Sam I Am

My name is Sam.
Sam I am.

I do not like green eggs and spam.
I do not like them Sam I am.

I could not eat them wearing a Mask (uh?)
I'll never eat them while in Alaska.

Enough poetry for one day.

Dr. Suess makes me crazy. Every time I see his books I am filled with dread. I think it somehow stemmed from reading it every day and every night to Christian and Tanner for over a year. Ugh. Green eggs and ham? Yuck. 'Ole fuzzy guy should have stuck to his guns. . . he is the worlds worst pushover and his kids will never believe him when he says no. Cat in the Hat? Not welcome here. He can save his rainy day antics for a more interested audience.. . but I would give my left arm for one of those machines that puts everything away.

Here Sam is celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday. That kid has the best time in Kindergarten. He comes home almost everyday with some amazing project to show me.

Spring Break 2008

On Saturday I was so excited I could hardly wait. . . We were going to Fairbanks for Spring Break! Wahoo! There is nothing in the world like a great vacation. Eric and I packed the car up Saturday morning because we knew that Sunday would be a whirlwind with church and then the mad dash home to change and load little bodies into the car.

Fairbanks is 6 hours North of us and we were fortunate, with the great weather, to have blue skies and clear roads. The scenery is simply breathtaking.

We were lucky enough to stay with the Richardson family and they were wonderful tour guides and entertainers. As a family of quiet, well-behaved, mild GIRLS, they must of thought we were straight out of the the book Where The Wild Things Are. But they were kind and put up with the extra noise and wrestling.

Here we are on Monday out Snow Machining (it is NOT snow mobiling in the Last Frontier) with our friends. We went out for a couple of hours and drove through the woods, on frozen rivers, on the pipeline. It was so warm that we all unzipped our jackets and took off our goggles.

World Ice Art Championship

Seeing our friends pictures of the Annual World Ice Art Championship Sculptures was our entire inspiration for our trek up North (thanks Smeds!) And even with our high hopes and expectations, we weren't let down a bit!!!

This Ice Sculpture event goes on for several weeks. Artists from all over the world (Japan, China, USA. . . ) come and create the most spectacular ice sculptures I've ever seen (okay, so in all fairness, I must admit that my exposure to such a art medium has been limited). It is open to public to watch the saw and chisel and create away.

The Alaska Ice Association also hires a team to come in and make a Kids Park complete with tunnels, mazes, several slides, and more!!! Our kids had such a good time. It was a great place to explore and became even more beautiful as the sun set and the ice lights came on. . .


The Bacons and Richardson girls.

Crawling through the octopus tunnels.

Going down on of the littler slides.

Hy was in Heaven.

More Slippy Sliddy Action

Samwise

Hy

Tanner

Eric and Hy in the Canoe

Ice Sculptures

We were fortunate to be in Fairbanks in March when it was FORTY-FIVE degrees rather than the more common NEGATIVE 45 degrees. Unfortunately for the ice sculptures, the heat wave didn't bode well. Many of the artists creations had portions melted. As a spectator with small children, I happily used a bit of my imagination (and rebuilt the broken portions in my mind) as I leisurely walked through the ice park.

Salmon Run. (the three largest Salmon are in a pile on the right. . .gives a whole new meaning to catch and release)

Swan Dancers. (notice the hands of the middle dancer had melted)

I'm melting. I'm melting (okay, enough of the cornny melting jokes)

Ice Sculputres Continued

A few more family favorites:


A Chameleon (whose tongue unfortunately melted off. . . he was eating a fly)

The Thinker

Sea Horse Family

Don't worry. . . no one sculpted our family. . . it really is us. Behind us is the REAL sculpture of Jonah and the whale. It was our favorite and quite spectacular!

Sled Runs

We ended our evening at the Giant Slides. The kids hoped onto the sled and had a rip roaring good time just tearing down the ice at mock speeds. On our way home from the Ice Park we pulled over and enjoyed our first Viewing of the Aurora Borealis (a.k.a. Northern Lights). We could see them dancing on the horizon and it was spectacular. Both Eric and I commented that we truly feel like Alaskans now!

Alaska Pipeline

A lot of miners came to Alaska in search of Gold. . . little did they know gallons of a different type of "gold" would be found on the North Slopes of the Last Frontier. Here we are at the Alaska Pipeline.

a little Alaska history: The Trans-Alaska pipeline carries crude oil from Prudhoe Bay, above the Arctic Circle, south to the port of Valdez on Prince William Sound. The 800-mile route crosses three major mountain ranges, permafrost and earthquake-prone zones, and hundreds of rivers and streams.
During construction, thousands of workers transformed Fairbanks, near the route's mid-point, from a sleepy outpost into a booming frontier town.

Sledding at UAF

Tuesday afternoon we went to Fairbanks and toured the downtown area. We ended up at UAF (University of Alaska at Fairbanks) where the boys sledded down a monster hill. They had such a GREAT time and happily played and played for a couple of hours. I think they could have still played more, but it is always a good thing to end an event with everyone energetic and happy. Can you tell who was having the most fun?

fyi: Hy and I did our fair share of sledding too. . . it just wasn't captured on film. I was extremely proud of Hyrum who not only insisted on going DOWN on his own but climbing UP with his sled in tow all by himself. Hooray!

On Top of the World

What little kid doesn't dream of visiting Santa Claus' House?

If seeing is believing, than Santa will be good to us for the rest of our lives.

Our tour kids, a.k.a. the Richardson family, told us that this Santa was built for the World's Fair and was later sold to the Santa Claus House.

Warner all Wrapped Up

Good, Better, Best

I've been thinking a lot of about Good, Better, Best (as far as spending my time). I would love to say I've calendared myself the BEST life ever. I think for me, the greatest struggle lies in the unpredictability of BEST. I like routine. I like structure. I like going through motion without pausing to evaluating its value. For example, I like to get up exercise, email my dad, make a hot breakfast, get the boys off to school, play basketball. . . The glitch in MY whole Good, Better, Best plan is that what is Best ONE day may or may not be the BEST the NEXT day. Does that make sense? Playing basketball on Monday may be the BEST on Monday but only GOOD on Wednesday. Reading scriptures in the morning may be BEST on Tuesdays but could be BEST on Thursday in the evenings. Ahhh!

With all of this self evaluation that has been going on over here, I have determined one very important thing.

I stay at home, to raise my kids at home.
I need to be home more. The cushy days when we first moved here and I had no friends and no where to go are gone. Now there is too much distracting me. Too many GOOD and even BETTER things for me to do. But what is BEST?

Hyrum is a trooper. Most days he happily follows me to the church to watch me play ball. And I am grateful. But I don't want him to be a sideline child anymore than I want to be a sideline parent. So I've come up with a compromise (because I do love to play ball). I will dedicate myself to basketball on Wednesdays. If kids are awake and happy, I will treat myself to Mondays and Fridays, but not at their expense.

We will create more "lazy" days when I only wear my MOM hat . . when I can focus on Hyrum, and savor Warner. (note the emphasis on Mom and not Housekeeper :) Right now the boys are both at such fun stages and I need to put the multi-tasking aside, turn a blind eye to the chores (not all of them), and truly fall in love with the simplicity of mothering (the sparkle in Hyrum's eye when he's giving me an ear full, playing Star Wars for the 100th time, the hugs and loves and snuggles . . ).

As a treat to all of this "BEST-ing". . . I do plan on an occasional splurge of "BETTER-ish" type activities: blogging, scrapbooking, chocolate licorice eating, and phone talking.