Alaska State Fair

Since our impromptu trip to the fair was so successful on a Friday last year, we decided to go again on our Friday off. The weather looked absolutely horrible this morning, but I really didn't want to go on the weekend and figured there was enough indoor activities to make it worth the drive up. Hopefully...

They had these giant block letters just inside the gate and I was so confused what FAR meant. It finally dawned on me that you were supposed to stand there and be the "I" in FAIR, but as short as Thomas is - it still looks like FAR. So I am just imagining it with a heavy southern accent. "We really enjoyed our trip to the far." Ha!

I'm so glad that our favorite food is so close to the entrance. Thomas refused to eat the fried cheese curds at first, but then gobbled them down. Not sure why I was so insistent that he try them. Silly me had to share way too many of them!

Henry is probably frowning here because we ran out of cheese curds. He's still got ranch dressing on his face. I promise he was happy overall about the fair!

Matt and Thomas waiting for the lumberjack show to start. We've not seen it yet and managed to get there right before it started. Seemed like fate wanted us to watch some lumberjack fun!

I didn't get great photos of the lumberjack events because I brought my wide angle lens and they weren't really close enough for it. My zoom lens struggled in the barn area last year since it was indoors and I knew the wide angle would do better there. Given the rain threat, I thought we would be mostly indoors.

Yadda, yadda, my far away pictures aren't great. But you can still see the throwing axe hurtling through the air and that is awesome.  

The boys really enjoyed the show - even the part with the loud chainsaws. Matt and I covered up their ears when the lumberjacks warned us the chainsaws would be super loud and after that, the boys covered up their own ears any time it started to get noisy. That's normal behavior for Thomas, but it was the first time I've seen Henry do it!

Then we headed off to the animal barn to see the prize winning chickens, geese, sheep, cows and rabbits! This guy was the "Best in Show" for the rabbits and my first thought when I saw him was "Brown-Noser!" Hahaha - I pointed that out to Matt and he laughed. So I figured I would share it with you guys. Although it does appear that he really cleaned up with the awards!

Matt and Thomas heading over to the big side of the barn. I think the two of them are adorable. Mostly because of Thomas in his vest and rain boots. For some reason the combination just makes me think he looks super Alaskan. We aren't known for our stylish elements, but we do have fun cool weather getups. 

Henry seemed pretty stoked to meet another Henry! The two of them were about the same age as well - though Henry the cow was just a tad bit heavier... 

Thomas was a petting zoo champ this year. It's about his 4th time at a petting zoo and he seems just fine around all the goats and sheep. He even fed a few of them after I showed him how to hold the food in his hand. After a few times though, he decided I could feed the rest. Fair!

Did I mention how adorable I think he is in that vest? He is adorable. 

Henry wasn't sure about this whole petting zoo thing. He was probably on eye level with most of the animals roaming around looking for food, so that's pretty understandable. But I tried to get him interested in the tiny sheep and he was having nothing to do with them either. Though once he saw his brother feeding the animals, he seemed to not mind them as much. Obviously he already wants to be cool just like his older brother!

And he's also adorable in this photo. Made me so glad I brought my wide angle lens since he never got very far away from me. ;)

We got to use the cool hand washing station again this year! The rest of the day, Thomas kept telling me how he washed his hands with water from the milk. It left quite the impression on him - he thought it was too neat!

He also used the chicken coop hand dryer, but he wasn't quite as enthralled with it. The chickens were "too noisy!" I still think the whole set-up is a brilliant idea to encourage kids to wash their hands after the petting zoo. And you can just see the beehive on the far side of the chicken coop - it has "Bee-Clean" hand sanitizer. Ha!

Our next food find was a mini doughnut stand. The kids loved the mini doughnuts we grabbed before hopping on the ferry to Valdez, so I thought a bag of those would be a hit. I was right - Henry might have a concerned look on his face, but he just had his first bite and I interpret it to mean "Goodness gracious, this is amazing and I must have many, many more!" Between the boys and myself, I am not sure Matt got any...

