Grammy and Poppy didn't spend hours on a plane, hundreds of dollars, and most of their vacation time to sit around and watch grandchildren sit in front of the TV. So here's what they found at Portage Glacier.



Actually our trip ended up pretty nice, but this was almost the turnaround point.

Most likely my favorite picture to date of Tim's parents.

Cavalry Fitness Test

Tim's newest boss is a proudly sadistic infantryman. He decided there were certian standards that would help any calvary man during his deployment. The follow is what is required of each 1/40th soldier:

**Max Bench Press with goal @ 300lbs.

**40 Yard Dash

**10 mile run in 75 minutes

**8 event obstacle course to include (while dressed in body armor, helmet and rifle weighing around 30 lbs.)
-rope course
-440 yard run while "fireman carrying" 180 lb dummy
-rope climb 8 ft wall

All of this is done at one setting...they start around 9:00 and finish up early afternoon. Tim got his done early and is glad to only have to sit and help each new group.

It's a little frightening when you put it all into the context of war. These events will help them train and prepare for spending days clearing Iraqi villages.

That's all I want to say about that.

Walmart

My view leaving WalMart of Spur Volcano. It's about 90 miles west of us and has been showing signs of life all year long but appears to be no closer to an eruption according to the Anchorage Daily News. Ashes and fire aside, the view is breathtaking. I've only seen it this clear about 5 times. The picture here just doesn't do it justice. And to think it's my WalMart view!!!

Bad Jamison, Good Timothy

This is Jamison with his neighbor Timothy. Timothy has waayy nicer parents than Jamison. Timothy's parents got him an ATV. Jamison's parents got him a stinky non-motorized John Deere tractor from a garage sale. Timothy's parents feel sorry for Jamison and always ask Timothy to share his ATV. Jamison now thinks Timothy's name is share and will start yelling "share!!" when ever he sees Timothy. Timothy dutifully shares his ATV and rides the crummy old John Deere instead. Timothy's parents lay in bed at night and proudly discuss how much better behaved Timothy is than Jamison.

Pajama Party '05

SarahBeth had a sucessful 7th birthday. If I were to go back, this was probably her first party on her birthday and not coupled with her sister. We kept it to the girls in the neighborhood (all 8 of them) and invited all to spend the night. However, being the sly moma that I am, I was pretty sure only one or two would go for the slumber part of the party. I was right-only one. Whew!

None the less, the girls came in their PJ's and had alot of fun. We made special puffy paint non-skid socks and ate chocolate cake and ice cream after 8:00 p.m.(!!) at night. A sleepy 3 year old left saying "Thanks for my first slumber party". SarahBeth called it the Best Birthday Party EVER.

Tomorrow AM, pancakes for SB, LA and the lone slumber friend and then I'm done with one birthday party of a whole 'nother year.

(LA has opted for an October party so she could get to know and invite more school friends.)

Thanks Dad

A couple years ago dad gave the girls a karoke machine. I have to admit, at times I used it more than they (a girl can clean or sing Nora Jones all afternoon!) but today...today the machine truly was the best thing going at "Pajama Party 05". A little Disney singing can make a party a party. So, for the life saver and sanity saver of a life time,

Thanks Dad!

a.k.a "Da Player"

One boy, 8 girls, you do the math!

Whaaat!?!?

I'm not doing anything!

Bubbles

Without further ado...

Kenai Woof-woof Davis

1/2 Lab(duh) 1/2 German Shepherd
100% full bloodied puppy (aahhwww)

We found her via craigs list and I cried when we left her twin brother behind

She's another baby in the house, but I know with enough patience and love, she will be another unruly member of the family in no time.

Introducing...

First Day of School

Well the first day of school came and went with very little fanfare. I guess we are getting to be seasoned pro's. SarahBeth was comforted with knowing our next door neighbor would be sitting next to her in class, and LeighAnne always takes a challenge head on...especially when socializing is involved.

I think Jamison was more upset than anyone else. The morning of the 1st day there were clips of school buses on TV and he pointed at the screen and said "YaYa go" (YaYa is the word for sister) but when we said good-bye to SB, he cried after her. (LA was too cool to be walked to her class room) However, coming home to Popa and the Disney channel all to himself soothed any sadness.

The girls are excited about their teachers and seem to have a great school. Ofcourse only in Alaska would you receive a reminder that children must wait outside the school until the first bell unless it's too cold. Too cold at Alpenglow is -10 degrees!! This includes recess!! Brrr!

