Pumpkin Carving Party

Today, we hosted a pumpkin carving party for the jr high kids from church. It was a byop event. Bring your own pumpkin! It was a lot of fun and a good chance for the kids to spend some time doing a fun activity together outside of bible class. A good pre youth group bonding experience.
Of course, if you get 7 jr high kids in a room, you're going to hear some sarcastic and funny things, but I heard the funniest thing all day from one of these kids.
Most of the kids were in the scoop out the guts stage and this is what was said,
Joe: Why is my pumpkin so cold?
Addi (the boy pictured just below): Because you're holding it so close to your heart.
I can't help but chuckle just typing this.
These kids were a lot of fun today. And fortunately no one injured themselves with a knife, although Luke had me very worried several times. That boy! Seriously, I don't know how his mother stays so calm. He'd totally have me squirming with nervousness all the time.

Picking Pumpkins

We went to Don Abel's the other day and let the kids pick out their pumpkins in their little pumpkin patch. This is nothing like a pumpkin patch down south, but it's as close as we can get in Juneau, so I'll take it. Basically they brought in a few bales of hay, added a couple of scarecrows and scattered the pumpkins throughout. And presto chango, the garden area became a pumpkin patch. I don't mean to down play it, because actually it looked pretty nice and I think the kids enjoyed picking out their pumpkins this way. Much more memorable than in years past when Shawn and I pick out the best one for carving out of the giant bin in the produce department.
And every trip to Don Abel's would not be complete without a stop at the popcorn station. The kids love it...seriously. Carly often mentions that she loves Don Abel's popcorn. So much so that her Uncle Lee even brings her some whenever he's been there.

Isaac wasn't so interested with a posed picture with his sister.
But Carly was definitely sporting her photogenic side.
This giant Cinderella pumpkin was for sale too--$125! The little girl is priceless and obviously not for sale. :)
The only time Isaac wanted to give a smile.




"It's sort of heavy, Momma. And it's cold."
"Too heavy! Too cold! Help me!"
So I traded what I had for what he had. He was much happier with the trade. Really we should have gotten the popcorn last, because he is such a fan of the stuff that he wasn't all that interested in the pumpkin thing. Oh, well. Good pictures and memories.

Fish Hatchery Field Trip

It's been almost a week now, but last Wednesday, I helped Carly's preschool class with a field trip to the fish hatchery in Juneau. We've been before, but it's always fun to go with your class from school. Plus the people from the hatchery made a special effort to have some extra activities for the two classes of 4 year olds. They had a story station, complete with flannel graph pictures, to tell a story about the life cycle of salmon. They also had coloring pages and puzzles for the kids to work on when they were done with the touch tanks and looking in the aquarium.

Now, if you had heard from me or saw it on facebook, you might remember that Carly had just been sick. Two days before this field trip, she stayed home from school. But the following day, a regular day off from school, she was acting totally normal. Bouncing around the house, eating, playing...you know, normal. Well, the morning of the field trip, which I had already agreed to drive for, Carly woke up and didn't look so great. She was coughing a bit and wiping her nose. But I just kept remembering her from the day before, and I really wanted this illness to be behind us. So I took her anyway, and figured that I'd be with her on the field trip and if she didn't do well, I'd just bring her home after the fish hatchery. Well, looking back at these pictures, I'm realizing that I probably should have kept her home. But I was torn by my commitment to help drive the students. I know, I know, she looks a bit miserable in these pictures. But would it help if I told you she didn't act as miserable as she looks? Well, ok then. Go ahead and think that while you look at the rest of the pictures. :) I know...this is another one of those moments for a "mother of the year" nomination.

The above picture is Carly and her two friends that rode with us to the fish hatchery.
Below is most of her class. Her teacher is in the black jacket behind them. And the two men on the right were our hatchery hosts.
Normally...she loves these touch tanks a bit more than she's showing in this pic.



Fortunately, she's completely better now. Really, she is. Now worries this week about whether or not she was well enough for school. Good thing, it's her turn to bring snacks and show and tell this Friday. I know she won't want to miss that.

Cutting Room Floor--August Edition

If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll know that I usually try to keep things current. Things are often posted about within a few weeks, if not days. But I've been going through pictures lately and I realized that there is a lot of stuff that we've taken pictures of and never posted to the blog, despite their "blogworthiness". So I've decided to dedicate a few posts in the coming weeks and months to those "cutting room floor" photos and events--the ones that for one reason or another didn't get posted soon after they were taken.

