I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

In my never ending and never successful attempts to make my children into tidy individuals, I came across an interesting fact about my son.  He loves scooping the cat litter.  He asks me everyday if its time to scoop poop.  He is genuinely disappointed when he can't.  I don't know what's so awesome about it, but whatever.  If chasing little turds around a small sandbox makes his day, who am I to argue.  Due to the frequency of his demands to play in the "box" and my own desire to keep him out of it, I decided it was time to give him his very own "box".  Only his has no poop, nothing but CLEAN unused litter just for him.  It was a solid success.  He had a blast burying his cars and sifting the litter with his spoon.   I was congratulating myself on my creativity and awesomeness as a parent when the tragic happened.  Relaxing in another room, my son starting screaming in panic and yelling at the cat.  I jump up and run into the dining room.  There, I am confronted with a sight not for the feight of heart.  There is my lovely, perfectly behaved cat, squatting in the little tub of litter...while its still on the table!  The DINING table!  Fischer is watching with a look of disgust, heartbreak and horror.  I am ashamed to admit that I just stood there and wasn't sure what to do.  I couldn't yell at the cat, he was after all doing exactly what he is supposed to do.  I bet he thought he hit the jackpot with a pristine new box to muck up.  I didn't think picking him up while he was busy was a good idea either.  So I waited till he finished his business and shooed him out.  After dumping out the entire contents into the cat's actual litter box, Fischer and I had a good laugh about it.  Funny enough, we had thought the cats might get confused, so we made sure this box had a lid.  We just never got a chance to use since the cat just hopped right in while Fischer was playing.  I don't care what anyone says, I still think it was an awesome idea.

This isn't the cat that did the dirty deed, this is Reesa.  Her favorite thing to do is track down unsuspecting nappers and hold them down. 

Spring Shming

Why oh why is Alaska so sporadic?  One minute I am on my bicycle avoiding the last of the snow piles in the road, the next I am watching Scott shovel it out of the driveway again.  Once that all melts, it snows again.  Thankfully it is all starting to melt again and I can only hope that it stays that way.  I am so desperate for green things and growing life I could just scream.  And I would scream obscenities.

Aunika has become an AVID reader.  And yes, I did put it all in capital letters on purpose.  My child consumes books like a diabetic on a sugar binge.  She can easily read a large chapter book in less than a week.  Right now the challenge is to feed her need, which has led to larger books, while keeping an eye on content.  Her recent favorite is the Hunger Games series.  She is excelling at school as usual.  She hates PE with a passion and swears it was designed solely for the purpose of torturing her.  She still sasses and manages to stun me into silence more often than I care to admit.  She is sooo like her daddy, peas in a pod of smart-assed-ness. 
Her passions right now are sharks, dragons, books, and pretty much any reptiles.  Especially hers.
She loves her bearded dragon, Sahara.  He came back with us from Michigan, along with his brother who is mine.  As you can see, Sahara loves her too.  This pic is when we were headed to her favorite place, The Cricket Ranch.  Its a shop that sells to reptile food items (like bugs and such), and it also hosts a reptile rescue.  Which we like to  volunteer with.  Aunika loves going and holding all the various critters like snakes, geckos, millipedes, and turtles.  She even brought her dragon to school for a special show and tell.

Luna is still awesome, sweet and mischeivious, she keeps me on my toes.  She is growing up so quickly I can't keep up.  She wants to wear make-up,  MAKE-UP, people!  She is only 8.  No make-up, not happening.  I absolutely refuse to allow her to tart herself up.  Not in my house, not under my roof.  I forbid it...

Damnit!  Fine, its not going to happen again, I swear.  Don't judge me!  She keeps getting make-up kits for her birthday and x-mas! So if you think about it, its kinda you all's fault.  Right?

Here she is without all that crap covering her beautiful face.

 Her latest obsession is music on her Ipod.  No matter where she is these days, she has her headphones on and is rocking out to some song.  You know, I never noticed how many cuss words and sexual innuedos are in music until the kids starting getting old enough to pay attention to the words.  It seems like all the songs that come on are enough to make me cringe.  Luckily Luna knows better than to sing those words and substitutes the bad for clean ones. Asshole singers. But damn, they do make catchy tunes. 