Seward

Dad came to visit this last week, so we all went down to Seward. About 150 miles south of Anchorage, Seward is on the Kenai Pennisula. It has the only road access to the Harding Icefield...an icefield that covers about 300 square miles. Ofcourse, the weather wasn't so great, and the most ice we saw was a little blue glacier peaking thru the fog and low lying clouds. But we did see some sea otters, sea lions, mountian goat and a bunch of sea birds while we were on the 3 hour boat tour. The drive there is half the beauty, so coming and going made up for any short comings of the boat ride. When the girls hollered out that they were hungry, they then realized we hadn't seen a MD's since we left Anchorage.

Here's some shots of my personal favorite scenes.

A smile is just a frown UPSIDE DOWN!

Sarah Beth had to gasp clear the table and empty the dishwasher.

We got Mooseinated

Last night as we sat and watched TV, a moma moose and her baby came up out of the woods behind our house, walked across our new grass and headed down the street. This morning when I went to take the pictures of the tracks, she was about 5 houses down, but disappeared into the trees before I could take a picture.

Here's the damamge. Right now I find it amusing that I have moose tracks in my new yard...but if it becomes an everyday thing....well...

Lemonade Loves

I had a garage sale this Saturday. It was so-so...people just didn't buy up the stuff I thought they would.

But Tim, being much more sane than I, bought some lemonade mix and helped the girls fashion a lemonade stand.(What a man! What a dad!!) It was a hit. They had more customers than me! LeighAnne (in typical LA style) "Tom Sawyer"-ed her way with all the girls on the block. Truly, while she and SB were inside having lunch, 2 different girls manned the table. But in the end, the spoils were divided evenly and over all, the gaggle of girls had a good time.

Why I hate/love being an Army wife

Why I hate being an Army wife:

---never finishing a bottle of ketchup, fingernail polish remover, ArmorAll, superglue, or mouthwash without having to throw them away

---having to buy a new bottle of ketchup, fingernail polish remover, ArmorAll, superglue and mouthwash everytime I move

---trying to remember my old phone number for billing references, my new phone number for new billing references and my best friends phone number for morale support all in one day

---add zip codes to the equation above

---finding new friends...not just people to talk to, but friends

---never seeing the same doctor twice

---not buying a black car because we might go to Texas-only to go to Alaska

---not buying a new winter coat because we might go to Hawaii-only to go to Alaska

---how many times can you hang the same curtains and pictures????

---knowing my friends are going to war

---knowing some aren't coming home



Why I wouldn't change a thing:

--cadence waking you in the morning

--knowing why people are standing still in the PX parking lot at 5:00

--The National Anthem before a movie

--literally having friends all around the world

--Paris

--Tuscany

--Rome

--Oktoberfest

finally...

--the drive "home"

Rock wall climbing

The girls went to a day camp this week for rock wall climbing. Let me tell you, I'm so impressed and inspired by my little spider monkeys. My camera still isn't working, so the pictures are fuzzy, but yes, that is SarahBeth 100 feet in the air. Both of them scaled to the top many times-yet each time I could tell it was a real physical and mental challenge for them.

Houston we have grass!

Here's the yard with dirt and seed...


And now, with some beautiful green!!




It's still a little patchy, but atleast its a start. Now if we just don't get a frost for a couple of weeks we should be good to go.

Tim

To answer a few questions...

Tim is in the 1/40th Cavalry Squadron in the Airbourne BDE of 4/25th. They actually don't exist except for a number of great NCO's, 1 LT, 2 CPTs 2 Majs (Tim included) and a LtCol. Tim is the current XO. The unit will offically stand up in October.

He jumped last week with little fanfare. He was supposed to jump 2 weeks ago, but there was some kind of rule about only getting 10% of the parachutes wet (it was raining) so my "tanker" wife mentality went into "whatever" mode and stopped caring. But after his first of a weekly road march with 40 lbs. ruck sack took place, all Airborne/Infantry jokes went out the window. Of course, I'm still forced to deal with troop vs. company and squadron vs. battalion, so please forgive any slips.


Tim also went fishing 2 Sundays ago (at 3:45 AM) with our neighbor and brought home 3 silver (Coho) salmon. He wore his lucky "Citadel" fishing hat...I'm sure that's what did the trick.

As it is, it looks like Tim may head to a HOT, HUMID LA in August of next year and then on to the desert in the late fall/early winter. I'll worry about all that when it actually comes around, until now I'm just enjoying our weekends and evenings together.

Just so we are all tracking...

