First day of school and the Fishing Trip....

Well today was Tristan 1st day of preschool for this year. He went last year so it wasn't quite as tough on me this time. He was so excited he couldn't keep still. All morning he kept asking me "is it time to go yet Mommy, is it time for school" and saying "Miss Lynette, Miss Lynette" a million times. He dang near fell down the stairs running to the classroom and leaped onto Miss Lynette.
He squirmed out of my arms as quick as he could when I was attempting to give him a hug and kiss goodbye. So, needlesstosay, he had a great day and enjoyed going back to school!

Jacob was a bit sick this morning, threw up a little. He has had a cold so since he only threw up once, we are thinking it was just maybe the junk pooling in his tummy made it a bit upset.

The fishing trip..... me and 3 girlfriends went on a Halibut Charter. It was awesome! We had a great time even though fishing wasn't all that great for anyone that day. We all came home with at least 1 fish so thats good enough. It was a long day! We drove up the night before because the place we took off from it about 3 hours from here and they took off at 6am. We didn't get back to the dock that night til 6pm, then still had to get the fish cleaned and filleted, and drove back another 3 hours home. We were all exhausted, but wow, what a great weekend !!! We saw Beluga whales, Dall porpoises, Otters, Jelly fish, Starfish.... all kinds of stuff, not to mention the beautiful scenery....look below for the picture of the glacier!
I'll put some pics here for you to see, enjoy!

Wow, its been a while.....

We've been so busy with everything I haven't had time to write....

The fence is finished!! Woo hooo. John did an awesome job. It is so nice to just let the dogs out and not have to stay out there and watch them. The boys love it too.
Of course now I do have to tell the story of the hive John ran into while doing the last little bit of the fence. Here we go:

As he was finishing up the back wall, he dug out some dirt and tossed it back into the woods about 2 feet and all of a sudden he comes running towards the back door. He was swarmed by some nasty bee/wasp things, and was stung about 10 times in about 2 seconds!

So then the fabulous idea he has to burn the nest out, great idea right? Not so much!
He leans in the door and asks me for a lighter.... my exact words "LIKE HELL" LOL. So then our friends convince me its the way to do it. I figure, what do I know, maybe its the way they do it.

So after he walks out the door to go have his fun, I say "Ok children (there are 6 in the house at the time) come gather round the back door, Uncle John's about to light everything on fire".
So he brings out the gas can, lighter in hand.....throws a piece of wood down, DRENCHES it in gasoline (first mistake I called out), then decides to light it up............... all I see is this explosion of FIRE. I scream a swear word that should never be said in front of children but lucky for me the kids were paying attention to the fire instead of me (they were all inside watching through the window).... I run into the kitchen grab the fire extinguisher and toss it to John's friend who is running for the door.........as I look outside, I see a BIGGER fire and John running for the hose....... the wood, the grass, the gascan, and most things in the immediate area are engulfed in John spectacular fire display for the neighborhood to view.
Anyway, they got it out no problem and fairly quickly for how big it got for a few there. I was about to call the fire department. A few minutes of nervous laughter later, I'm doing the "told you so" dance. And John walks to the house with a huge smile of accomplishment on his face, not sure if its the fence accomplishment or the fact that he (almost alone) battled his first "forrest fire" ha ha!

But it IS a beautiful fence, and he should be proud, my hubby is so handy :)

I'll save more catch ups for tomorrows post.

I'll attach some recent pics here for viewing :) Have a great day everyone!

(In the pictures that Tristan look crabby he really is smiling, he's actually saying "cheese" lol)

The Fence....

is coming along!!
Not much to report on much but here are some pictures from today...

Back from camping and fishing.....

Well..... to start off, this trip was fantastic! We had such a great time. Now for the details.

We left Friday late afternoon after John got off of work. Its about a 4 hour drive there. We packed the truck full of clothes, food, fishing gear, camping gear and then Us and the dogs. We let Bear(cat) stay home and enjoy some peace and quiet for a couple days. I'm sure he probably did everything he wasn't supposed to while we were gone. Our neighbors were nice enough to feed the fish and check on Bear for us while we were gone.....I'm realizing here we have alot of animals lol. Two dogs, one cat and a bunch of fish and frogs. Ol' Mc Erin had a farm......

Ok so anyway. We got up to the area and had to make a quick stop by some friends house to say hi since we were there, borrow their dipnet for fishing and head up to the beach.

Once we got to the beach, Jesse (friends were camping with) met us up at the edge and led us onto the beach where the campsite was. John and I soon realized that my tires on my truck are NOT beach/sand driving tires. Oh well, they still look pretty :) And really, isn't that all that's important? ha ha

Well we got to the campsite, unloaded children and animals and our stuff and sat down to have some smores and relax. The fun went into the night (well daylight still) until about 12:30am, when John and the children retired for the night. Jesse and Brenda made a "joke" about going to fish and I quickly agreed. I wanted to get some practice in while noone was really around so that when I fished "for real" I wouldn't look like a complete idiot. Little did I know this trip I would catch more fish than the next day.