I was also enthralled by the contraption to make these heavenly little fried dough rings that they had sitting right in front of the pick-up window. It's a countertop sized appliance - I could theoretically have one of these in my house?!? Good lord, I did not need to know that! 

It took some coaxing for Thomas to even try the corn fritters, but once his dad promised they were delicious, he finally went after one. I think he liked them ok, but I noticed he was much more enthusiastic about the donuts. 

Henry was equally excited about both - I can probably claim those genetics. Also, I can neither confirm nor deny that he is covered in cinnamon sugar. "/

We headed over to the ride section of the fair. We had intended on letting him ride in the trucks like last year, but one of us would have had to sit on the side of the truck to drive and thanks to the rain, the trucks were throwing mud everywhere. I managed to avert a meltdown by promising him fun rides like he had at Fur Rondy earlier this year. 

Of course on our walk over there, he was more excited about this rain puddle once I told him he could splash through it if he wanted since he was wearing his rain boots. It's the simple things in life with little kids...!

Finally made it to the rides - first stop was, of course, a train!

Henry was super bummed that he was too short to join his brother on any of the rides. But he was happy for Thomas anyhow and waved to him every time he went by. It was sad / adorable. 

I tried to keep him entertained while we waited in line for the next ride. I think he is secretly trying to ruin the photo by sticking out his tongue so I won't post it. Ha - not so easy little man, you still look cute!

Thomas is ready for his helicopter ride! Seems pretty fitting how excited he was since he was named after a helicopter pilot, huh? Here he is giving his dad a thumb's up before the ride starts up. 

Once the ride gets going though, he is all business. No smiling or waving at us - he is focused on keeping his bird flying. Ha - I don't think he saw us at all in the 15 or so times he went past us. The boy is serious about his rides!

We finally found a ride that Henry could do - the super big slide! (With me, of course.) And I had to carry him up all those stairs - what a work out! I didn't realize how tall it was or how fast we would be sliding down it until we were actually going down...

I wouldn't have been surprised if Henry hated it - it was a pretty fasride. He didn't cry, but then again he didn't smile either... Maybe he was in shock?

You can tell I enjoyed it though! :)

One last ride to finish off our stack of tickets and Thomas decided for a ride in the dump truck. He chose to ride in the cab - it obviously has the better view, but the back part goes up and down as the truck goes around. Oh well, he didn't seem to notice he was missing part of the fun. And, as usual, he was super serious until the ride was over!

Overall, it was a great trip to the fair and we managed to wear ourselves out by the time we had planned on leaving. Matt actually had to go in to work tonight to do an after hours change, so we wanted to make sure we left in time to get him to work on time. 

After Matt left, we decided to do a run to Target to get milk and in the process ended up picking up some new games and Aunt Heather! After dinner, I put Henry to bed at his normal time and let Thomas stay up late to try out one of the new games. And he promptly trounced the both of us on Hi-Ho Cherry-o!

He spent most of the game ahead of us for Chutes and Ladders too! He was super excited about everything - he would get just as excited with a spin of "1" as he was of a "6" or a ladder climb. He didn't cheer for losing ground on the chutes, but he didn't seem to care either. He was just so happy to be playing a game with us! 

In the end, Heather won Chutes and Ladders by getting that lucky ladder on spot 80! Thomas was a super sport and gave her a high-five. I lost every possible game, but I think realizing we can play games with him was a win anyhow.

Game night with the kids? Oh, it's on! :)

Guilt Stickers

Occasionally, people will tell me they are shipping me things and I usually forget by the time the packages arrive because they take sooooo long to get here. Like the other day mom told me she was shipping us something - I didn't even question it because she randomly sends us stuff all the time.

Then the package actually arrived and we opened it to find a pair of Matt's shorts and jeans that she had accidentally packed in her luggage when they left! I think she felt so guilty about stealing them that she stuffed the rest of the box with goodies to soothe her guilt. Ha!

