Pride Cometh. . .

Pride Cometh Before the Fall. A couple of weeks ago Eric was at EFY and I took the boys hiking. At the end of our adventure the boys were playing in a shallow creek and having the best time. I sat on a nearby bench marveling at them. . . especially my little Hryum who at three years old was doing a fabulous job balancing on a log that hovered over the creek. "He's Amazing", I thought, "What talent, what skill, what. . . " SPLASH! Thank goodness 3-year-old hinneys can fit into 12 month old pants.

Winner Creek Gorge

Hands down my favorite hike here. Beautiful country. High Adventure. Or perhaps this year I should say Hy Adventure. The little boy below had a bit of Heavenly Help on this hike. . . after taking a tumble OFF of the Hand Tram Platform and nearly rolling off the cliff we feel very blessed to have such hard working guardian angels who definitely work overtime for our family of 5 boys.

Winner Creek Gorge 2

Winner Creek Gorge 3

Billboards

Four States currently ban billboards. I am lucky to live in one of them.

Tanner

I cannot believe that school starts in 20 days. I'm not sure I'm done playing with my boys. We've had the best summer ever. We've played hard and had the best time being together.


In honor of school, here are some pictures of Tanner in Action. At the end of the year his teacher put together a CD with all the kids pictures for the entire year. It was a great surprise.

Quick Story: Christian and Tanner were thrilled with everything at the beginning of the 2007 school year. I had put them in separate classes on purpose, and they soon found best friends. Tanner LOVED playing with J. and Christian adored E. One day, on their way home from school Tanner and Christian stopped to introduce each other to their new friends. It went something like this:

T: Christian this is J.
C: Whoa, you look just like E.
E: Hey, you (pointing at Christian) look just like Tanner.
J: And you (pointing at Tanner) look like Christian.

It was this enormous ah-hah moment for the four of them.

Our identical twins boys had become best friends with another set of identical twin boys. They proved to be the best of friends throughout the entire year. (they are pictured below. . . one is in the red sweatshirt and the other in the black hoodie)

Record Temperatures

Looks like we are part of a historic summer here in Alaska. Record Breaking Heat? No Way!! We are all about cold here in the Last Frontier. Today was actually in the 70's and the whole neighborhood was out celebrating. It was a great day. . . we went to the park, rode bikes, played in the cul-de-sac, visited with neighbors, mowed the lawn, jumped on the trampoline, had a picnic, played tag all outside. Nothing like celebrating the first days of summer the last week in July.

Russian River

Last week we spent a few days at the Russian River.

Camping Favorites
Tanner: Riding My Bike and Playing Cops & Robbers
Christian: Seeing a Black Bear
Sam: Eating Candy & Getting "New" Shoes
Hyrum: Sleeping in the Camper
Steph: The Heater (and great company)
Eric: Eating an Entire FRESH Salmon and Hiking

Eric and the boys did attempt to Dipnet on the Kenai but didn't catch a single fish.

Russian River 2

One afternoon we tried roasting everything we could get our hands on. Hands down, the roasted Twinkie was my favorite.

Nothing says little boy heaven like a fire and a few sticks.

Warner was a trooper and just slept on the go. Here he is bundled up in the Porta Crib (more for mosquito protection than cold). The poor fellow did get about 10 BIG bites on his head and looked to be hiding 10 marbles underneath his skin.

Sam experimenting with roasting a Mike 'N Ike.

This is day 2 of 4. Christian's face is covered in twinkie, marshmallows, mike 'n ikes, and is gearing up for the delicious Honey Butter that topped the Scones we had for dinner. YUM!

Santa

One of the biggest perks to being an Alaskan, is living so close to the North Pole. While at the BearPaw Parade, Hyrum caught a glimpse of Santa enjoying a rainy day during the off season. Even in his street clothes it was unmistakeably Santa. . . the beard, the jolly laugh, the belly, the clothes with red on the collar and cuff.

Santa still takes Christmas orders even in July. Our friends were trying to get him to ask for a pony, but he was wise and put in for some Star Wars Lego guys.

Only 150 days until Christmas.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

If you look really close in this picture you can see the double rainbow. The picture doesn't do it justice. . . but it was BEAUTIFUL!

Sammy's Birthday

Sam had a great birthday. This was probably his most beloved gift (thanks J.C.). He tore it open, built it, and slept with it for three nights straight.

He received a couple of other lego sets too (thanks Mom!) that were a huge hit as well as some cool playdough, a spiderman on a ATV, and some galactic hero figures.

Bacon

It was November 1997, and Eric and I had broken up for about the thirteenth time. I was driving to the Middle School where I taught English to a fantastic, frustrating, full of energy group of 7th graders. While in my stylish Volkswagon Fox, I was listening to the radio when the DJs opened up a discussion on the importance of Gratitude during this season of Thanks.

"We'll who isn't grateful for bacon?" one DJ immediately asked.

What!?! That was the one thing I didn't want to be thinking about. Bacon. Really? Of all the things in the entire world that DJ really he picked BACON!?!

Those two went on for about fifteen minutes about why they both just loved, loved, loved bacon. How life wouldn't be the same without bacon. How the world needed bacon.

All that talk about Bacon got me thinking. Was I grateful for bacon? for Bacon?

It took some time for me to really decide on that. A year to be exact. Eric and I were married that following Thanksgiving. And yes, to this day, I can still say that I am grateful for Bacon.