William Smith

Seward Trip June 1-3

 We love hanging out on the beach :)  even if its a cold one ;)

 

The trees at our campsite were like little houses--which Lily And William thought was pretty fun

😀💚😀 

I forgot to take a picture of it, but you can kind of see it here.  Some of the trees had lots of space to be a little house

 

At this point I couldn't find Maria's snow suit... But we made do!  and I did find it eventually

 

William was very proud of building his first teepee fire.

Way to go buddy!

 

Favorite activity...

 

They love to hold hands :)  And They love to beach comb!

They found some neat things, eels, clams, and crab bodies were some favorites 

 

We hiked 2 lakes trail.  And it sure was a beautiful day!

 

The crows were always trying to eat our food! 

 

And we just had a nice relaxing time! (Although we did have about 57 trips to the bathroom in 48 hours...)  

Maria 2 months!

2 months old!

We had a crazy first 2 months, with lots of dr appointments and tears, but we finally figured out how to help Miss Maria be a happy camper.  She is such a sweet and happy girl when her tummy doesn't hurt!

She loves getting her fingers and toes blow dried when she gets a little chilled. She loves being warm :)

She is ok with tummy time sorta.  She likes when her brothers and sister lay on their tummies with her, and she likes to be propped up a little so when her head bobs she doesn't bonk her face!  Seems like a reasonable request to me.

Beat Harvest

We got a good harvest this year!  It was fun letting the kids pull beets out.  I love how you can't really go wrong. :)

 

Kenai Fjords

Thank you Chugiak Electric for this trip :)  But a bigger thanks to Terrance for watching the kids!!!

We won a Phillips glacier cruise from Chugiak electric.  We had such an awesome time being tourists for a day :)

The drive was great, and the boat trip was greater :)

our path:

 

stellar sea lions

 

sea otters

 

humpback whale.  he was making feeding bubbles and chowin' down on little fish
This picture was taken for the whale flipper, but I love how it captured the beautiful
glacial silt water

 

Seeing the 'tidewater' glaciers up close was really neat.  we even saw and heard them calving (dropping chunks of ice into the ocean)

 

There is water everywhere.  It is the most northern temperate rain forest in the world.

 

despite being a rain forest, we enjoyed great weather!

And I'm hooked...

We went camping and it was awesome!  I was pretty worried about sleeping in a tent with all my young kids, but it went great.  The hardest part for the kids was the drive out there.  Henry has quite a set of lungs and he was entertaining himself going

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH"

as loud as he can, which is pretty darn loud in an enclosed car.  We figured out that he can do it to his hearts content into a cup and everyone is happy. 

William has also begun the "are we there yet..." but next time I'll bring more in-car entertainment.  I think he was SUPER excited to get there.  Everyone napped most of the way home. :)

Some pictures:

the weather was awesome... and the views spectacular

 Chillin' at the lake

The campsite

...Ahhh s'mores :)

 

Game night :D  

 

loving being in a sleeping bag (on the rocks, with no pad.... my bad.  good thing they are kids)

 

our fisherman :)

 

Brothers :) 

The drive back was beautiful ...and much quieter

Painting day!

Williams art:

William is really starting to draw scenes which is super fun


This one is a bear in a cave, and outside the cave is Daddy and "Uncle Chris"

He painted this awesome rainbow

And this is a climby-thing into a trap.

And the helicopter--that goes to check on the trap...

Lily Anne:

Lily loves mixing things.  play-dough (much to Williams frustration and chagrin...) Paint, different color dry beans...


Anyway, these are how hers turn out.


This one is "a slider-down and a house slide down thing. there are some swings here"

and I don't know what this is... :)

Henry:

Really enjoyed choosing colors as you can see here, you can also hear his sweet voice.  He really has the sweetest voice when he wants to!

and here is his art!