O.K. so, if we let our homeowners insurance know that there is the potential for a bear to fling open our garage door and lick our dirty dishes all clean and then, ofcourse, continue the flinging thru our living room window whilst pulling the couch and family piano with it...we will be covered. Are you taking notes Brandon?

So, while I'm at it. I've been "googling" my past...yes, I know, dangerous...I realized a suprising number of friends are "un-googleable". To include myself. (no, I haven't written any books lately) sooo, here goes...

Dona Davis

"Dona Davis"

"Davis, Dona"

Davis, Dona


I realize by doing that, I open myself up to a sick world, but what if someone I have been dying to hear from has "googled" me in the middle of the night? Now they can find me...and besides (famous last word coming soon) how many people are out there looking for a Dona Davis?

Carol...

Will insurance cover this?

(Pulled from Anchorage Daily News)

Bear opens garage door, saunters into family's kitchen

By KORRY KEEKER, Juneau Empire

Published: August 9th, 2005
Last Modified: August 9th, 2005 at 03:48 PM


JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Geri Anderson was sitting in the computer room in the back of her Sunset Street home when she heard a noise in her kitchen just after 9:30 p.m. Sunday.


She went to the kitchen to investigate and found a black bear, eating garbage and licking the plates from her family's rib dinner, a few hours before. The bear turned around and snorted at her.

"All the bones were in the kitchen garbage, and he had it spread out all over the floor," Geri said. "He had a pretty good mess going by that time."

"I turned around and I didn't make a sound or anything," she said.

The bear entered the house through the Andersons' connecting garage, Geri said.

"The switch on the garage door was turned off so there was no power in the door," she said. "He was able to lift the garage door up and come in, and the garage door went down behind him."

Geri came out, but didn't see the bear, which was already in the garage. She went back, heard another noise and came out again.

She found the bear this time - about two feet away, she said.

As Geri walked quickly back to the bedroom, the bear followed her eight feet down the hallway.

"I felt him," Geri said. "I just turned around and started walking away really fast, and I got down the hallway, opened the door and closed it and said, 'Bob, there's a bear in the house.' I just fell apart, I was so scared."

Bob, her husband, jumped out of bed and went to the door. He opened it and saw the bear staring back at him.

"I've been in Alaska a long time," said Bob, a 46-year resident. "I've seen a lot of bears, and I lived in Yakutat for 18 years and I've hunted and been in different situations. My wife, she's never had that."

"I closed the door, and I put my weight against it, and I could feel the door being pushed," he said. "It was a big black bear. When he turned, his rump went up against the door."

The bear knocked off a small decorative shelf at the end of the hall, just outside the door.

"I think he saw himself in the mirror and took a swat at himself," Bob said. "But he wasn't aggressive. He had a lot of guts to walk into a house through the garage door."

Geri called 911 and said she got through to the police at 9:51 p.m.

"They said, 'Where's the bear?'" Geri said. "We said, 'He's right outside the door.'"

Three officers arrived in the Andersons' front lawn just before 10 p.m. and continued to speak to Geri on the phone. That's when, according to the police report, the bear stood up on its hind legs, put both front paws on the glass, broke through the window and escaped into the woods.

"I was talking to them on the phone in the bathroom and Bob was still holding the door," Geri said. "They said, 'The bear leapt through your living room window.'"

The bear crashed through the glass, ripping down the blinds, clawing the radiator and almost shattering a framed, glass decoration of a raven that hangs in front of the window.

The Andersons' landlord estimated the damage at $5,000 and will pick up the bill, Bob said.

The Andersons have lived at their Sunset Street home for 10 years. They've seen bears sniffing around their house and garage before, and once took a picture of a baby bear crawling on their deck.

"That was frightening, but not like this," Geri said.----

Juneau Empire reporter Tony Carroll contributed to this report.

Why I had Jamison

Didn't you know I was a natural blonde? hehe It's not an exact match but pretty close...maybe if I send a lock of his hair to Clairol they will match it for me.

But seriously, the background is in Eagle River Nature Center...about 10 miles from our house. It's crisp and green, the air smells as clean as heaven and you can see to the bottom of the river.

We've been so busy with the house that I don't have many beautiful Alaska pictures yet, but hopefully this weekend we can venture off our street and see some real life nature.

Jamison's Guk

Tim's orginal plan was to have to huge truck loads of dirt dumped onto our property take two shovels and a wheelbarrow and spread it around our yard. Sooooo, I called our local equipment rental place and ordered a bobcat for 4 hours. As luck would have it, if you order it for Sunday, it will arrive Sat. evening and they won't pick it up until Monday...there by allowing us to use 4 hours at our leisure.

