LAPACACA!

Laugh for the day

2011-12-11T21:30:00.001-09:00

Our Life

2011-12-03T21:44:00.000-09:00

This is our typical chaos level.

Awesome Things

2011-12-02T23:48:00.000-09:00

Two awesome things about Kodiak. 1) 97% renewable energy. In a couple years, Kodiak will be almost completely energy independent. Awesome! Makes me want to get an electric car! When is the 7 seat AWD plug-in Prius SUV coming out? We'll be first in line.

2) Rock Island Rollers. Yes! We will soon have our very own roller derby team. Go, Dover, go!

These guys are awesome. We've been into small homes lately.

Gratitude Part Two

2011-12-01T19:12:00.000-09:00

Our Almost Trip to Palau

2011-11-30T21:27:00.001-09:00

As some of you know, I have a hobby that involves finding deals on travels. We were forced to hone our deal-hunting skills when we lived out in Dutch Harbor, where the price of a r/t ticket simply to Anchorage was frequently more than $1,000. American dollars. So anyway, I found this great deal on flights to Palau from LAX for $485 on Expedia, and booked it. We bought tickets, along with our old friends, the International Bowling All Stars, who we had previously met with abroad on a big Turkey/Cypress adventure. We planned to tack the trip onto our Christmas trip to Montana.

That was back in September. A couple weeks ago, Korean Air cancelled our tickets. Alas, the deal was too good to be true. They said we could go if we came up with another $1,800, but that was a bit over budget for us. There are a few articles about the whole thing on the interweb here, here, here, here, here, and here. Some folks are pretty worked up about it and have started a campaign to try to shame Korean Air into honoring the fare. It would be nice if it worked, but I don't think Korean Air really cares. I put a lot of effort into a thoughtful letter myself, and it was basically ignored. And I can't blame Korean Air. They want to maximize their cabbage, and they appear to have no problem selling seats at a higher price than their competitors. (On flights from the US to Palau, their fares are frequently double those of Continental.) It's too bad we won't be going to Palau, but other adventures abound!

It all started here, with this posting on Flyertalk.

But if we had gone, it would've been great! First, the trip would've been on the A380, the blue beast of the skies! And Palau has lots of awesome stuff. Diving, surfing, monoliths, etc. After all the guide books we've read, it's almost as if we had already visited the place. I guess we''ll just have to stop by Palau as we sail around the world. It will be a more meaningful visit that way, I think. Here are some cool pictures of things we might have seen if we had gone!

Now, we are just hoping that Korean Air will
actually get around to refunding our money. I'm sure they're good for it. They've had our money for one day shy of three months now.

In the far more entertaining news category, we recently saw the best job application since this one that was posted out at the Alaska Ship Supply in Dutch. I called that one the most awesome resume ever posted by mankind, but I think this one is even awesomer.

Love it!

The Big City

2011-11-27T21:32:00.000-09:00

We went into the big city the other weekend so that Genevieve could take some PT continuing education, the highlight of which was the venue's proximity to Golden Donuts. We had high hopes of visiting friends, but it turns out that the being in the big city with three mini-ninjas makes for challenging logistics. We rested our heads at the Dimond Hotel, but spent most of the time up at Team Wilyos. The timing was perfect for celebrating Regan and Paxson's birthdays. And watching a 3D Puss N Boots. And frolicking in the snow.

The cool thing about the Dimond Hotel is each room has a HUGE bathtub ("Like Aunt Rani's"), and a portal that opens up so that you can watch TV from the tub. The kids loved it. The other cool thing about the Dimond is that it's owned by the Seldovia Native Association, so there's lots of cool Seldovia stuff in the hotel.

Other highlights of our trip: Bouncing bears.

Chuck E. Cheese.

The Big City

2011-11-27T21:03:00.004-09:00

We went into the big city so that Genevieve could take some PT continuing ed. My favorite thing about her class was the venue's proximity to Golden Donuts. She might agree. We had high hopes of visiting friends, but it turns out that being in the big city with three mini-ninjas makes for challenging logistics. We rested our heads at the Dimond Hotel, and spent most of the daytime up at Team Wilyo's. The timing was perfect for celebrating Regan and Paxson's birthdays. And watching a 3D Puss N Boots. And frolicking in the snow.

Other highlights of our trip: Bouncing bears.

Hanging out with cousins Chance and Austin.

Hand me down ninja outfits.

Uncle Regs and Aunt Nami time.

Those two specks way in the background are Musashi and Paxson. Arashi in the foreground.

Zooming in on the two specks. Long rides!

Baby jail.

"What did I do to deserve this?"

Sweet rides at the Dimond Mall.

Birthday bakugan!

Too fast, too furious.

Gourmet cuisine at Chuck E Cheese.

I wish this one was in focus.

Serious trickery to get this guy under the knife.

Lunch dessert at Thai Kitchen.

Large snowy mountain, very far away.

Gratitude

2011-11-25T22:14:00.000-09:00

It's Thanksgiving time, and we have a lot to be thankful for. The Subaru ended its vacation at Pillar Creek Beach, just in time to take us to Thanksgiving dinner at the KI. We're thankful for a blue sky Thanksgiving day. We're thankful for all the people who helped us get it out. We're thankful for good Samaritans. We're thankful that no children were decapitated in the process. We're thankful to have learned an important lesson about snow tires. And Pillar Creek Road.

We're thankful that we can now start being thankful for the snowiest November in Kodiak in over 20 years. We're thankful for snow sports. Thankful for being able to sled in our yard.

We're thankful for Lucha Libre snow masks. Did I mention that it's been cold?

Of course, we're thankful for all our friends and our family. We're thankful for modern technology like Skype and cell phones and Facebook and email that helps us keep in touch. We're thankful for jet airplanes, too. And trains. And ferries.

We're thankful to be healthy. We're thankful for warm fires on cold stormy days. We're thankful to be living in Kodiak, Alaska.

We're thankful that there are two Montana football teams in the FCS playoffs, and thankful to have grown up in Missoula, Montana.

We're thankful for our shiny brand new computer that doesn't take five minutes to click programs open. It's not that we're unthankful for our old computer. We're just more thankful about having replaced it.

I'm personally thankful for all of the above, plus I'm thankful for 13 years of life partnership with my dear lupu. (Lupu is short for life partner.) We both have to confess to forgetting the Cat-Griz game last weekend. (For us Montanans it's quite a big festivity.) It snuck right up on us. Our chance meeting in 1998 is what we celebrate as the starting point of our life adventure together, even though we simultaneously roamed the halls of Hellgate High from '88-'92. It seems like just yesterday that I was trying to impress Genevieve with my remote starting red 4X4 van as we departed the SLC Port o' Call satellite party. ("I swear, it usually works.")

Having forgotten the big occasion, we decided to celebrate on Sunday. Right after a short surfing mission. In-town waves! The surf mission was short. Getting the car back up the hill was not. After a couple hours of attempting to get back up the hill, I was approximately 100 feet further down the hill than when I started. Of course, I was in my wetsuit this whole time. And the blizzard was picking up. A short wetsuit blizzard jog and a good samaratin phone call later, Genevieve arrived for a Monster Van full team Wilco rescue. Tough Team Alert! Tough Team Alert!

Of course, the tow truck guy just laughed and said "No way!" So, we were off to do it ourselves. We bought some too small chains, the last pair in town, and headed out. Two hours later, we'd moved it about 15 feet up the hill.

We called it a night after learning an important lesson about leaving kiddos in a car with operable power windows. Namely, don't. Fortunately, we were close enough to prevent any decapitations. But Paxson had locked the doors, so it was fairly scary. We're glad it didn't turn out worse!

Back to the car. It wasn't hung up on anything, it's just that the road was solid ice. The very slippery kind. Eventually, with help from a lot of people over five days, we were able to get it out. Some friends tried to help on Wednesday and wound up getting stuck for a couple of hours themselves! We wound up using a 2 ton come-along to ratchet it up through the steep part. And the final pull out was from a good Samaritan who was passing by on Thanksgiving morning. Thank you, everyone!

Pax and Stokes thought Genevieve would rather be a fisherman than a princess, so we had to give the fisherman some feminine touches to turn him into Genevieve. Long flowing brown frosting hair and some cream cheese frosting augmentation.

I'm hoping I can make Genevieve's upcoming 38th birthday so awesome it will catapult me right out of the dog house. The candle selection might hurt my chances.

Beautiful End to a Beautiful Day

2011-10-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

The New Subaru Forester Outhouse

Welcome to our spooky home sweet home.

Helmet hiking. It's the new extreme thing.

Where the hell did Mom put my toilet?

I think this will work.

Stoked about EC

2011-10-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

It never gets old.

Stoko is done with the diapers. But that isn't his own poo in the potty that he's celebrating. Genevieve has been doing some amazing work on the elimination communication front. At least when it comes to the big jobs. Huxley is rarely pooping in his pants these days. To anybody with the time and patience, I have to strongly recommend the EC approach. The book, "Diaper Free Before Three" is what got us thinking. Mostly the part where it talked about how half the world's children are potty trained by age one.

And lo and behold, there's a lot of people going for the EC approach. It's pretty awesome. It worked for Katie and Zach, friends of ours from Bethel days.

This is the kind of thing we're into these days.

Sky Rockets In Flight

2011-09-27T07:18:00.002-08:00

Early morning delight. Kodiak version! We're watching from the top of Pillar Mountain, bright and early, if all goes well.

Here's a pretty cool time lapse video of the rocket getting ready:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lp6nforTJY&feature=youtu.be

Road's End

2011-09-10T22:05:00.004-08:00

When was the last time you were at a restaurant and somebody rode up on a horse, tied it up, popped in for three cans of soda, then galloped off into the forest? Our camera batteries died, so we have to rely on old fashioned words, but that happened today at the Road's End Restaurant in Chiniak. The best part is the horse rider was a thirteen year old girl.

We really wanted to take a picture of the parking lot. Three ATVs, one car with surfboards, one truck, and one horse. Did I mention that the girl was riding bareback? It really was like something out of a movie. One that would be met with a healthy, "Yeah, right, like that would ever happen." We didn't catch the horse-rider's name. It's probably Katniss.

