Happy 45th Birthday...

To the Alaska Zoo! One of our favorite places to go visit in Anchorage, so how could we resist a birthday party??

It's not really a huge zoo, so it's great for short visits when the weather is nice and we have no other plans. But you can see the wide assortment of animals. I think almost all of the animals here are injured and can't survive in the wild or transplants from other zoos. My favorites are the polar bears and they are in the midst of an enclosure upgrade - can't wait to see their finished digs!

The otters were in a particularly playful mood today! They were adding water to their pool and the otters seemed to think it made their home a water park. So much swimming and playing!

These two were wrestling all around the place - totally reminded me of Natalie and Eliza. Though with less teeth...

Thomas and Nonni were both equally excited with the playing otters. Especially when the water got turned off. One of the otters was checking out the water pipe when the water suddenly came back on... Hilarious! Wish I had gotten a photo of that reaction!

Given his bravery at the previous petting zoo experience, I thought we should try it out again. And Thomas walked over and started petting a goat! The goat didn't even seem to notice, but Thomas was pretty proud of himself. I thought it was adorable! :)

Henry already has his own personal zoo animal, so he didn't bother with staying awake at the zoo. This particular giraffe came from Aunt B, so we decided to name him Biraffee (Bee-raff-ee). Henry loves his Biraffee, he's always holding it or trying to eat it. 

After seeing the tigers, Thomas was crawling around on the deck like a tiger (I'm assuming) - weird because all the tigers were sleeping. He's been roaring like a tiger at me since Nonni took him to the zoo last week. But I couldn't get him to do it at the zoo! But give him one of my tiger slippers and I get attacked non-stop...

One of the Dall Sheep saw I had a camera with a zoom lens and decided to get in the modeling mood. Ha, he was hiding in the rocks at first then moseyed down to where he would be nicely framed by trees and blue sky. Who says animals aren't vain? ;)

And we finally made it to the party section. They had several bouncers, a live band, face painting, etc. Given the slide incident at the company party, I steered him away from the giant slide to the bounce house that also happened to have a short slide. He was more interested in sliding than bouncing, but couldn't get up the "rungs" by himself. So I got in and assisted him up to slide down.

The next time instead of pushing him up, I showed him where to put his feet and how to pull himself up. The next time he almost made it all by himself. 

Couldn't really convince him to slide down correctly though. Eh, whatever...

And then he didn't need my help anymore. He figured out the method pretty quick and went back several times to climb and slide all by himself. I was so proud!

But like a moth to flame, I couldn't keep him away from the giant slide. I thought he *might* be able to climb it himself, but that was a fail. So I ended up having to climb up with him, dodging hundreds of small children who had no patience for the toddler slowing things down - he would not let me help him up the stairs. I grabbed him to ride down with him and he was not happy - he started yelling his typical "my turn! my turn!" - which really just means "I do it my way, right now" in his book. So I tried to get him all psyched up by yelling on the way down. Which my mom thought made for a hysterical photo.

He was only partly swayed...

And I might have had to drag him away from the slide...

Happy 45th Birthday, Alaska Zoo! We love you and hope to spend many, many more visits with you!

Talkeetna Tuesday

I decided to take my first vacation day of the year (not counting the days I used for leave) since Tuesday was forecast to be a gorgeous day and my dad is threatening to not come back until next summer. And while I had to fast that morning to do a physical for insurance - I had great plans of making up for that later in the day at the Roadhouse!

Thomas did pretty good at lunch, though we did have to do some toddler/baby swapping at one point because he wanted to go look at something on the wall *right* *that* *second* - toddlers aren't known for patience... But the staff at the Roadhouse is so awesome, they brought him a choo-choo book to read while we waited for our food. 

I can't remember who it was, but someone told me next time I was in Talkeetna to keep walking down the main road until I reached the river because Denali is so close and it is a great view if it is a clear day. Yeah - no kidding! What a beautiful day to take off!