So Jesse and I suited up in our chest high waders to get into the water. I was a bit intimidated at first. One because I'm not a fan of open water and everything that "could" be in it, especially when I can't see my feet beneath me. We stood in the water for a bit. Jesse caught 3 fish right off the bat, so I got to see a bit how its done. Then once a fish slammed into my net, it was my turn, I pushed the net to the bottom of the ocean floor so fishy couldn't get out, then started my backwards haul up to shore, fish in tote. Let me tell you, not as easy as it sounds, those fish aren't happy at all about being drug (go figure) and my arms and legs are killing me today with all the work. I ended up catching 9 fish that night. We were out til probably 4:00-4:30am. Brenda came out to the water with me after Jesse caught his 4 fish and she ended up catching a bunch too. I never thought in all my years I could have so much fun camping and fishing in the middle of the night. Brenda and I laughed ourselves silly sitting out in the water at 3am being the ONLY two women out there sporting our lovely 'do rags and smiling faces. I don't think everyone was enjoying us as much as we enjoyed eachother :) We hopped around in the water, talked to the fishes trying to coax them into the net, and laughed til the wee hours of the morning.

The next day, John wasn't feeling so hot and wasn't up to fishing so I was quick to get my butt out there yet again and caught another 4 fish. We came back ate some lunch, both of our families (all 8 of us, 10 including dogs) took a long couple hour nap, played, ate some dinner and headed for home a day early.

We had an exciting ride hope with Annabelle (puppy) having some tummy trouble in the back of the truck. John and I had to pull over twice to clean it out. I had "bear duty" watching the side of the road making sure no bears decided to pop out and pay us a visit. Chances of that are pretty small but I don't care, I have no interest in seeing Yogi OR BooBoo OR the pic-i-nic baskets. THEN we got stuff in crazy traffic and finally got home about 2am. PHEW!

We had a wonderful time, we will defintely be making camping part of our life and fun in Alaska. The boys had a great time too, staying and playing on the beach!

SIDE NOTE: On our way down to camp, we decided to warn Tristan (our sensitive son) about having to hit the fish on the heads to "knock them out" so we can eat them later. We didn't want him to be surprised and get upset about it when he saw it. He seemed ok with it and then the second time I went fishing during the day we took him to the water and saw a few people doing what we had said, and as soon as Jesse or I brought up a fish he was smacking the hell out of them and "knocking them silly" as he said. He helped us with almost every fish that day AND strung them up. He jumped right in with it and wasn't bothered at all. He was so proud of himself!

Thanks for reading our long story if you have made it this far :)

Handbook Anyone?

So, I am sure I'm not the first to say this, nor will I be the last but why in the heck aren't children born with a handbook???

My boys lately, phew, they are energetic. They are constantly being bad, doing things I couldn't think up on my best day, and just basically running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I don't mind the energy but geez, do they have to be bad too?
I won't bore everyone with their random acts of mischief but if they don't calm down soon, I may duct tape them to a wall!

Not too horribly much going on around here lately....

A couple days ago, me and Brenda took all the kids down to the beach and hung out for a couple hours. They boys had a BLAST! That's definitely something we are going ot have to do way more often. I came home with a nice sunburn, but oh well, it faded quick.

This weekend we are going camping. Well, we are going so that we can do some dipnetting and hopefully catch a bunch of fish to stock up our freezer for Winter! We are going with Brenda and Jesse and family, and we are so excited. Should be lots of fun............
For those who have known me a long time, as my Mother said, of all her daughters, she never thought I would be the one camping, own a fishing license or anything close to that. I will make sure to take pics of myself in my waders, 'do rag and sunglasses to share :)
The boys and I went to Walmart yesterday and got some things for them to have a good time including mini-dipnets for them to fish with and some sand toys becasue where we are camping is on a beach.

I'm sure we will come back with lots of wonderful stories, have a great weekend all....

Just some updated pictures

I'm learning lessons....

about my children....

As most of you know, I am a very very very controlling person when it comes to my children. I have lived alot of hard lessons and I figure its better for me to control things and make sure I have a hand in them so that nothing bad can happen. Well thats good and its bad. It's gotten to a point where when they argue I'm all over it, and I need to let them learn to figure things out on their own. THATS difficult for me because I can go in a put an end to it.
The arguing alot of times starts first thing in the morning before I even get my first cup of coffee and am completely awake!
This was our morning this morning.....