Unfortunately, Lu has also discovered that she has a rebellious streak.  I have glimpsed my future and it is terrifying.  I must take steps to avert this disaster.  She has started to actually holler at me.  HOLLER.  Like with a loud voice.  I have had to chase her to room a number of times, with her screaming that she hates me and hates everything and her life is over.  Holy shit.  I swear sometimes I just stare at her, completely dumbfounded at the stuff she says.  The flip side, and the reason I haven't abandoned her in the woods yet is when it all dies down, she is again the snuggly Lu we all know and love. I am hoping since we are apparently going through her teenage attitude years early that I won't have to put bars on the windows after all.  Being 8 really limits her creativity when it comes to acting out.  Thinking ahead, peeps, I'm thinking ahead.

Here is Scott and Fischer, from last summer.  Old yes, but new to you! 

I really love his smile.  He has a great smile.  Fischer's smile is pretty great too!

 

I know its hard to see his little face, so here is another one, about 2 weeks ago.  He loves getting his hair cut, regularly insisting its time to get one.  He will grab the little strands and point out that they are to long.  Then he will make me gel what little hair he does have into a tiny mini mohawk.  Which promptly gets smooshed when he has to put his hat on.  Cause its still winter here.  But he doesn't care, he had a mohawk.  You can kinda see how tiny it is, barely there.  It takes a ton and half of gel to whip that little look up.

Super smart like his sisters, he is already reading and writing.  He reads everywhere.  Signs, labels, TV programming.  Makes it damn near impossible to tell him there are no cartoons on any of the channels. Nope, not even on the cartoon channel. 

Shortly after he started school he came home and proudly handed me this piece of paper.  It is his first time writing his name, "officially".  Love that the picture for him was a fish.

Dude digs all things angry pigs.  He adores the game and all the things that go with it.  He got a new bike after outgrowing the one his Uncle John gave him.  He picked out the angry bird bike and we surprised him with a matching helmet.  It even makes noise.  Yay.

As most kids, I'm ashamed to admit, is obsessed with video games.  Any game really.  Including Ipod/Iphone games.  Yes, damnit!  I let him play my phone.  Worst decision ever.  Worst.   After having lost his Ipod that he got for the road trip (an old, used Ipod) we weren't to upset.  Then came the gift from Santa.  An Ipod.  WTF?  Did we not learn our lesson?  Did we think his obsession would be any less annoying?  Seriously, who the hell is in charge of my supervision?  They need to be fired immediately.  Don't worry, we don't let him play to much. 

And he loves to talk.  ALL the time.  Especially when we are all trying to watch a show.  Even if its a show he picked out!  And at dinner time he suddenly develops a case of antsinpantsitis, and can't sit still.  My boy is entertaining to say the least.  Everyone that comes across him falls madly into adoration.  He can't help it.  He'll even tell you he is made of awesome, dipped in awesome, and sprinkled with awesome.  No, really, he'll say that to you.  Then he'll ask you out to a date at Chucky Cheese. 

After all these years I am finally able to say that I have been successful in training my mini-army of assassins.  Here they take out their first target.  You can see the grimace of fear on his face.  

I told him not to mouth off to me again.  I won't have to tell him twice.

Afterwards we convinced him to join forces with us.  A genius idea since he could reach the choicest icicles of death.  Sadly, as soon as we walked in the restaurant sent someone outside to knock all the ice daggers down.  Wusses.

I am not quite sure why the dude is sucking on his death device.  Kinda take the terror out of it.

Scott is still rocking the IT world.  He is loved by clients and coworkers alike.  He has been working his butt off for his company and meeting a lot of great people.  He's gotten numerous letters and emails praising his super coolness.  What can I say, I got great taste. 

His favorite pastime is still taking apart the car.  His other favorite way to spend time is tormenting his daughters.  Now that they are old enough to get embarrassed by our antics, I mean his antics, he delights in their squeals of aggravation.  He persists in getting them so riled up they are rosy cheeked (beet red!) and storming off.  He and Fisch thinks its the funniest thing.  Me, not so much, since I have to be one listening to the whining.  And people look at me funny when I have to threaten my husband with a time out if he doesn't stop antagonizing his kids.  Ok, so sometimes it is funny.  Sometimes.