Grandpa was showing Thomas how to skip rocks. Thomas loves rocks, so he was all about any activity involving them! And I think he is pointing at the awesome mountain across the river. :)

Tried to get a photo of me and the boys with Denali. Nope - this was the best I got. Ha, it's like herding cats sometimes... And he is totally blocking the view of the mountain!

Nonni had the better idea - trap him so he can't get away! And they aren't blocking the mountain. My mom was pretty excited about the view - Denali has a tendency to hide from her every time she visits...!

After a nice lunch and stroll around Talkeetna, we headed back south and then cut across Hatcher Pass. We drove it a short way from Independence Mine the other day, but the washboards were pretty rough, so we turned around. One of Matt's coworkers swore that it was smooth just past where we turned around, so the parents and I risked it. And it was a great drive, smooth for a dirt road and great scenery!

It was a bit muddy though... "/

Getting close to the Mine, we noticed there were several old mine tailings up on the hillside. Pretty easy to spot with the big rock piles - this one still had some framing around the entrance - though admittedly a little hard to see in this photo.

This building had no red last week - I guess they are doing some sprucing up at the mine. Which meant we had to go right instead of left, so I managed to convince my parents to go up the hill we skipped last time. 

It was totally worth it, the cool mining equipment was up there! Thomas loved the train (of course!) that was sized appropriately for both mines and toddlers. I didn't see any signs forbidding it, so I let him pretend to be the conductor. A captain and a conductor in one week - busy guy!

How do you know where the train went? "Follow the tracks!"

I know, cheesy joke, but that's what I thought when Thomas was checking out the rails. :)

Nice view of the mine ruins from above. And the sad state of the old tracks coming out of the mine. 

Thomas was a little disappointed that this train didn't move. And that it wouldn't go in the "tunnel"! They have just the very front of the mine shaft open and it is soooooo cold right past the opening. Apparently it was a steady 38 degrees in the mine year round. That's not pleasant working conditions. Brrrr!

And I would like to point out that I didn't get as much of the creepy vibe this time with the sun out and shining. Though we weren't below in the building ruins, so maybe that made a difference too? 

Whatever the perceived level of creepiness, my parents had a great day and it was well worth burning a day off. So hard to work on a sunny Alaskan summer day anyhow!

Choo-choo Ride to Seward

Since my dad suffered through the coldest Thanksgiving ever to see us last year, I thought I would try to make up for it by cramming as much stuff as possible into the week he is staying here. The obvious first choice was a train ride and we had heard nothing but rave reviews for the Coastal Classic - the one from Anchorage to Seward. Since I was only sending them on it one way (it gets back at 10:45 PM!), I decided to send them Gold Star - and let them take Thomas along.

I know Dad loves train and all, but he might have been more excited that I was letting the grandparents have alone time with Thomas than anything. And Thomas is totally into trains right now, so I figured he would be excited enough to not throw any surprise fits on my parents. 

Honestly, I am not sure who was more excited about the choo-choo, Dad or Thomas. Mom was obviously in charge of taking photos since I wasn't along for the ride. I was driving down to Seward with Henry to ensure we had wheels in Seward and to avoid having to ride the train back. Love is getting up at 5 in the morning on your day off to take people to the train...

Dad was pretty impressed with all of the turns and switchbacks on the train - necessary to get up some of the hills with limited amount of running room. There were multiple times where the train was doubling back on itself enough to get some photos of - impressive as short as the train was!

Thomas was such a trooper, but he finally crashed at the end. Apparently my dad makes a great pillow. :)

I managed to time it almost perfectly, I managed to get to Seward right before the train arrived. And can I just say, I love the colors of the Alaska railroad. I mean, I know they are also the state flag colors, but the colors just look so good roaming through the Alaska wilds - or on a cloudy morning in Seward.

The railroad trio arrives! Don't they look like they had a good time?

We managed to get into our room a little early with the grand plan of getting Thomas a nap on time. Yeah, apparently if he has a super short nap sometime in the morning he's not interested in sleeping at all. So we instead we hung out for awhile and plotted what to do the rest of the weekend - also known as Nonni got in some extra snuggle time!

