What's this bright orange thing that's blinding me??

Oh yeah, the sun! This was supposed to be posted on the day I left (the first sunshine since let's see...Easter?!?). But alas I left with the camera before it could be posted. So that was a couple of weeks ago and now we're back....to a beautiful 40 degrees with wind, rain and fog. Hmmmm....

pakison which makes the baby sandwhich

For more details, see here.

Reflections on time

Can you believe it's been 15 years since Dawson and I graduated from high school. And almost 20 years since we first walked the halls of Hellgate High as freshmen? (Yes, for you math wizards out there, 19 years). Well, I can't. I've been thinking about the passage of time alot lately. Maybe it's parenthood or moving to a new town or I don't know what, but the subject has been on my mind lately. In one way, it seems like a long time ago, and in another way it was just yesterday. The high school kids here sure look young. But I think we still think we're in our twenty-somethings and are surprised when people in that age category don't think we necessarily belong there. I guess it has been a long time since I've been carded...

Anyway, here's Senor getting back to his roots!

And his Montana roots in general...

(Yes, those pictures are blurry because he can't sit up yet! He's on his way down, but he doesn't seem to mind)

Thanks to Maureen and Ken Brown for the Hellgate hoodie and to the Great Falls Cook Family (Betty, Kevin and Lisa, Brian, Carrie and James, and Bethany) for the Montana Grizzlies onesie, and Mike Fredrickson and Laura Fox for the Grizzlies socks! And to Anna and Bob Deschamps for the little lion. We're lucky to have so many generous friends and family!!!

Glass Bounty from the Sea

Yesterday we had a miraculous turn of the weather which inspired some beach combing. OK, so it was still "partly cloudy" which I like to interpret as "partly sunny" too (as opposed to fully cloudy). And temperatures skyrocketed into the 40s! OK, 41. But we enjoyed it nonetheless. And our former high school friend, Karie Wilson (aka Karie Whitman), called to invite us to beach walk with her and her kids.

A new hobby here is collecting beach glass. Beach glass or sea glass are little pieces of glass which have been broken and tumbled by the sea to create small polished stones. They come in varying colors and sizes and interesting little facts about their origin can be ascertained. The sea green ones come from CocaCola bottles from the 1950s. The kelly green and brown colors are from beer bottles and are not considered very cool (and are also the easiest to find!). Rare colors like red and blue are coveted. Sometimes you can still make out a little of the writing on the glass. One of the pieces from yesterday has a KER on it. If you're lucky, you can even find objects like old apothecary stoppers. That's my goal to find someday. The big greenish piece on the left was probably glass that was in a bonfire one day. Besides being little pieces of history, and looking cooler than old plastic water bottles washed up on the beach, I think it's cool because you can barely notice the glass unless you are looking for it. Then once you're looking for it, little pieces turn up everywhere.

yjhnmhmmmjjmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Mr. Senor Paxson Revel wrote the title, in his first foray into journalism. I think he might be a new age poet. Or meditation guru. I was thinking of calling it, "Happy Mother's Day", but his title seems just as good.

kmk;m.8/0,mm

We went out tourist watching today. Tourists are rare in these parts. The first of 6 cruise ships to come through town this summer stopped by today, and many frigid looking retirees were bumbling about the town. It was strange to see so many people out walking around all at once. Especially given the weather, which didn't exactly cooperate. (Partly snowy, no chance of sunlight. Occasional glimpses of the mountains. 36 degrees.) They seemed happy though, and it was good to feel like an authentic curiousity to people. "You actually live here? How long are you staying?"

Come now, who wouldn't want to live here??

Taxi cab business was brisk today and our local customs and police officers got to be on official duty.

Here's Boo checking out the scene...

The itinerary of this particular cruise sounds pretty fun. Osaka, Tokyo, Hokkaido, Petropavlask, here, Kodiak, Southeast, Vancouver. The only downful I see with a cruise of that magnitude is you'd be seriously at risk of doubling your body weight. And as an older lady with a sun visor wrapped tightly underneath her hooded rain jacket mentioned while trying to block the wind from pelting small particles of snow into her face, "we haven't seen much sun during this cruise...."



I like the Purel hand sanitizers so they don't take any Dutch Harbor germs back to the ship!

