Curtis, Elizabeth and I singing and playing at church. Hear us singing together by clicking on this link. To hear Curtis sing 'Give me Jesus' click here.
Curtis and Dr. Donaldson, one of his favorite professors
Curtis and Dr. Rivard, the other favorite professor
Curtis and Elizabeth at the graduation banquet
Elizabeth and her beautiful sisters
Curtis performing one of his songs
Two beautiful photos of Elizabeth performing.
Curtis composed a song for piano, violin (played by Elizabeth), tenor, baritone and alto. Here are the vocalists performing his composition. Click on 'composition' to hear the song.
Curtis' Senior Key Honors medal.
Elizabeth just after receiving her diploma, getting a congrats from her Aunt.
Curtis FINALLY getting his much awaited diploma.
The Kettler/Schmidt Families...missing one special person (sigh)
Here are the graduates. Elizabeth graduated with a degree in Piano Performance. Curtis graduated with a music degree is Worship Arts. Elizabeth is planning on finishing her business degree and Curtis will be going back to school to get his masters in Choral Conducting after taking this year to work at the college in the music department.
Can you see my pride? I am so proud and at the same time humbled by how the Lord has blessed us all!
Waiting patiently for the diplomas
Waiting impatiently for the diplomas
We went to MN to visit Curtis and Elizabeth. During our trip we attended their senior recital and their graduation among other events. For the next few blog postings I will be getting my family updated with photos of our trip. After that we will go back to regularly scheduled programming and our Alaskan Adventures including a wonderful canoe and fishing!
This is the poster that was up around the college for their recital. Aren't they cute?
Here is the program for their recital. It was beautiful.
It was a family event, getting ready for this recital. Here are the kids and their Grandma Moore.
Ready to perform!!!!!! No nerves here! LOL
One last shot before heading to the chapel. My amazing children!
This is the group of pictures we had open for people to sign at Beth's graduation. It came out beautiful and is such a neat addition to our 'graduate' wall!!
Me and my wonderful friends from our church, Nancy, Tess and Crystal!
Anna and her father, Jim during the 'father's speeches' last night!
Ralph trying to convince Beth to give a little speech! It didn't work!
The night before...Beth finally got her iPod Video, the only thing she asked for for graduation. She certainly earned it. What an intense level of study she completed in high school. She will attend Mat-Su College this fall taking four of her basic education classes. 
The FOOD table! The girls, Crystal and I worked MANY hours preparing all the delicious food!
The dessert area. We have cheesecake, lemon bars, Baklava, Balsamic Strawberries with cream, Texas Sheet Cake, meringues and chocolate covered pretzels...all homemade! It was all wonderful and there wasn't much left to take home.
The youth group hanging out before being allowed to consume the food!
Kyle and Josh, waiting patiently for food.
There are a few trees in our yard that are starting to bud!!
This snow hare is in the middle of his transformation between his winter and summer coats. In the winter he would be completely white. In the spring and summer he is completely brown. I just loved catching a picture of this little guy! We don't see them very often in the winter. I think they are very well camouflaged. We do see them sometimes in the summer, but not too often in between!
Well, it isn't a fun thing for me, but Ralph seems to really enjoy this. We COULD rent a hydraulic wood splitter, but he likes to chop it the hard way. He and Kyle and Kyle's friends actually fight over who gets to do the chopping. Beth and I always get to do the hauling and stacking! 
Don't I just look thrilled to be doing this job? Ignore the dirt please! LOL Ralph taught me how to remove the studs from our winter tires so that we could just go ahead and use the tires this summer. The studs were pretty well worn out so they couldn't have been used another season.
This is what they look like when they are pulled out.
And this is how you get them out...you DIG them out with a screwdriver. This is not a fun job, but I was glad to be able to help Ralph get this done. One of the many things we had to get done this weekend in preparation for Ralph's deployment.
Well, the wood pile is getting smaller isn't it?
This is our first fire of the season. Here in Alaska it is TOO cold to have an outdoor fire in the winter, but Spring and Summer are GREAT times for outdoor fires. Curtis built this fire pit our first summer here and it is wonderful to have. Helps keep the mosquitoes away also!
Snow shovels are heading back into storage.
IF we can get our mosquito magnet working, we hope it will help with the mega-mosquitoes this year.
Of course, I had to get my fishing gear ready today! We bought our fishing licenses today so I had 'fishing fever' We got the new line on the reels and are ready to go!! May 10th I plan on catching my first King Salmon of the season! I know, wishful thinking, but that is okay.
The river has thawed and the ice break up is over. This is the lowest the river will be. Soon you will notice it coming up and later in the spring it will be from trees to trees.
Make sure you click on the pictures for a better view of the eagles! 
We are assuming this is a family of eagles. The eagle to the far left as you are looking at it appears to be an immature bald eagle, along with his/her parents, we think.
There have been 3-6 eagles staying along the sand bar of the river for about a week now. Obviously they are getting something good out of the water. Old salmon maybe? Not sure, but we do love to watch them!