Of course those plans got derailed about five minutes after we got in the car and Thomas was fast asleep. So instead, I decided we should take a drive so Thomas could get a decent nap in. He happened to wake up right around when we got to Moose Pass and their tiny fudge shop. Thomas was *not* impressed with "Morris the Talking Moose". However, all of us were impressed with the fudge - yum!

The next morning we decided to take a trip to Exit Glacier. Mom, Thomas and I went last year, but due to my not warning my mom of our plans - she didn't have hiking appropriate footwear. This time we were ready to head toward the glacier. And dad volunteered to carry the heavier of the two boys, so we were set!

True to his form, Thomas fell asleep as soon as we got partway there. This obviously made him much harder to carry up the hills, but Dad never complained. I offered to switch kiddos since I am pretty used to carry the boys, but he trucked him up the hill anyhow. That's what granddads are good at. :)

Supposedly this trail was going to lead up to the edge of the glacier, but this was as close as it got. But it was still pretty cool! Especially when you came over the last hill, the wind coming off of the glacier was super cold - it was nature's air conditioning. Henry wasn't super impressed about the chill, so we didn't stay there too long.

Thomas managed to wake up just in time to see the glacier up close. He may not look impressed in this photo, but he did seem to think it was cool!

Thomas decided he would prefer to spend some time walking back down the hill. It made for a slower trek down, but it sure is nice that he can go for longer distances these days. 

Then off to the Seward Sea Life Center (after another failed nap time...) - Thomas really seems to enjoy this place - though each time he's most excited about something different. This time he was hard to pry away from the boat at the entrance. Maybe the little guy wants to be a captain?

Henry was happy as always. Nothing seems to upset this guy. Love it!

He loves the birds and was super excited about the ducks this time. The ducks jumped out of the water to say hi - the lady next to Thomas ran away from the ducks but he was just excited they were closer. :)

Look at the beautiful Seward scenery behind my super happy parents. What a perfect day!

Woody the Sea Lion was in typical form, doing his laps around the enclosure. I played around with the camera for quite a while trying to get a good photo of him as he flew by. Not bad, if I do say so myself! I think he was so excited because he just had a little baby - who is currently unnamed but according to my member emails is doing great!

Thomas was obsessed with the scale right next to Woody. Its a little display to see if you can reach Woody's weight with a group of people - 1200 pounds I think. Several groups would try to reach it and they always had an extra toddler trying to help them out. I'm not sure why he was so excited - I think he saw another little kid jump on the scale and thought that would be super cool to do over and over again. Toddlers!

He also spent a lot of time watching Woody do laps. Woody is so big, how could a toddler not be impressed?

And before we could leave, we *had* to go back to the boat. Who am I to deny the little captain his time at the helm??

The place we were staying had a super random wolf skin in the room. Which I thought was pretty odd, but my parents thought would make for an "interesting" photo. Thomas was not too thrilled about the "dog" skin. That was about the best facial expression I could get out of him!

Henry could care less though - like I said, nothing fazes this guy. He was just happy people were interacting with him. Love that smile! (The wolf still creeps me out though.)

On the way back from Seward, we detoured through the Whittier tunnel since my dad loves trains so much. We all thought it was cool when we went through it last year, so I figured he would love it even more. Thomas just recently became obsessed with tunnels (due to my awesome tunnel building skills with couch cushions the other day). He apparently told mom and dad to "go back!" after every tunnel the train went through. So the tunnel was also a hit in his book. And of course, I timed it just perfectly so dad could see another train. Go me!

And one last stop in Girdwood for lunch before heading home. Of course, he didn't touch his grilled cheese even though he usually loves them. That's fine, I traded part of my sandwich for his. I still love grilled cheese!

Home again! Nonni and Grandpa brought Thomas a belated birthday present that is a super cool car tent. They, of course, have not set up tents much recently and had a heck of a time trying to figure out the poles. Instead of helping, I decided to giggle and take photos. Hey, we all grow older - we don't always grow up. ; )

I did end up stepping in at the end and helping the finish it up. Thomas really liked playing in his new tent. Especially after Grandpa put his Elmo couch in there. That boy loves his cars and Elmo!