Our other highlights of the day... coming home with a fresh silver. The second silver we've come home with. Genevieve is the definite breadwinner here. She's got the strategy down. Dinner will be so tasty!

And of course, excellent surf at Pasagshak. And beach wandering and horse watching. And tasty cinnamon rolls at Flyby. All in all, a great Saturday.

Crab Fest Part Dos

2011-07-02T21:18:00.002-08:00

The survival suit races. (If ships sunk when the weather was this nice, I doubt there'd ever be a fatality.)

It looks pretty fun.

Mardis gras? Just training.

Six bucks well spent.

Here's what an actual rescue looks like:

Help is on its way!

(Rescue swimmer ready to drop)

(Rescue swimmer dropping)

(Rescue swimmer)

(Thankful sunken sailors)

(Rescue basket being hoisted)

The Crab Fest Parade:

(Shrimp Fest)

No parade is complete without patriotic motorcycles!

That's the spirit!

Paxson's first team event!

Ready to Rock!

Oh yeah, we got a new fridge.

Sad news, we lost our happy cow. Freezer malfunction.

$1,000 of range fed goodness down the drain!

Crab Fest 2011

2011-07-02T20:54:00.002-08:00

Crabfest is traditionally synonymous with total crap weather. 2011 was an exception, and Nana was on hand to help us celebrate. Rides, Coast Guard demonstrations, and free money are amongst the highlights. And of course, fair food.

Nana shares an exquisite freshly dipped chocolate nut ice cream bar with Stoko Loco.

Doing our best to get our kids to vomit on the "Spin The Apple" ride. No dice.

Free money in the sawdust.

The Lions club, trying hard to explain the importance of free money to two and three year olds.

I GOTTA HAVE MORE COWBELL! (By the way, so lame of you, NBC, to remove the original from youtube.) Nice work Dover! You are a natural with the Kodiak Island Drummers.

Big Mission: El Salvador Phase

2011-05-15T07:32:00.005-08:00

Hot Beaches, Cool Mountains, and Magic Lakes

This was the scene a couple of days before we left Kodiak in March. Naturally, we were pretty excited about ditching our cold weather clothes and spending a few days lazing about in nothing but our swimsuits, or in some cases, less.

Here's Paxson running out of the bedroom sporting nothing but a hat and a man-purse. "I'm all set!"

We met Team Shadow at LAX. They traveled from Anaconda, MT. We all boarded the direct red-eye flight from LAX to San Salvador, and 4.5 restful hours later, landed in heat and humidity! First stop, rental car place. 4.5 short hours later, we left the rental car place and hit the open road.

2.5 hours later, after driving through sorpresa land without even knowing it, we made it to our beach casa. Only we didn't print out the entire set of directions. So we arrived pretty close to where we thought we were supposed to be, and started asking random people if they knew where we were supposed to stay. They did!

We rented this house on the beach, Playa Maculis, on the very eastern edge of the country.

Some sunset shots. The beach itself was usually close to deserted. From time to time we would see a few other people on the beach. The occasional cows wandered by. That was about it. Pretty much a perfect, secluded place to play.

From around 11 AM to 2 PM we stayed in the pool and the shade. And yes, those are our stealthy rental cars in the background. One of them even made it the entire rental period without breaking down!

In the morning and late afternoon, we'd hit the beach.

At low tide, the kids played in tidal pools.

Surfing and boogie boarding, as well, for the bigger kids and grown-ups. Team Shadow took some awesome pictures. You might be able to see them here on Facebook. There are lots of great shots!

Ilsa, the caretaker, cooked tasty Salvadoran food for us.

Thank you, Team Shadow, for meeting us down in El Salvador for a double family style adventure!

After a week at the beach, we wandered up into the mountains. This is the last picture we got before our camera battery died:

We visited the Salvadoran Revolutionary War Museum. Very interesting history. We enjoyed some very tasty coffee and a magical healing swim in a volcanic caldera lake. Then we went home.

Other highlights. Man, it is hard to remember things at our age without the aid of pictures! We went to a night carnival with the world's scariest carnival rides. At least, in terms of being a parent and setting your child on them. Needless to say, they do not appear to have the same tort laws in El Salvador. Fortunately, Pax and Stokes grew tired of the rides pretty quickly. Mostly, they really wanted cheap toy plastic cell phones. It's tough to know just what will capture a child's imagination.

We saw some swimming cows in a large lake, Olomago. The town of Olomago has a public school named John F. Kennedy Escuela. Interesante! Checked out Playa Tamarindo, which is long and beautiful but also very very caliente. We checked out La Union, which gets a horrible rap in the guidebooks, but didn't seem particularly bad. It has a very nice brand new cargo port just outside of town that isn't doing anything, or much of anything. (La Union is where we'd go for groceries.)

A map of our trip.

Happy Easter!

2011-05-02T20:54:00.003-08:00

Regretfully, due to the number of children in our family under the age of 5, we've been unable to continue the Williams family tradition of discharging firearms while hiding Easter eggs. That being said, we were able to maneuver ourselves into firing range of other people who are keeping that tradition going. And we were able to work in three egg hunts in for the kids.

We can't take credit for this fist picture. Thanks Breanna! More on that later.

But first, the warm-up fun:

Hunt #1: Bedroom/House

Okay, it was pretty easy.
Chocolate marauding break:

Hunt #2: Fossil Beach with Ryan and Joe

Incidentally, Ryan found some fossilized hermit crabs that were pretty awesome.
Hunt #3: Riley and Covey's Casa

A lot of intensity with the hunters. Until they found Trixie, anyway. But more was in store!

At the after party:

Getting the band back together.

I know what you are thinking. Those are awesome pictures! Yep, they are. In other words, we didn't take them. We send a big thanks to Riley and Covey's mom Breanna, who happens to be a highly talented professional photographer! It's always nice to have artistic friends!

We like to hope that some of it rubs off on us. Hoping is fun! Not as productive as we might like, though. Yet.

And finally, Easter Dinner at the Power House.

Happy Easter! Here's to spring, and rebirth! And the celebration of life and living!

This last one is for anybody who disagrees.

Big Mission Western America Phase

2011-05-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

Spent a few days in Boise, then a day at Anthony Lakes, then Missoula, then Portland then the Bay. Lots of driving and some flying in between. It was great to see family and some old friends. Good for the soul. (Thank you, Mr. Seger, for saying it well.)

And photos? Hmm... We are kind of waiting for pictures that anybody who happened to be with us might have taken. Thanks to Tyler Adams for sharing his pictures like the one on the right. Unfortunately, we took no shots of Boise. (We are counting on Grammy-cita for those! Thanks for the Idaho/Oregon adventures Grammy-cita and Gramps D!) But here are a few we took before our camera power ran out:

Missoula:

Pritchard's beautiful baby:

Thanks for all the good times, Nana and Grampa Bill! The kiddos loved the plethora of dinosaurs that had been arranged for their arrival.

Missoula's going big time!

The old Milltown haunts. Boppa's clerking days, back when it was Finky's Foods. Clerks describes the scene well. From New Jersey to rural Montana, it's all the same!

This is slightly different, too. Boppa's handywork in the background.

Here are the kiddos being very quiet at Jake's house.

Later, they were also being quiet, and managed to cover the Neal's entire upstairs with a fine layer of shredded styrofoam. Certain parents were so upset that we almost canceled our highly anticipated zoo trip. But, we overcame it. The zoo was awesome. Look, two large hairy mammals with offspring!

The only shots we got of the Gilders.

Gilds, and Bear. We didn't get Jo-Jo and gestating Jackson on film, but they were there, too. We crashed in their nest.

Given the strenuous nature of our itinerary, there was a lot of crashing in random places. Airport floors were particularly popular.

Checking out Voo-Doo Donuts in Portland. Pretty much a mandatory stop. Any place with slogans like "The magic is in the hole" and "Good things come in pink boxes" ought not to be missed. In addition to the slogans, their donuts are pretty tasty, too.

Fortunately, they have two locations. With our buddies, we weren't about to stand in line here!
We love donuts, but come on!

A line like that could lead certain family members to defect to the nearby Magic Garden.

Lots of cool, organic, and fun things going on at the co-ops and coffee shops in Portland. Here's Jake enjoying his local coffee co-op place.

The new beverage of choice is Kambucha. DeWayne was on it way back before it was cool. When it was still called immortality tea. Nothing like fermented fungus drinks brewing in the fridge!

Portland is awesome! We love it! If we had to live in a big city, it would definitely be Portland. Thanks to Jake, Megan, Lori, Jen, and Chris for letting us visit!

After Portland, we went to the Bay Area and visited friends. We also got to wander through Google land, which was interesting. Our picture taking during this portion of the adventure was non-existent. But we got to visit with Matty, Kevin, Mino & LB, Gilds, Jo-Jo, and Chi-Chi. Good times! We spent most of our time in Los Gatos, but also some time in Davis.

On a side note, the Toyota Sienna is pretty awesome. It was our rental vehicle during all the above adventures, and it was really great. I can see why minivans dominate the family scene.

Then, it was on to El Salvador!

Huxley Reeve Zinn's (First) Big Adventure

2011-04-16T07:10:00.003-08:00

Wow! It has been a blue sky maternity/paternity leave, for sure. After two weeks of enjoying Kodiak and HRZ, we took our show on the road. Huckleberry Pie, Paxson Boodah, and Stoko Loco Joker handled the trip with flying colors. We visited many friends and family members in two countries (El Salvador and Honduras), six states (Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Washington, California, and Texas). To everyone we saw, thank you for the adventures!

And to top it all off, we've been welcomed home with the most glorious Kodiak sunshine you could imagine. We are entering our 6th straight day of cloudless skies. Feels like summer! Actually, far better than most of last summer! We are all sporting Kodiak sunburns, after spending the last few days at various Kodiak beaches. Yes, sunny and 45 is our version of paradise.

Back to our trip... we had much to fear as we traversed security in Anchorage with two screaming toddlers on lock-down, and a slightly colicky baby in our bjorn. But our fears were unfounded! All the flights were a breeze, amazingly. The kiddos slept or were happy for most of the long flights. And Huxley's colic seemed to disappear as soon as we were on the road.