Jamison was taking a nap when it arrived and woke up in a horrible mood...so I told him he had his very own truck (aka "guk") waiting for him. For three days he was in heaven. As you see, he loved driving his guk around and dumping dirt. His favorite thing to say is "ooohhhh wowww, Moma", so I heard it a million times this last weekend. By the way, it also kept Tim entertained...and made him the coolest husband/dad/guy on the block!!

It's time for...

It's time for another installment of "What wrong with this picture?"

The Sunshine

Here's a picture of the girls around 10:30 P.M. on July 15th. It's really strange to have this lingering daylight when you get up to go to the bathroom at 2:00 in the morning. We are losing about 4-5 minutes of light a day, sometimes nearly 6, so our long days are coming to an end.

Ofcourse, my biggest concern when we got in the house was how to keep the rooms dark enough for us to sleep. I'm not quite ready to commit to the window treatments so my temporary solution was aluminum foil and masking tape. I put the girls in SB's room...she's in the back of the house and only has one window, so no one could see the foil. Jamison got some temporary shades that literally sticker to the top of the window frame thereby fooling the neighbors into thinking I had actually come up with a better plan than foil...I guess I was "foiling" them HAHAHAHA But WalMart finally got another shipment of room darkening shades in, so no more foil and we can let the daytime sunshine in.

LeighAnne's room still isn't ready. She has a "sunburst" window and I don't know quite what to do...any suggestions would be appreciated.

more yard pics

Da Yard

So our money here gets us a house with a "final grade yard" which means they scrape enough of the glacier mountain muck away from our house so water will drain away from our house.

Homeowners manual says you have a year to make it green, so we had 2 choices. First, wait till the spring when we could have it done professionally but scream at our children all fall, winter and spring to stay out of the muck and then be held captive all next summer by a young lawn that needs constant watering; or, suck it up, get some dirt, a bobcat, a ton of seed and do it ourselves.

Well, let me tell you...we worked our butts off!!! All the kids helped scrape big rocks out of the yard and even ran the bobcat...but we did it...and a couple hundred dollars to spare too! So you're seeing the "before" picture. Hopefully next week I can post a pic with a little light green peaking thru.

Just to catch you all up...

...if for some reason you didn't know.

We hit the ground on 7 July and Tim got his truck early the next morning. We stayed in billeting for about 10 days. It doesn't seem that bad looking back, but a small room and only a microwave gets old quick. The next Thursday we went and FINALLY got my beautiful Honda Pilot, on Friday we signed for the house...hey...nothin' but money!!!

We got into the house Monday AM, and our hold baggage (a small shipment with pots and pans and bedding) came that afternoon. Two weeks later our regular shipment came in. After it arrived, I wanted them to take it all back (except the washer and dryer). I'm so embarrassed of the massive quantities of stuff we have!! By Friday, two truck loads of dirt had been dumped on our front lawn and this recent weekend we put in our yard.

Yes, one of the joys of new home ownership here is NOT having grass. But God smiled on our hard work and we are having record highs (70's) and no rain to wash away all our money and hard work. But I'll post about all that good stuff later.

So, we are here. We have our internet up and running, and I no longer have my cell phone, so YOU call ME...off peak hours for you is still early in the evening for me.

Hangin' Out by the Pool

Like I already said...hangin' out by the pool


Oh, did I mention the full moon?


Finally, 10 bonus points if you can figure out what is wrong in this picture

Beach Boy

We went to the beach this weekend. On Friday, the wind was blowing and it was COLD. Jamison HATED the beach and sand. He wouldn't even take a step




Here's the next day...sunshine and a good breakfast made all the difference. By Sunday, he was naked and lovin' it. If a cold wave came over him, he would catch his breath and then stand up and growl proudly at the water. He also clapped for himself after he "watered" a sand castle.



The girls were just as crazy and got in the 60 degree water. Over all, a great weekend.

High Flyin'

Here's Tim's adventure over D.C. He said they flew along the Potomac and over birds. They were 200 feet in the air...close enough to wave to the masses of school kids touring the area.

Tim woke up this morning, took a PT test, sat thru 3 hours of class, flew over DC and was still home in time for lunch...all in a days work

Happy Birthday, Grammy!

Grammy, I was going to post the breakfast in bed picture, but I thought you might like this one more.

Sisters

Here's two sweet pictures of my sweets.

Summertime...

...and the livin' is easy.


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