Last, but not least - I couldn't let my year anniversary pass by without some sort of small celebration, so I made myself a brownie cake. Can you believe it's been a year already? I sure can't!

Independence Mine

We had great plans going into the weekend of going up to Independence Mine at Hatcher Pass. After breakfast on Saturday, we hit the farmer's market and then headed back to the house to eat lunch before heading north. I decided to 'just check' the forecast and it looked pretty bad. Severe storms were supposed to be rolling into the valley in the next few hours. Well that kinda makes heading toward the impeding nastiness look like a bad idea. 

I was pretty bummed about the change of plans, but at least we got quite the haul at the farmer's market. Zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, rhubarb, squash and onion. Guess where those rhubarb are likely going to end up...? (Hint - a pie!!!)

What to do with a toddler when your plans suddenly evaporate? Improvise! And figure out which of his birthday presents he hasn't used yet - aka the paint cups. Whoever invented all these spill proof items is a true friend of parents. And look at the concentration on his face, sticking his tongue out while he paints his purple lines - cute!

I picked him up early from school one day shortly before Mother's Day and his teacher hadn't helped him finish his gift to me yet. Which means I learned a new trick - how to get the perfect paint hand print of a toddler? You paint their hand and then stick it on the paper. And it also explained why Thomas is always trying to paint his hand... 

I figured I would try the paint the hand trick too since I specifically bought super washable paints for him to play with. It works really well - though apparently I have much deeper palms - his whole hand shows up but the interior of my hand was a no-show. He decided to remedy this by putting his hand print inside of mine. 

Which he proceeded to do multiple times so his hand was more of a purple blur. But it still made me smile to see the size difference and it's like he's holding my hand by proxy. Pretty much the only time he will hold my hand is in parking lots because he knows he *has* to. No spontaneous hand holding for this momma. Boo!

What about those awful storms that ruined our plans? They didn't show up until the middle of the night! I was so bummed. I figured we could try again today and the forecast still looked pretty bad. Well, it's Alaska - the forecast won't always be perfect. I decided we should attempt the Mine anyhow, if it sucked we would just drive back. We made it up to the Mine and the start (end?) of Hatcher Pass after stopping to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Palmer. 

And the weather was not so great... But it wasn't awful. We bundled everyone up in jackets and the fancy new stroller to wander around and look at the circa 1940's mine remnants. 

I kept stopping to take photos while Matt was powering up the trail with the kids in the stroller because he was worried about Henry getting cold - as in he was hurrying to get it over with... Needless to say between my pausing and his going, I didn't get to read much of the historical signs beyond a few titles. So I have no idea what the individual different buildings are.

But I could just not get enough of taking photos of the ruins of the mine. The weather made the mine look like an eerie ghost town. The mist and the lighting was just too cool for photographs. 

There was another path that went up to the upper level on the right side, but it got vetoed by Matt on behalf of the kids and Nonni on behalf of Nonni. In her defense, we didn't exactly gear Nonni up for the rain that was steadily getting worse. But I fully plan on going back to the mines on a nicer day when we can walk all over them. I'm interested to see if they have the same spooky vibe when the sun is shining. 

Everyone looking up the path to the top of the ruins. You can see the skepticism on Thomas and Matt's face while Henry is frowning. I am sure that my dear Henry is only frowning because he really wants to go up there too and can sense it isn't going to happen...

See? No frown here! Just the sure, steely gaze of a little man who knows he is looking good. We accidentally ended up with one of Wallace's old jackets from when Rachael was here (James was borrowing warm clothes!). And it is just the best jacket for a little boy - a nice brown color with construction vehicles? I think Matt was jealous of Henry's awesome pullover!

Also note he is sitting in the stroller without the aid of a car seat! Sure, I had to pull a blanket out of the car to prop him up and he had a death grip on the tray in front of him, but he sat up the whole trip! Way easier to lug the two of them around in one stroller than having to carry one or depend on one to walk. I am officially in love with my double stroller! :)

Five (26.5) Months

Ok, this month officially flew by! I don't know if it was because Matt and I are both working now or the fact that it's summer or the weekend trips - no matter what the cause, it seems like just yesterday I was taking their monthly photos. 