As for me, I'm now working at the school with the kids.  They kept asking me to come work as a noon duty and I finally gave in.  I now spend my afternoons with about 350 kids.  I watch over them during lunch and at recess.  Its pretty cool, I have to admit.  Way cooler than I thought. For my birthday, the entire 6th grade class broke out into song and wished me a happy b-day.  They even made me some cards.  Scott swears I found my calling.  I think I just like bossing around kids that actually listen.  Its novel.

We are still waiting on spring and so far its a dud.  I am really disappointed.  I kept hoping that global warming would cut us a break.  Now I think they were just fibbing so we would all ride the bus and stop using Aqua Net.  But whatevs.  My hair still looks fab.

She did it!

I am so bleeping proud of my daughter!  We got great news this weekend, and I have to brag about my genius child.

Aunika has been formally invited to join the Ignite Program in the school!  It is an off campus program for gifted children.  She will leave her school and be taken to a different one a couple of times a week.  Luckily its just down the way from the house, and there she'll take a couple courses that are more challenging for her.

She is super stoked and feeling awesome.  Now if they will only do something about her sass mouth.  Cuz let me tell you peeps, it hasn't slowed down one bit.  My child will stand toe to toe with me and her father to argue a point.  I can't tell if I should be regretting the "never be afraid to speak your mind" parenting we perpetrated.  Not that it was intentional!  I just honestly value their opinions and ideas, and now its to late to take it back.  God help the world when I unleash my mouthy offspring.

What year is it?

I can tell you that it does not feel like its been over a year since my last entry!  Time has flown by and I have to be honest, it beat the crap out of me.  The last year has been full of joy, heartbreak, and a couple of close calls.  I have had so many things happening that I got lost somewhere in the everyday struggle to stay afloat.  I apologize to those of you who use my blog as a way of seeing our children grow.  I do sincerely hope to keep the posts coming.

Well, enough of that.  How bout some updates?!

So we are back in Alaska, same house even!  Scott got a great job within 24 hours of being back in town.  It was a series of events that led to our return, and we ended up coming back rather hurriedly.  Along the way we lost our beloved suburban, Old Blue.  She managed to pull a weighed down travel trailer and made it halfway through Canada before dieing.  And lets just say that we made it home only with the love and financial support of all our family and friends.  My mother single handedly rented the U-haul we drove to get us home after that.  And a U-haul from Canada to Alaska is not cheap.

The kids were able to get into our neighborhood school, and both girls love that its a non-uniform school.  Especially thankful is our fashion diva Luna.

Aunika is doing fabulous!  At 9 years old and in the 4th grade!  She is testing for the Ignite Program which is a gifted program that operates in her school.  Her most beloved possessions include her animal encyclopedia and her Twilight series of books.  She is an avid reader and her mind never stops processing.  Its is a daunting task to raise this young lady.  I usually remember that she sees and hears everything I do, but only after I have done whatever stupid thing it was I regret.  And worse yet, she remembers, for like decades!  And oh does she love to remind me of all the dumb things I've done and said. 

She is a comfort over style kind of girl.  Blue jeans and T-shirts all the way.  Her favorite animals are sharks and she can recite a books worth of info on them.  She's not into toys as much anymore, her time is spent reading.

Luna is 7 now and in the 2nd grade!  Can you believe it?!  She is still the sweetest soul I know.  She loves with such a big heart and is completely crushed if she thinks you are upset with her.  Although oddly enough she is the child who will gets handsy when she gets mad, if ya know what I mean!  She is doing great in school, and never complains about having to go.  Although its a different story when it come time for homework.  She loves reading to Fischer, which he is a fan of too.  So I make her read to him everyday.  She pretends to fuss, but then the two of them settle right in.

She is much more aware of how she looks than my other kids.  She takes great care with her hair and clothes.  She has the typical 7 year old fashion sense.  If its fabulous it matches!  For the record, I do let her wear whatever she chooses.  No matter how Alice in Wonderland meets Cyndi Lauper she is.  And she will stuff her feet into whatever she thinks looks cute, even if it means she has to limp.  I see a lot of shoes in our future.  Her favorite animal is still the hippo and her color is pink.  She loves anything related to beauty.  Perfume, makeup, nail polish, you name it. 