Pictures, pictures, pictures... well, that is kind of a long story. We left our camera battery charger in Davis, California, so we are weak on shots after that point. The good news is that we were so enamored by Greg and Sonja's camera that we bought one. And it takes awesome pictures. So since we've been back here, we are back into taking good pictures.

We only took a few shots in Anchorage, but it was a lovely day. We dropped some Sarah Pale off at Steve's house, visited Natalie at the courthouse, and hung out with Team Wilyo. We enjoyed some tasty uppity Fire Island bread products before hitting the skies for Portland.

(We might have to get back to our Golden Donut roots for our bread-product fix next time.)

Portland was rainy of course. But a few hours out of town, we saw the largest shooting star of all time. Genevieve: Hey, check out that shooting star! Dawson: Where? Genevieve: Over there. Dawson: Where? Genevieve: Right there. Dawson: I see it. Genevieve: Wow, it is still going!

We now each have approximately 36 wishes that will come true. Don't worry, we'll be sure to share our lottery winnings with you. And please, enjoy the world peace!

The Joys of Potty Training

2011-03-14T20:31:00.005-08:00

Forgot step one.

(Step one: Lift the lid.)

We are getting there! Paxson helped Stokely on this one. As he pointed out, "Mom....you are not getting him potty trained." So the helpful 4 year old figured he'd better start the training.

And you thought we were going to have some new cute baby photos. Well, this blog is in the spirit of the movie we watched last night in Rani's honor, Jackass 3D. She would've loved it.

Somehow, whenever the kids are quiet for a few minutes, we've come to expect large brown messes of one sort or another. Chocolate, dirt, excrement, etc. They are getting quite good at finding and reaching all of our good chocolate hiding spots. Very wily, they are. Here's what formerly was a large stash of Hershey Kisses, now a large stash of Hershey Kiss wrappers.

Okay, we can't very well just have a blog with poo and empty chocolate wrappers. Better put up some Captain America shots. We haven't been taking many pictures, but here are a few great ones Grammy-cita got:

Here's part of the large tasty mammal we've recently been eating. Kodiak happy cow makes for a happy tummy!

Three Muskateers, aka The Hanson Brothers:

The most recent shot of Huckleberry:

Other random action shots.

Flying Time

2011-03-04T06:38:00.005-09:00

Wow, has it been a month already? Time flies when you are outnumbered!

Thanks again for the visits, Nana, Grammy-cita and Aunt Rani! Aunt Rani came all the way up from Dallas Texas for a short speedy visit. Fortunately, Grammycita took lots of great pictures.

Huxley is growing. He has also made up for his first three weeks of mellowness. He is still generally mellow, but he has some stomach pain from time to time. Colic. There is a lot of gas in that tummy of his, and he is not pumped about it. Seems like it's been getting better lately. We are hoping the doctor's prediction of three months of stomach issues is wrong.

Pax and Stokes are still pumped about Hux. We haven't settled on any nicknames yet. Any other news? Nope... just enjoying family time!

More Huxley Reeve Zinn

2011-02-06T07:36:00.004-09:00

Updates:

Let's see. Sleeping, cooing, eating, pooping, sunbathing, and being a cute baby. That's pretty much the action around here!

Big brothers are still totally into it, which is nice. We'll try to take better notes so we can remember all the funny things they say.

SUNBEAMS!

Genevieve has her hands full. We are generally opposed to censorship, but we had to edit this last shot because it was a bit too much like a scene out of the Spearmint Rhino. (By the way, if you are at work you probably should not google Spearmint Rhino.) Yep, after six months, Stoko has fallen off the wagon. Oh, dear!

Unedited versions of this picture can be purchased for $5 at hotmamas.com.

Day 5

2011-02-04T06:56:00.003-09:00

As we watch our new little one grow, we pause to appreciate how wonderfully lucky we are. Our thoughts are with Joey, our friend in Egypt, and all of those people in Egypt who are standing up to get a democracy going and to end the Mubarak dictatorship. Stay safe, Joey! Hopefully, our own democracy-loving government will do the right thing and support the transition to democracy.

Genevieve is doing great, except for some soreness, but she is getting some excellent physical therapy for her after-baby healing. Thank you, Roxanne!

Huckabye is doing great too. A lot of eating, pooping, cooing and sleeping, and not much crying. So far, his mellowness level is off the charts. At his first check-up, he weighed in at 7 lbs 15 ozs, and he measured 21.5 inches. Yes, that is a little bit of shrinkage. Fortunately, he has plenty of giant boob power to propel him in the other direction.

Welcome to Kodiak, Nana! Thanks for all the help! It's nice not to be outnumbered.

Two big buddies, helping out. (This is a pre-birth shot, but they are definitely being helpful buddies.)

Here they are, helping Boppa and Huxley take a power nap. So helpful! Pretty sure we couldn't have done it without them.

Captain America Helicopter Huxley Reeve Zinn IV

2011-01-31T05:32:00.005-09:00

Welcome to the world!

Can't help but be reminded of the Steven Wright routine:

When I was a baby, I kept a diary. Recently, I was rereading it. It said, "Day 1 -- Still tired from the move. Day 2 -- Everybody talks to me like I'm an idiot." I was upset because on my second birthday, I went from being one to being two, and my age doubled in a year. I figured at this rate, by the time I'm six, I'll be ninety.

I like this one... the Fat Albert.

Genevieve was amazing, of course. Stoic and strong. Genevieve's high pain threshold caught the nurses by surprise. La la la la la, what's your pain on a scale of 1-10, oh a 5 or 6? oh, la la la la la oh let's see we will hook up these monitors and okay let's check around here WHOA YOU ARE FULLY DILATED. After that they hustled the doctor right in.

The night before I tried get one last big belly beautiful pregnant lady shot, but the star was not into the whole paparazzi thing.

Everything went fairly fast. Three AM wake up. Building contractions until 7. Went to the hospital. Water broke at 8:30, pushing started then and out he came an hour later. We heard a lot of commentary about his blonde hair before we actually got a chance to see him. For about 45 minutes, with each push he was very close, but he would decide to go back and stay warm for a little bit longer. Who can blame him?

His stats: 8 lbs, 3 ozs. 22 inches long. 13 inch head. 9:28 AM.

The view from the birth room.

After the birth, we had to hang around the hospital for 11 hours. Fortunately we had a few visitors. Pauline and Andy stopped by with the big brothers. And Aileen and Sawyer stopped by. Thanks for the visits!

YoCoWil Christmas

2011-01-27T04:15:00.004-09:00

Team WilYo took the ferry down to warm Kodiak for Chistmas. Nami took a lot of awesome pictures, and blogged about the visit here (ferry ride and beach adventure) and here (surfing) and here (Chistmas). It's always entertaining to get a Google Translated Japanese perspective on our lives. Thanks for visiting, Uncle Regan and Aunt Nami, and cousins Musashi and Arashi! We are looking forward to your next visit! Hopefully you can come back again in the summer... see the bears, catch some fish (and waves), climb some hills, and pick some berries!

We built a snow cave, dodged waves, hung out, learned all about gaming, saw Little Fokkers, ate some tasty food, got randomly caroled, opened some presents, enjoyed warm fires, and generally enjoyed a double family style Christmas. We are always thankful to be able to spend time with family!

Our pictures are not nearly as excellent as Nami's, but here are a few we took:

Christmas Skyping to Oki Island, Japan. (Chistmas Eve here, but already Christmas there.)

Uncle Regs!

Hanging out.

The cousins introduce Pax and Stokes to the joys of video gaming.

Santa's present for Paxson Revel:

Pax just made the age limit for hockey, but there is only one other four year old. He and the other four year old go to practice, but they are pretty much oblivious to the rules. They just skate around, pushing each other, and occasionally kicking a puck. He seems to enjoy it.

Here he is teaching Stoko fall down moves. (Cool tricks.)

The hazards of placing Christmas tree decorations within toddler reach:

Snowcave and sledding action.

Opening a box of presents from Aunt Rainold.

Two pregnant ladies at the coffee shop.

Welcome to the world, baby Sawyer Thoreau! Come out whenever you are ready, Captain America!

Cool tricks

2011-01-05T22:18:00.002-09:00

No, this is not how he got the stitches in his head. But perhaps it would be a good idea to wear a hockey helmet more often!

Fireplace 1, Paxson Revel 0

2011-01-04T20:35:00.005-09:00

So far the boys' two trips to the hospital have been generated within three feet of the fireplace. Yet they haven't involved fire. In our day, this would've required stitches. Nowadays, they just glue it all up.

He'll still have a pretty cool scar. He's a tough guy.

No brother of mine is going to be the only one with a band-aid on his forehead. Solidarity!

Those skin colored band-aids sure are hard to see. Well, it's on there. Right where Stoko's pointing.

Front Page!

2010-12-20T18:58:00.001-09:00

Stokes and Momma with the one and only Santa!

Skating With Santa

2010-12-19T08:13:00.002-09:00

Santa: What do you want for Christmas?
Stoko: Toys.

Thanks for coming to Kodiak, Santa!

The tree in the center of the rink. It's pretty awesome.

Coco break.

Snowy Beaches, Icy Beaches

2010-12-19T08:04:00.003-09:00

Low tide at Whitesands Beach. Cold, clear, crisp and beautiful!

Wildlife in the foliage.

Spruce Cape.

It's been below freezing since the snowman fatality (about a week ago), so there are a lot of frozen streams. They make perfect slides. Last winter, we didn't see many below freezing temperatures in Kodiak for long stretches, so this has been great! Hooray for La Nina!

Hiding from the wind.

The Short Sweet Life of a Kodiak Snowperson

2010-12-19T07:57:00.002-09:00

Birthing phase. During the perfect snowstorm. 31.5 degrees.

Loving life.

Four hours later, decapitated. 33 degrees. Snow turns to sleet.

The next morning. Three little lumps.

Birthdays! Festivities! Winter Cheer!

2010-12-09T20:05:00.004-09:00

Happy Birthday, Dover Doo! (Kind of a Jackson Pollock design there, but if you look closely you can see a 37, a yay, and a Dover.) Somehow, it's always easy to figure out when Genevieve is not in charge of the food.

At this age, it's probably a safer bet to light the candles in the fireplace. They really warm up the house!

Recovering after a 37 candle exhalation.

