Long Island Camping Trip

 In June we got a really cool opportunity to go camping on an island off of Kodiak.  Reese and his coworkers train there with all the classes that come through and thought it would be fun to have all the families come out.  We all took boats out their and set up for one night. There were around 50 people I think, lots of kids! The island was home to over 3000 troops during WWII.  So there are foundations from old buildings scattered around the island as well as quonset huts and old bunkers.  Lane loved exploring in those.  There was a lake nearby to fish in and a beautiful beach that we camped at.  We were blessed with GORGEOUS weather and I got my first Kodiak sun burn!!

 Emmy and Estelle have such fun together.

 Reese, Lane and I went on a hike and found all sorts of bunkers, etc.

 Kaysia, me and Jen hanging out at the campfire.

Lane enjoying the boat ride home.

Old Women's Mt. Hike

 The wildflowers are in full bloom here!

 My friend Kaysia and I took our older kids up Old Women's Mountain.  It was a pretty good hike, I think like 5 miles roundtrip.  At the top there is a beautiful lake.  This was the easy part of the trail.  The first 2/3 of the way was a rocky, steep, brushy trail.  The kids hopped up it like little mountain goats, we kept yelling at them to not get too far ahead.  The bears kind of freak us out and we didn't have any spray or gun or anything.  Just a dog with a bell on his collar :)

 This is one of the views looking down, the airport.  Lane was watching a FedEx plane take off.

 The kids were a little tired at the end.

 Me and Laners at the top.  It was beautiful!!

Kaysia and I, had to get a picture of the moms at the top!

A Visit From Grandpa Jim

 Grandma Jim came to visit a couple weeks ago!  It was fun to have him here.  We didn't do too much, the weather wasn't all that great.  But we did drive out to Chiniak and Pasagchak, which is as far as you can drive on the island.  We went out to dinner a couple times and Reese and Dad also built the wood shed below.  That was something Reese had wanted to get done this month and it turned out well!  Estelle sure loved having "my Jim" here.  She took a couple hours to warm up to him but from there she just wanted to hang out with him and to "huggle my Jim."

 Here is a picture of the shed and my garden beds too :)  We tore down a shed that was about to fall over when we moved in.  This one took it's place, and looks far better!

 Here's some pictures of Fossil Beach down at Pasagchak.  It is beautiful out their, too bad it was a cloudy day because it's even more beautiful when the sun is shining.  Kodiak is called The Emerald Isle for a reason!  Right around June the whole island turns green and now with the wildflowers blooming, it is gorgeous!

Living Room (before and after)

Finally I am getting around to showing more pictures of the house!  The picture below is the house before the previous owner moved out.  

This is the living room before we had our stuff moved in...

 And here is the after picture.  I have painted the entire house!  I think there is only one wall that I have not painted!

 Here is where the living room meets the kitchen and the closet is our computer desk/scrapbooking/sewing area :)  It used to hold the washer and dryer but we moved those into the garage.

 This is the hallway from the living room into the dining room/entry way.

Here are the before/after pictures of the other rooms I have shared (kitchen and dining room) but I forgot to put them on those posts.

Gardening in Alaska

 I hope this is the first of many posts about my garden!  One of the things I was most excited about moving out of base housing and into a house with a yard was being able to have a garden.  And then I thought about it.... I am moving to Alaska, what the heck grows in Alaska??  I researched it a little online and was determined to have a garden here.  I registered for a Organic Gardening class at the community college.  And Reese built me two raised beds.  They have PVC pipe hoops over them which we attached plastic sheeting to.  This way I was able to plant things sooner because the plastic creates a greenhouse type environment and it's a lot warmer in there.

 Radishes have been the first thing that we've harvested.  It was very exciting... mostly for me.  I planted spinach, kale, broccoli, carrots, radishes, green onions, lettuce, zucchini, pumpkins and butternut squash.  The winter squash are questionable whether they will do anything because of the short growing season here.  But everything else should do great, we've had couple salads with the lettuce. The kale is doing awesome and I think it's ready to pick some of it for kale chips!!  If you've never had kale chips, you need to!  Recipe to come!

Estelle at 2 1/2 years old

Estelle turned 2 1/2 in May.  She is growing into quite a silly little girl.  She is very energetic, emotional, sassy, and sweet.  She loves "huggling" me, huggle is one of my favorite sayings of hers.  From the beginning she has grabbed my hair and played with it and she still does.  She is really beginning to have an opinion about what she wears too, which is cute and frustrating at the same time.  She is loving being outside at our house, playing with rocks is a favorite activity.  The biggest milestone in the month of May is that she is fully potty trained now.  She decided one day that she would do it and that was pretty much it.  She has been sleeping in her big girl bed since about March.  We all adore her, Lane really loves playing with her and teasing her.  Can't believe she is 2 1/2!  What a blessing Miss Estelle Hope has been to our family!

Crab Fest Parade

Crab Fest is a big deal here in Kodiak.  It's every Memorial Day weekend and they have a parade on Saturday. All the little league kids are in the parade.  So Lane was in a parade for the first time.   He had a lot of fun and seemed really excited about it.  

 We dropped off Lane with his team and Reese, Estelle and I went to watch.  Estelle really liked it until the fire truck went by and blew it's horn, that freaked her out.

Her is Lane walking with his team.  He is having a lot of fun playing baseball this year.  He takes is quite seriously.  It's never hard for me to get him to go to games or practice like it was last year.

Estelle had never gotten candy at a parade before.  Once she figured out what was going on she was all over it!

Crab Fest lasts 4 days and is a little carnival with food booths and people selling things.  It's not much, but it's entertainment for this small town.  Lane has been out of school for over a week now.  This weather can be a bummer though.  It's supposed to rain all week, so I am going to have to get my creativity flowing to try to come up with things to keep these kids entertained!