Our ROAD!! Yikes!

These are yesterday's pictures! Later I will have a few more pics of today! Soon we will need our 4 wheelers to get out of our neighborhood!!
Ahh...Spring in Alaska!

A few more sights from Uncle Phil's Diner...

Over the loud speaker they announced that table number 22 (which was our table) needed straws so EVERY waiter and waitress came by with a handful of straws for us! It was pretty funny. We make spitwad shooters, decorations and little poppers.
This is Richard getting in 'trouble' with Uncle Phil for using his paper tablecloth for his spit wads! The grown ups had more fun than the kids there on Saturday! LOL
Here is Kyle and his friends competing in the Bubble Gum Blowing Contest. They all lost to Carmen who blew the first bubble. Of course the boys say they thought the contest was for the biggest bubble and that is why they lost! Boys...
Okay! This was just NOT funny. One of the waitresses came up to me and pushed me out of my seat and told me she wanted me to come up front for something wonderful. I BEGGED her not to make me do this, but she insisted. I KNEW I was going to be embarrassed and boy was I. They brought me up on stage and proceeded to give me a crown and birthday cake and to sing Happy Birthday to me...until...someone in the crowd yelled out, 'It is NOT her birthday!" At that point they started ripping off my crown and trying to take my cake away from me and shooing me off stage!! If fought for the cake but lost in the end and had to slink my way off the stage with the crowd booing! LOL It was a hoot!

Uncle Phil's Diner

UNCLE PHIL'S DINER!! Here is Kyle with his friends. Don't they look so COOL!?



Kyle and Beth with their friends. So cute.
Those beautiful girls!
There they all are! Looks like it is time for the sock hop to me!

Weekend wood, wildlife and wonderful fun!

We had a very busy weekend here in Alaska. Much of our weekend was spent cutting wood from a huge pile of downed birch trees on Elmendorf AFB. The deal is that you cut a cord of wood from their downed trees for $20 per cord with a 3 cord limit. Pretty GOOD deal for here in Alaska. So Ralph, Kyle, Kyle's best friend BJ and I spent Saturday and Sunday cutting and hauling wood. One full bed of our truck equals about 1/2 cord so we had to make four trips. It is one hour each way and took us a lot of time cutting because we decided to go ahead and cut the big logs into 14" sections so we were ready to split them and get them stored in the wood shed. This is a huge blessing. We had no idea how were we going to get our wood for next winter with Ralph gone all summer long, so we are VERY thankful for the hard work this weekend. My biceps are sore and Ralph's back is tight, but overall we fared pretty well!


During this hard working weekend, we also enjoyed some amazing wildlife! LOTS of Bald Eagles and a few moose, but our favorite this weekend was a beautiful fox. We also took Saturday night to enjoy our church's production of Uncle Phil's Diner where our drama team transformed our church into a 1956 diner complete with meal, music, and lots of fun activities as you will see in the pictures to come.

Spring as SPRUNG here in Alaska. We hit 60 degrees yesterday for the first time and it was just beautiful! The snow has almost melted and the Sandhill cranes and Canada geese and Trumpeter swans have come back! Soon the Arctic terns will be here. The moose are retreating back up into the mountains some on the search for new buds and berries. The river is pretty well thawed and is very low at this point. Once the warm temps start hitting it will FILL with glacial melt and SALMON!! There are a few people attempting to fish the fishing hole already. Talked to my local resident salmon expert (Richard LOL) and he said we might give it a try about the 10th of May, just before Ralph leaves. Maybe Ralph will catch a King Salmon before his big deployment. That would be really nice. So, enjoy the sights of our weekend and our beautiful Alaska!

Here is a beautiful fox! We got to watch him play and jump and catch little chipmunks. At one point he had 3 in his mouth at one time!
Here he is catching another chipmunk.
He ran and jumped into this bush! Probably chasing prey, but we didn't see him come out with anything in his mouth that time. Great picture huh! I was so pleased to get it.
This is just one part of the wood pile!

Chainsaw repair is always a necessity with our wood cutting. Ralph's chainsaw is older than he is but he keeps it running pretty well. We purchased a new one at Christmas time, used it for 30 minutes Saturday morning before it quit running. Needless to say it went back to the store and Ralph went back to 'Old Faithful'
The wood pile is near the landing area on base. This C-17 landed right over our heads while we were cutting wood.
This is Della (dark red) and Harry. They are owned by a man cutting wood while we were there cutting wood. Della is 15 years old and completely deaf. She was a therapy dog most of her life working with babies and children who had bad experiences with dogs. They were a joy to have near us as we cut our wood.

The break up continues, the bears wake up!

Same river, just a little closer view of the area where the ice break is beginning.

What is left of the snow caves!
A sure sign of spring...empty bird feeders. In fact, they are being put away today because the news says the bears are out of their dens. Ralph also saw the first porcupine of the year and that is supposed to be a sure sign the bears are awake!

Overnight Break up

These photos were taken one day after the photos below. This is the Knik River after a 50 degree day. Soon there should be large blocks of ice breaking up. This is basically melted snow on top of the ice.

Sights of Spring...

The beautiful 'maple leaf' of snow in our mountain.
Three shots of the Knik River. Break up is just starting and I will try to post pictures of this river as it changes from frozen to flooding in early Summer.

Sledding...Alaskan Style!

Now THIS is a sledding hill! Can you see the truck at the bottom of the road? That is where the kids are sliding to! It must be about a mile.
They take the easy way up, by being pulled by our friend driving his truck. The ride up is as much fun as the slide down because our friend swerves back and forth and they run into each other and sometimes get tossed out of their sleds! Then they have to run after their sled because there is NO stopping the truck on the hill! LOL
Just about to the top...
AND.....they're OFF!! What fun!

Tang Soo Do...Alaskan Style!

Testing for Brown Belt at the Do Jang last night! The evening (2.5 hour test) began with the basics.
Fight stance...floor exercises next.
More floor exercises...side kick
My son and his buddy being tested on one-step sparring.
Showing off the 'flying' side kick.

My son is setting up his double breaks. The first break, called 'Jumping Front Kick', required him to kick once, jump and then break the board with the other leg. The board on the right that would be above his head. The second break, called 'Knife Hand' is what is in the picture. He had successful breaks on both boards! Woohoo!

The last picture represents what is called IN NAE (which is Korean for endurance) and is the most difficult part of the test. They are in constant movement which involves sit-up, push-ups, 6 point squat thrusts, jumping jacks and punches. They are pushed over their limits basically and have to keep going. Kyle hit a wall and started shaking and almost couldn't keep going, but pushed through it and did keep going and made it through his test. Monday he will find out if he is a Brown Belt in Tang Soo Do. We believe he did just fine! We are very proud of him and his Tang Soo Do team members! They are over halfway to being Black Belts!

A few additional teams

Following our favorite musher

Here is Matt and his team getting into place
Into place and being interviewed by the press
On your mark...get set...
GO!

There begins Matt's RACE TO NOME! God's speed Matt.

Our Favorite Musher!

Thanks to some dear friends of ours who live in Hawaii and are part of the e-ditarod program on the internet, we have adopted Matt as our favorite musher and who we will be praying for and cheering for this year. Here is Matt (Number 72) talking to our friends in Hawaii on the phone this morning before the start of the race.
Here is Matt getting his dogs hooked up and ready to start!
Some of Matt's beautiful dogs.
Matt's team lined up and ready to begin their run to the starting line.
Matt ran his team a little different than most teams. Most teams had a handler on all their dogs. Matt had a couple of helpers, but basically took the lead and ran his dogs into the starting place.