Lo-Def Super Bowl Sunday

Yes, if you can believe it, there are still some folks who employ rabbit ears! As we live in a metal building, they don't work all that well, but they worked well enough for us to watch a crackly staticky Super Bowl festival. The Boss, Journey, Nachos, NFL action... who could ask for more? Here's the scene:

Sunday Fun

And a little Monday fun too...

Stokes and the ATNR:



Mama's hair cutting salon...

Saturday fun

Testing out the new panaroma setting on my new camera....

The wild horses have returned!

Senor copying everything that Dawson does.....lying down for a camera shot.

Catching the Emmonak Spirit: Emmonk is one of many YK Delta villages that are having a tough time this year....fuel costs over $7 per gallon and no extra money for food. One of the residents sent a letter out to the world, describing the situation and asking for assistance. Dawson and I have both visited Emmonak and the villages around there and can understand firsthand many of the challenges they face. We sent a big box of goodies and anyone else who might be interested in helping out with $$ or food can contact the Emmonak Tribal Council, PO Box 126, Emmonak, AK 99581. Here's Senor modeling the Emmonak hat. Here's a few links...

Grammy-cita 2009

Well, Grammy came for a visit. Grammy-cita as Boodah calls her. (He’s really catching on to language these days. He noticed that Boppa calls his mom “mamacita”, and he started calling her mamagrammycita.)

Here’s our one attempt at a self-timer group photo:

She had a blue sky sandwich. Flight cancelling storms on both ends, but delicious blue sky in the middle. Hooray! Thanks for coming to visit, Grammy-cita! See you in Alabama!

What did we do? Oh, the usual. Story time. Tot time. Driving around. Chasing rugrats around. The thrill-a-minute live on the razor’s edge laugh in the face of death day to day life of Aleutian Islanders! Oh, and of course, Boppa interviewed his Mamacita for the StoryCorps, Alaska Project. That was fun! I'm interviewing my mom next weekend when she comes up to visit.

Thanks for the awesome Lapacaca quilt! It’s been fun to read all the things people wrote. Our bedroom is so much cheerier! All of that love on top of us while we sleep every night… we might just end up with a couple more little rugrats with this kind of inspiration!

We also saw two huge shooting stars. That is amazing for a few reasons. First, it’s amazing that we saw the sky. Second, it’s amazing we saw stars. And finally, it’s amazing that in the brief moment that the sky reared its magnificent head, stars were actually shooting! Of course, we didn’t catch that on film. But it was enough time for wishies, of course!

And yes, we reveled in the Obama speech and sound-bites all day yesterday. That was fun. It’s great to have an inspirational President. Now, let’s hope he keeps his promises! And let's hope he was speaking to our own government as well as those "other" leaders when he stated "know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." Not that our country goes to war much.

Weigh Ins

For the curious, Stokely Von Bering weighed in at 12 pounds, 3.5 ounces. He's growing up so fast! And Grammy made it in tonight, just barely. Hooray!

Bering Star and stuff

This dial-up business might not be too bad, after all. Flickr appears to be handling some of the uploads now that we’ve cranked down the resolution a bit. What’s new here? Just fuming over the $2,900 OB/GYN bill for the non-appearing doctor. Quite a system we have here in America! That’s a sweet job. Wait til a kid is born, poke your head in the door, “Hey, how’s it going?” Sounds like $3,000 in my book!

Actually, it is comical. We do laugh about it. But if we didn’t laugh, we might cry. At least we can afford it. It’s nice to know our hard earned cash is going to somebody who really earned it!

The most exciting development is Stokes entering the cooing and smiling stage. It's quite uplifting. We'll try to capture it on film. (No luck yet... soon, I'm sure!)
Let’s see, what’s new?

New snow. And all the joy that comes with it. Yay!

Rosy red cheeks!

Brothers.

Mmmm… boobies! Chips off the old block.

Rock Star blow-out. We shipped out some Rock Star when we were in Anchorage. (Hey, it's three bucks a can out here in Dutch.) We didn’t anticipate the beverages having to endure a ten day -30 patch in Anchorage prior to shipping. As you can see, the cans didn’t quite make it. What was that rule of thumb about eating the yellow snow? All our other canned goods survived. Even our Chai in a box. I guess HF wants Boppa to lay off the caffeine.

Speaking of surprises arriving by mail, a special thanks to Aunt Jane, for the presents and Trader Joe’s goodness infusion!

More Stokely Bering. He does seem huge. We'll find out just how huge on Thursday!

And the ship behind the name... this was what first triggered the idea of Bering. The Bering Star.