Hooray for 2 fun years! Seems like about four hundred years ago that we were in Anchorage, welcoming little Stoko-bear into the world, and chasing Paxson toddler around. Wow. Time is on after burners!

Minor birthday meltdown in the background there. I suppose technically a minor not-my-birthday meltdown. That's okay, we recovered a short while later and had a double celebration.

Not to mention the happy birthday donut celebration from earlier in the day. And the happy birthday cheesey egg bacon sandwhich. And the happy birthday apple. All told, there were a lot of happy birthday to yous sung this day!

Happy Birthday Stoko Loco Boco! (It's harder than it looks to spell with raspberries.)

Side note. Did you know that left unattended, kids will eat dental floss? (Not the plain kind. The kind that you use as a grown-up and think, "hmm, this would be kind of tasty if it was a food product.")

And though we didn't take any pictures, Happy Birthday Andy! And while we're at it, Happy Birthday Meghan! Good luck with the Bar! You will crush it.

Icy fresh waves. Thanks for the post-Thanksgiving surf mission, Bruce! Brrrrrr... good clean chilly fun. Katy Perry and Snoop should sing a song about the winter Alaska surf scene. It's very similar to what they are talking about in their other song.

First ice skating mission of the season, and first ice skating mission for Stokes!

And even better, authentic outdoors night time lake ice skating missions. Cold weather and no snow means awesome lake skating under vivid starry skies, with Christmas lights in the distance. This picture we took captures the scene.

Well, maybe not. Imagine lots of stars in there, and a crescent moon, and ice skating with buddies, and you pretty much have it. It helps to have a good imagination.

First snow storm of the season. That stuck around for more than 4 hours, anyway.

You've got to get out while the gettings good! This fun was only available for one lovely blue sky day only. The next day, rain replaced the snow.

Decorating the tree. Ginger bread construction projects.

We've learned that it's worth the extra three dollars for the better kit. Pieces of the house, now that it's complete, are slowly disappearing. I'm not sure how much of it will make it until Christmas. It's a good thing real houses aren't made out of candy! We'd be freezing. But we could take solace that our kids would have a serious layer of fat to get them through the cold spells.

Hunting for Santa at the Fly-By. We found him, but the line was too long so we played outside. Then found Father Christmas and his wife, Mrs. Father Christmas. They are authentic! This was a free event at the Baranov Museum. And, here's the Russian Orthodox Church. And no, the kids did not want their photo taken! After observing multiple screaming children, we didn't have the heart to scare our own. (Not that Mr. and Mrs. Father Christmas were scary. We would've sat on their lap if we could've had the chance.)

We like to call this last shot, "Craft-time, Interrupted." It's a move we know all to well.

What else is new? The kids have been teaching us how to Dougie. That's pretty fun. And of course, we have multiple advent calendars going. Only one has been fully marauded. (Oddly enough, it's the one without any surprises in it. Perhaps that's why we left it unguarded.)

Side note: Did you know that the human body can not digest dental floss? Craziest thing. It just passes right through. It comes out like a tape worm. Or dental floss. Only far less hygienic. Once a little comes out, you can pull it right through.

If you didn't have a good enough imagination to imagine the cool ice skating scene described above, you're probably grateful right now.

12 Year Anniversary

2010-11-29T12:44:00.003-09:00

Also known as the Brawl of the Wild or the Cat-Griz Griz-Cat game, depending on which part of Montana a person is from. We Montanans love it! It's kind of like a family reunion every year where Montanans who don't know one another get together and talk about the people they know in common. Yep, the annual big football game. And it was a mere 12 seasons ago that we ran into each other entering the SLC version of the game. We sat and watched the game together. The rest is history. The next year, we went to the SLC satellite party again, and another betrothal between some other friends also ensued. A few years later, we went to a Detroit satellite party. We got some good news at that one... it's when we learned we'd be heading north, to Alaska!

In our lives, it's a warm fuzzy feeling day. We actually don't focus on the game too much. We just want each side to have fun playing a good game. It was a great game this year, coming down to the wire!

So this year, we unpacked from Hawaii, got a sitter, and celebrated our 12 year anniversary in Anchorage. Yay!

The overall scene. Well, part of it, anyway. Montanans were all over the Peanut Farm. And that place is huge!

We also enjoyed some of Anchorage's new culinary delights... Fire Island Bakery, home of the tastiest $3.50 peanut butter cookie you'll ever eat! (It's worth it. For reals.) And Spenard Roadhouse. Any place serving tots and bacon jelly is going to be good. No anniversary is complete without bacon jelly. That's what they say, anyway.

Here on the North Shore We Treat Friends Mo Bettah

2010-11-28T22:08:00.002-09:00

Like, by handing out free Rock Stars! (Notice the little kiddo in line. I can assure you, they cut him off after two.)

And what a great place to be a kid... free surfing lessons, free SUP lessons, etc.

We took advantage of our long layover and went on a scenic trip to the North Shore and around the island of Oahu. No more bus riding. This time we got serious and rented a car. Of course we declined the auto insurance! That's a big scam. Besides, our credit card has free supplemental car insurance. Anyhoo, a serious surf competition was going on, even featuring one of the guys who was actually in the movie The North Shore.

It was interesting to watch for a few minutes. The waves were large. And the free Rock Star was delicious. The kids found the water fountain the most entertaining part of the whole scene. Who can blame them? Surf contests aren't super exciting unless you have great vision and/or binoculars. It's a bit like birding.

The honu stole the show, really. Love those turtles! Boppa took to the seas Jules Verne style to capture the swimming honu in their natural environment. Witness the spectacular results:

See those turtles in action? Yeah, turns out they are quite a bit more nimble in the water. If he would've got a picture of them, it would probably look like this:

Oahu has lots of cars and people, and great food in Chinatown. The kids loved the Vietnamese restaurant we found, through tried and true scientific research. It was scrumptious. And the servers were very nice to Pax and Stokes. It's amazing how uplifting an understanding smile can be!

On this trip, we mastered the art of eliminating picky eating. If starving, the kids are much more adventurous eaters! (They sure were hungry, considering that their only other sustenance was the aforementioned free RockStar beverages from hours before.) Just joking, we really don't feed the kids rock star. The were running on KillerTacos, I think.

In case you were wondering how that automatic car insurance that comes with using your credit card for a rental car actually works, we will let you know. Somebody dinged our car's bumper at some point during our 6 hour rental, unbeknownst to us. A claim has been filed. Seems pretty minor, some yellow paint on the bumper, but we'll see. Should be interesting.

Then we hopped aboard our 737 for the long sleep back home. The kiddos slept like babies. Light snack! A bit tiring for the grown-ups in the group. Funny to think, the next trip we take will require four seats. Momma sure will have her hands full! Boppa sure will be lonely sitting all by himself, with nothing but a digi-player, a complimentary beverage, and some good books to keep him company.

South Coast Beaches and Adventures

2010-11-25T13:12:00.004-09:00

Hale O Lono. It's accessible by a long dirt road. There's a guy there living in a catamaran. He's been there for two years. Seems like a pretty cool situation he's got going. The beach was pretty fun. There's a protected harbor, and it's where the big outrigger canoe race from Molokai to Oahu starts.

Our favorite Molokai High School sport: Canoe Paddling.

Go Farmers!

The other two cool southern beaches we checked out were Mile 20 Beach (didn't take any pics), and Commercial Activities Prohibited Beach. Nearly the entire southern shore is protected by a reef. The ancient Hawaiians took advantage of that and built huge fish ponds for fish farming. Some of them are still going today. Down an unmarked dirt road lies Commercial Activities Prohibited Beach.

These are the remains of one of the fish farm walls, at the Commercial Activities Prohibited Beach.

The scene, as we experienced it.

Yeah, and to all you people thinking you can take advantage of this scene to make some money off of these crowds, well, don't even think about it!

We knew there must be a reason for the sign. We had fun brainstorming. Did some poor kid with terrible business sense try to set up a lemonade stand here? Perhaps a poached farmed fish stand? A massage parlor? Who knows! The point is, don't even think about it! It's prohibited.

Okay, other good fun we had on the island... the Koala Poo Cookhouse. Mmmm, the island's tastiest joint. It was very tasty. Mama couldn't get enough of the macaroni salad.

The kids ogle the yogis while we endure the lengthy wait. The wait was worth it, though. Mmm.

Also near Koala Poo village, the 100% organic macadamia nut farm. The free tour is great, although a bit in your face. "Do you have any questions? We are communicating here. We are communicating. Do you have any questions? We are communicating. Do you have any questions?" Needless to say, we learned a lot about macadamia nuts. Which are from Australia, originally. And extremely tasty when covered in milk chocolate. Thanks for all the free samples, and the communicating, Mr. Purdy!

Stokely, earnestly communicating with Mama.

The nuts are picked up from the ground daily. The trees produce year round. Being a macadamia nut farmer seems like a pretty fun, fairly easy job.

An unplanned bonus... we discovered where video games go when they get old. Video game heaven, located at the Molokai Arcade! Paxson and Mama play a game of centipede in honor of Aunt Rainold, while we await a tasty Molokai Pizza.

Sunset Pizza dining.

One of America's most awesome Post Offices:
The Postal Clerk is certified coconut inspector. We would've mailed out more coconuts, but unfortunately we were limited to addresses we could recall from memory. To those of you who didn't get one, they are basically like postcards. But on a coconut.

The Royal Coconut Grove.

And finally, what trip to Hawaii would be complete without a... RODEO!

It was just like being in Montana, or Kodiak! A Stampede, as they call it. Cow ropin' good times!

Farewell Hawaiian farm country! Maybe we'll se you again some day!

Western Deserts and Staying To Da Max Foeva

2010-11-24T22:45:00.003-09:00

Westward Ho! Looking down from the air, a person with tunnel vision couldn't be faulted for mistaking western Molokai for parts of Nevada. It definitely looks like a desert. Surprisingly, if it received just a few less inches of rain per year, it would actually be a desert! This half of the island is also the part where somebody obviously had big plans that fell through. Lots of vacant lots, paved roads, and perfectly spaced fire hydrants indicate that something big was going to happen. A couple of the condo developments were made, and there's a few houses here and there, but that is about it. When the whole thing fell through, it left an odd scene behind. A large resort, restaurants, and a tri-plex movie theater all shuttered. A golf course, fully abandoned and overgrown, something we last saw in Beira, Mozambique. Since it's a desert, overgrown isn't the best description. Brown and mostly dead is better. Eerie. But kind of cool. One stroll along any of the numerous west side beaches and you can see why people thought there was so much potential. Alas, the locals weren't into it, and they scared the developers away. They also scared away the people that wanted to build a wind farm. If our time on Molokai was any indication, a wind farm would be a lucrative venture.

