All we are saying....

is set Maggie free...



Maggie is the one and only elephant here in Alaska. There is A LOT of controversy surrounding her Arctic existence. Jamison's little friend Abe (pictured above) adores her and they make frequent trips to the zoo just to see her. Poor Abe had no idea that we spent part of our Memorial Day weekend at a small rally to encourage the zoo to send her to a sanctuary somewhere outside of Alaska.

Ok, ok...truth be told..we-my brood(to include Kenai), Abe, his mom Jodi and little brother Dallion-we were more than partly drawn by the idea of something as bizarrely Alaskan as an elephant protest. Oh, did I mention her treadmill?

YeeHaw!!

The 2nd and 3rd graders did a little country hoedown with great music and some serious square dancing. I have to admit, while the parents were told not to go out and buy things for the event, I couldn't resist the red boots. AND if you could have seen her when they were told to swing their hips....she had her back to us and even LeighAnne commented on her little booty.

First rule of fight club is...

you don't talk about fight club.

How High Can You Fly

The girls participated in a Jump for Heart jump-rope-a-thon. It was a wonderful Alaskan spring afternoon and they were worn out by the end.

If we are lucky, they will be able to have their choir concert outdoors next week...watch for those pictures coming soon

The $1,000,000 playground

Seriously.

Nanah nanah boo boo

This post is 100% for Brandon.

I told you so, I told you so, I told you so....

Sister secrets

You know, the girls fight-A LOT. But, they get along like the best of friends, too. Which I love-because, let's face it, when you are an Army Brat, sometimes the only friend you have is your sibling...and when you have a crazy evil moma, a sister is an important ally.

Here's a glimpse at some sisters plotting their moma's demise.

Train boy rides the short bus

Here's my train boy. He found a Thomas bike helmet at Walmart. Best $21.68 I ever spent. He wore it non-stop the first 48 hours. To the grocery, my friend's house, picking up the sisters from school, TO BED!!! He got a big ol' headache the 2nd day and I convinced him not to wear it 24/7. Whew.

All my April Fools

Should you be living under a rock and somehow missed this little news clip, then you might be wondering...and the answer is yes, we are affected by it, yes, we are disappointed that our "half way mark" was pushed back, but yes, we are fine....

However, our month has be riddled by other issues...like, strep throat....
...which is why we missed our 2nd Easter Sunday service in a row.....


and, my personal favorite....


CHICKEN POX!!!

Yes...he's got the chicken pox shot...I don't know...my wonderful doctor neighbor came over and had a look and verified...and told me now Jamison was doubly immune. I'm just hoping and praying that the girls don't get it. They don't need to miss any more school.

Speakig of school, the girls are doing great. I had parent/teacher conferences on Thursday, and I tell you, I've always known my girls were pretty special, but to have 2 teachers in a row tell you how wonderful they are...well, I guess my fears of raising ax murders...or worse-mini-Paris Hilton's...are put to rest. I do have to give a lot of acknowledgement to the incredible teachers they have-teachers that really "get" my girls.

Well, that's been our April in a nutshell. Hopefully illnesses and extra sunshine won't keep me from posting regularly.

Hoppy Easter

Alright, a little cliche, but here's some pics to keep you from rolling your eyes.

Little Mermaid conquers a mountain

Tim took each girl on an individual date. SarahBeth wanted to climb a mountain. OK. So they climbed a mountain.

Frick 'n Frack

I tried my hardest to get these two to look at me and give me a nice smile. HOWEVER, the TV was on...you all know how they are....but they look so alike in this picture, I just had to share.

Spring has....sprung?????

Yeah, yeah, bad blogger....anyway...one winter later....


Well, sort of one winter later. I guess that depends on who you ask and where they are livin'. 'Round here is seems to be part of the Spring Break package deal to get yourself a fresh bit of snow. BUT!!!! I'm an eternal weather optimist...it should be turning around any day now and melting real quick. It is, after all, the end of March.

I guess I should also add that I didn't take this picture. TIM DID!!! He's home for a little R 'n R until the end of the month. The kids are on spring break, so it's been kids and daddy wrestle hour everyday all day. Jamison hardly recognizes me as a part of his world and Kenai is sleeping oh so peacefully now that she doesn't have to keep watch over us all. If you squint your eyes and tilt your head it would almost appear that Tim never left at all.

Friends in all spaces and far away places

A.K.A My new desktop background

Here's a picture of Tim and Kent, a friend from Germany. I could be wrong, but I believe they last saw each other in Afghanistan.

Tim is well. He's offically in the place he will be for the next year. We don't have an offical address yet, but if your interested in knowing just email me.

Got any halibut recipes?

Tim had this whole week off. The end is very near and everybody had block leave. (If you aren't following, email me. We'll talk.) So, while we've been busy wrapping up a few last minute details and honey-do's, we've also made sure to have fun too.