 

 Fischer is a whopping 5!  And this year he started Kindergarten.  I am doing surprisingly poor with it.  Turns out I am a mess without a crazy posse of tyrants dodging my every step.  Who knew I needed such close supervision to be happy?  I sure could have done without that knowledge!  He on the other hand is doing splendid!  He loves school and his teacher is the rockin-est teacher ever.  His homework consists of having two books read to him every day.  He also loves that he gets to walk with the girls to school. 

He still lives and breathes in jogging pants, minus undies.  He will however wear socks now, but only because his teacher told him he has to.  And oh my, you should have heard the argument to get him to wear tennis shoes!  You'd think I was trying to convince him to paint his feet with concrete!  But aside from an incident in which he was helping his friend wash his hair in the class bathroom, he is a model student.  Which I have to say does surprise me a bit.  Since at home he is constantly testing wills with me.  And it's exhausting.  By the end of the day I'm ready to wave a white flag and agree to whatever terms he offers.  Usually straight up surrender. 

He loves the Lego brand video games and lives to play it.  He doesn't really have a favorite color, but he LOVES angry birds.  His favorite shirt is a bright purple angry birds shirt.  I have to peel it off him just to wash it.

As for me, I am trying to stay busy.  Between the kids and the house I find that I have a few precious hours in the evenings to just stop and sit down.  Then I spend the rest of it trying to decide if I should knit, crochet, bead, read or play a computer game.  By the time I decide its time to go to bed. Poop.

We are still slowly rebuilding the house, adding things we had to leave behind when we left Alaska and then again when we left Michigan.  We are getting there though.  We finally got another vehicle, a suburban, a dark blue one this time.  The kids already love her.  I love having two cars again.  It makes me getting to my part time job much easier on Scott.

Winter is coming and we are trying to keep upbeat.  It can be depressing when thinking of the long winter we have ahead of us.  A couple of days ago, when I took these pictures, we were headed to the library and we happened to see giant bubbles floating down the road.  And like any curious person would do, we followed them to a little lake and met a nice man who was creating these amazing bubbles.

The kids were mesmerized!  We stayed and watched him make bubbles for almost a half an hour.  They would just drift around, some popped when they hit the surface, others just rolled along the top.

I am digging through some pictures I took off my phone and I will see what I can find.
Love to all!

Seattle was...

a shock to my system. This was my first look at it. HUGE. We came in just as it was beginning to get dark. Even better for navigating in a big city that you've never been to before.


We headed straight to our friend Jake's house. And as per usual for the Gurisko family, we were late. Really late. Not only was it a week night, but they also have a young son and here we are rolling in somewhere in the neighborhood of 11pm. Luckily we have some basic manners and only stayed for a bit before heading to our hotel. We were able to find a hotel that welcomed Koa and had a pool. So of course we ditched Dad with the dog and went swimming. At midnight.

We slept in a bed for the first time in 4 days and it was glorious. We showered, scrubbed ourselves clean and headed for downtown Seattle. I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't what I got. For one thing, the entire place is built on the side of a hill. Or at least it seems that way since all the roads are either straight up or straight down.

It was awesome how you could look between the buildings and see a road that runs between them going downhill.



And there are so many roads and cars that we got lost a few times, even with GPS. I swear every f'ing road led to another highway. It didn't inspire much confidence when we got stuck behind this guy.


I don't even know what the hell that is and why would they make it molten?!

I have to admit that I would like to return and spend more time there. Seattle was a beautiful city. They had amazing old buildings and even old cobblestone roads. Check out this intersection.


Super pretty.

I loved that there were trees and flowers planted in every open inch of space. Even on top of buildings.


And everywhere you go, there are signs telling you simple ways you can help the environment. Pretty spiffy if you ask me. And I learned that Seattle is full of little cities. Tacoma, Auburn, Federal Way, all are part of Seattle, but not really Seattle.

And of course we saw the space needle! Well, we drove past it anyway. I didn't get to go up in it, the kids out,voted us for the Aquarium instead.


There were cars zipping by and everyone knew exactly where they're going. Everyone but us. And after a few wrong turns we found the Seattle Aquarium. It was located on the edge of town on the waterfront. I was surprised by how many people where walking. It seemed like the entire world had come to visit at the same time we did. There were even rickshaws pulled by bicycles to drive you around. Once we found our destination, we had to find parking. Holy mother fluffer, parking was a disaster. Not only were 98% of the other cars looking for spaces driven by totally assholes, they had parking spaces crammed every where and pointing in all directions. We finally gave up and headed into a parking garage.

