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!