Pillow Fight

Recently Shawn taught Carly the art of pillow fighting. This was them on Saturday morning showing me their skills. Carly was having a blast, but Shawn looks like he's enjoying himself quite a bit too. It was pretty much non stop giggling and laughter for a good 5 minutes.
Enjoy the pictures.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there--especially those who still have cards from us that haven't been mailed yet. (We're a bit late on some of them this year.)
We had a pretty good holiday. Shawn had to work last night so he was sleeping this morning. I came home from camping early this morning with the kids and we got ready for church. After church, we went home and woke up Shawn so we could give him some gifts and go out for lunch. We went out to Donna's (and Hinds family favorite whenever visiting in Juneau). Shawn had breakfast and I had lunch, and Carly ate some of both. Isaac had some applesauce.
Anyway, here is a picture of our resident father and his children. Isaac was a little better during this photo shoot. I'm also including this second photo, even though it's a little blurry, because Isaac looks so funny with his tongue sticking out. I think Carly was also wincing at a bug flying by.
Hope you all had a great day and enjoyed some good family time like we did.

Beach

Today the kids and I went to a wedding that was out at a park on the Mendenhall Lake. It has a great view of the glacier from there. After the ceremony I took the kids down to the beach for a photo shoot. It proved to be quite difficult since the 8 month old was much more interested in the rocks and sand than the camera. I finally got him to look at the camera by tapping a stick on the sand in front of him and then dangling it above the camera. So this is the best picture I got of the two of them.This is the best one of Carly.
This shows what Isaac looked like for most of the photo shoot. Carly was doing her best to get him to sit up and look at the camera.
The object of 95% of Isaac's interest.
With the glacier--kind of cloudy, but it's there.
Big girl pose.

Tough

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

I’d have to say that I think I’m a pretty tough gal. Now I’ll admit that our first year of marriage in Japan, I was a pretty big baby. I pretty much cried at the drop of a hat. But come on—I was culture shocking! Anyway, I stuck it out and very quickly, found myself thoroughly enjoying living and working in another country.

So back to the tough part, other than living in Japan I went snowshoeing when I was six months pregnant with Carly, I moved to Alaska, traveled on a plane with a 2 ½ year old when I was 7 months pregnant with Isaac, and gave birth to two kids without any meds. I'd say I'm a pretty tough cookie.

Well, this week I’ve really had to “get going”. My husband’s employer is making it tough for me. This week Shawn has been going through intense training here in Juneau. He’s been working 10-12 hour days all week. When Shawn has a long day like that, it turns into about a 14 hour day for me. This last Monday, a usual day off, was spent in training. Monday was also our anniversary, but because of his training going over we only had 35 minutes to enjoy a dinner together. And did you all see how tired he looked in that picture I posted Monday night? This Saturday we had planned to join the church camping retreat and at least spend one night out there all together. But duty calls and Shawn will be working night shift. So I guess I’m going to be a tough momma and take the kids out on my own. I know there will be plenty of extra hands happy to help if I need it. Now let’s also add on that this coming Monday (usually a day off) will be another training day for Shawn. Then the work week starts again on Tuesday. He’ll be busy next weekend as well.

Aye-yai-yai (or however you spell that)! Now, I don’t mean this post to be a whiny, woe-is-me-post. My point is just to document the reality of our lives—even when it’s tough. I know I can handle this tough time (with the strength of God). But wow, this is a lot. I’m so thankful that my husband enjoys his work, and I’m very proud of how hard he works. He really is a great police officer. I just don’t think people realize how much police officer families sacrifice.

But you know, now that I’ve typed it all out, it doesn’t seem nearly as daunting as I thought earlier today. And maybe this “tough time” is just a part of raising a young family. Probably most of you mom’s out there have been where I’ve been this week. So I’ll “just keep swimming” and try to remember that this will make me stronger and better able to handle the next tough time.

On a lighter note, coming back from the store today Isaac and Carly were having a good old giggle fest in the back seat. Nothing like the laughter of children to make you laugh yourself.

7 Years and a New Birth

This was us seven years ago, June 9, 2001. Can you believe it? We are having such a good time being married and sharing a life together. We were just talking last night about how after seven years it still feels like it was yesterday. But at the same time it also feels like, "Wow, we've been married for a pretty good chunk of time!" We are still just having a blast.This is us tonight, June 9, 2008. I should have checked the camera before we left the restaurant, because it's not exactly my favorite picture. But it does show that we got to go out for dinner--just the two of us. A friend took Carly and Isaac to a birthday party for us. Our dinner time was a bit short since I waited about an hour for Shawn at the police station. He was in SERT (or SWAT) training and they were held over! Grr to the police department--today was supposed to be my turn with Shawn.
I tried to explain to Carly today that it was our anniversary. I think she finally got it. At first, I explained that this was the day Momma and Daddy got married. Then she said, "Yea, and I was the flower girl." (She was obviously getting confused with Sharon and Eric's wedding when she was the flower girl. Actually now she thinks she's supposed to be the flower girl at every wedding.) Then I showed her our wedding picture on the wall (Shawn calls it out wedding poster) and told her that we got married seven years ago. She said, "Yea, when you got married you were seven and Daddy was eight." Not quiet, but good try. Incidentally, Does this mean she's gonna be surprised when she figures out that Momma is actually older than Daddy?
We had to eat a little quickly for a great reason. Kinsey, a girl in the youth group at church was getting baptized and we were invited to attend. We are so proud of her and her decision to commit her life to Christ. Kinsey has such a great heart. Her lifelong walk with Christ is in our prayers.

