More Pics...

I'm so proud of myself for not only taking more pictures lately (mostly I've been enjoying playing with my new camera!), but, also, getting them posted!!  So, I thought I'd wrap-up through the end of today with Uncle Doc's B-day pics and a few I missed in earlier posts.

We moved the bird cage upstairs to the office since we seem to spend more time in our rooms and on the computer than downstairs these days.  He seems happier, but, he's still plucking feathers a little bit.  He definitely gets more attention this way though.  Owen even makes sure to cover him and tell him goodnight before bed each evening.  I'm not sure the bird appreciates it all that much, but, Owen loves to be able to do it!

Owen was so excited to go to the fair on Friday.  I was gathering up stuff to take including a hat and gloves, just in case (it was cold enough to use them for sure!), and Owen grabbed them up and put them on.  He didn't care what he was forced to wear as long as it got him out the door...he looked like such a punk with his hat like this!  

Yesterday evening, he was running around the house without his pants (as usual).  But, this time, decided he needed sunglasses too.  He reminded me so much of Tom Cruise in Risky Business, it was cracking me up.  I tried to get him to run and slide, but, he just wasn't getting it.  I did get the pose below though...not sure what that was about!

When I download pics onto the computer from my camera, Owen always wants to go through them with me and inevitably, asks for more pictures of him.  This is one of those shots.  I just love how this camera captures his eyes.  Those big brown puppy eyes fascinate me, I would love to know where in the family tree they came from...it certainly isn't direct from Dave nor I!

Uncle Doc got to pick dinner for his birthday.  So, we went to JDs (our only bbq restaurant!) and Cold Stone afterward for ice cream.  I grabbed the camera and got a few shots of everyone while we were finishing up our ice cream.  We had a good time, as always, with everyone.

The boys were less than cooperative....as usual...Owen's learning from them too.  He was to the right of Dave, but, refused to come any closer or look at the camera.  So, I cropped him out! 

Before we left for dinner, Owen informed us that we were taking "his truck" to Eagle River for dinner.  He was real upset that we forced him to take our truck.  I'm thinking there's a good chance "his truck" wouldn't make it out of the neighborhood with all three of us in it, let alone reach highway speeds! ;O)  Try to convince him of that though!

The sun shocked us all and made an appearance this afternoon.  We desperately needed it, our backyard was a lake after the heavy downpour we got yesterday!!  I'm hoping it's had some time to recover and dry out.  This picture of our front yard makes it look far greener and lush than it truly is...it's still mostly weeds, but, we have had quite a bit of growth over the last couple days. 

Hope you all have a great week...I start the countdown tomorrow...these days, I'm just glad to get through each day!

More Fishing Pics..

Dave took Owen out for a quick trip around Fire Lake yesterday.  Unfortunately, it was raining so hard and was so miserable by the time we got there, they lasted less than 10 minutes before I had a call to pick them up!  Dave was hoping to take Owen out to Willow after his nap, but, the rain only got heavier and Owen SO wasn't interested after his morning out.  Dave at least made up for his last round of bad pics with this one.  Owen loves to fish and takes it so seriously.  That boy can be so committed when it's something he loves, it's really funny.  We're working on starting him in hockey this October, but, after our trip to the rink on Wednesday, Owen doesn't want to skate any more because "the ice is too swippery".  He skated awesome and if we could just get him to stand up on his own (which he totally could do but chooses not to), he'd qualify for the team this year.  We're going to have to talk someone into going with us to get him motivated again or start lessons over.  I'm not real thrilled with that idea since it means racing home from work to get him suited up and on the ice twice a week.  Hope you all had a great weekend.  We're going to finish ours off with dinner for Uncle Doc's birthday.  Should be fun!

State Fair!

