Utah!

I know it's a little backwards with regards to posting order, but I'm still trying to make it through all my photos (there were a lot). I finally made it through the pics from Utah and wanted to get them up. Still to come will be San Diego (including Disneyland!).

So, we left Fairbanks Dec 28 on an evening flight to Anchorage which was fine. We've done this many times and it is slightly less painful now that the kids are a little older, but it is still quite an adventure. The adventure is always a little more painful as almost all flights going to Utah necessitate an overnight flight. Making it worse is the fact that flights from Anchorage to Utah are only through Delta which flies out of the international terminal at the Ted Stevens International Airport (Anchorage - ANC). This means going out of security, waiting for a bus outside (not a heated shelter) in the Alaskan winter that comes every 20 MINUTES, riding it through all the long term parking lots only to be dropped off at a dingy, small terminal which is standing room only. Oh, and you also have to go through security again. Oh, and our flight was delayed (left at 2AM instead of 1AM).

Fortunately, our good times in Utah more than made up for our travel difficulties.

We arrived on the 29th to both Gram and Gramps Cook and went up to their house for Mickey Mouse Waffles. We played with their train, oogled their new media toys, and made a mess of their house. It was a little chilly when we arrived for Utah standards (5-10F), but warmed up during the week. It was great to get to spend some time with family and especially the cousins. The cousins came over relatively frequently including a semi-spontaneous birthday party for Beth (self requested) which was great. We love a lot of things about Alaska, but being so far from family is definitely not one of them. We also got to see Drew's new piano skills and Christopher's new rolling over skills. It's amazing to see how quickly everyone grows up. I was reminded of two things especially when seeing Abbie and Lydia.

1 - How strange it is seeing such mature beautiful young women that only a brief time ago were sleeping in a tent on my living room floor in my apartment (1996).

2 - Remembering adults telling me when I was 16 over and over how they remember me when I was just a baby and wondering why they kept telling me that. I really didn't care.

Anyway, it was great to see everyone and we are so blessed to have such a wonderful extended family.

We also got to spend some time with Maama and Popop. They were back and forth from San Diego, so our time was brief but sweet. Maama made a delicious non-wheat (Owen and allergies) apple pie and pear tart (Gram also made some fabulous non-wheat waffles). There were at some point Cummings candies in their house when we arrived and I'm sure they now regret showing us where they were because they disappeared in a matter of days (3 I think).

It did snow quite a bit while we were there and I think Gram and Gramps have to be about the quickest folks I know on the draw for getting the sidewalks/driveways cleaned. The only way I got to take a turn was to sneak out and do it in the middle of the night. Gram even ran over to the neighbors to do a little snowblowing service.

We also got to see some long lost friends from Ohio and high school which was great. We wish we could somehow transport them to Alaska as well!

Anyway, we had a fabulous time with everyone and we can't wait to get back. The girls are still talking about all the fun they had with everyone.

More photos here.

Seattle

Carol and the girls shipped off to Seattle a couple of weekends ago. I spent some male bonding time with Owen which was great and the girls really had a good time down south. They especially enjoyed hanging out with their cousins and look forward to another visit sometime soon.

While I don't know all the details, I know a trip around Green Lake, a performance of "Singing in the Rain", a trip to the aquarium and dining at Tutta Bellas played a part. I'll leave the filling of blanks to Carol and the girls. The cousins did post some details on their blog (which we read daily...it's great!) here.

More photos from Carol and company can be seen here. Thank you Durhams for such a great time and thanks to Maama for helping with the planning!

Lucky Number 7

It's really hard to believe it's been 7 years. 7 years and a day ago, Carol and I had no kids. I really can't remember what it's like now that these years have passed. Our kids now consume us as I'm sure everyone with kids (or needy nieces and nephews) knows. The time has at times flown by although there are a few airplane rides and church meetings where time really seemed to stand still. All things considered, however, Carol and I could not feel more blessed to have the wonderful kids we do.

Beth has had an amazing year. She started piano, learned to ride a bike, learned (kind of) to play tennis, learned (kind of) to ski and has continued her academic/dance/swimming skills. She is a delight (mostly) and an amazing individual. We look forward to another great year.