So we grab our ticket and pull into the garage and at first nothing untowards happens, but then suddenly we hear a low grinding sound. We looked around and saw people staring back at us with their mouths hanging open. We continued to creep through the first 2 levels, accompanied by this crunching and scraping sounds, when it suddenly occurs to Scott what it is. I'll let the picture do the talking...


Yeah. That was not good. We hit every pipe and concrete structure on the first two floors. Then we had to stop in the middle of the way and take everything out of the damn thing and take it off the roof. Thank god for the suburban, that whole cargo thing slid right into the back. When we got to the hotel we took it out and were able to put it mostly back together.

We did not let that ruin our fun. We simply squeezed ourselves into a spot that was reserved for compact cars. But since the whole line was full of SUVs and trucks parked in the compact spots were thought we would be ok. Off we finally go, to the Aquarium!


Located at the edge of the city, it actually uses the water from the ocean in all the exhibits. Here is the view from the pier behind the Aquarium.


The Seattle Aquarium was smaller than I thought, but they had a great variety of fishy critters. Everything from jellyfish floating through an arch you could walk through to an underwater dome where you could watch a giant sturgeon slowly swimming a few inches from you. There were even large pools where kids could reach in and touch starfish and sea anemones, even some urchins. Fischer and Nuke were elbow deep before I could even reach the pools. Luna refused to stick her hand in there. She wanted no part of that crap. Eventually Scott convinced her to touch a starfish. But she would only touch that one specific one. She was sure they were out to get her. And you know how lighting fast starfish are.


We were even able to get a picture with one of the divers as he was cleaning out one of the large tanks. You can't even tell that I had to make them stand there. Can you?


We didn't get to stay there for long before the two younger ones started in with the whining. Instead of strangling them, we just decided to leave. And when we got back to the suburban, we were awed by the jackassedness of 2 special Seattlers who need their asses kicked. See, they both (one a Jeep, and not a real jeep even! and the other a big SUV) parked so close that we couldn't open any of the four doors. Not even enough to get one of the kids in. Scott actually had to climb in through the back, over the cargo carrier AND the dog. Then we had to make a 80 point turn, with our mirrors folded in before we could get out. I told Scott to let the 'burb scrape down both of the other cars. Would serve them right, and since both of their cars were all shiney and new like I was sure that it would have ruined their fun for the day. But alas, Scott was the voice of reason today and he didn't do anything bad. I, on the other had ended up trying to explain to my kids why I wrote a rude word on their hood. Thankfully, they were more interested in why I did it instead of what word it was.

We spent the rest of the evening with Jake, Kim and little Isaac. The kids got to swim and play. I think they just needed to burn off the energy they had stocked up from Canada. After another night in a bed, we headed out of Washington for Oregon. I was totally unprepared for how quickly we were in Oregon. I had just gotten settled, pulled my knitting out and was ready to spend the next several hours in the car, but nope. Turns out the other states are pretty small.

Canada!

Well, we finally did it. We are moving. We packed up, loaded up the kids and dog and hit the road. We left the 2 cats with my mother, but don't worry dear readers they are getting flown down once we reach our new home. That would be Michigan for those of you in the dark.

We headed out of Anchorage on Sunday the 3rd of July. And our exit was both embarrassing and exhausting. As soon as we hit the highway we lost both of the girls' mattresses, which happened to be tied to the top of the U-Haul. Once we got the damn things wrangled up, we had to have my brother run us out some more straps to tie them down with. After that fiasco, we finally headed out of AK.

Traveling with 3 kids and a tech-junky is an interesting thing. At any given moment the front of the suburban looks like something out of a gadgets expo. There are chargers, cords, a laptop, a power converter, IPods, DVD players, and all manner of crap just to keep everyone happy. And so far so good. Luckily our children are great travelers.

My plan is to update after each new state we visit. A play-by-play if you will, of the Grand Adventures of the Gurisko 5.

To begin our story, we flash to the Alaska Canadian border. Which for some reason took like 5 minutes to reach. And once we got there we were greeted by a very somber and sour young border officer. I think he was the only rude Canadian we met the entire time we were out there.