The boys were obviously the most excited about their chocolate donuts, but these star stickers were a close second. Henry hasn't actually played much with stickers yet, but I thought this thick foam ones would be a good starting point. I peeled the backing off for him and then he stuck them down on the paper - he did a pretty good job too! Obviously they got stuck to his fingers on occassion, but overall he was a sticker placing master!

Thomas doesn't need *any* help with stickers anymore. I think here he was telling me to stop trying to adjust the colors in his pile of stickers to be more balanced. I was just trying to give you more of the shiny stickers, little Rembrandt! ;)

The finished masterpieces! Maybe I should have gone with little Picasso... Henry's stars show pretty good coverage of the page and Thomas was much more focused on the one side. Well I guess I can't question his artistic vision!

Thanks for the care package, Nonni - even if it was a guilty one. :)

And there was one other care package this month that I forgot about by the time it arrived - Theresa and Anna sent us their favorite book. I saw it in a photo Theresa sent me and was asking what it was. Since it was about the only book we didn't own, they surprised us with a copy of it.

Thomas LOVES it! We're already read it so many times. If you have a small kiddo and they like to read, you have to get this book. It's pretty much magical! Thanks for introducing us to the awesomeness of Press Here! :)

Fishing for Silvers!

I haven't done a team building trip in quite a while, but the group I just moved to had planned a team building trip coincidentally the second week I was in the group. The team decided to do a guided fishing trip out of Talkeetna and I figured it would be a great chance to hang out with my new coworkers and maybe, actually, possibly catch a fish worth keeping!

The guides took us out to Clear Creek via powerboat. There were enough of us that it took them two trips. I would complain that all the good spots were taken once I got there, but I really had no clue what would make a spot good or not, so I just squeezed in somewhere. Luckily combat fishing isn't so bad if you know the people you are fishing with. 

I waded out in the water a little ways since I had my waders on and the fish were everywhere! There were several that kept swimming around my legs - but those looked distinctly like they were on their last legs. This splotchy guy was definitely not feeling too well... "/

I finally caught a fish without snagging it! Of course, it was a chum - which no one keeps, but I was still pretty darn excited!

And then I caught a silver! Eeeeeeeek! My coworkers nicely offered to take a photo for me, but apparently I couldn't quit grinning like a moron even for a photo. Ha!

95% of the fish we were catching were chums, so I was more than happy with this only slightly pink silver salmon. 

After those two, I didn't catch anything for hours. I got the guides to switch me to a pink lure and that seemed to be attractive to the chums. Shocking...!

Our ride back was significantly less powerful than our ride in. The way back went with the flow of the river, so it was a nice raft trip back to the boat launch. Notice the headgear switch - it got a little chillier as the day went by and we lost what little sunlight we had. Luckily I thought ahead and grabbed Matt's awesome Duluth hat. :)

The catch of the day! Obviously these are not all mine, I was by far on the low end of the totem pole for fishing ability. But it worked out that everyone who wanted a fish to take home got one. Such a great team effort! Also, salmon are not the most pleasant looking fish. Good thing they are so tasty!

Best part of guided fishing? Someone to fillet your fish for you - we really need to work on our fish cleaning and filleting skills. These guys were super efficient at whipping through all of the salmon. 

I found a great salmon taco recipe earlier this year and figured it was the best use of the salmon I just caught. Plus it has our new favorite condiment - Sirancha! I don't much care for Siracha on it's own, but mix it with ranch? Amazing!

But that only took one of the fillets and I had two. Salmon cakes to the rescue! I found a Cook's Illustrated recipe that uses fresh salmon and it was amazingly delicious! I don't generally fry things at home, but these little gems were worth breaking that rule. Can't wait to make them again - yum!  :)

Strawberries!

We planted a few strawberry plants earlier this year and I have been 'im'patiently waiting for them to start growing some strawberries. My dad was pretty impressed with the size of our plants compared to the ones he has been growing in Texas. Apparently the nonstop daylight does a good job of making up for the short growing season. 

Yesterday Matt noticed some of the strawberries were turing red! Thomas helped me plant them in the pots back in May, so I thought he should help me pick them. He was super excited about the strawberries when we pointed them out. 