Dave managed to sneak out of work for a couple of hours and take Owen and I to the fair yesterday.  It was so nice to go on a day when there wasn't a huge crowd.  It was only the second day and during work/school got out, so, we could even walk down the paths without being elbow to elbow with people!  Of course, the weather sure didn't cooperate.  It varied from sprinkling to a light rain the whole time.  I was pretty soaked by the time we got back...I stepped in a puddle real early on and my feet were soaked through and my pants were wet about 6 inches up my leg!!  Dave and Owen seemed to make it home much dryer!  I'm not sure how that happened!

Owen has been talking about the Ferris Wheel for weeks!!!  So, it was our first stop after we arrived.  We finally have some relief now that it's out of his system!!

O.k., I look like a drown rat in this pic, but, I just love all the flowers and topiaries they have at the fair every year!

Usually the line is so crazy long, we don't even attempt going in the petting zoo.  But, this year, we didn't have to wait long at all!  Owen had a blast, they had ponies, goats, baby cows, and even little piglets.  Owen's favorite was the pigs, but they wouldn't hold still long enough to pet.  They were hilarious and would grunt and holler at him every time he touched them.

                                             

I think our favorite part of the whole fair (a close second is the food of course!!) is the barn animals.  This year, Owen was a lot more willing to walk up and pet them on his own.  There were a whole lot of really sweet goats.  I think I need one!  I told Dave they could hang out in the back and keep the lawn mowed (if we ever get it to grow!!).

                                           

Owen enjoyed the pony rides so much last year, we had to stop again this time.  He wasn't sure at first, but, his pony also had a bit of an attitude.  I liked him though, he was spunky! ;O)  After the owner come up and scolded him and patted him on the butt, he and Owen both settled in and Owen really enjoyed the rest of the ride.

Just one last picture on our way out.  That's Owen's new picture face.  I'm not so sure I'm thrilled about it!! ;O)
                                    

Willow Day!

This past weekend, we spent most of Sunday out at Mark and Lynne's new cabin on Rainbow Lake.   It is absolutely amazing out there and their "cabin" is really a beautiful three story house that a family was living in before they bought it.  Shawn and I are going to call it the "mansion on the lake"!  They even have two garages one's at least a two car and the other one looks like it was meant for a huge ocean boat or motorhome.  It's really an amazing piece of property!! 

The weather was absolutely amazing all day long too!  Dave and Geoff took owen fishing in Dave's new boat.  They were gone for hours, but, this is the best pic of the TWO Dave took!

Mark took Owen out for some jet skiing when they got back.  Owen told Mark to take him "swowy" but, then, Owen made him switch jet skis because the first one was too slow!  Owen has no idea how lucky he is!!

Of course, Owen was out cold before we could get out of the driveway practically!!  We headed back home around 5 and straight into the biggest rain storm I've ever seen up here.  The boat was so full of water by the time we got home that Dave and I had trouble unloading it!!  There was even a hail storm and lightning.  There was hail/snow all over the ground when we went through the main part of Wasilla. It was so crazy!!  We've had the strangest storms lately.  It's like a cloud burst, but with unbelievable volumes of water and lightning...we never get lightning and I've seen it three separate days this week alone!

I forgot about these...Dave picked the boat up Saturday afternoon and it was all we could do to get Owen back out of it.  He was so excited, he's wanted a boat all summer.  It even started to rain and he was whining about getting cold, but, wouldn't get out.  I'll bet he was in there more than an hour while Dave and I cleaned the garage!!

Hope you all have a great Friday and enjoy your weekend!!!

Yard and Dinos!

Thought I'd post these real quick and get them out of the way.

First up, the yard that is quickly becoming a never ending money pit....we hydroseeded on the 15th and are starting to see some growth...mainly mold/moss in the back though!!!  So much for the daily rain showers being an asset!  So frustrating!!!  Last night was the first time we watered back there since we put down the seed 11 days ago and it is just slimy back there!!!  I guess we're back to square one...