After this picture, Kinsey and her dad walked behind the white curtain on the side and she was out of view. At just that moment, she let out a big sigh, which everyone heard. There was pretty much a unison giggle that came out from the audience. I'm sure that Kinsey was just relived to have it done with--especially since she doesn't seem to be the kind that really likes all the attention on her. I also thought how appropriate her sigh was. What a relief to have all your sins washed away and to be clean like fresh snow. I think her sigh was the perfect reaction.

Silly Goose

"Silly Goose" is a phrase we seem to use a lot in our house. It's usually directed at Carly or coming from her mouth. Tonight she said and did some pretty silly things I thought I'd share.

After dinner, we made cookies (as you can see from the ring of chocolate around her mouth in the picture). Carly always loves to help me cook. As soon as we added the chocolate chips, this is how things went:
Carly: Yea! Now we can eat a big handful!
Me: No, Carly that would be too much.
Carly: Oh, now we can have a iddy bit handful.
Me: Well, ok, maybe so.

Her word "iddy" is really more of a cross between little and iddy and sounds so cute.

Then after the cookies were done, I went into her room to get her ready for bed and I saw this scene. She had pulled out one of the drawers from her desk and turned it into a bunk bed for her doll (actually it's my doll) and Curious George. As you can imagine, she was giggling when I took this picture. What a silly goose!

snip, snip

Yesterday, Carly got her first haircut. Yes, that's right she's 3 and just now getting her first haircut. Shawn wasn't ready for his little girl to get a haircut until she turned 3. I had to work pretty hard to convince him that she needed one. Really, it was just a trim not really a "cut". She did pretty well and stayed still for much longer than I was expecting.

Thank goodness for PBS cartoons to keep her attention while I cut.

All done. See all you worrywarts, we didn't cut that much off. Just a good trim.

Juneau's Energy Crisis

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this earlier, but here goes.
Many of you may not know that on April 16, there was a huge avalanche near Juneau that wiped out the town's hydro electric power lines. We're talking huge power line towers bent like toothpicks. Anyway, this meant that our town's relatively cheap hydro electricity was promptly replaced by generators powered by costly diesel. Initial estimates were that our cost per kWh would jump from $.11 to $.45 or $.50. Well after the dust settled it turned out the entire city was charged $.52 per kWh. So that meant we (and everyone in Juneau) made big changes. First we unplugged everything that didn't need to be plugged in. And we basically stopped using the dryer and oven. We did a lot of grilling and managed to get our deep freeze unplugged. (We heard that at our high rates a deep freeze could cost you $50 a month!) I also started using the dishwasher much less, about once a week.
So here's a view of how things have looked in our home for the last 6 weeks.And like I said, we weren't the only ones in town to cut back. The library and some stores started closing early to save energy. And pretty much every place in town turned off half of it's lights. Home Depot was the scariest like this. Something about the way they had their lights and aisles arranged--one aisle would be bright like normal and the next one would be so dark you'd have to squint to read the prices.
We got our first high bill a few weeks ago, and were were able to cut our energy consumption by 20% from the previous month. Which was pretty good since we had been gone for a week the month before and we had company for a week during the high rates.
The good news is that the repair crews reconnected the city to hydro power on Sunday night. Woohoo! That's a whole two months earlier than they had first predicted. The awesome two weeks of weather that we had at the end of May really helped. Right now we're in a slightly higher rate period--they haven't officially decided yet but somewhere between $.15 and $.18 per kWh--to cover the cost of diesel that rose over the six weeks. We're still doing a lot of our same conservation though. They've kind of become normal habits. I did use the dryer for two loads today though. Yea! But I still hung up one load--I just couldn't help myself!
So in closing I'd like to leave you with some of my favorite parts of an email/forward I received from a fellow police wife entitled "You might be a Juneau avalanche victim if..." (Yes, it's true someone actually made such an email.)

You Might be a Juneau Avalanche Victim if . . .

* You have asked family in the Lower 48 to mail you clothespins or clothesline.
* You have attempted to make a cake or cookies on the barbeque.
* Your family ate fish and venison for two weeks so you could unplug the freezer.
* You have driven your car onto your lawn and used the headlights to illuminate your house.
* You have held a flashlight so your children can do their math homework.
* Everyone in your family knows where the main power shut off is and which breaker is which.
* You have compared the cost of new socks and underwear for two months versus laundry costs.
* You are more frightened of the light than what might be in the dark.
* You know your mother would be proud of your survival skills.
* You say at least once a day "Thank goodness it didn't happen in January!"