Deserted golf course scenes:

We did see one guy on a golf cart cruising the abandoned course.

A true American, he was walking his dog!

Perhaps the Molokaians need a Molokai Permanent Dividend Fund, modeled on Alaska's, but based on tourist and wind power revenue. As it stands, they are happily the island with the highest unemployment rate. Monsanto is the largest employer, with their tropical plant research division. (Pritchard should consider a tour of duty there!) In some ways it seems strange that they are so vociferously opposed to various schemes to make money on their island. But in other ways, their desire to avoid an onslaught of tourists is understandable.

The four awesome beaches we visited on the west side were Dixie Maru, our personal favorite;

Papohaku, which is a really long awesome one with some serious crashing waves. We didn't take any pictures of that one, but it's great.

Make Horse, where we spent most of our time with the crabbies in the tidal pool. Nako, of course. You can't really tell from this picture, but every few seconds a huge wave would crash into the tidal pool. It was exciting.

Kephui Beach surfing scene.

And the 45 minute hike north of the abandoned golf course to an awesome secret beach.

There was a road, but it was definitely 4X4 only. The Dodge Charger probably wouldn't have made it. According to Boodah, the Monster Van could've made it no problem. The way in was much easier than the way out! Especially once the kiddos decided they were done with the whole hiking in the desert thing.

There are numerous other little beaches that we didn't explore.

The one place that survived it all has been the Big Wind Kite Factory. It's a cool little kite factory/artist haven with lots of neat stuff.

After our long days exploring the coast, we always came back home to inspiration from the good book, Hawaiian style.

John 3:16 "God wen get so plenny love an aloha for da peopo inside da world, dat he wen send me, his one an ony Boy, so dat everybody dat trus me no get cut off from God, but get da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva. You know, God neva send me, his Boy, inside da world for punish da peopo. He wen send me fo take da peopo outta da bad kine stuff dey doing."

Everything sounds cool in Hawaiian pidgin. Even the New Testament. Who could pass up da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva? Not us, that's for sure.

The Friendly Isle

2010-11-22T21:02:00.004-09:00

We toured the self-proclaimed friendliest Hawaiian island. Aloha required to enter. All in all, it seemed like a pretty friendly place. The librarians were certainly amongst the most friendly librarians we've ever encountered anywhere. They gave the kiddos books (for keeps), let them feed the library fish, and weren't even annoyed when the kiddos were their natural loud selves! There was a lot of aloha in that library! Thank you, nice Molokai librarians!

We first arrived to our Molokai house after dark. At roughly 3 AM the following morning, we discovered that we would not be missing Uncle Regan's baka-bakas on this trip. From the sound of things, our house was actually situated within a large Molokai chicken ranch, or possibly cock-fighting breeding compound. As it turns out, our first perception was mistaken. There were just a dozen or so chickens next door, roosting mere feet from our wide open (of course!) windows.

The kids were pumped! For the most part, we all slept through it. One of the mama hens had a few chicks in tow, keeping Pax and Stokes highly entertained.

We started our first day with a trip to the coffee shop at the coffee plantation, followed by a walk in the woods on top of the island.

The walk is rewarded by a great view of the former Leper Colony.

Leprosy is now known as Hanson's Disease, and it is super easy to cure. But they still don't let anybody under 16 visit the colony. This is because they were super mean to people with leprosy back before they figured out how to cure it.

The other neat thing in the woods is the turtle rock.

Yeah, it looks like a turtle. Amongst other things.

Fay-lick rock, as we heard it described by some good ol' suth'n folks who were also visiting. The kids called it weiner rock. Supposedly, the ancient Hawaiians would hike all the way up here and rub it for magical fertility powers. I think it worked on Genevieve. Lately, Stokely's telling us he is having a baby too, so it may have worked on him as well. Time will tell.

After the ancient Fay-Lick rock, we headed East, to sandy beach and Halawa Bay.

Sandy Beach was a lovely little sliver of beach, with big waves to romp about in. We had it all to ourselves most of the time. That's Maui in the distance.

Halawa Bay.

Getting out there is quite a fun drive down a single lane, very windy road.

Like Kodiak, Halawa was completely destroyed by a tsunami. It wasn't really rebuilt.

Not much is there any more, but there is a neat tiny little church, and lots and lots of aloha-free KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING and PISS OFF AND DIE signs all over the place.

Just joking about the last one. We didn't see anything like that. It's not a stretch to think the sentiment might be kind of implied, though. The Woodie Guthrie in us is kind of sensitive to those type of signs. After Halawa, we wandered home to enjoy a glorious sunset. All told, a pretty awesome first day in paradise.

Tropic Escape

2010-11-21T20:12:00.004-09:00

But first, a stop at Chuck E. Cheese for a dual Uncle Regs Paxson Revel good fun bad pizza showdown! Aunt Nami is in Japan, so Regs and Musashi are running a bachelor pad full of hot chicks. Here they are, heading down the hill to feed them. As it turns out, hot chicks love popcorn.

Here's the hot chick shack. The B-52s might call it a Love Shack.

Baka-bakas, Stoko Loco calls them. Unfortunately, there's one rooster that seems to attack Stokes every time he sees him. Fortunately, these attacks haven't diminished Stoko's love for the baka-bakas.

Stoko's nemesis. This is .05 seconds prior to attack.

Already recovered, and gathering the fresh eggs. Team WilYo's happy chickens are producing about a dozen happy chicken eggs per day!

It's a sad world we live in when Chuck E. Cheese has to man the entry and exit with two full time guards. Thank goodness they don't have those new TSA scanners.

Here's some good old fashioned Chuck E.Cheese fun. And by old fashioned, I mean 1980's video games. Up to 30% of them are fully functional! None of those old 1970's video games here! The best thing about having a 4 year old and a one year old, of course, is they seem not to notice if the video game actually works. Or if it is even on. Makes for a great value! (Older people are more likely to notice, and possibly complain.)

6 short surly stewardess laden hours on a 737, two bus rides,

one Priceline ocean-view hotel room, (the ocean view is a bit like Find Waldo, go ahead, look hard, you can see it) and one Cessna Caravan ride

(Alaska bush style!)

later... here is our new house!

What's the first thing we do? Weiner rock, of course! More on that later.

Here's something from our neck of the woods. The Damon Minotaur IV was launched from the rocket complex Friday afternoon. We could see it clearly. It was pretty awesome. A little slice of Cape Canaveral right here on Kodiak! This link has a serious of really nice photos. Out of respect, we'll only pirate one.

4!

2010-11-07T06:53:00.002-09:00

POWDER! (And the entire fall in a nutshell.)

2010-11-04T20:09:00.004-08:00

We drove up to the top of Pillar mountain to celebrate some sunshiney snow fun. Lo and behold, by the time we got back down, we had enough snow for powder turns and sledding in our yard. Keep it coming, mother nature! NOAA says we are in for a colder than average winter... hooray!

Good old fashioned cardboard box sledding! (Those little rocks are as jolting as they look. If we had kept sledding any longer, Genevieve would have likely had a few new teammates on Team Estrogen.)

Catching up, in reverse order.

Training for Hawaii, with new goggles.

Carving the pumpkins with Pauline.

Picking out the pumpkins at the pumpkin fair. Whoa! The pumpkins sold out within three minutes of the opening bell. We need to remind ourselves to get out there early next year. Of course, the kids were enthralled by the baka-bakas. (That's Stoko-ese for chikens.)

One of Kodiak's numerous hide free money/candy/food/toys/hot chocolate/dirty diapers in hay games.

Just joking about the dirty diapers. No story there. Yet.

The One and Only Michael Kiss!

What? Never heard of him? He's the world's greatest Michael Jackson impersonator. And he came to our very own Kodiak. With the circus! The people running this circus were masters of the hard sell. We got the light sabers. Amazingly, one still works! Here's Stoko after running out of spectator steam.

Here's Genevieve with the legendary Michael Kiss.

Yeah, he's the lit up area just to the right of her. We were too cheap (I prefer "thrifty" or "economical") to take the circus people up on their offer. For a small fee, you could pay them to take your picture with Michael Kiss. You had to supply your own camera. Here are our friends Amanda and Jason and their little buddy taking them up on the offer:

Our view from the back row was almost as good, I'm sure.

Here's the balance on 5 chairs and do tricks guy.

Enthralled!

The circus also featured the standard circus lady with skimpy clothes.

Paxson: "Why isn't that lady wearing any clothes?"

Boppa: "It's real hot up there, buddy."

Paxson, for the next hour, to anybody who will listen: "That lady isn't wearing any clothes 'cause it's really hot up there."

Ahh, the circus lady. She sure could hula hoop!

Playing at the Olds river, enjoying a glorious sunny day.

One irresistible Chiniak wave.

Stoko helping Missy celebrate her birthday.

Super scary monster.

Our very first glimpse of snow this fall, back on October 3. Hiking pyramid, family style. Towards the snow. A little slice of winter up there!

Sunny beach day at Narrow Cape.

This one is dedicated to Genevieve.

Dark and Stormy Night

2010-10-31T21:32:00.004-08:00

Halloween. Gale force winds and driving sleet really cut down on the kids' desire to pursue free candy. They just don't love candy like they used to, I suppose.

We had about 6 trick or treaters, and the kiddos went to about 4 houses, so it balanced out. The kiddos might not have been pumped about wearing a rain suit under the costume. But they were pumped to get back home and trick or treat at our own house. Much warmer. "Treening," Stokes calls it.

Iron Man. Dinosaur Guy. Wolverine.