Here's the front, I still have high hopes for it.  We're starting to see some growth and I'm hoping we have a pretty thick cover by the time it freezes (we're probably just a couple weeks away now, its getting down below 45 pretty regularly during the night).

I was fascinated by this hydroseeder.  Considering the space it had to cover, it didn't seem like a very big operation.  No comments on our paint job on the fence!!!  We'll fix it eventually...   Our poor trees though!  Mom had them up against the house when we moved in and Dave dug them up and replanted them. They probably would have recovered fully had it not been for the moose that came through the following winter!  The one on the left is an apple and the one on the right is a lilac in case you can't tell! ;O)

Here's the way the back started out!!  It rained so hard that night and the following week that I thought it would wash it all away.  Its still there just pounded in the dirt and still wet!!!

Just a goofy shot of Dave doing his thing...

This is the one successful thing we did accomplish...the kennel!!  Let me tell you, our little Houdini (sp?) isn't getting out of this one!  We lined the whole thing with that landscape paper to keep the weeds out (so that they wouldn't grow up around the wire) and then stapled chicken wire to the 4x4s around the edges of the kennel.  The 4x4s are then screwed to the fence and the chicken wire which runs down the back of them and then onto the ground, was covered in about a foot of gravel (we may have bought too much!!).  If that doesn't stop him, we're going to go ahead and put the electric fence back in (its strung along those yellow posts) and of course, we upgraded that to the horse wire instead of just the dog wire.  He knows it if he hits that let me tell you...you can here him scream all of the way inside the house!!! The turd did however figure out how to flip up the gate closure and let himself out that way, so we have cinder blocks holding that closed.  Figures he'd find a weak spot!!  This took the most time out of everything by far!!!  Of course, shoveling wet gravel into a wheelbarrow after it's rained on it all night (making it like 10x heavier, I swear!!) tends to do draw out the process!!!!

Last Friday, we took Owen to see the Walking with Dinosaurs show that came to town.  I can't imagine how much it must have cost to get these things up here, they're huge!!  Owen loved it and so did we, although, it's definitely geared towards a slightly older audience.  I wasn't going to take any pictures, but, Owen was taking some with my camera and I decided I might as well share what he and I got.  I took my old camera with me which doesn't have night photo capabilities, so, these are kind of rough, but, you'll get the idea at least.

This flying dino (you'll have to ask Owen what it's called!) was dropped from the rafters and then they had video screens up (see upper right of photo) to rein-act what he looked like flying in his natural environment.  It was pretty cool!

The lighting was kind of funky, so most of our pics look like this one.

This one gives you an idea of the size of these bad boys...that's a grown man standing next to him.  You can also see the stand that these things moved on, Dave and I were fascinated by how they did it.  His legs moved to look like he was walking too, but he's definitely supported by the stand and that's what truly propelled him.  Even their eyes blinked though!!!

In my opinion, this T-Rex was the best one!  She was so loud!!!  To give you a little more perspective there are at least two sections of seats behind her and the light you see in the back, thats people standing above the lower mezzanine seats.  When she stood up all of the way, her head was as high as the first row in the second mezzanine.

These are pics just from the second half of the show, I didn't take pics of anything from the first half.  Owen had an absolute blast and wanted to go back the next day.  Although, the night after the show, you could tell he was totally overstimulated by the whole thing he kind of had a glazed look for a while and just did not act like himself!  It was pretty funny!

More Yard Work...A Little Less Rain

So, I think it rained all night and looked like it might rain any minute for the majority of the day, but, it gave us a break to finish our yard work and now looks almost like sunshine out there.  Of course, that would be because Dave is in the midst of finishing up hydroseeding the entire yard.  No doubt, it will be dry and in the 70's for the next two weeks...those of you local will know who to thank!!!  R.D. stopped by today and mentioned that we did in fact break the record for most consecutive days of rain at 28 days so far in Anchorage...I'm guessing it rained on into the morning this morning to put us at 29 and of course, the day is still young, there's 6 more hours of possible rain left in the day!!!  It's been absolutely miserable and made finishing this yard a nightmare.  We basically gave up and decided to just hydroseed what's here while the machine is free.  Everyone, please say a little prayer for us that this was a good choice!!

