An Alaskan At The Helm?

Who knew we Alaskans had such entertaining senators back in the good old days? And Mr. Gravel is making a comeback!



Mike Gravel at the debates the other night. It's worth watching! Let's hope he stays in it and keeps things lively!

Does everyone think we're as funny as we think we are?

Greetings from Dutch Harbor. Here are some vintage Cook family photos, courtesy of Aunt Jane.

It's still snowing/raining here quite a lot. We hiked up to Bunker Hill for entertainment, and also wandered through the local hardware store and the outdoor running track/exercise loop. Unfortunately for the entertainment value of the blog, we haven't been donning the camera as much as usual. So thanks to the mighty google search engine for these stock photos of Bunker Hill.

We took P-Rev swimming, walking in the rain with the BOB, and worked on our guns at the gym. We've been eating dahl baht, in honor of Shantaram and with fond memories of our trek through Nepal where we ate dahl baht, dahl baht with gravel, dahl baht, dahl baht with dirt, and more dahl baht. We celebrated the end of that trip with a delicious yak cheese burger. Actually, I really made lentil soup and it just seems like dahl baht and it was in honor of those lentils that I got such a good deal on in Quinhagak so many months ago (free! ....Because they were expired back then.) (Somehow they made the move from Bethel to Dutch Harbor) (Don't ask me what state we were in to pack the expired, free lentils but leave behind our entire set of dishes) (Oh yeah, lentils don't break) (That's what we were thinking and plus they were organic....I mean, what's the chance of finding organic canadian lentils in Quinhagak?) (And plus, don't lentils cost at least $2?) (Yes, I can hear you praising my excellent bargain hunting skills) (Thanks).

In other food news, we enjoyed some tasty food prepared on Pampered Chef cookware at Janie's house. It was a Pampered Chef party. They're big here.

And as I write, Dawson has actually tired of the lentil soup which we last ate at 4:00 (in housewife terms, that means you don't have to make dinner) and decided to make his own dinner which consisted of a grilled cheese sandwich with the leftover heels of bread from various bread sacks from the past couple of weeks and one of the hardboiled eggs from Easter. What's that, you say? Hardboiled eggs don't last more than a week in the refridgerator? Well, he learned that after he ate it, was holding another bright blue egg in his hand and pondering whether he should eat it, and googled "how long do hard boiled eggs keep". Keep your fingers crossed.

Senor Revel has perfected the eagle as well as the more popular owl, which as parents we prefer. He's got this one mastered too. He's also getting more agile every day.

A few Pax Rev shots, starting with the always classic bath in the sink.

Thanks to Mama and Papa Pritchard for the great book!

Drinking milk from the Nalgene is only approved for extreme outdoorsy babies.

Other than that, we mostly just hang around eating Swedish fish and reading Swedish mystery novels. It's good my mom works with someone who's Swedish.

Well, we better go. We've got to hang out with our virtual friends on the internet. Our ability to entertain ourselves never ceases to amaze us.

Happy Easter!!

Pax hasn't hit the age of stranger anxiety yet, so he enjoyed a seat on the Easter Bunny's lap. This may be the only picture for a few years as we watched the 1-2 year olds scream bloody murder and look with absolutely horrified faces at the thought of even getting near that strange animal with big ears. It was traumatizing enough for me, let alone the kids. So enjoy it while you can!

On the other hand, the kids appeared to greatly enjoy the town Easter Egg hunt. We also watched the 0-3 year old time block and they appeared to be much more interested in playing with all the toys on the floor than finding eggs. But at least there were lots of smiles!

And then on Easter morning, we staged our own Easter egg making and hunting adventure.

Maybe his hunting skills will improve next year???

Ahhh, the good old days...

Mr. Pax Rev drinking some cafe and reminiscing of his first dog sled race. Yeah, Bethel!

And guess what?? His head circumference is climbing steadily and he can finally wear all those cute hats that people made for him!
Thanks for this one Erin!

And the Britax is offering a comfortable ride these days. Though it does appear to be perhaps the largest car seat on the market, Rev 'em up enjoys the padding and we appear to have conquered the car crying troubles (at least until we enter the world of stoplights and rushhour traffic again). Thank goodness. And thanks for the seat Mom and Dad!

Enjoying the last of the snow

Saturday we enjoyed a 50 degree slushy snowy day with some hiking and snowboarding in the Pyramid Valley. My first run down was a fast, fun spring run. After climbing and postholing for another hour or so, we were rewarded with warmed-up slushy snow that resembled the texture of concrete! We felt lucky to make it down with the snowboard pointed straight down hill. It was one of those very bright cloudy days, so we're still sporting some nice sunburned faces today!

WHAT?

Attack of the Froggy

In other news, Aileen sent us an exciting new blog, all about farming, my dream. A farm-wife, now that's something to aspire to! If I want to make Dawson happy, I'll have to be a boat-farm-wife, but that's a good combo. I could even be a yurt-boat-farm wife and have a little yurt on the farm with the boat. Or the boat could be a barge with a yurt on it. The possibilities are endless. In the meantime, let's hope Aileen and Tom can get their Bethel pig farm going!

Regan leaves Texas and gets randomly profiled by the Texas Bar! The odds of that are one in 80,000. I think they want him back, but he's moved on to a bigger and better state.

Hooray to Nate and Nicole, enjoying the Bahamian sun and hanging out with Uncle Tom. They enjoyed a little taste of that island life that we've been living.



Hooray Hooray Hooray for The Little Potato! (And Rocky Balboa).

What I've been reading: Anansi Boys, Fragile Things, World War Z, Rowing to Latitude, X Out of Wonderland, People Magazine (my secret favorite. Well, I guess not so secret any more).
What Dawson's been reading: Shantaram, Blue List, To The Ends of the Earth, World War Z, Rowing to Latitude, Talking Right, The New Father.
What Pax Rev's been reading: Yertle the Turtle, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Goodnight Moon, Guess How Much I Love You, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?

And I might be a downtown apartment wife. We're checking out a potential new location in the old Unalaska roller rink. Ahhh, memories of Skate Haven. All-Nighters! Quiet Riot! Fourth grade awesomeness!

Aleutian Yuppies

It's official, we're yuppies. No, wait... extreme outdoor adventure parents, straight from the REI catalogue! We've got the gear to prove it. The BOB. Revolution. Named after Senor Revel Rev himself!