He isn't the best strawberry picker yet, but he was certainly enthusiast about trying. I should give him a tiny pair of scissors - the vines are just a little too hard for him to break. Too hard to break without mangling the fruit anyhow. ;)

I hadn't noticed how many runners our plants had been sending out until I was out taking photos of them. I read up on them and it turns out you should really cut them off if you want the plant to keep producing fruit. Or you can plant some of the "daughter" plants, but really only the first daughter out - they can send several mini-plants out along the same runner. So I'm going to trim them all back to the first daughter and then figure out if I can plant those before the first frost or not. 

Don't worry - Henry didn't miss all of the berry action! We pulled off all of the ripe strawberries and took them inside to divide up between the four of us. These things were so delicious! I now want to plant about 20 plants next spring. Yum!

Fishing the Tide

Since my parents were in town for a few more days, Matt and I decided to take advantage of that to run off one evening to go fishing. We debating going to a few different fishing spots, but we ended up being too overwhelmed by the choices and decided to go back to Bird Creek. 

We positioned ourselves out on the spit to wait for the tide to come in. The seagulls apparently were hanging out waiting for the fish as well. Note the gloomy weather - it kept raining and stopping, but luckily it wasn't bad enough to convince us to give up and go home. 

Patiently waiting for the tide to turn. There were a few people catching fish, but not many. I think Matt and I managed to both snag a gross thing - Matt's was a dead fish, mine was a fish skeleton. Yuck!

I may have not read the tide tables all that well and it turns out that we were more than just a little bit early. Oh well, we managed to keep ourselves entertained in between throwing lures in the creek. Which means it was selfie time! Matt is such a good sport. :)

The seagulls were keeping themselves busy as well. This guy kept pecking at something in the water, it took me awhile to realize that it was a salmon. Poor guy! Seagulls are jerks.

The train even went by us! Last time that happened, it stopped on the bridge to let all the passengers/tourist take photos of us. Apparently they don't do that for cargo cars, it just chugged on by. ;)

Finally, the tide came in! It's not something you can generally miss in this part of Alaska. Depending on the day, it can actually be quite the sight! It wasn't so impressive today, but some days the bore tide can be up to 6-10' high and people surf it inland for miles. (I tried to center it in this photo so you can see it - like I said, not as impressive as it *can* be.)

Where did all the land go?? The water comes in fast once the bore tide goes past. This is also when the fish finally start coming in. They can't really get into the creek until the waters rise up high enough, so once it comes in the fishing usually gets much better!

A view back to the bridge before the tide came in. 

Same spot after the tide came in. The muddy slope we were standing on has already gone under water. You can see the people without waders are already starting to back up out of the water. It helps to pay attention when the tide comes in!

Or you end up further out than you intended! The beach we were standing out is now completely under water. I was getting a little worried that Matt wasn't paying attention, but he headed back towards land before I had to go drag him myself. :)

I'd love to post some photos of all the awesome fish we caught, but we pretty much lucked out. I snagged one humpy in the back, but that was it for our catches. Either way, it was still fun to get out and fish for a little while. Plus there was this super awesome salmon graffiti to share with you guys. :)

Matt Comes Home!

After a long 6 days driving up to the far northern reaches of Alaska, Matt was on the home stretch to get back to us. I was keeping tabs on his progress with the SPOT locator when I realized he was getting close. I got the camera out and told the kids to head out to the front yard. 

And he was already coming up the street! I am the worst at timing these things! I managed to get one of him before he rolled into the driveway, but not the perfect framed out photo I was hoping for. Sigh... ;)

Matt got that bike stopped and headed towards the boys in record time. I'm not sure who missed who more!

Based on the attack hug Matt got from both of the boys, I think the missing-each-other was pretty mutual. I missed out on the initial hug since I was taking photos, but I got in on the second group hug. Glad you had fun, Matt, but we are sure glad you are home! :)

The Fruits of Our Labor!