O.k., on to that kid of ours...he has worked his little heart out and not gotten a nap the last two days.  He's fallen asleep around 5 both evenings (in fact, he's still asleep now, I need to go get him up) absolutely exhausted.

Here's the proof...he finally conked out on the couch watching cartoons yesterday (and same for today).  He looks so innocent when he's sleeping, don't you think?  As if it's never crossed his mind to stuff a mirror up his nose!!! :O)

I wanted Dave to take us to dinner last night after we had given up in the yard, since there was no way I was cooking.  Unfortunately, Owen was so tired and crabby from no nap that we just ended up ordering pizza.  I did somehow find the energy to bake cookies (glad I did it last night, because it is all I can do to type this blog entry tonight!!!).  Owen helped after he woke up, he's so funny, his nose was so close I was worried it might get caught in the blender!!!

We picked up a few heavy duty yard tools in the spring, including this shovel.  I'm really glad now that we did.  Will left some that were all plastic behind for him, but, Max got to most of those.  This is a wagon that used to be Will's too.  They had some heavier duty kid's wheelbarrows earlier in the summer at Home Depot, had I realized that Owen had outgrown this one by so much, I would have grabbed it for him!

The size didn't phase him though, he took his job very seriously.  We had about a quarter of the dump truck left to do this morning, so, it was still over an hours worth of work to finish.

Doesn't he crack you up?  He kept telling Dave, "we have lots of work to do".  It was so funny!

He did finally loose interest in the rocks, so we set him up with a board full of nails to pound.  I think if he had a smaller hammer, he would have been more interested.  As it was, he preferred pulling the nails back out of the board instead of pounding them in!!

Alright, I am completely out of steam and my fingers really hurt!!  Hope you all have a great week.  I'll try to post some pics of the yard later this week.  Just figured, that you'd rather see this kiddo more!!

Rain, Rain, Go Away....

I can't find the exact statistics, but, I know Fairbanks had the second rainiest July in history this year and I believe if Anchorage didn't get the same, we at least got the record for the most consecutive days of rain.  It seems to me, we'll have even more records broken for the month of August!!!  Between rain clouds, Dave and I have desperately been trying to get a handle on our yard.  If all goes well, we'll hydro-seed tomorrow.  But, it isn't because we're truly ready to do it, we're just running out of time.  Shawn keeps reporting snow on the tops of the mountains...she's certainly not helping our stress levels any! ;O)  Regardless, we're definitely in for an early winter!  I'm honestly surprised we haven't had a freeze yet....this after some report on the news said global warming is providing Fairbanks with a longer growing season...I'd like to see the statistics on that!

Anyway, on to photos.  Dave rented a skid steer last weekend to finish up the heavy work.  We spent Saturday night in the ER waiting for xrays of the side view mirror Owen stuck up his nose...that's a post in of itself...so we didn't exactly get a head-start or have our hearts in it.  But, Dave worked his little heart out with the help of his co-pilot...

Daisy just cracks me up.  Both her and Max were terrified of the skid steer, but, as soon it was off, she laid down and took a nap in the shovel.  I tried to get a shot of that, but, she moved before I could get back with the camera.

We also had Duds and Elroy at some point last week.  Doesn't Dudley crack you up??  It doesn't matter where you sit, as soon as you get comfortable, you see that big ol' butt of his backing up to sit on you.  You'd think he'd have some sort of back-up siren on that rear!  He especially loves Dave for some reason and got off my lap to sit with him as soon as Dave looked settled.  We  just had them for one night, which, is probably just enough.  They are so hairy!!