August Adventures

2010-10-23T21:50:00.003-08:00

Grammycita and Gramps D came up in August. We enjoyed all the standard activities with them, too. Gramps D was all worn out from his hard working summer at Uncle Regan's chicken farm. Unfortunately, it was a long, cold, wet summer in Alaska, which was a big change from triple digit Boise for Gramps D. Here are a few highlights from the visit.

Thanks for visiting Grammycita and Gramps D! Can't wait to see you again!

Don't be fooled, the eyes are closed! (Maybe we should've snuck some Rock Star into Gramps D's water!)

I miss those glorious manes already! Who cares if everybody thought we had two daughters.

It's August, so that means it was finally warm enough to wear the hoodies that Justin and Elle made for the kiddos. Thanks! They are awesome, adorned with authentic North Shore quotes. "Scrub it, kook!" "Here on the North Shore, we treat friends more better."

Taking advantage of a lovely blue sky day for a walk to Near Island Park.

It's no double rainbow, but it's pretty exciting. A rainbow fragment.

Couldn't resist taking a few more Gramps D action shots!

In all fairness, he did wake up frequently.

Gramps D was here for his birthday, so we helped him celebrate by making what quite possibly was the least delicious birthday cake of all time. Nothing says tasty like stevia cake! (Gramps D is not eating sugar. Sugar is usually a key ingredient in making cake tasty. Some would say it's indispensable. We can now safely affirm that it is indispensable.)

Nevertheless, Gramps D actually liked the cake! He has been avoiding sugar so long that the stevia cake seemed tasty to him. Thank goodness. It was in the unpalatable category for us sugar fiends. Happy Belated Birthday, Gramps D!

Thanks again for visiting, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

And here are a few random August shots of the buddies.

The hazard of getting kids new superhero undies is that they don't want to cover them up with clothes. It's hard to explain to a 3 year old that the word "under" is in underwear for a reason.

Yes. He is doing what you think. ("No. I want to do it outside style.")

All Riled Up

2010-10-23T21:31:00.006-08:00

I can't figure out why the kids are always so riled up after Boppa watches them. They are perfectly mellow when I leave for pregnant lady yoga night. They are perfectly mellow when I go to the Goddess Party. Then when I see them again, it is pure chaos!

Anyway, here's a cute picture Boppa took while he was watching the kids.

Our little rock stars!

Before anyone has heart failure or calls OCS, that's sugar free Rock Star. You didn't think we'd give our kids sugary soda, did you? Especially when it's corn syrup based.

Just joking, there's nothing but water in that can. But don't tell Stoko.

Nana and Grampy Bill

2010-10-23T21:22:00.005-08:00

Nana and Grampy Bill came to visit in July as well. We did not take many pictures. But here are a couple:

Thanks for visiting! And thanks for babysitting so we could enjoy a five year anniversary dessert date! Yep, it's been five years of honeymoon in Alaska since that special Lapacaca day! Given our tardy blogging, technically, it's been more like five and a half years. Anyway, we're coming up on the date that we really measure the start of our togetherness by... the Cat Griz game in November. (A dozen of those!)

Back to Nana and Grampy Bill's visit. We took a few photos with our cell phone. (We're still working on figuring out how to get them off of our cell phone so we can post them.) But we enjoyed all the standard activities... walks on the beach, walks in the woods, goddess gathering/dude party, eating dinner in the sunshine, etc. Thanks for visiting! Can't wait to see you again soon!

July Weddingnumerodos

2010-10-22T20:59:00.004-08:00

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Sally and Glenn!

This was the first inaugural eco-challenge wedding. We traversed bogs, beaches, slippery earth, and streams to make it to the wedding site on Narrow Cape. We McGuyvered the cap off the sparkling cider so the kids could celebrate. And we provided (inadvertently) the thrill of an Easter-Egg-like-hunt for the wedding rings. Here's the setting.

We knew it was a good omen to head over to Narrow Cape when we saw this family of foxes.

It was a lovely wedding, with a few splashes of blue sky. We hiked over to Narrow Cape, after discovering that Pasagshak was fogged in. Somebody, and I'm not naming any names, was given the wedding rings to hold before we started off. And somebody, and again I'm not naming any names, lost those wedding rings just prior to and/or during the treacherous river crossing en-route.

Needless to say, one of the people there, who also happened to be officiating the ceremony, felt an Alaska size sinking in his stomach when he reached into his pocket to present the rings. They were not there. Talk about taking the fun out of a Lapacaca!

Fortunately, the joke was on the officiant, because the rings fell out of his pocket in a clearly visible shallow portion of the raging river. The groom happened to look down as he was crossing. He noticed two shiny metallic items. He investigated further, and was able to reproduce the rings at the appropriate time during the ceremony. Fortunately, this happened before any excessive grovelling, heart failure, or soiling of the pants by the officiant.

Tension breaker! Here are the rings, safe and sound:

Some initial celebrating.

After the official vows were made, we eco-challenged back over to Pasagshak and celebrated by eating cake and surfing.

In case you were wondering, yes, that groom on the cake is a green iron man.

Mmmm... the leaning tower of glazed creampuffs! (Thanks, Amanda!)

My sincere apologies go out to the best man regarding the near death experience. I hope you will give surfing one more chance!

Hooray to Sally and Glenn! Happy Ouzinkie adventuring! (And please consider moving to Chiniak in a few years so we can send our kids to school there and get them more exposure to Sally's amazing positive attitude!)

July

2010-10-03T20:20:00.002-08:00

Our friends Meghan and Boose came back to the emerald isle for the first of their two blissful weddings. It was a lovely occasion. Here's the lovely bride.

We didn't get many other pictures. As previously noted, we are not the best wedding photographers. Hopefully they'll put some pictures of both their weddings on their blog soon! Congratulations Boose and Meghan! Here's wishing you a life of marital bliss! And hoping that you'll put down roots in Alaska. Alaska is a better place with you in it! Now start making babies!

The Gilders were visiting the same weekend, so they were the official wedding crashers. They were great wedding crashers because they made and brought tasty food. In addition to the wedding, we enjoyed the July 4th parade.

I think Gilds and Jo-Jo got a taste of parenthood. Hopefully a good one.

We also got some Pasagshak beach time in. We hit the waves. Got some Vitamin D. Loved it.

Gilds and Joanna actually met here on Kodiak island, so it was kind of an anniversary trip for them. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it out to the cannery where they met. We will just have to make it happen the next time they come up.

Happy Kodiakaversary! Thanks for coming to visit, and thanks for sharing your culinary prowess! We can't sum it up any better than the Gilds, so to quote his facebook entry:

"Kodiak Mission complete: 4.5 lbs. bacon, 4 half gallons of ice cream, 2 days of surfing, 8 episodes of True Blood, Point Break and a little of The Fast and the Furious, and a decent amount of porch sittin' in the Land of the Midnight Sun--what more could anyone ask for?"

To put the bacon consumption in context, I should also note that the visit was only from July 3-6.

Our next visitor was Damir, our friend from our SLC days.

He lives in the Big Apple now. He's teaching economics and also working on a PhD in economics. Incidentally, because he is a computer genious, we have him to thank for our renewed blogging efforts. He managed to fix both of our severely malfunctioning computers. Thanks for the visit, Damir! Great to see you again!

Pauline and Andy joined us for some adventures, and also graciously took Damir on some adventures, like flying and climbing Barometer mountain. Things that are hard to do with toddlers.

We went on a kayak mission in Anton Larsen Bay. Spectacular! And only one extreme rough water crossing. (Extreme by our standards, anyway.)

Sunbathing on a particularly warm rock. Seriously. It was great.

Our flotilla.

Pasagshak Beach party.

Pauline and the buddies at the touch tank.

Stokoboko

Harassing the cows.

Spruce Cape walk.

June Missions

2010-10-01T20:43:00.004-08:00

Mission #1. Cook cousin wedding in San Diego. Congratulations Brian and Annie! May you procreate happily and often, and may your results be as fruitful as your Apple investment. On second thought, maybe not quite that fruitful. You could find yourselves with 3,250 children. (They were somehow wise enough to buy Apple stock just before Apple came out with the iPod.)

Uncle Matty made it just in the nick of time.

Dance machines.

I know what you're thinking. "Awesome pictures. How did you manage to create that blurry, totally out of focus effect?" It wasn't easy. Okay, so we didn't capture it on film, but the kiddos loved dancing at the reception.

Pax was having a blast at the beach with his new friends. Until one of them decided to shovel a large load of sand on his head. He handled it pretty well.

Of course, the kiddos would've been content if we had never left the hotel. Here they are playing some football with Grampy Bill and Nana.

Lots of beach time, too.

Time warp. Here we are, boarding the lucky salmon thirty salmon in Kodiak.

Is Stoko there?

And we got to see Justin and Elle, which was a pleasure, as always. Nana and Grampy Bill even babysat one night so that we could go out to a movie. The best movie since POTC III! Living on the edge with Patagonia products and soulfoul acoustic soundracks. The premise was strong.
Here we are on our free election day tour of the Encinitas gardens. Boodah had a run in with a cactus.

We got back in time to catch the one sunny day this June in Kodiak. Awesome day at the beach. We filled up the van with our friends Amanda, Joe, Wyatt, and Charlie and frolicked in the sun at Pasagshak.

Mission #2. Great-Grandmother and Grandfather Davison memorial in Fort Myers Beach, FL.

Here are the three Davison kids in front of the beach cottage they grew up in. It's now a historical museum, and has been moved pretty far from the beach. But it was fun to walk through it with them and hear them reminisce about how it was when they were little, growing up in it on the beach. It's hard to imagine Fort Myers Beach with just a few beach cottages on it, compared to how built up it is now.

Temperature level: HIGH. As you can see, Paxson is about to burst into flame.

Need to be in the water level: HIGH.

Water temperature level: Warmer than bathtub.

It was great to get together with the immediate Williams family, as well as great to see long lost cousins and distant relatives in Florida. Great-Grandfather Davison's sister is still rocking, and she put us all to shame with her ability to go for long walks in the hot sun. We gave up on walking outdoors after five minutes and went in search of a/c.

Paxson and Stokes had a blast playing with their Garcia cousins!

Paxson enjoys an in-depth discussion with Torin. Possibly about a jelly donut.

Visiting our ancestors' graves. Grammy-cita's Great Granny.