This month Henry was all over his brother. He loves to grab onto things and apparently his brother was all he had eyes for. Thomas was pretty tolerant about the whole thing - he just kept pushing Henry's hand back "No baby." 

But Henry was not so easily deterred! He kept reaching for his big brother. I could be crazy, but he really seems to love his older brother. The two of them holding hands was too ridiculously cute. :)

But due to all of the hand holding, shirt grabbing brotherly love, it was pretty challenging to get them to both look at the camera. This was the best I got. Thomas wasn't in the most smile-y of moods, but since I started taking photos as soon as he got up from a nap, you can't really blame him for not being *too* into it. 

In fact, he was most interested in what his dad was doing outside. Henry looks after Thomas while Thomas looks after his dad. It's adorable!

Speaking of smiles... Henry is so full of them these days! He is such a ridiculously happy baby. He is always smiling! Smiling and always full of energy. It is not hard to get a photo of him smiling these days. :)

Oh look, there's my happy toddler! Maybe because his brother wasn't trying to grab on to him or he finally caught sight of his dad mowing and that made him happy. Either way, I love that smile. 

And breaking the tradition of photos only in the chair, I was trying to get a photo of a smiling Henry and instead I caught a sneeze. Ha - sneezing baby photo! Does anyone else think this is cute or is it just because I'm his mom? 

And back to our regularly scheduled photo taking...! Guess what he is looking at? If you guessed his brother, you would be so right! How long this brother infatuation lasts, I can not predict, but I love it while it lasts. :)

And since I already broke tradition, I have to share what Thomas was playing with after he fulfilled his monthly photo shoot obligations. My mom (who is in town!!) brought him this super cool Thomas the Train pop-up book. He loves Thomas the Train and how could a pop-up book of his favorite "choo-choo" not be his new favorite thing? And did I mention it makes noises on every page to? The best - though we did learn not the best choice for bedtime stories... ; )

Company Picnic

I moved here a little too late last year and missed the annual company picnic. But as a member of the photography club, I had seen how fun it was via all the pictures. So when the calendar invite rolled around this year, I was pretty psyched to go and take the kiddos.

Well, mostly psyched to take Thomas, Henry probably could care less about picnics. As you may recall, Thomas has already been to the work Halloween and Christmas parties and seemed to enjoy both. I expected that this one would be even more exciting because it was outside in nice weather and he's old enough to know what is going on around him.

Our first stop of the day was the petting zoo. As we were walking up I realized that all the animals he reads about and I grew up with - he's not really been around at all. Crazy to think my kiddo has touched a goat in his life. I had great plans on remedying that. Until it became obvious Thomas was just fine outside the fence, thank you very much...

After watching the other kids pet animals for awhile and a few false starts into the pen, I finally managed to get him inside. Where he stared at everything but wouldn't touch. I showed him how to pet the ducks and the sheep. "No, I'm good. Thanks."

I finally managed to get him to touch a few animals. This picture is deceiving in the sense that he had his hand on that goat for less than half a second. Good thing I had a fast shutter speed! Even though he wasn't super into touching the animals, he still enjoyed hanging out with them and telling me what noises they made. :)

Then we decided to get a balloon animal before the crowds got too long. And we *just* beat the rush. They also had a cray hair (he almost got colored hair, but decided he wasn't interested at the last minute) and face painting booths, but the balloons seemed like the best choice. 

The guys were quite good and very fast for as complicated creatures as they were making. They had all kids of characters from Frozen to Iron Man and more. I was tempted to get him an Olaf or Sven from Frozen since he is addicted to the soundtrack, but was worried he may not recognize them in balloon form. But there was one he was guaranteed to recognize no matter how slight the resemblance:

Elmo! It's not a bad Elmo for being made out of balloons and he certainly knew who it was.

In Texas they probably have bull riding at picnics like this. In Alaska, we apparently have salmon riding- ha! The kids that were brave enough to try it seemed to be having quite a blast with it - you can just see the head of the kid who flew off as I was taking a picture. We decided it wasn't for us.