Tim took a charter boat out of Seward on Wednesday with a friend from work. After a long day of fishing Tim helped reel in a 276 pound Halibut! While he didn't get to lay ultimate claim to the big one, he still came home with 50 POUNDS of Halibut!!!

Here's a few pics of his conquest.

Following the tourist

If there is anything we have learned in our world travels, it's this: when all else fails, follow the tourist, they seem to know where they are going.

This is especially true with wildlife here in Alaska. No matter how long people have lived here, they will pull over and stop to observe any creature that is in sight.

As we were headed to catch the train the other day, the traffic came to a stand still. And that's when I hollered, "start looking!" Sure enough there was a giant pod of Beluga whales swimming down the Turnagain Arm. Everyone one was so in awe that we were all silent and you could hear them "pppshhhhh" as they came to the surface. However, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get a picture of their white backs. Here's a picture anyway. It was only last night that I realized how beautiful the water and mountains were behing them.

I Found my thrill....

on Blueberry Hill....

We found a TON of blueberries last year on a ski slope, so we couldn't let the rest of town rob us of the yummy memories. And just in case we forgot who provided all that natural goodness, He put a beautiful, perfect rainbow behind the mountain-just to remind us!

Alaska Railroad Riders!!!

We finally did it yesterday. We took our train boy on his first offical train ride. We caught the train at Portage (the glacier for those that have been here) and rode into the mountains. The journey was absolutely beautiful. We sat in a dome topped train that allowed us a great view all around and a sweet park ranger that just ended up hanging out with us answering every single question LeighAnne could fire at her. Oh, and there were only 9 of us on the whole train. If we saw something we wanted to look at longer, they radioed the driver, and we would stop. A few times we even backed up to look at things.

Jamison was in hog heaven and could care less about all the glaciers and creatures we saw. He loved standing between the cars and watching the engine do it's thing. He just talked and talked to the conductor. The only time he was uncomfortable was when he got to take pictures with the conductor right on the engine. He wasn't real thrilled about the loud noise.

Overall, it was a precious memory and the best way to spend a Labor Day.

Termination Dust

'Round here we call that first dusting of snow on the mountain tops termination dust-meaning ofcourse, summer has been terminated.

Last year it hit September 1st. I was OK with that. It was, after all, September. And it didn't snow until Thanksgiving. Sooo, imagine how unhappy I am that the "dust" hit August 11th this year!

But, no matter what this winter may bring, there is something so beautiful about that first sprinkle of snow on those mountain tops. It's like God dusted them with powdered sugar.

The Deck

If you recall, we moved in last year and set to work on putting in the yard. This year, Tim's goal was to get a deck put in. I have to tell you, I'm always impressed by my husband's ability to get jobs done-but this time he outdid himself. It's a great deck!


Now, here's my favorite view of the deck!!!!

It's OK Sloane...

I felt the same way when I met your Davis side of the family. Don't worry. They grow on you.




Introducing Sloane Renata

Born 01 August, 2006 at 1:25 in the afternoon

Weight: 8lbs., 1 oz
Length: 21 inches

If you wanna see more pictures, just click on the Paige's Page link to the right.

Welcome to the world little one. I can't wait to meet you.

What cha know!?!?! Here's another blackmail photo

Just "waterin' the trees". If you can't tell, we are in the beginning stages of potty training. So far, gigantic "YEAH!!!!"'s and clapping seem to be all the motivation Jamison needs. Now, the next step is to get him to go....hhhmmmm....more than just pee-pee in the potty chair. THAT will earn him a new Thomas Train.

Photos to blackmail our sons with

Here's one of Jamison and Jeanne's baby boy Hayden. This one is quite tame. I'm saving the "non-ballon" pictures for the day they come home with mohawks. Then I'll blow up those pictures and plaster them all over the town-until the mohawk is gone.

Happy 4th of July!

We went last night to the local celebration and fireworks. The fireworks don't start until midnight because of the extended daylight. Here's a quick picture for you to get an idea of the light around here. We had a wonderful time and we all didn't get into bed until after 1:00 in the morning. I'm telling you, the light here is just crazy. I was wearing sunglasses after 10:30!

Boogie Boardin'

Us girls spent an afternoon at the beach with some boogie boards trying to conquer the Pacific Ocean. By far, LeighAnne was the winner. At one point she told me-her frustrated moma to "just be ONE with the waves" Honestly, another week in California and she'd been voting Democrat and living in trees!!!

Dona...you just travel AGAIN across the world with 3 kids...what are you going to do next?

I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!!!

Do you know the way to San Clemente?