Mission to Sanibel. Love it! This was actually a wonderful day, temperature wise. A light sprinkle and some wind made it very pleasant.

Is Stoko going rogue? The beauty of the ocean is that we'll never know!

On the other hand, we can unfortunately confirm that Boodah was going rogue. We should've let both kids skinny dip.

In all seriousness, he wasn't going rogue. He just had perma-grin.

We stopped by here for some tasty Key Lime Pie. Mmmm.

And on the way back to AK, we got to see Jake and Megan at the airport with their new baby, Hazel Rose Brighton.

And surprise visitors Gilders!

We barely had time to leave security, but it was still great to see friends. We also saw our friend Lori on the way down, but we didn't take any pictures. It's always fun to transit Portland and see our old friends!

Ahhh, good to get back home to Alaska!

TVJ and Maim-Dog

2010-09-29T19:15:00.005-08:00

Our Fairbanks friends came into town for a short visit. Maim-Dog is a real life Roller Girl, and Tom is our friend from our YK Delta Tundra days. They took lots of great pictures, which we will now share. His other Kodiak pictures are here.

We took them surfing. They can not wait to go again. Only they want bigger waves next time. You may think that's the shaka sign they are making, but I think it's actually the Fairbanks sign for, "This is some serious FUN # 2."

Happy Birthday Tom!

We are looking forward to our next shared adventure. Thanks for coming to visit, Team Fairbanks! We'll see you in Yakutat.

Big City Mission

2010-09-26T20:40:00.004-08:00

Fortunately, Nami took some great pictures. We hung out at the WilYo household, managed the chicken herd, and wandered up to Palmer for fall fest on the farm. A great weekend on the mainland!

A Special Word of Caution...

2010-09-13T21:49:00.003-08:00

to those who might be tempted to store their credit card info on Orbitz. Unless you want your heretofore unknown friend Moses Oyemakimbe flying from Lome, Ethiopia to Manila, Philippines on your dime (technically, about 19,000 dimes), I wouldn't recommend it. Orbitz is not secure.

At least their automatic email confirmation works, so we were alerted as soon as the ticket was purchased. We did cancel it, and Orbitz did admit that they were hacked, but it was a close call. We almost didn't even open the email, thinking that it was just a virus. (Dover, did we buy travel insurance?) But then we checked our credit card to see the 19,000 dime charge pending. It's all sorted out now. Took a few phone calls, though.

Okay. We kind of missed the blogging train this summer. We enjoyed a fun summer with lots of guests visiting. And when we didn't have guests, we hit the dusty trail ourselves for some adventures in warmer climes.

Catching up... Memorial Day, which means Crab Fest around these parts. Our friend Steve (from Bethel and Michigan), who now lives in Anchorage, came down to enjoy the festivities. The kids dug in the sawdust pile for thousands of dollars in coinage.

Stoko didn't quite grasp the importance of free money, so he mostly stood around mystified. Come to think of it, Paxson didn't quite sense the urgency either. “Yeah, that round thing is shiny, but this sawdust is SOFT!”

We tried our best to explain that the shiny round things can be traded for candies.

Marching. Boodah enjoyed his first parade march. He won the prize for best costume.

(Although in all fairness, this kiddo probably should have won, but he arrived late.)

Wet Crab Fest Parade! We are 2 for 2 on that front.

Steve enjoyed the Boodah guided tour of the military museum at Abercrombie.

Boodah, showing Steve the flying whales.

Forest walks and buddies at the beach.

The first day of crab fest was amazing, blue sky, sunny and warm. Of course, by the time Steve arrived it was a bit damp. And it stayed that way.

It's a BABY!

2010-09-13T17:47:00.002-08:00

Introducing baby racecardrivernumerotres DeWayne Arthur Williams IV:

Can you guess the gender?

Sunny September

2010-09-12T18:11:00.002-08:00

Wow, summer is here! And not a single cloud in the five day forecast. Our apologies to everybody who visited in June, July and August. We are now enjoying the type of weather we told you all about while you were here. What Stoko is pointing at, actually, is four-wheelers and motorcycles racing down the beach. Which he loves.

Lots and lots of bears. The scariest thing about the bears is avoiding the cars who are not afraid to park in the middle of the 55 mph highway to get a look at the bears. That, and their large teeth and claws.

Surf's up!

It was a day for SUP style surfing. We may have to invest in one or two of those things.

Dune Jumping

The crowd was thrilled.

And some time at Chiniak. In honor of the Croatia-like beach, we skinny dipped. Yep. For the mental well being of all parties involved, including those reading this blog, no photos were taken. The water was surprisingly warm. 52. (Had we taken pictures, you probably would've guessed it was a lot colder.)

Another first, we saw a plane land on Pasagshak beach. It's in this picture, but you kind of have to already know where it is to see it. It's like Find Waldo.

Time to go eat buffalo steak.

Big Day at the Races

2010-09-06T10:29:00.002-08:00

It's Labor Day weekend, and that means the Kodiak Island State Fair and Rodeo. Yee-Haw!
But first, a hot beverage.

Black Stallion was a little too big.

Safety first.

As a result of the Fair, the kids brought home two new pets.

"Cu-Koo In The Head"

"Occi"

Occi is blind. His eyes weren't up for the rigors of a 21 month old owner. Incidentally, Cu-Koo In The Head is a pirate, having lost an eye of his own to his almost 4 year old owner.

"Cu-Koo In The Head wants to watch a movie," Boodah informed us this morning. Very clever.

And day 2 of Labor Day weekend... blue sky day at Fossil Beach. Paxson made a birthday cake. He shared.

TASTY!

Stoko sported a beard for the rest of the day.

Puppies.

A helping hand.

Summer came late, but better late than never!

Lovely Rooftop View

2010-05-25T22:22:00.002-08:00

Pasagshak mission with Sally. Thanks for hanging out with us! Good luck back in Danger Bay!

Sally and Girdy the surfing dog.

Chip off the old block.

It's not all unicorns and rainbows.

World's Greatest Hitchhiker

2010-05-25T06:58:00.004-08:00

The alternative title was "Why baby thumbs and slamming doors don't mix." Yesterday was pretty exciting. We took our first family trip to the Emergency Room. Paxson has been on a door slamming kick lately, and Stoko's thumb was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately, the doctors sewed it right back on. For the next few days he's permanently hitchhiking.

Seriously, he's alright. His thumb didn't get cut off, it just looked that way. (It was just the fleshy part.) We've cleaned up most of the blood and you'd never know anything had ever been amiss. Except for Stoko's new giant blue thumb, of course. It's happy to see him back to his normal self.

Stoko, taking care of baby. He loves baby!

Rocking a little harder

2010-05-17T06:30:00.002-08:00

Rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio. Ride the tiger!

What's wrong with this picture?

Usually, it's bath time, then jammies. This night it was, bath time, then jammies, then bath time encore.

Paxson got a new wetsuit so he can surf with Boppa. So far it holds up well. His booties could use some work.

We doubled up on Pasagshak missions over Mother's Day weekend. The first day was wetsuit weather. Mother's Day itself was amazing. Pax and Stokes got about 6 hour of naked time on the beach and we got our first Alaska sunburn! The big excitement was when the Coast Guard helicopter flew by.

Where the whales at?

Beachcombing at Abercrombie

Some new Team Wilco family members:

Lazy Sunday

Widgeon Mission

2010-05-06T06:43:00.003-08:00

The sunny days daze continues! Hard to believe a year has passed since we moved to Kodiak. Tuesday night, seeing the amazing blue sky, we chartered the Grumman Wigeon for an hour long scenic. Here's our route, if you're curious.

The Captain:

The Co-Pilot:

Cockpit:

We started by flying south towards Chiniak.

Over the old bunkers down there.

Out towards Cape Greville along the Southeastern coastline.

The water was amazingly clear. Serious kelp!

Then we turned inland and flew up the Sacramento River towards Mount Golodof.

The crew.

Pasagshak out the window.

Plenty of snow on the hills!

Here's the Terror Lake dam, where we get our power. Between this and the windmills, we enjoy some of the cheapest electricity in the bush.

The village of Port Lions.

Whale Island

The ruins of Afognak village. It was destroyed by the 1964 Tsunami.

Danger Bay and logging camps. Hi Sally!

Ouzinkie's 7 million dollar airport.

And Ouzinkie's old airport.

Termination Point

Kodiak Sweet Kodiak.

Our house is right under the pontoon.

Coming in for a landing.

Hooray!

Wowzers!

Sunny Daze

2010-05-03T21:46:00.004-08:00

We came home from Philly to an exciting little box.
Hooray for Olympus. We had one of their first indestructible models. Turns out it was in fact destructible. But we wrote them a letter and they kindly replaced the old with the new - an Olympus Stylus Tough. The new has some improvements, and seems much more likely to be indestructible. It's already survived one trip into the ocean. We're hoping it lives a long time!

Here's the inaugural photo:

We haven't quite mastered the settings. Despite being Luddites, all we need to do is wait a couple more years so our kids can teach us how to operate our cameras (and phones and computers).

The last couple days have been incredible. Yesterday we spent all day down at the beach, Pasagshak beach. We looked for surf and decided to go on a family hike instead. Whales were everywhere! After our hike, we stopped by Amy's place, which is right on the beach. Pretty amazing! Talk about a dreamy locale! As it turns out, there is one place for sale down there. Unfortunately, at $475,000 it's a bit out of range. But wow, what a setting! We'll employ a piggy bank, just in case. Maybe something will come up about three years from now.

Here are a few pictures from our hike.

Mister wanted to lay down in every mudhole we came across.

Look! Another mudhole!

Here we are enjoying the sunny spring days. Sunbeam:

(So relaxing! A person could just nap there for hours in meditative bliss! Monks on mountain tops? Ha-they've got nothing on a sunbeam and two toddlers with cement mixers.)

Vitamin D Mission:

Mill Bay Lounging

And Kodiak's second most optimistic surfer (after Boodah):

Cutie Pie

Coast Guard mega May Day flea market. This is a major annual event, timed with the rotation of the Coasties. They open up a hangar for people to unload and/or scour over prized possessions. We came away with a new scooter, a boogie, and some board games. Here's the serious line of cars pouring into the base.