I could only convince Thomas not to eat all of the blueberries yesterday by promising him I would make him blueberry pancakes this morning. He didn't forget and neither did I - I love blueberry pancakes as much as he does. Especially with wild blueberries!

These little blueberries were perfect! The ones we get in the store are always too big and not so flavorful. But not these little guys - so yummy! 

Henry approves as well! I tried to cut his pancake for him, but he grabbed it up and started chowing down before I got the chance. Looks pretty happy, doesn't he?

He has also been carrying around a motorcycle toy since Matt left on his trip. He randomly holds it up and yells "Dada!" I guess he wanted Dada to join us for breakfast this morning. :)

You can't tell from the photo, but I threw a few extra blueberries in with their bananas and Henry dug them all out before touching his banana. Turns out he might love blueberries too - his chin was pretty purple from all the juicy blueberries by the end of breakfast. 

And another treat made from Alaskan fruit - a strawberry rhubarb pie! I cheated and bought the strawberries because our plants have yet to fruit, but the rhubarb is legit - it came from our neighbors yard. My whole family was a little bummed about the pie because I told them it was for work and not for them - ha!

But the joke was on me... The oven timer went off and it wasn't quite finished, so I stuck it back in. I didn't set the timer, thinking it only needed another minute. And then the boys did something in the other room that led to screaming, so I went off to remedy that. By the time I remembered I was in the middle of baking, the pie managed to get too dark. No way was I taking an imperfect pie in to work!

So I whipped up a batch of cookies for work and the family got the pie. There were no complaints about the crust at all from them, they were just happy they didn't miss out on the strawberry-rhubarb deliciousness. :)

Train Ride to Grandview

We debated on which train ride to do this weekend and ended up settling on the sightseeing train to Grandview. No one at work had even heard of it, but we finally figured out that it went partway down to Seward before turning back around. The full train ride was pretty long, so we managed to piece together different parts to see everything we wanted to, but not stay out so late that the kids were melting down.

We had breakfast at the house and then drove down to the Portage stop to catch the train. The train actually has two Portage stops because it goes Portage - Whittier - Portage - Spencer - Grandview. We caught it on the first stop for the morning portion of the ride because Thomas and Dad both wanted to go through the Whittier tunnel. I was so worried about missing the train that we were there with plenty of time to spare. Thomas was *mostly* patient waiting for the train.

As a side note, the full ride goes Anchorage - Girdwood - Portage - Whittier - Portage - Spencer - Grandview - Spencer - Portage - Whittier - Portage - Girdwood - Anchorage. Whew! That's a lot of stops!

And we're off! Thomas and I had the genius idea last night to bring along the engineer's hats for the ride. Plus a ton of their trains - we were prepared for a long day of train riding, no matter how entertained the boys were by the scenery!

Tunnel #1, a short one prior to the big Whittier one. Everyone was staring out the window at the gorgeous scenery when *boom* we're in a black tunnel. I managed to snap the photo while they were still all staring out. I thought it was hilarious! ;)

Henry was torn between whether the scenery was more exciting or his toy trains.

Here comes the Whittier Tunnel! Thomas is ready for it! He loves going through this tunnel and it is the first time he has been in the train for the ride.

We only had a short stop in Whittier and it was a bit rainOrr than anticipated - which means I didn't pack raincoats... Half the group decided to stay on board and half was up for a quick dash over to get food. Matt and I had gotten Frito Pies in Whittier before getting on the ferry to Valdez and they were amazing! I had gotten everyone all pumped up about them, but we didn't have much time, so we had to hoof it. 

Does Henry look sad? He should look sad. Because there were no Frito Pies! Halfway down the (way longer than I remembered) walk, I got worried we weren't going to have time to get the food. So Heather took Henry and I ran ahead to order them. I *literally* ran! And I was 100' away when I realized the "Open" sign wasn't lit. Nooooooooooo!

No one else was devastated, but I certainly was. At least we didn't miss the train. And the onboard food was actually pretty good. Still a bummer. :(

Luckily, the onboard half had more success in their mission. Thomas had convinced his Grandpa to buy him a train book at Alyeska yesterday. Dad thought it would be fun to take the book with us and get the conductor and train engineers to autograph the book. The Alaska Railroad is super family friendly and everyone was happy to sign the book. I'm not sure if Thomas or my dad was more excited - either way it is an awesome memento for the day!