At first we were utterly disappointed to realize that it looked just like Alaska. It wasn't until we hit closer to the middle we noticed things changing. The mountains were softer with no real jagged edges. And it seemed as though the sky was huge, without all the mountains taking up the view. Eventually we hit wide open planes and farm lands. Who knew! I had no idea the Canuks farmed!

They are also very eco-friendly. You actually had to pay for your plastic bags at the grocery store ($0.75! EACH!!). But alas, it is also crazy expensive and we refused to pay to use our phones over there (EXPENSIVE) so we decided to just burn through that place. And then we found out how freaking big Canada is. Its like the moon big. Like took forever to get through. Scott slept maybe 8 hours total in about 3 days.

One nice I thing I can say about Canada is that it has lots of wildlife. We saw so many thing just hanging out on the side of the highway. And by highway I mean 2 lane road with lots of windy curves and sudden drops. Where if the road isn't making a steep climb its because you're spiraling down the road at 70 mphs. Which doesn't sound bad until you think about doing that in the dark with a giant wobbly U-Haul dragging along behind you. After having enough of this shit, Scott decides to leave the mattresses. And while I moaned and groaned, it did make a major change in the speed we could maintain. Apparently mattresses are not designed to be aerodynamic. And while it helped with speed, that bastard U-Haulis still squirrely.

One of the first critters we saw was a black bear. He was grazing on something nummy on the ground. I was surprised at how small he was, and how easily he ignored us. Snobby Canadian.



Then we saw these two hanging out. As far we know this is kinda unusual, if you know otherwise let us know.


And then to Scott's utter delight he finally saw a Bison. A huge behemoth of a creature. With every flip of his tail you could see cords of muscles rippling over his back.


We saw lots of them before we left. Just hanging out, some alone others in small groups. Scott was so happy he saw them. It was all he wanted to see on this entire journey, and the travels gods were willing to accommodate.

Meanwhile the girls have decided they love Canada because every single Canuk owns horses. Small herds could be seen wandering around miles of open areas.


I have to admit it was pretty cool to see them just wandering. This group was led by a mare with a bell around her neck. Not sure what the bell was for but the were just ambling along.

At one point when I was driving, (I only drove twice) I had to drive on this part of the highway that made the Discovery channel show about dangerous roads seem like a kids show. I swear I was barely able to keep the U-Haul within the lines. On my left side was sheer rock and on my right was a abrupt cliff. I crawled through there at like 20 mph. Even the mountain goats were looking at us like we were crazy. They were just perched on the edges by the car. I think they were laughing at my less than snappy speed.



The landscape was gorgeous. This place was called Jasper Park. At one point we saw a mountain called the Folded Mountain. And if you look closely you can see the striations in the rock itself and it does look like it had been unfolded.



And later there was one that looked melted. I really liked that one, especially with the mist all over it.



As we drove through the park, we saw this entire herd of goats. The babies were disgustingly cute.



Somewhere in Canada, Scott came back from a walk with this beautiful wild lily. I was shocked that such a tropical looking plant would be growing in the wilds of Canada. At another rest stop Aunika found small strawberries growing on the side of hill. Super duper cool.
We had lunch there and let the kids ride there bikes for a bit.



At that same stop we found a little trail that led down a nice short trail and then dead ended at a drop off, but the view was great.



The river was so wide. You can see how far the opposite bank is by how tiny the trees are.

As we drove along the highway we came across this itty bitty little town that didn't really have anything great about it except this fabulous water park for kids. It was free and built in the same park as a playground. The water unfortunately was similar to Alaska's water, which is FREEZING cold. So the only kid that really wanted to get wet was brave Luna.



It was made up of these large things that sprayed, misted, dumped or shot water at the kids. Some was motion activated others had giant buttons you pressed to start them.



Fischer and Aunika wanted to play but were not at all interested in being cold. They soon left Luna alone and headed to the playground. Scott took pity on Luna and joined her for a while, but he didn't want to freeze either, so he only rolled up his jeans. Wuss.

Canada came to an end with farmland. Large fields of yellow and green seemed to stretch out as far as you can see. The relief when we crossed the border was almost instant. It was nice to see the speed limit in MPH instead of KMP and to buy gas by the gallon instead of the liter. So in conclusion, Canada is pretty, expensive, wild, and takes FOR FREAKING EVER to drive through.