This is a little more true than you might realize, but it still makes me laugh.
Have a good night--and turn out that light!

Some Recent Views

The other day I snapped these pics on Egan Drive (the main highway/thoroughfare through town). I just love this view on a beautiful sunny day in May like we've had lately. I know dandelions are weeds, but they look so beautiful scattered on the sides of the road like this. I think it's the perfect spot for these weed flowers. This sight won't last for long too because sooner than later a big mower will come through and we can say bye-bye to the dandelions. But that's ok, because in July we'll have pretty fireweed to enjoy on our drives.
Maybe some local reading my blog can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the two peaks in the pictures are Blackerby Ridge (left) and Mt. Juneau (right). And that would be the corner of Fred Meyer in the left of the second picture.
Then the other day, I looked up to see this view. I was quite proud of myself for not freaking out and cleaning up the "mess". Instead I took a moment to enjoy how much Carly loves her brother. She really does enjoy taking care of him and helping him. Isaac has been a great eater since my last post about him eating bananas. I got up for just a minute to get him a wet washcloth to clean his face, and sister instantly nabbed my seat and decided he had room for more. That's plain yogurt that she's feeding him--he's quite fond of the stuff.

Memorial Day Picnics

We started our day of picnic-ing at Lena Beach for our annual picnic with the church. The weather was great, so we all had a great time. Here are some pictures showing how each member of our family enjoyed themselves. Shawn also played some frisbee and managed to not loose the aerobie this time. Carly also played with her sand toys (even though it's a rocky beach). Isaac was pretty content to sit on Lela's blanket most of the time.

Here's a good chunk of our group enjoying the feast and the view of the water. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the view. I was thinking more of getting "people" pictures.

This picture just cracks me up! Three out of four Baird children out for the count at the same time! Now how often does that happen in the middle of the day? They were all pooped from a night of camping.


Picnic #2 was at Mark and Connie Petz' house. They were our neighbors when we lived in our apartment up here. And we soon found out that we have a bunch of mutual friends. Anyhoo, we had a turkey we were needing to get out of our freezer and I happened to remember that Mark and Connie had a crab pot that could be used as a turkey fryer. So about a week ago we called them up and they thought having it on Memorial Day would be perfect. So that's just what we did--a little Thanksgiving style dinner on Memorial Day!

Here's Carly playing in the dirt and rocks with Justus and Ethan (Mark and Connie's grandson--more about him later). Unfortunately, Carly was the only girl. I'm afraid that's a scenario that's going to repeat itself a lot in the coming years. So far it doesn't seem to bother her.

Here's "the guys" watching the turkey cook.


Matthias--I wish I was on the other side of the screen door to get this shot. Especially when he had his face smashed up against it.


My sweet baby boy--3 months younger than his buddies he's playing with.




Owen (aka Baby Oh-oh--that's what Carly used to call him). I see so much of both his parents in him. I just love his hair.





Joe and Luke finally returned from their wilderness trekking--good thing they didn't miss the turkey!




Ahh! There it is. Careful, it's hot!




My boys!










These three people make me so happy!





This photo is a little blurry, but Shawn frantically snapped it. You're looking at the aftermath of Carly's first kiss. Carly and Ethan (who's almost 4) along with Ethan's older brother, Seth were playing of to the side of the campfire us adults were enjoying. We all noticed something going on and looked over to see Ethan looking like he was hugging Carly and then--smack--right on the lips. It just cracks me up how embarrassed Carly looks and how guilty Ethan looks. It turns out that Seth--the older brother--was the one who told Ethan to kiss Carly. The blurry man in the sweatshirt is not Shawn ready to take Ethan out back, it's Ethan's Dad going over to investigate. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been a snotty nosed, stinky boy. Fortunately, it was sweet little Ethan who was just a little too trusting in his older brother.

Swimming at the Glacier

This afternoon (after lunch and Isaac's nap) we rode our bikes out to the Mendenhall Glacier. For those that don't know, we live about a 3 minute drive, an 8 minute bike ride, or a 30 minute walk from the most beautiful attraction Juneau has to offer. We literally live right around the corner from a glacier. Anyway, we loaded up the kids in the bike trailer and brought along some sand toys and beach towels. That's right we went swimming at the Mendenhall Lake. Now don't be worried, no one got hypothermia. Actually there are a few shallow fingers of the lake that sits at the edge of the glacier that heat up pretty nicely when the weather is nice. So that's where we went today. We walked onto the farther set of pools today so we wouldn't have to listen to the tourists gasp as they walked by. It was great. Carly pretty much just played in the sand and waded. I think the only time she really "got in the water" was when she tripped. Isaac had a ball too.This is the new carrier we got for Isaac--well actually it's for me. And I love it. It makes it so much easier to carry him around. It is so much more comfortable than a sling or front pack. And I feel like he's much more secure. Anyway, you'll surely see lots more pictures of us using this especially since Isaac loves for me to carry him.

Tomorrow we have two picnics to go to, so we'll try to post some pictures and stories tomorrow night. Hope you're all having a great weekend!