Back on board, Henry was ready for some food. Unsurprisingly, I brought raspberries for them to snack on! Henry was chowing down and dancing around. 

Shortly followed by a crash. I made him lay down because I thought he looked tired. He fought me on falling asleep until the train started moving. Once we got going, he was asleep before we even made it back to the tunnel. So peaceful when he's asleep. :)

Back on the rails - and more tunnels! There was a series of 5 tunnels between Spencer and Grandview. Thomas did not lose any excitement for tunnels - no matter how many we went through!

The Placer River was roaring today!

Then we got to the switchbacks! The train has to gain some elevation pretty quickly, so there are a ton of curves and switchbacks. There were so many people taking photos out the windows in the cars that I was surprised to find only one other person taking photos from the open air vantage point between the cars. That guy and I kept taking turns to get photos of the train on the curves. This one was my favorite because of the big ARR emblem. You know - the one Thomas knows by heart! :)

Headed around the curve by Trail Glacier (I think) - I managed to time the photo to get the engine in the photo. I'm pretty sure the guy I was picture swapping with managed to get one in time as well. Team work wins! 

Finally made it to Grandview! The train stops here long enough to get off the train and wander around for awhile. I was definitely ready to stretch my legs, so I grabbed Thomas and headed out to explore. Heather debated not going due to footwear, but apparently didn't want to be left behind - she caught up with us before we made it to the boardwalk. :)

We wandered up the trail that led up and away from the train. It looked so pretty nestled in the mountains. Those blue and yellow colors just look so nice in all of the green trees!

Wandering further up the mountains, someone said "Aren't those blueberries??" Jackpot! We finally found them! And we didn't have any containers to hold them! We decided to just go ahead and eat as many as we could. :)

Then Aunt Heather volunteered to hold the blueberries for us to get some back to the train. I had promised Thomas blueberry pancakes the day before and it looked like we could gather enough to make that a possibility tomorrow. On a side note - this boy is just as obsessed with blueberries as he is with raspberries. 

The blueberries! In retrospect, there *may* have been blueberries yesterday since the berries on these bushes were a bit obscured under the leaves. Once we found them though - they were everywhere!

Oh and before we left the train they told us to look for blueberries, but also to be on the look out for bears since they like the berries too. And without the bear, they were just "Blueies!" So corny, but thankfully these were blueies! :)

What a successful day - trains, tunnels and blueberries!

Except one slight thing... 

We got back to Portage, loaded up in the car and headed home. I promised Thomas a quick stop at the park in Girdwood, but we had about 15 minutes until we got there. Unfortunately before we could make it that far, the tire blew out on the Pilot...

I was super impressed by how well the Pilot handled losing the tire. And as much as the Seward Highway scares me, we got the car to a safe spot to change the car without incident. I was all ready to change the tire by myself, but Dad stepped in to do most of the work. Once a parent, always a parent!

All-in-all it wasn't a big deal, other than the fact that the Pilot has a tiny spare and I wasn't super comfortable with driving highway speeds on it. Luckily, the bad drivers on the highway worked in our favor - none of them wanted to drive the speed limit anyhow. Whew!

Although Thomas didn't get his park stop since we lost a lot of time changing the tire. We'll have to make up for it tomorrow!

The Hunt for Blueberries!

Because we haven't had *quite* enough of the local berry goodness, I thought we could go on a hunt for Alaskan blueberries! I had originally intended to take the family to the Blueberry Festival at Alyeska this weekend. But we ended up booking a train ride for Saturday and I was worried that the blueberries would be picked over by Sunday. So we decided to beat the rush and go on Friday, since it was my day off. Look at me being all smart and planning ahead!