Onward to Seattle!

Ice Pirates and Damsels causing distress!

Winter in Alaska is full of all kinds of cold weather fun. We have ice sculptures in our town square right now and as good citizens of Anchorage we were obligated to visit them. Scott talked his friend Chris and his girls into meeting them down there and gave me a nice night at home. And to add to the magical feel of the evening it was snowing big fat fluffy flakes. I am pretty bummed I didn't go, leave it to Scott to have fun without me.

The designers really angled the whole thing with an eye to luring the kids in. There was a large section dedicated to the kids, with sculptures they could climb on, a maze to go through, even a hidden squirrel in a tree.

Luna and Heidi posed all cute for the camera. You wouldn't know how sassy they are just by looking at them. And Heidi has this high sweet voice that sometimes sounds like Luna when she is trying to butter me up for something.



Then on to this oddity. I have no clue what its supposed to be. But whatever it was it was made to sit on. Aunika demonstrates this for Fischer.



Meanwhile, Luna found a raven to perch on. Her little cheeks are as red as her pom-poms! Of all my offspring, she is the only one who actually enjoys being outside. The other two will tolerate it for a smidge of time. After that, you had better have either a warm place ready for them or a platter to put your heart on. They will accept either with equal enthusiasm.



Fischer however, decided to go on walkabout all on his lonesome...



He didn't make it very far.



But no fear, dear readers! His big sisters were on their way!



Eh, maybe when they're done eating the snow. Priorities you know, it all about priorities.

Tragically after a lengthy rescue attempt, in which no less than five rescuers were eventually involved, the brutal cold and exhaustion took its toll.

I warn you, the following contains graphic images of children in the snow.



After out initial shock, we realized it wasn't a fallout, instead they were expertly creating an elaborate SOS sign to call for help. Or they could have just been flailing about like upside down turtles. You decide.



Aunika looks like she is trying really hard not to smile. Maybe its some weird kind of winter ritual.


Luna, on the other hand, it blatantly ecstatic to be rolling around. No sense of decorum in that one.



Don't worry, the dads eventually rescued our intrepid explorers. And happy tired children made it home with all their appendages.

After finally seeing the pictures of their adventures I insisted on going to see these wonders myself. We went during the day and had an awesome time. And you can actually see some of the sculptures. Sorta. Everything had a dusting of snow which hid some of the details.

This time we had Micaela and Ellie with us. Kids in snow gear are so darn cute. Until they smack you in the chest with a snowball and it explodes onto your face. Then they are just bullies.



The kids were happy to be back and made a bee line to the maze.


Which took all of 10 seconds to make it through. I think they should have made it much more maze like. They didn't care though, they were outside running and making major noise. Can we say LOUD?



Fischer finally got to sit on that one thing that I still can't identify, even in daylight.


The only way to get him to wear his hat is to tell him not to scare people. Seeing as how most people have a natural fear of sharks, he should be courteous and not eat anyone. He usually agrees with a very resigned "Fine, mom. I won't eat anybody."

After seeing all the sculptures, making a ruckus, and chasing each other around the square, which involved lots of squealing and giggling, we found an untouched treasure! All the unused and scrap ice blocks were piled high, like a pyramid just waiting to be plundered. We climbed, burrowed, rearranged and renovated that mountain. And by the time we were done, other kids had ventured over and begun to clamber on the ice. We can't help being the cool kids on the block. We were the Kevin Bacon of the ice mountain. Once they saw us having fun, they all wanted to play on it too.

Miss Micaela took her engineering duties very seriously, and did in fact make the best mini-fort of all us.


And feeding all that chaos was the root of my insanity.



My man is goor-gee-us! Those piercing eyes, that roman nose, that intense stare. We've been together a jillion years and he still makes my heart stutter.

Then he cements the deal with his rendition of having a lil' captain in him.



I love that man. He is so kooky and off kilter. Just like me.

Since we parked at the top of tall parking garage, I was able to get a few pictures of Anchorage.
Here is where we were, town square. That big building on the left is our Performing Art Center, and the long, low one on the right is our convention center.



And here is an Alaskan skyscraper.


I know. Its tremendous. Its OK to stare, we understand. Its hard to take in all at once.