So, the kiddos and I got on a plane at 0240 Sunday morning (yes, that's 2:40 IN THE MORNING for you non-military) for beautiful, sunny warm California. My wonderful, bestest, favoritist, beautifulist friend-from-Germany Jeanne picked us up in Los Angeles and drove us to her parents beach house in San Clemente (famous for Richard Nixon's R&R's) To say it is paradise isn't even close. Crashing waves, beautiful fragrant flowers, sea lions on the rocks in the water, and young Marines running shirtless on the beach (oops, didn't mean that!) I'm still not sure I want to go to Disneyland.

Tim is joinging us first thing in the AM on Friday and we check into our Disney hotel later that evening. But in the meantime, here's a picture of the kids on the deck of the house.

Train Boy

Our train boy finally got to stand next to a moving real life train. Tim had last Friday off and Jamison personally requested to go see "big trains" so we went. He took the whole thing so seriously that I don't have one picture of him smiling...he was overwhelmed and so sweet.

Here's a picture with his newest obsession....the CABOOSE!











And here he's getting ready to fuss at Kenai for walking on the tracks. He has a train movie that warns of the dangers of playing on railroad tracks, and my newest and youngest safety officer had to work hard to keep Kenai in check.

Is this the face of summertime or what?

For those of you that remember...

the picture seen around the world...

Here's the updated version...

Poor Doug

He didn't know how deep his was getting into it all when he flew his toddler and pregnant wife to visit 1 rowdy dog, 1 naughty toddler, 2 whiny girls, a (slightly) grumpy sis-in-law and an over worked brother in law.

Dumb Dog

So, it's warming up and staying daylight pretty late now, but it's still Alaska, so no green lawns and only the pussy willows are blooming. However, the ground is nice and dry now after all the snow has melted and the rivers and creeks are breaking up. I took the dog and kids to a park last weekend. Being a boy, the first thing Jamison wanted to do was throw rocks in the creek...being diligent sisters, the girls stood right beside him and made sure he was OK...being a dumb a$$ water dog, Kenai hopped over the ice chunks and played in the water. It was a misty cloudy day...there is NO WAY she was cooling off from too much sun on her black coat...

Airborne Humvee

Here's a picture Tim took of a humvee exiting their C-17. The picture is on the front page of the post newspaper. And a quick clarification, the other airborne pic down below was NOT taken by Tim.

More moose on the loose

OK, I guess if I confess that I went out to dinner and a movie with my neighbor (whose husband is on a ship in the middle of the south seas) the very night Jamison got terribly sick, I might not convince you all that it's all "woe is me" all day long. But, I'm willing to sacrifice your pity so I can show you what we encountered on the way home.

On Northern Lights Blvd...a 4 lane busy road we came to a stop to allow 2 moose to cross the street and then head down the other side with traffic. The pictures aren't that clear, but you get the idea!

E is for Easter and.....

Emergency Room.

Yep, that sinus infection kept us up all night long and prompted a trip to the ER instead of a photo op in the parking lot of church. Here's what Jamison thought of the Easter Bunny's special delivery. And the ER trip got him a breathing treatment and some meds to try and clear his lungs. So far, so good.

How to tell when Daddy is gone

Match the illness to the above creatures:

A. Sinus Infection
B. Recent Head Trauma
C. Ear/eye infection

Never fails!!!

The muse is loose

Yep, he's gone again. Jumped into Donnelly Training Area yesterday. I haven't talked to him, but he sent these pics this morning. I'm guessing he used his new camera!

No, really, it's not April Fools

OK, for those of you that actually still come and see if I actually posted anything new, try not to have a heart attack.

I guess my problem has been that my muse has been gone more than home, so without inspiration I lack motivation.

None the less, it's 45 degrees here today and we are slowly starting to see the ground. There is still 2 inches of packed snow/ice on my driveway, but I have hope by this time next week I will have been able to chip through it all.

The sun is a wonderful old friend that has come to join us again. By 6:00 AM the sky is starting to glow and we all are usually out of bed before 7:00...even during Spring Break over a week ago. We also had a suprise visitor a couple of days into the break-look below for the picture. I should add that the girls Spring Break started off with atleast 6 inches of fresh snow but most was gone by the end of the week.

As I said before, Tim is just a novelty around here lately. Looks like it will continue that way until May. We had our 10 year anniversary this week and it was a biggy for me because I got 2 phone calls AND an email!!!! I also went and bought myself an anniversary IPOD, so when you combine that with a new house, new car and new couch, I'm coming out on the good side of it all.

Jamison gets to go to a birthday party this afternoon. This is his second big boy party in the last month. He's very excited.

The girls got their report cards this week and I'm so proud of them. They have really improved since the first report cards came out. Not that those were bad, I just knew they could have done so much better-and now they've proved it. I'm proud of their efforts, improvements and accomplishments. They even managed not to kill each other during spring break.

Alright, no April Fools here...you actually got an update...and I promise to be better-muse or no.