Instead, Thomas wanted to go down the inflatable slide of doom. It wasn't called that, but after trying to carry a toddler up an inflatable slide that was super steep with ridiculous hard to balance on steps, I named it that. Not to mention I lost some skin of my elbow on the way down. Of course, Thomas immediately started saying "More? More?" when we got down.

"Uh... no way. How about we get some food instead?"

You can see that the food wasn't nearly as exciting as the slide was. But he did manage to eat almost the entire bag of chips. A little bit of junk food every now and then can't hurt the guy...

Unfortunately, balloon Elmo and sharp blades of grass don't mix. We started to lose Elmo, section by section. Soon all that was left was his face and arms. Thomas still carried him around for quite a while until he "disappeared" into the nearest trash can. Momma got tired of chasing balloon pieces every time the wind gusted - which was often...

Next to the petting zoo was a little spot where kids could hold bunnies and feed them. I figured Thomas wasn't going to be up for that, so didn't bother going over there. But when I was chatting with some coworkers I noticed that Matt had decided to let him give the bunny petting a go. So of course, I had to go see how that worked out. Notice he isn't too sure about this furry thing in his lap.

But he warmed up to the bunny and even tried to feed him some lettuce. There was one toddler there that was laughed hysterically at the bunny in his lap - which made all of the adults laugh. Thomas was more reserved, but we did at least get a few smiles out of him.

High on the success at the bunnies, we decided to let him try the pony rides. There were full size horses for the big kids and one teeny tiny pony for the little kids. And helmets, of course! Matt got Thomas on the pony and suddenly my kid was frozen in position half leaned over in the saddle. His whole first walk around the pen he didn't move a muscle.

The second round he seemed to loosen up enough that Matt let him go and he didn't freak out. Still didn't move much, but the death grip on the saddle loosened up a little. ;)

Done with the pony ride!

Overall, the picnic was a great time and I'm so glad work does fun stuff like this for families. The food was good, there was a band playing music and enough activities to keep even the young kiddos entertained. Maybe in a few years we'll be up for salmon riding, rock climbing and baseball throwing, but until then we will take fun in whatever form Thomas decides. As long as he's happy, we are too. :)

Bed Swapping

It occurred to me when we were in the cabin in Sterling that Henry might be outgrowing his pack & play. Mostly because he kept waking me up spinning circles in his sleep. He's just now rolling over occasionally, so I figure we have some time before outgrows it by sitting up, but the spinning usually ended up with him waking himself up from hitting the side of the bed. So a new bed it is!

Why didn't we just put him in Thomas' old crib? Good question!

The crib I bought Thomas (second hand) was a drop side crib - which have apparently fallen out of favor. This one had a safety latch that kept the rail from dropping unexpectedly or too far, so I was never all that concerned about using it. But then we moved and somehow the safety mechanism got lost from the bed.

Thomas spent one night in the crib when we first moved in the house and then the whole side fell off when I went to get him out. You want to talk about a panic attack? We found out we could replace the part, but then we got all uneasy about the bed and it just sat there. And is still sitting there, right next to the pack & play bed Henry actually sleeps in. See the side hiding behind the crib in shame??

We finally decided that we would convert the white crib to a toddler bed and give Henry the crib we bought Thomas (also second hand) when the first one failed us. He actually got quite the nice bedroom set - convertible crib, dresser, armoire, shelves and toy chest! After debating it for weeks, we decided to just give up on the white bed completely since we would have to modify it for a toddler bed. We decided to just buy Henry a new crib. Or Thomas a new toddler bed. Decisions, decisions...

We finally settled on seeing how the bed concept would even work with Thomas. We took off the full sides of his current crib and put on the toddler rails. He loved it! He was so excited about his new bed and did a pretty good job staying in it. Yes, we had to pick him up a few times every night and there were the occasional loud thuds when he hit the ground, but overall he slept in the bed and loved it. 