Except we couldn't find them! I took us down the wrong trail first, then down the right trail, but I couldn't find any berries! I thought maybe going up the hill a little bit further would lead to them, but I was quickly wearing my parents out. I saw a mom and daughter coming down the hill and asked what they had found. Not much - and they said they had to go off trail into the trees to find about 30 blueberries. I was pretty bummed, but mom and dad had a back-up plan already lined up!

Dad wanted to go up the tram and Thomas was definitely on board with that idea. I was getting pretty worn out from carrying Henry all over the place, so I didn't mind taking a moment to sit down while Mom got the tickets. I tried to get them to smile for a photo with me real quick. Thomas just continued to chatter/yell about the impending tram ride and Henry started laughing and pulling my hair. That smile on my face? That's a mom that has to smile to avoid the insanity... ;)

Also note the coordinating blue shirts - it seemed fitting!

Mr. Excited About the Tram Ride got a little nervous once we got going. Shocking...!

View from the top of the next tram coming up. Thomas was ready to go back down once we got to the top (just like the Space Needle!), but we managed to convince him to hang out at the top and explore for awhile. He was super concerned when the trams would go up or down - he was convinced we were going to miss our ride back down.

Henry was more than happy to explore! Honestly, he was just happy to be free of the backpack. He doesn't seem to mind riding around in it at all, but he also likes to stretch his legs after awhile. 

Nonni and the boys! They weren't smiling for me so I started antics trying to make them smile. The only thing that seemed to work was trying to balance the empty berry bucket on my head. Henry just thought it was so hilarious that he ended up having to cover his eyes to deal with the hilariousness! Nonni is also laughing at me - I am not sure if it was because I am *so* funny or because Henry's laughs were so awesome. I'm going to guess the latter. 

This is about as much snow as the mountain had for most of the winter, right Matt...? Ha!

In summer the mountain is a popular destination for mountain biking. I didn't realize that they had specially built chairs for bikes on the lifts. It was pretty fun to see a bike go by on the lift. :)

Since we were wandering around in the woods a little bit at Alyeska, I brought along the bear spray. While I was on high alert for large predators, this little guy was the only wildlife we saw. He was pretty cute and much less scary - I'd call it a win!

Dad checked out the roundhouse and said there was some cool information and gifts in there. We all ventured in there to check it out. Henry, unfortunately, seemed more intent on trying to destroy things instead of letting me peruse. So I banished him (and me, of course) to running around the outside to burn off steam. He ran from window to window looking for my mom and yelling "Onni?? Onni!" at the windows. It was pretty stinking adorable! 

The obligatory stop at the Bake Shop! The boys tore up their grilled cheese sandwiches! Although to be honest, I can't say that I didn't scarf down my sandwich much slower. In my defense, carrying Henry around must burn hundreds of calories... Right??

The even more obligatory stop at the playground. It was dad's first visit to our favorite playground and unsurprisingly, he gravitated to the construction trucks. It must be genetic. Or maybe all men like construction trucks? Who knows!

Luckily for Thomas, the sand was dry enough today that it actually scooped and dumped pretty easily. And once again is a good reminder that we need to get cracking on that sandbox...!

I finally convinced the boys we had to go home and get a nap in so we could have more fun this evening. Since Sam is with Matt on the motorcycle ride, I invited over Caitlin and Abby to have some fun and then eat dinner with us. :)

Of course, we had to drag out the dinosaur pool! Henry was super curious about the squirting dinosaur today - which unfortunately led to almost all of us getting drenched! Henry was very intrigued by the sprayer, but Abby and Thomas were not impressed... 

Henry also managed to soak himself several times, but that didn't deter him! I finally had to turn the faucet off to save everyone else. He looked a little sad to not have his play toy anymore... :(

As a side note, I feel that some blog posts feature more photos of one of the boys versus the other. I promise I am not playing favorites, but sometimes the kids just get tired of me taking photos. It's not that I blame them - I am in their face quite a bit with the camera. For instance, I as trying to get a cute photo of Thomas in the pool and I got this. It's hard to tell from the photo, but he is yelling "Stop doing that!!!" as I am taking photos of him.

Sigh...