She has had two birthday parties so far this year. One was while we were traveling in SLC and the other was here today. She is lobbying for a third with friends although the verdict is still in question. Today began with Beth discovering her wrapped presents and pulling mom and dad out of bed to go open them. She loved all her gifts from parents and grandparents. We feel so grateful to have such a loving and involved extended family. She got to talk to all of them at some point during the day which was great.

After presents, we ate crepes and played. Lunch turned into cake which was preceded by the decorating ritual complete with Owen dumping half of the sprinkles on to one corner. We all ingested our weeks allotment of sugar and were off to church.

Post church we played with presents which included a couple of sleeping bags for some Alaskan camp outs this summer. The girls are sleeping in them now on their floor. I still remember my first sleeping bag. My parents may still have it. I remember it was green and incredibly hard to restuff it in the sack but I loved it. My brother had one just like it. I took it on most/all of my scouting campouts and it somehow made it through in one piece. We'll see how these hold up.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETH!!! We love you to the moon and back!

More photos here.

Christmas!

This was the first year in many we've had Christmas athome. Living in Ohio and now Alaska, we have often spent Christmas away. It was a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to get everything to and from various destinations, and so we decided to stay put this year.

We spent Christmas Eve with some good friends. Our kids are great together which makes for a kind of pseudo-babysitter effect I'm sure all parents are familiar with. This was great as the adults got a little talking time. We finished the night early and got the kids to bed. The kids got pretty excited and it was the first night I can remember when they were the ones pushing to get themselves into bed (Chrismtas every day?). We read the birth story from Luke 2 and locked the house down for preparations.

Christmas was great. There is a clock in the kid's room and I don't know how we pulled it off, but we got the kids to wait until the clock said 8AM before going downstairs. I remember letting my parents sleep until 7 at the latest (I think one year was 6). 8 was great, but I'm not counitng on being able to pull that one off again. We ran downstairs, set up the videocamera and released the kids. We did the "take turns" thing with the kids to make the present opening a little longer followed by another reading of the Luke 2 account and breakfast.

Owen's list was dominated by Thomas the Tank Engine stuff and the girls got books and a bunch of craft things (weaving, painting, sewing, etc.) They also got some Lego stuff (dad is a big fan of Legos) and a karaoke machine (microphone and speakers).

I have two memories of most Christmas mornings. The first is the presents, but the second is eating crepes with apple filling that my mom would always make. My kids love crepes so I made them the same. They didn't last long (the butter and powdered sugar on top didn't hurt).

The rest of the day was spent talking to family and cleaning up. Carol had to wrestle with a couple of the packages to get the toys out. The marketers have come up with some great packaging for displaying the contents of boxes, but it can be somewhat daunting to release all the molded plastic from their twelve tie downs.

Overall the kids had a great time and so did mom and dad. We did miss family, but not the 12 suitcases we have to haul when we do the traveling Christmas. I think we may be here again next year. Merry Christmas!

More photos here.

Owen enters year number 4

Owen turned 3 on Dec 15th. It's the same birthday as his mother who aged in number only. We had a little party at the house complete with a gluten free cake (we're experimenting with a few dietary things) and lots of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. We were grateful for grandparent participation as well with artwork, vegan chocolate (no milk...again part of the great diet experiment), and more Thomas stuff. We all had a great time and lots of sugar.

We then had Owen's "friend" birthday party a few days later. I always remember having a "family" and a "friend" birthday party. I have now learned that having multiple birthday parties is not all that common and I should be grateful for such energetic parents which I definitely am. They even had a sleepover party at my grandparents cabin (they did this for my siblings as well). I now realize the herculean effort that required. I can't say I love my kids that much yet, but I probably will.

Anyway, the "friend" party was at the local glow-putt (indoor miniature golf with glowing balls). Carol made some incredible snowmen cupcakes and fun was had by all. Owen did really like the putting and the kids actually lasted almost 90 minutes before attempting to beat each other with the putters (I actually thought this would happen at about 10 minutes in). No injuries to report thankfully and we're already looking forward to next year. The girls had fun playing with Owen's stuff as much or more than he did. Hits included a play dough kit and some type of foam stuff which dad had to sort after Beth accidentally mixed the colors (this is really not fun). Pictured is the "spaghetti and meatballs" from the play dough kit.

More photos here.

Happy birthday buddy!

Upcoming Posts

Yes, it's been a while since our last post. We've been gone for a while and I have a ton of stuff to get through before posting, but it will eventually get up. Hopefully we'll be caught up by the end of Jan.