Before we even left my room, Jacob was in the doorway with his arms spread not letting Tristan threw, so what does Tristan do? He PLOWS threw (with a headstart), knocking them both over...... and then Jacob is doing his Pterodactyl like scream, which in turn makes Tristan cry and I havent even walked TO the stairs yet, let alone go down them........

What I USED to do was get irritated, carry them both downstairs crying, put them in the corner with them screaming and crying. Get a headache because of the noise, get more irritated and thats just no way to start a day. Its hard to shake off after that.

What I did this morning was completely ignore it and walk downstairs. They figured it out and came down too and just started playing. AMAZING! They are happy, I am happy and all is good.

So my lesson for the day........ let them figure it out, kids are kids, they know how to work through, and what they don't know they will work out.

Almost the weekend....

Well Good Thursday Afternoon!
So much has been going on I haven't quite had the time or energy to sit down and write a post.

First of all, Richie, Brooke and family left Wednesday morning. Phew, that was rough. I was NOT prepared at all, I spent the rest of the morning in tears. We are going to miss them so much! Tristan keeps saying he misses Cousin Nathan. They have quite a long drive ahead of them, so we will all keep them in our thoughts for their travels.

Second, John has been furiously working on our fence that is going up for our backyard. I guess a half acre of fencing is quite a lot of work (ha ha). Every spare minute he has he is out cutting pipes, digging holes, he's going to be mixing the cement and hopefully setting the poles tonight. Luckily its been beautiful outside for the most part so he is able to spend most of the day out there, then of course the fact that it really doesn't get dark so he literally has "all day".
It will be so wonderful to have that fence up so I can turn the dogs loose and not have to stand outside with them to go potty and make sure they dont run off somewhere or go bug the neighbors too much.

Tristan had another soccer game yesterday and did fantastic. He really seems like he is getting the hang of soccer, except the occasional "accidental" knocking down of other players. That boy is competitive for sure!

We also decided to wait another semester before sending Cubby (Jacob) to preschool. He is so bright, maybe too much for his own good, but he is NOT ready for preschool. He knows probably 6 or 7 letters by look and most of his number 1 through 10. He knows just about every shape there is, but the maturity level I don't think is quite where it needs to be. I called and spoke with the teacher, she has been around Jacob a number of times so she knew where I was coming from. We are just going to have to work with Jacob a little harder before January when he will start. He is way more hard headed than Tristan ever was...... who said a 3 year old could have an opinion? Hmph! lol

We went on a family date last night after Tristans game also. We went and had a fun dinner over a stream filled with fish and beavers (that we didn't see) then went to a late movie. We never keep the boys up late so we figured "what the heck", it'll be a treat. We took them to see Transformers. They LOVED it!, and I secretely did too, maybe even more than the kids.
John and Richie went last weekend and told me it was ok for the boys even though it was PG-13. Only a couple swear parts that they probably wouldn't even notice....... well he was wrong about that but they enjoyed it and didn't notice the bad parts at all. Well except when a kid in the movie made a joke about his dog being a "crackhead" and in the middle of a quiet theater Tristan yelled "Mommy, ha ha, crackhead", embarrassing much? YEAH! Oh yeah AND Jacob saw a "Superman" symbol and louding yelling "Superman" in all its glory lol.

Last but not least, this is probably a TMI (too much information) but I don't care. I went to the doctor to have a mole looked at today and they decided to just take it off. Which is great, right? Well, not so much for this wimpy girl. I need time to prepare myself. They gave me a shot to numb it and thats all it took for me to go into vomiting, sweating and damn near passout stages. About 15 minutes later I was fine but phew, I hate feeling like that, no fun!

Well, thats my catch up for the last few days...... its been nice having John home on vacation all week for me AND the boys, we love our extra time with Daddy :)

Happy Monday Afternoon....

I hope everyone's weekend was fabulous!
We spent most of yesterday outside playing. John helped Rich pack up the trailor with the motorcycle and stuff and the boys played on the grass.
Tristan caught an amazing butterfly! He came running towards me yelling "I caught a butterfly" and I was expecting to see some tiny little moth and here with comes with this HUGE beautiful butterfly (See pics). He was sooooooooo happy!!
John is out today running some errands and Rich and Brooke and doing last minute stuff before they leave then everyones coming back home for a last nice Halibut dinner :)
Have a great rest of your Monday and here are some pics from playing yesterday!

Phew....... I'm exhausted!