We decided it would be easiest (and cheapest!) to just convert this bed back to a crib and get Thomas a new toddler bed. Henry seems to enjoy the larger space as much as Thomas likes his new freedom. 

So what bed did Thomas end up with?

Funny story...

We planned to go this weekend to buy him a toddler bed. We figured it would be pretty cheap since we already had the extra mattress. But out of the blue yesterday, my friend up here texted me and asked if we would be interested in her son's old bed they were getting rid of. And the photo of it looked better than what I had been planning on buying:

That's right - a car bed! And not just any car - Lightning McQueen! Thomas was soooooooooo excited when he realized it was his new bed. "Car! Bed! Car-bed!" He's never seen the movie Cars, but the Tow-Mater's Tall Tales was in heavy rotation when I had to distract him to keep his nebulizer on. But no matter what, he would love any sort of car bed!

The bed is actually not a toddler sized bed, it's a real twin bed, so it looks super huge for him. But he didn't seem to mind the extra space. Unless it came to sharing it - when we tried to hang out with him we got a very clear "Get out!" Unfortunately for him, his parents don't listen to such outlandish demands, but in the end he didn't seem to mind that much we stayed.

He even let me climb in with him tonight and read him his books before bed. Then we stargazed with his star projector until I finally tucked him in and told him goodnight. I think the sides on this bed are high enough he shouldn't accidentally roll out, so we should know tomorrow if the ending up on the floor was an accident or intentional. Either way, he adores his new bed and thanks a million to our dear friends and their kiddos for passing it along to us. I am sure it will be treasured by both boys for many years! :)

Happy Fourth of July!

We headed down to celebrate Independence Day on the Kenai Peninsula with the Hydens this weekend. Aunt Heather actually showed up late on the 3rd, but she had scheduled plans already up here, so she won't be featured in this blog. Don't worry, it's not that we don't love her - she'll show up later this week!

I booked a cabin that was "right" on the Kenai River and was a little concerned about the lack of interior photos on the website. In the end, it turned out to be a nice little cabin - though their "right" on the water was a bit of a stretch. They were a good little hike up from the river. Thomas, Brittney and I walked down to check it out as soon as we all got there. 

And there were no rails - a nightmare for getting a toddler down safely! Luckily, Aunt B helped him get down so I could take photos. Priorities... ;)

And there's the Kenai! The mosquitoes were out of control, so we didn't stay down there long. We decided that it wasn't the best fishing spot for the guys the next day, so they ended up going elsewhere in Soldotna on Saturday. Brittney and I tried our luck at snagging salmon in our little cove, but had no luck. Well, I did catch a ton of rocks, so maybe it's a good thing I am a geologist and not a fisherman... ;)

Brittney and I managed to control ourselves on the menu planning, but our plans still relied on basics being available - like an oven... Well guess what - this place had no oven! I finally realized the microwave was a convection microwave and was a little relieved. Except 10 minutes into cooking cobbler, the microwave died. I tried to finish the cobbler on the stove like a true pioneer woman and it turned out pretty good, albeit a little burned on the bottom.

The microwave managed to revive itself shortly after I finished the cobbler, so I decided to give the biscuits a go in it the next morning. It died again! I hate this microwave!!! I had a convection microwave in Houston and I loved it - this thing was a piece of junk. So I finished the biscuits on the stove like the cobbler. And I burned the first batch. After scraping the burned parts off, they were still pretty delicious. Brittney saved the breakfast from disaster with pretty awesome gravy to top the biscuits. 

"Outside?" Thomas thought being able to see and hear the outdoors was a little bit of torture when he was stuck inside. He was a super good sport about it though and he was pretty good about staying off of the stairs in the cabin that had no guard rail on them. He would climb on the first step just to show he could, but he never attempted a full climb on his own.

Such a good sport that when we found this awesome playground in Kenai (the town), we had to let him get out and play. Although I'm not sure who had more fun - him or Brittney. They were both giggling all over the place. Some of the slides were pretty useless as slides - he ended up pulling himself down, but this spiral one was pretty exciting for him. :)

And we finally made it to the Kenai Beach! Supposedly one of the only sand beaches in Alaska. It was actually a really nice beach, though a tad bit chilly. The forecast was for super hot days (for Alaska), so guess who forgot to pack coats for everyone? Oh well, Thomas still had fun even though he didn't get to play in the water. He was thrilled about getting to find rock and throw them in the water - in his words this was "Rock Beach!"