Apparently one of the cruise ship passengers had to be medevac'd. As you drive to the city dock, you pass by the end of the airport runway. If a plane is landing, you have to stop until it lands, otherwise you run the risk of crashing into a plane's landing gear, which nobody is excited about. At any rate, here's the scene in pictures.

This is the medivac plane coming in for a landing...Guardian Flight.

Who would've ever guessed that the oil companies have been bribing our Alaska state representatives? Hey, at least they actually got busted! Now that's a first.

We've been faithfully following the guidelines on gradually introducing solid foods into P-Rev's diet. So far we've had rice, oatmeal, bananas, strawberries, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, and carrots. Now, mmmm, the ever so tasty severed finger...


Well, maybe it's not so tasty.
He actually loves it though. It's one of his favorite toys, courtesy of Chuck Palahniuk.

Here's a fine example of Pax Rev's usual toy preference. Namely, anything BUT toys.

Here we have a friendly neighborhood fox hanging out, enjoying the 20 minutes per week of sun.


Revel-Roo and Dawson also soak it up while they can.

Our other highlight of the weekend was going to the big concert. Vinnie James. Hey Mister, how big is the world? And his dad (who incidentally went by the name of Rev) was the true life inspiration behind the movie Iron Eagle. One man, one mission.

Congratulations Regan!

Way to go....Yahoo!

PR's Latest Tricks

My mom wrote to say that the last blog was very entertaining, but she could certainly use more pictures of the Senor. So here you go......

His new viking hat "helmet" made by his babysitter (yes, that's right his baby sitter). I worked yesterday for a whopping 2.5 hours and he hung out with the local daycare provider! Unfortunately, it was nap-time for all the rest of the kids and should have been nap time for Pax Rev, but he was far too interested in all the happenings to sleep. He just kept popping his head up to look around every second and only managed to sleep for about 20 minutes.

And his real latest trick....mobility. We've had a spill over the side of the bed and a few bumped heads into chairs/heater vents etc. as he experiments with getting up on all 4's and lunging forward. He finds it quite entertaining! And when he's not flailing forward, he's swimming in place (flailing nonetheless).

Eagle Feeding Frenzy

Thanks to some kind of shipping malfunction, several tons of fresh* pollock, cod, and salmon were on the verge of going bad, so the fish were being handed out for free! We got about 250 pounds, but could only keep about 30. We passed the rest on to friends and neighbors.

Here's what a 16.5 pound pollock-cicle looks like:


Mmmm, delicious! Good to the last lick! Also makes a great smoothie.

Actually, it really is quite tasty. Fish burgers, fish stew, fried fish, fish chowder, fish sticks galore! I'm sure Mr. Boo can't wait till he can have some fish. In the meantime, I spent my evening whipping up tasty treats for the men in my life (chocolate chip cookies, sweet potatoes, pureed carrots and mashed potatoes, breastmilk style). You can guess what was for who. More mmmm....

The eagles love it sashimi style. It's a fight to the finish in our front yard for some of our neighbor's leftover baitfish.

Here's a panaroma of the coastline we hiked on Saturday, as seen from the place we hiked on Sunday. Summer Bay on the right, to Humpy's Cove and Morris Bay.



Here's Revel all geared up and ready to go. He's very serious on missions (he thinks he's still running a race). Hopefully we're not instilling too much competitive spirit at too young an age. This time he was chanting a constant Buddhist meditation in order to keep focused. Kind of like this....aaaaahhhh, ahhhhhhh, ahh, ahhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhh, aahhhh, aaaaahhhhh.


While hiking around these parts, you've got to be on the lookout for anti-personnel devices leftover from WWII to stave off invaders.


Here it is from a more ominous perspective. These things put a little extra excitement in the snowboarding!



The view from the top of the bunker, looking northwest. It's the highest coastal bunker (Fort Schwatka over 1,000 feet) in the United States. We're told it's a great place to watch wales in the summer. (For those with keen eyesight). And whales, too.


Here's looking back towards town.


*(-ly frozen)

Who me?

Knock over that lamp?? Tip over your hot coffee mug?? Swipe the modem off the windowsill so that you don't have internet for three days???

Not little innocent me....couldn't be....




A little WWII living history bunker exploration mission for senor. It's also a back-up lodging option for us, if nothing else comes through.

The view from inside.


Sunday sunrise.



Saturday snowboarding.



Waterfall missions.

Pure healthy goodness.