And some jewel beach beach-glass hunting until the opening bell.

And the line, the hordes stampeding in...

Ta Da! The setting was pretty cool. It was worth going just to hang out that close to the C-130s.

Afterwards we grabbed some yellow baggies and picked up trash around town. In addition to Law Day and International Worker's Day, May 1 was clean up day. It's a pretty cool tradition. Ironically, the bags were supplied by BP, the same BP that's kind of in the dog house for its little spill down south. But up here, they provided the bags that we used to pick up trash. I'm always amazed at how much people can accomplish when everybody pitches in a few hours. Our community is decidedly cleaner!

COWABUNGA!

Paddle paddle paddle

Surf's Up! Getting shacked (under the faucet).

The new scooter in action.

Is it obvious that we are a chocolate loving family? (Either that, or a napkin hating family.)

Two buddies hanging out in the comfy chair.

Sally recently left the island to take a job on Afognak Island, which is just up north of here. It's home to legendary brown bears, who come running AT you if you fire a weapon. (They've learned that a firearm going off usually means a tasty freshly downed elk is nearby, so they head towards the sound. We hear it's a good place for Bear Spray.) Sally is teaching at Danger Bay school, a one room school from K-12. Pretty awesome! Good luck Sally!

We met Sally for one last hike around Abercrombie before she left for the wild. With any luck, we'll head up to visit her one of these weekends in May!

Walking back home sweet home.

Other unphotographed adventures include biking around with the bike trailer, working extra, swimming, and meandering.

East Coast Part II

2010-04-23T20:22:00.004-08:00

Tons of fun at the Please Touch museum.

Driving a bus, just like his dad.

He definitely preferred the race car.

This is supposedly the keyboard from Big.

Stoko's a driver, too.

All fancy pants. Practically like prom! Which was great for me, as I didn't go to prom when I had the chance in high school. I even wore heels - for the first time in my life! And Boppa had a chance to wear his suit. The suit has sat, unworn, in our closet since we moved to Alaska. (He did have to rent those shiny shoes.) Thanks, Nicole, for lending me your fancy clothes!

The wedding was at a luxurious location called the Rittenhouse.

Almost none of the wedding pictures we took turned out, but we did capture the amazing dessert.

And this, one of the saddest things we have ever seen in our life... dessert wounded soldiers.

This is a cool little statue in Rittenhouse Square. It reads:

The Hour Passes.
Friendship Abides.

Pretty awesome, really. I love the emphasis on friendship and love.

Some fun and tasty chocolate at the Reading Terminal. That is the best smelling terminal on the planet! Especially the chocolate region.

Chocolate!

Another funny Stoko moment took place when we were watching The Hangover with Nate and Nicole on our last night. Stoko had been under the weather that day. He was asleep in Genevieve's sling, head burrowed down in there, while we watched the movie. Alan Garner says, "Hey. You guys ready to let the dogs out?"

Stoko's head pops up, "Who. Who Who. Who Who."

Well, obviously it was pretty hilarious in real life. Forgive us our David Cross moments, as we forgive those who also David Cross others. Back to the blog.

The scene at Reading.

No trip to Philly would be complete without a Philly Cheese Steak Sandy.

They were pretty tasty.
Another view of Nate's workplace. It's the pointy one.

A cool game-like park.

But, be warned. Don't close your eyes for one second, or security will be all over you! They don't like people sleeping in this square. Don't let the whole brotherly love theme fool you!

These Philly Fanatics were all over the place. Philadelphians love their sports!

Farewell Philadelphians!

And onward to DC, by Amtrack.

That's a big shark!

Hi Aunt Jane! Thanks for meeting us for lunch. And thanks for the picnic! It was great to see you!

We had a spendover with Jodasm, Renee, and their little kiddo Eli. Boodah and Stokes especially appreciated having another buddy to play with. Thank you Jodasm, for the spendover and for organizing a gathering at your place! Francisca and Karlton came over, as well as law school friends Casius, Robyn, Monica, Jamie, and Helena. Hooray for seeing dear old friends! Hooray for catching up on everybody's latest exploits and adventures! I especially appreciate the fact that everybody rallied on a Monday night. We're hoping that Team Jodasm will come visit us next summer so we can reciprocate the hospitality!

Lovely adventures! And of course, it's great to be back in beautiful Kodiak!

East Coast Mission Part I

2010-04-23T05:50:00.006-08:00

First of all, congratulations are in order. Cheers to Schlichter and Pam! May you enjoy a life of marital bliss.

We wandered back east to celebrate the union of Schlichter and Pam. Schlichter was the driving force in founding the Michigan Law Surf Club, an organization that struck fear in the hearts of lambs. One of the main goals of the organization was to appropriate our student funds and direct them towards fun festivities. At our final luau, we couldn't find a hog to roast, so we went with a roast lamb from Ali Baba's. That's high fusion cuisine. The mystery of the errant lamb carcass ensued, but that's a story for another day. Schlichter was also a member of Unicorns Kick Ass, a bowling team that would make Lebowski proud. We didn't actually know Pam, but by all accounts she is awesome. Whenever two awesome people get together and go for it, it's something to be celebrated! Especially if plans include rugrats. So, here's to Pam and Schlichter. May they beget many awesome rugrats!

Schlichter is the person who sent us the mystery lapacaca present, Buck. We are working hard to come up with something equally excellent.

And, speaking of awesome rugrats, here's to Captain Steele Cook! That's Paxson and Stoko's new cousin, courtesy of Auntie Nicole and Auntie Nate, who's efforts last November have led to some successful begetting. Captain will be arriving some time in August. Maybe we should say, The Captain. His cousins are already pumped.

Nate and Nicole, thanks for the hospitality and sharing your awesome house! We had a great time visiting with you, as always. Here's hoping you can make it to San Diego! Normally, a house next to a jail isn't that awesome, but in this case, the jail is a museum now. Kind of like Alcatraz, but without a major water crossing. In anticipation of our trip to Philly, we did serious scholarly research, and I'm proud to say we managed to see most of the works we had intended to based on that research. Our source, Goodnight Philadelphia, directed us to the highlights. We found most of them. Including probably the most culturally significant, Rocky Balboa.

Boodah went down in the 15th round.

Here's what Philly houses look like. They are tall and skinny.

Exploring the back yard alley cats.

And here's the front. It was cherry blossom time, which was lovely.

Thinking about it.

And here's the man himself.

I can't believe they shaved Abe's beard for this statue.

Looking back on the Philly skyline from the art museum, which is just up the steps from Rocky. And yes, that is a Sarah Pale Ale T-Shirt from the Kodiak Brewiing company that Nate's wearing.

"Why does that kid have my spoon?"

Uncle Nate works at the middle skyscraper.

Scenes from the zoo and the Schuykill River. Don't worry about trying to pronounce it.

It's not easy being male.

Mister could've hung out here all day. On the tractor, I mean.

Fucking Crazy

2010-04-21T21:52:00.005-08:00

I'm not pointing any fingers, but on the Seattle to Anchorage leg of our flight home, Paxson turned to me out of the blue and said, "Are you fucking crazy?"

I did my best not to respond in any way so as to encourage it. But he went on to have a conversation with himself. "I'm NOT fucking crazy." "That's fucking crazy." Etc.

This whole parenting thing will not ever stop being entertaining.

Easter

2010-04-10T06:59:00.002-08:00

Intense egg dyers.

Hulk hands.

A hunting we will go.

Stoko's shiner. (Nose dive into the bath-tub. Well, technically a head-dive. The shiner's above the right eye.)

What?

Easter egg hunt part II. Low-tide at Mill Bay beach.

Hanging out at sunny home sweet home.

We're lucky to have friends in Vermont!

Sunny Mission Beach:

Joy

2010-04-08T21:49:00.004-08:00

Well, the joys of being grown-ups are upon us. Truly, it is satisfying to finally live in a place that has that homey feel. We've done our best to make our other places feel homey, but this place really has it. Maybe it's because we had friends and family to help inaugurate it! Thanks to Nana again for visiting and helping us move!! She was invaluable, despite the lack of photographic evidence. Her flight was delayed on account of Kodiak winds, so she got to spend an extra day and celebrate her first goddess party experience. Whew! We've lived in the Stately Wilco Manner for 2 weeks and already hosted 2 sets of visitors and had 2 parties. Not bad!

Part of the reason for not blogging lately has been because our "waterproof" Olympus 1030 SW has failed us again, after being taken into the water. We should have known! We did send a grumpy consumer letter to Olympus, so we'll see how it pans out. The warranty has expired but we're hoping they will make an exception. This is the last picture it took before dying, as Boppa swam out to take a picture of Justin.

Justin and Elle came up for a visit and we took a stay-cation to make the most of it. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. A three day blizzard ensued. The surf was good, but it was pretty cold for these San Diegoans!

Here's the one successful action photo of Justin. This is at Pillar Creek beach, one of our favorite places for in town waves. Those little dots in the picture are snowflakes.

Justin makes surfing look pretty easy. (Boppa makes it look pretty hard. Which is a more accurate representation.)

Of course, we took them on the assorted tour of ruins and tasty coffee shops.

Luckily, on their very last day in town, the weather cleared up and they got to see the mountains and sunshine. Kodiak is fantastic with blue sky, blue ocean, and snow-covered mountains.

This guy may have been mad at us for eating his tasty cousin. He certainly didn't feel like getting out of the road.

A few beach shots:

More action photos:

Stately Wilco Manor

2010-03-25T06:34:00.003-08:00

We closed on Tuesday, and we are 99% moved in. Thankfully Nana is up here helping us out with the move. Thanks, Nana!

The new place is very homey, and even has a slice of ocean view from the deck (and the roof, but that's harder to access). We have three bedrooms and a nice open living room. A fireplace and a wood stove, so we can have dueling fires and turn this place into the world's largest banya. And downstairs there's a 2 bedroom apartment and a 350 square foot shop. We plan to convert the shop to a studio apartment for guests.

We also have a great yard that will make a great green circle snowboarding slope on snowy days. And friendly 'eighbors (Boodah-speak for people who live nearby). And a storage shed. And a small wood shed.

There's no denying it. We have kiddos, jobs, and now a house with a mortgage. We are full on grown-ups.