Slightly hard to see, but Mount Redoubt (the volcano) is in the background!

Aunt B helping Thomas find suitable rocks to throw in the water. We found him a nice sea shell and he of course threw it in the water. Oh well, maybe in a few years he'll appreciate things for more than their aerodynamic abilities...

All-in-all another successful weekend trip down to the Kenai. No fish were caught. Plenty of mosquitoes got a nibble. And we weren't at our finest in the kitchen. But with good friends and a beautiful Alaskan summer, who could ask for more? :)

Dog Days of Summer

It's well into summer up here. Well technically it's on the tail end of summer since we passed the solstice - which is a big deal up here since it's daylight all day. It's been a really nice summer - enough so that everyone up here has been warning us it's not always like this. But I'll take the gorgeous-ness while it is here. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. ;)

Speaking of gifts, we've definitely had an uptick of fun things in the mail this month. Nonni and Grandpa sent Thomas a super cool Elmo doll the other day. They requested a Skype session when he opened it and got to see first hand how much it freaked Thomas out when it started singing and dancing... But luckily he came around and now loves his Elmo. And I love him enough that I even replaced the batteries when they died the other day. So Elmo and Thomas got to hang out on the couch and watch Frozen together. (I use the word 'watch' loosely - Thomas doesn't have much of an attention span for movies...)

Shortly after getting bored with the movie, he decided the Elmo was now his "baby" and put him in the baby's boppy pillow and put a blanket on him. It was pretty darn cute. :)

And what is the real baby up to? Kicking up a storm! This kid can not sit still! Put him in his car seat or in the bouncy chair and he starts kicking and kicking and kicking. I'm not sure if it's the bouncing motion or if it's his toys flying around in the air, but he loves kicking. Unfortunately he wore a hole in the back of his foot (!) so now he has to be wearing socks at all times. He's just a happy bouncing baby!

And last, but not least, the What-a-burger package! I thought it would be a great Father's Day gift to buy Matt a set of What-a-burger glasses since he misses them oh so much and they won't ship a #1 with cheese and jalapeños... Though honestly, they would't ship anything, I had to ship it to mom and have her send it up here. Since I was going to so much trouble, I thought I would get Thomas this totally rad dinosaur shirt as well. It didn't come with the blue paint, but it kinda looks like it belongs, huh?

A fun month with a bunch of fun mail. If anyone is feeling left out, feel free to send me something! :)

Lazy Weekend

I noticed earlier this week that both of the boys appeared to be turning into snot-nosed children. In the most literal sense, their attitudes were as sunny as always. As is usually the case, that meant I was doomed to be following with a cold shortly after. Enter this weekend and all three of us are sneezing up a storm. Matt appeared to be dodging the bullet, but we'll see if his luck holds.

Since I didn't feel like doing too much, I set out to accomplish one thing - buy Henry new pajamas! It's been nice so far having a second boy in that I can reuse most of Thomas' old outfits. But since Henry is so tall and Thomas was slightly smaller, the outfits that fit Henry are running into some seasonality issues. In that the only pajamas that fit at the moment are Christmas ones. I avoided them as long as possible, but finally gave in one night when he had managed to "ruin" the only other pairs that fit. So on the Santa Claus pajamas went! He didn't seem to mind:

Even though he didn't care, I figured the Christmas pajamas in June might be a little confusing when looking back at old photos. So we hit up the resale store (because that is how we roll!) and managed to find 5 pairs of pajamas that were pretty adorable - and season neutral! Of course, I had to buy a pair for Thomas too - how can I resist footed toddler pajamas covered in moose while living in Alaska? (Hint - I can't!)

So for a recap, Thomas at 7 months (see below!) was wearing the same pajamas that Henry can fit into at 4 months. This should be interesting... :)