I feel he will appreciate all of these photos in a few years, even if he doesn't right now.

Dinner time! I thought having a shrimp boil would be super duper fun! I have only ever done a small one before, so I was a little worried about having enough food. Especially since I was sending food over to the Hydens and they have company in town. I *may* have gone a little overboard on my estimates. Oh well, now we can all stuff ourselves silly!

I thought it would be fun to add an Alaskan twist to the shrimp boil and decided to throw in snow crab legs! Unfortunately the crab legs were a little hard to get into and my crab crackers were MIA. I finally found them after the third search through the kitchen, but they only lasted for one squeeze before the metal snapped. These were serious crab legs...!

Turns out nutcrackers can sub for crab crackers in a pinch! :)

Last, but not least, the raspberry tart! We managed to get enough berries on our own, but Heather had brought some Salmonberries over that she got from a friend. How could I resist adding those too? The tart was even better than I remembered from the last time I made it. I'm thanking the yummy Alaskan berries!

The blueberries might have been a bust, but the raspberries more than saved the day! :)

Leaving on a... Motorcycle!

I never mentioned the May motorcycle trip the guys had planned this year because I did a horrible job of blogging in May. They had originally intended to take the Dalton Highway up to Deadhorse / Prudhoe Bay - which is pretty much the furthest North in Alaska you can get via roads. Unfortunately the Sag River near Deadhorse experienced massive flooding and washed out part of the road. This road is mostly used for commercial hauling - featuring heavily in Ice Road Truckers. Given they were limiting loads through the area and the commercial use gets priority, they decided to take a trip on the Denali Highway and over to Kennecott. 

The trip may have been off for May, but it was not forgotten. They decided to just wait for later in the year and try again. They ended up choosing the weekend that my parents were in town - which is both bad (because they like Matt) and good (help with the kids!). 

And the original pack of 5 motorcyclists had dwindled down to 3. Sam and Matt were taking off together and meeting up with Steve in Wasilla. Sam was off today and managed to get packed up before Matt, so he came over to wait / help with last minute things like airing tires up. 

I drug the boys outside to say bye to their Dada way too soon. I didn't realize he was still packing, so they found ways to entertain themselves in the front yard. I had just cleaned the wagon out for my parents to use for hauling them around the zoo today, so that was the toy of the moment. Thomas pulled his brother all across the yard and started to go up the hill to the backyard before I detoured them. 

Then Thomas decided he had done his fair share of pulling and wanted Henry to pull him around. Henry tried, but he wasn't quite as skilled. He did move his older brother around a little bit though!

Finally Matt was ready to go! The boys attacked their daddy with enough hugs to last for the days he would be away. They are super excited to send him off on his trip, even though I am sure I will be hearing "I want dada to tuck me in!" at bedtime tonight.

As a side note, this is my new favorite picture of all of my boys! So adorable! :)

On his last trip, Matt took off so fast I didn't get any good photos of the boys waving, so this time I moved them to the cul-de-sac where they would have a good view and I told Matt to not just buzz by us! (Documenting this moments is important!) 

Sam backed his bike into the cul-de-sac first to give Matt room to turn around. The boys excitedly waved to him. He happily waved back to them - I am sure we would see a grin if he wasn't wearing a helmet. How can two adorable boys not be grin worthy? :)

Henry was ready for his dada to roll down the driveway! I had asked Thomas to make sure Henry didn't leave the safety of our spot in the neighbor's driveway and he took his job very seriously. He leaned a bit too far in one direction and Thomas pulled him back - ha!

There he goes! Thomas was too busy holding Henry to wave, but Henry was waving enthusiastically enough for the both of them! 

Here's hoping he has a great trip and comes back with lots of fun photos. We will certainly miss hime, but we are vicariously following along with the journey! :)

On a related note, I added a new bumper sticker to my car. This are very common in Anchorage and I thought since I had a vested interest in motorcyclists being safe, I should add my car to the population. Plus it was available in pink and I am not really able to resist that.

Be safe out there people and keep an eye out for motorcycles. :)