Giant Muscle Lumps

I am a bit ashamed to see how long it has been since I wrote....

Well even when you don't have all the worldly distractions everyone else has...apparently you can get busy with five kids....

The kids are really enjoying the school year.  It has been lots of fun for them to have so many kids around.  We are currently sitting at 14 students as opposed to last years 7.

The boys love that the kids who moved in have some of the same interests.  Kayaking, archery and of course X-BOX....

Jenner is learning his site words like a cat likes milk.  I am amazed at how he just seems to absorb everything.

Ender...well he is Ender.  He is really into physical things...He loves his scooter and he loves working out.  He is the one who said "Mom, look at my huge muscle lumps!" as he showed off his arms.

Judge and Raiden think they need to conquer all things X-Box...and in particular Halo.  So they don't quite enjoy being told they have spent to much time on it...

Nia is recently in heaven.  She finally got her very own scooter.  She picked it out and everything.  She was over the moon when her bright pink and black scooter got here.  She was riding around on it as quick as we could put it together...so color her happy!

Kale started going back to college this month.  Not his favorite thing in the world...but a requirement to retain a teaching license....

I thankfully am not the lunch lady this year.  We are still in the process of patching together a lunch program that will hopefully carry us through the year....I have the pleasure of being the VP of the local parent and teacher group as well as the school janitor.  It isn't a bad job considering I am only cleaning up after 14 kids....and as a plus I can listen to my music and not worry about a little one while I do it...

So now we are caught up...hopefully I wont fall so far behind in the future....

Well I never...

have managed to get a picture of the big jelly fish before.  So I was super excited when I finally had my camera and saw one of these guys in the water!

If everyone one else...would you?

...my kids responded with a resounding YES! to this age old question..

I don't think it hurt that I have two tween children who just can't be shown up by their

ol' ma!

 

I think I have accidently on purpose created our first official tradition for here in Alaska.  A year ago, almost to the day I jumped into the wonderfully cold ocean in front of our house on a nice sunny day....

Well it was a nice day, we were all outside enjoying the sunshine after kayaking....and wouldn't you know...

 

Mom made it into the ocean once again...

 

And then they were like lemmings....

 

 

Her look does say it all...

I am so not going in there!  Are these people crazy?

And Jenner, bless his heart, wouldn't come in till we captured a picture

of him performing a miracle of his own...

One, being in cold, cold water..

Two, the hopefully obvious standing on water...

SUUUUUMMMMMERRR

I know as kids summer never seemed long enough.  One day you were getting out of school and the next thing you know you were getting new clothes to go back to school.

I know there was a few sleepovers and swim parties thrown in there for good measure (on the good ones we went to Lake Powell) but man did it go fast...

Now it seems to go on and on and on like a really bad movie.....except this one you can't pause or eject from the dvd player....

But here are to the nice hot days for you in Utah...muhhahaha!  And the rainy days for us here in Alaska...dripdripdrop! 

Flowers for Grandma

 

We saw these pretty cool flowers in one of our walks recently.  They come in white, pink and purple...

 

The kids like how tall they grow (they get bigger than all of us) and that they come in several colors...

 

So here are flowers...all the way from Alaska....for our Grandmas..

 

Gma R for sending us the many fun packages...

 

Gma P for the anticipation of seeing her soon...

 

Love you guys!

Welcome August

Today was a beautiful sunny day here in P.A.  We spent it exploring tide pools, picking berries (don't even get me started on the ensuing berry fight) and going kayaking.

About Time

 

Your looking at our first king salmon since returning...say yum?

 

I figured I had done enough lazing about...without doing any lazing or abouting...that I should get back on and let the world...or at least our family know...that we are still kicking!

 

And insanely glad that although we awoke to fog it wasn't raining and that made the days prospects so much brighter!

 

So enjoy your 90's and 100 degree weather.  We will keep our rain and chilly morning...

 

Plus we get to go out and pick salmon berries and huckle berries today!