Well......... so I slacked a bit that past few days! So what? ha ha ha

We have been busy as ever. Richie and Brooke and family (John's cousin for those who don't know) have been staying with us until they move to Georgia and we have been spending all the time we can with them before they leave us lonely up here in Alaska to fend for ourselves!
Tristan and Jacob love having cousin Nathan here....... even though they have their share of arguements. And we love having Richie and Brooke here to keep me and John company too!!
There isn't too too much to update on around here. John and Richie have been fishing a couple times, me and Brooke took the boys to Home Depot today to the kids day and they boys all built a "treasure chest" then we came home and painted them (See below).
We also all went out to dinner with some of Richie and Brooke's friends for a last Hoo-Ra before they left (See pics below).
Its just been day to day things being busy and enjoying our time with family.
Hope everyone's had a great weekend!!!

Happy Monday Everyone!

Our weekend was pretty uneventful, which is just fine by me! We spent most of our time just hanging out at home and playing here.

This morning me and the boys got up nice and early for my ENT appt. For those who don't know they found a cyst in my sinuses that they referred me to an ENT for. Well doc said the cyst was no biggie, nothing to do about it for now, BUT I have a severly deviated septum which is going to require surgery! Ugh, I hate the thought of surgery!!!!
But on August 21st I go in for my new nose. They will have to break it to fix everything, I'm so nervous about it all, being knocked out and the pain afterwards and all, NOT going to be fun but I'm sure I'll be breathing much much better and all of the sinus crap will go away!!

So that was our Monday..... Have a good one!

A night time post...

Today started early so no time to post this morning.
Jacob has been fighting a fever since yesterday evening. I've been giving him motrin and tylenol every few hours I am having a hard time keeping it under 101. We left early to go grocery shopping and get it over with so Jacob could relax as much as possible. But it seems like we were busy all day!
John comes home Tuesday and the boys are definitely looking forward to it, as am I.
We don't have any big plans this weekend, just to lay low and try to get Jacob feeling better, and hopefully Tristan won't pick it up. He seemed to be running a little fever earlier but seems to be gone now.
Anyway.... have a great weekend everyone, I'm taking a break this weekend and I will write more on Monday!
Good nite........

Hellooooo out there...

I won't be writing much today we will be pretty busy and I need to get ready to get out of the house.
Tristan had his soccer game last night so we were there. Except I didnt look and notice that the games went to the earlier time so we (along with everyone else) were late :( He did really good the 10 minutes he played though ha ha!
They even let the little ones play for fun, so Jacob and a few other his age got to mess around with the soccer balls for a while.
Anyway, off to my errands........
Here are a couple pics from earlier soccer games

Good Wednesday Morning Everyone!

Wow, two days in a row, that must be a record of some kind! Anyone call Guiness ???

As some know John is in Rhode Island with his family right now so its just me and the boys at home. And shhhh, we won't tell John but I have been letting Tristan, Kayla (dog) AND Bear all sleep in the bed with me.....Jacob isn't quite old enough yet to not walk off in the middle of the night so we do miss his snuggles.
Tristan told me this morning that when Daddy gets back he is going to go back to his own bed though ha ha ha. I guess he realizes its more for me than him ha!

Jacobs been having quite some vivid dreams lately. Yesterday morning he woke up screaming for his baby cat asking what I had done with him and where he was (we have no baby cat). I told him it was a dream and we just have Bear (big cat lol). And he said "NO, my baby cat (in his cute little voice)" and walked downstairs calling for him "Baby cat, where are you, baby cat". Sooo funny.
Then this morning the only thing I heard through the monitor when he woke up was "Ashton............Ashton.......... where are you" (Ashton is Jacobs buddy and partner in crime).
So I guess we will see what tomorrow morning dreams bring.

Have a nice day everyone :)

Wow, I'm a slacker....

I haven't been very good at keeping up at this, now have I? Oops!

Ok so its now June and Tristan started soccer and loves it! It is hilarious watching a bunch of 4 year olds playing soccer..... its just run run run, make the goal...... oh wait look theres a plane, or wait... lets pick some flowers. But he loves it and is getting better with each game.
Soccer will be over the last week of July then Tristan and Jacob both go to preschool.
Tristan went last year but this will be Jacob's first year. How is it possible I have TWO boys old enough for this??? Just seems so wierd.... my boys are growing up!
John and I are doing well, just going day to day. John made Tech so he was very happy about that (hence the tractor picture up top, that was his gift for making Tech).
I will do my best to keep updating here.... maybe you'll be surprised and I'll do it every day...hmmmm... you never know :)

Here are some updated photos...

My First Entry....

Soooo, I've seen alot of my friends recently that have blogs. I never really thought much about it, until I moved here to Alaska and was telling family the same stories a hundred million times.

This would be much easier to keep everyone updated and not forgetting to tell someone something if I don't talk to them for a while.

So lets begin :)

As you all know, we moved to Alaska in May of 2006. We love it here as you all also know.

I don't have much to type today since I am just starting this but we had a great Christmas and New Years and I will write more as things come up.