This post is dedicated to some photos that we took in August 09, when Shawn's parents were here. When they arrived, we basically let them drop off their bags at our house and then we hit the road and headed downtown to make it in time to watch Lee compete in the annual JPD triathlon.
Here he is swimming the pool--notice the personalized swim cap. Would you believe me if I told you he had it custom made?
Apparently, he's still feeling good in this photo. But it was only the beginning of the second stage--the bike.
Isaac waiting to watch Uncle Lee whiz down the street on his bike.
And this would be the photo that I like to title: "Just why am I doing this again?" Actually Lee did really well. I don't remember now, but he won something for his age group. Lee, you'll have to comment and tell us all what it was.
Now, I've always thought of myself as a fairly tough chick--not too tough of course, but tough enough. However, just look at this chick! Of course, she's already got one up on me, because she's a police officer, but what you may not know is that she came off of maternity leave to do this triathlon! I could most definitely never see myself doing that. In fact, I really can't ever see myself doing a triathlon--but definitely not a mere 8 weeks after giving birth.

And here we have another tough chick. Mrs. Weske you put me to shame. Not a police officer, but a fellow wife. She's got two kids like me, but her youngest is a year younger than my youngest. And she totally smoked Lee in the pool! I guess this means I better start training for something. But seriously, don't expect me to be in next year's triathlon. I really don't have much of a desire to do three races back to back, maybe one....we'll see.
And what would anyone else do after a triathlon? Pig out of hot dogs and hamburgers, of course! It does seem a little strange when you think of it like that, doesn't it? But that's the way we roll around here, so the annual summer picnic is held at the finish line of the triathlon.
Carly got herself into a statewide police officer newsletter with this photo. Her daddy took it.

Good thing they didn't pick this one. She has her daddy to thank for this one too.

This photo was from a moment that Shawn and I both said, "ahh, I'm so glad we're past that now." This was the first time my "soon to be sister in law", met her "soon to be in laws". This also followed some hushed comments that Shawn and I overheard from Lee and Rachel about where to stand and who should walk first.
Ahh, yep.
I prefer the "familiar" stage of my in-laws rather than the "brand-spankin' new" stage.
From our view there seemed to be an understandably initial awkwardness, but it soon faded. Rachel is a great gal and I have some great in-laws, so they quickly hit it off. After the picnic we took a family walk/ride to the glacier. Shawn and Isaac rode on/in the bike, and the rest of us walked. Carly walked all the way there and then rode back home with Shawn. We also had a great bear sighting while were out there, but I had already put my camera in the bike fearing that the rain sprinkles were going to turn into a full shower.

And no trip to visit us would be complete without a work project. This works nicely since my father-in-law likes to have something to do. So he and Shawn attacked the giant pile of wood rounds that had been piled up after we had 34 trees cut down last fall.
We even made Grandma work! When it was all said and done (a few weeks later), we estimate that we now have 8 cords of stacked firewood in the backyard. And the answer to your burning question (no pun intended): no, we don't have a wood stove. However, we'd like to get one in the near future. We'll see.

Reading books with Grandma. This was quite possibly one of their favorite things to do with her. However, they didn't seem to appreciate reading with Grandpa quite as much, since he scans and "reads" the pictures.
All dressed up before church Sunday morning.
And even though this picture doesn't have my in-laws in it, they were home helping Shawn with the kids, and thereby made this picture possible. This is me with my good friend, Monica, just a few days before she left for college. Monica and I met together almost every Tuesday night during this past school year, at her request, to have a Bible study. At first I wasn't sure if I should say yes, and add another activity to my already busy schedule, but I'm so glad I did. I grew and learned so much from our time together. Plus I became strong friends with a girl who makes her inner beauty a priority. Oh, and by the way, thanks for making me look good, Monica, by ordering water and the Waffle House! Hope you enjoyed the recap of some fun times that we had in August, but ones that didn't get to the blog in a timely fashion. Here they are now in all their bloglandia glory!

Picture Walks

We've had a couple of beautiful sunny, but cool days in Juneau lately. Unfortunately, we've had sick kids in our house, so we haven't really gone out much. But we had a couple of nice days a week or so ago as well. I took advantage of the sun and took the kids out on some walks behind our house. One of my favorite things about our the location of our house is that we are within walking distance of Alaska's most visited and famous attraction--the Mendenhall Glacier. My second most favorite thing is that our property backs up to forest service land. All we do is walk through the fence, walk about 10 feet and we're on a trail that eventually leads us to the glacier. We didnt' go that far on these days because my focus was to find good spots for photos. The kids still enjoyed the walks regardless of the destination.
Enjoy the pictures.