This is just a shot of my goofy kid...I have no idea what the purpose of this pose was...he asked for the picture...he just cracks me up!!  Notice the lack of pants.  He spent a whole lot of the summer in the house because he refused to put his pants back on.  We'd be outside and after a while he'd go in to go to the bathroom or who knows what only to come back out with his rain boots on and without his pants.  He is such a strange one!!!

I thought this was such a cute shot of our little trouble maker.  Unfortunately, his face was COVERED in chocolate from an ice cream cone he had eaten before going out to play.  You have NO idea how much Photoshopping this took!!  Note the ground...picture this EVERYWHERE, so thick and tall, you can't see our 80 pound Daisy laying in the yard....it's all gone now!!!  Now if we could just get the grass to grow before the weeds have the chance to grow back!!!  Wish us luck!

Hope you are all having a great weekend.  We've still got a long weekend ahead of us.  Dave and I spent most of the day today shoveling a dump truck full of gravel and spreading it in the kennel, but, we still have more to move before we can bring in the hydroseeder.  I did manage to get a few more shots of Owen though and I will try to share those tomorrow if get the feeling back in my hands by then! ;O)

Air Show...

We spent the day at the air show this past weekend.  It was fun, but, the crowd was absolutely overwhelming.  It took us at least 30 minutes to get parked once we got on base and then the line to get your bags searched before you could enter was at least another hour...and, that's before it really got busy!!  I was so excited, but, this may be my last visit after this little experience.  It was worth it though, Owen loved absolutely every minute...you'd have thought we took him to Disney World!

In typical man fashion, Dave had my fancy new camera (I should have brought my old one too, so I could take pictures!!) and most of the over 150 photos he shot were of the planes.  But, I did manage to get it away from him long enough to get a few of Owen....

We couldn't get anywhere near the runways to watch the shows, so we sat way back on the tarmac and tried to at least see what was happening in the air.  Right before we left, we figured out that we would have had a far better view had we sat in the bed of the truck in the parking lot...live and learn!!  After we got back to the truck Owen turned to me and said, "Owen take the airplane home" referring to the Blue Angel we bought him and I told him that yes, it was his to keep.  He looked back at me and asked, "it's a toy"?  He's so funny.  I guess he thought it was the real deal up to that point.  I'm not sure if it's because the planes look so small in the air or the fact that the toy we bought was a lot nicer than his typical toy planes (it's really heavy weight metal).  He just cracks me up!  He's carried it around with him everywhere since!!

Owen LOVED walking through the aircraft they had available.  It was all we could do to keep up with him as he ran from one plane to the next!

This was a rare opportunity...Owen got to sit inside a tank, I sat with him and couldn't believe the lack of leg room.  Your knees, especially on a tall dude would touch the seats on the row across from you.  Not exactly a luxurious way to travel!

Owen hung in through the whole show, but was out in seconds after Dave started up the truck.  We headed over to Shawnie's for dinner and left him in the truck for well over an hour while we worked in the yard.

O.k., I guess I'll share a couple pics of airplanes....these are of the Canadian Snowbirds.  We tried to stick it out to see the Blue Angels, but, they performed over an hour late at the very end of the show and we'd already sat in the truck waiting for them for an hour and a half.  Plus, Owen and I were kind of done...I'd already had to pee in the parking lot between vehicles twice!!!!  Put some outhouses in the parking lot people!!!!

  

This is one of the F-22s that we watched from the parking lot.  Every time one of these flew over the vehicles, it set off a ton of sensitive car alarms....I'm willing to bet there was more than one dead battery out there by the time the show was over!!!

F-22s in formation...

I'm not sure what this big guy in front is, but, they did say it's really old, but still carries cargo for the military around the state.  I was surprised how low it could fly considering its size!  But, the really cool one is the little plane in the background.  I believe it is a Stinson (not sure which model) from WWI and is thought to be the last of its kind in flying condition.  

I have more pictures from my birthday dinner I'll share tomorrow!  Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!