Celebrating 10 Years!

Lem and I celebrated the weekend of our 10th anniversary, thanks to Nanny and Papa, kid-free :) I got dressed up in my wedding dress (because sometimes, if you can, you just have to!) and we shot some photos out at Kincaid Park where we got married.

Every year Lem's gotten me a turtle something or other for an anniversary present, a tradition he started our very first year of marriage. This year, after the loss of our beloved Mabel this spring, he decided to get me the real deal. Alice, as we named her, was waiting in an aquarium downstairs when I came down ready for our date. She's a redfoot tortoise and she's tiny and so adorable.

It was a beautiful sunny evening and we followed up our photoshoot with a carriage ride downtown. We rode in the same carriage that drove us away on our wedding day. We soaked up the gorgeous Alaskan late night sunshine and had some chocolate and champagne as we took in the inlet view and toured dowtown. After our carriage ride I changed out of my dress and we had dinner at the Brewhouse, and got some on-the-house peanut butter pie to go.

The next morning, on our actual anniversary, we had breakfast at Village Inn and headed down the highway to Whittier for the night. We checked into our room with a beautiful ocean view. A cruise ship was docked right outside our window so we enjoyed watching folks getting on board and got to watch them pull out of port while we ate dinner, which was pretty delicious. We walked the harbor shops that afternoon and picked up some locally made fudge for dessert.

4th of July

We made our maiden tent camping voyage with the girls this 4th of July weekend. We hit the road Friday morning and headed to Homer for a long weekend. The Gibsons were heading down the highway right along with us, in their motorhome so we met up and a great park in Soldotna for playtime and lunch.

We made the rest of the drive to Homer and staked out a campsite on the beach on the spit. Mountains, ocean, eagles, can't much beat that for family camping! Lem and I (with Ella's assistance) set to work putting up our huge 20'x12' three room tent. It didn't take long at all, and within an hour our tent was up, filled with our mattresses and sleeping bags, duffel bags, stove, picnic table, cooler and chairs set up near the campfire and camping was in full swing.

My dad and Kate stopped by and dropped off some wood for us on their way to their anniversary dinner and stopped back by again on their way home to share some of their delicious halibut leftovers. We rustled up some dinner and roasted a few marshmallows. Then we set to trying to convince our girls to go to sleep surrounded by daylight and a bustle of campground activity. It took a long time, but eventually they both settled in for a good night's rest. Lem and I woke to pouring rain in the middle of the night and inspected for any leaky areas, and were thrilled to find we were keeping dry in our "lodge." I reflected that if we were fairing okay with pouring rain and girls up late then we'd likely hurdled the worst of our camping obstacles.

Saturday brought more rain, though it didn't slow the girls down much. They went on walks and played on the beach and at the campsite most of the morning. Around lunchtime we headed to my dad's had some lunch and hung out for the afternoon with him and Kate while Ella napped. Sycely wasted no time requesting a ride a the 4 wheeler so her (decked head to toe in rain gear)and Grandpa set to "breaking trail" while his dog Mays perches on the back of the 4 wheeler. Of course, my dad wouldn't let me get away with chickening out and took me out for my first ride. He drove around the yard a few times, showing me the ropes, then set me lose to give it a shot on my own. I was surprised how much fun I had, though maneuvering the backyard's looping path was a little tough on my arms with the tight steering.

The rain let up and the sun broke through and Dad and Kate headed down to our campsite with us and we roasted up some hotdogs, corn on the cob and beans for dinner. Somehow, Kate had never made a s'more in her life so of course, we fixed that doing it up with jumbo marshmallows and Reese's peanut butter cups! Sycely got in some more rides on the 4 wheeler on the beach, the steering here much for me.
Sunday we had breakfast at Duncan House, our old standby favorite. We met back at the campsite to visit with the Gibson's and our friends, the Barths who relocated to Homer this year. After we spent some time with them we hit a new local bakery for afternoon treats. Dad took Mays for a run while Lem manned the girls on the beach so Kate and I could do some shopping on the Spit. For dinner we grilled up some fresh caught salmon and salad fresh-picked from Kate's back deck garden planters. After dinner we took the girl's for ice cream and hit the sack, prepping for a busy, fun filled 4th of July.

On 4th of July we spent most of the day with my dad and Kate. I took the girls for a long walk at the harbor that morning where we spotted tons of seastars, fish and barnacles and of course eagles. We took the girls to play at one of the local parks for awhile. They had fun swinging, especially on the tire swings. We had lunch and spent the afternoon visiting with Dad and Kate until it was time to head to the much anticipated Homer parade! Now, we've seen the Homer 4th of July parade before and it's always a hoot so we were looking forward to some free entertainment. The girls had a lot of fun collecting candy and other goodies tossed out to the crowd. Ella's favorite was the groomer who'd painted poodles with red and blue stars stenciled on their fur. The Barths were promoting their new State Farm office in their spiffy truck and the girls got a kick out of their friends tossing candy out to them.


For dinner we had some famous Fat Olives pizza-their giant pizza's are so big they barely fit in most cars! We settled in for our last night camping in Homer, sleep delayed by several hours of raucous fireworks and other shenanigans. We woke up in the morning, had some breakfast at our campsite and began packing up. We hit the road and were home in time to get unpacked and showered in time for Sycely to get to ballet class.

June

Oh, June...where did you go?! This month went by CRAZY fast, but it was full of great memories and family fun so we can't complain too much. We had several bbqs with family and friends, roasting hotdogs and marshmallows on the backyard firepit. We've had birthday parties and bridal showers. We even had a baby moose arrive in our next door neighbor's yard! Grandma and Paul have been here all month so we got to see lots of them and spent alot of time with the rest of the family as well. Lem's softball season is in full swing, including a weekend tournament on one of our sunniest summer weekends. It was so fun sitting around with the Gibson's, Julie and I with our coolers and snacks, the kids relishing the long stretch of time to play together outside in the dirt and sunshine. We spent the rest of that weekend (Father's Day) our at Uncle Gary and Aunt Lynda's with the extended family, camping out in their motorhome and enjoying lots of yummy food and family fellowship.

Big exciting news this month is our decision to buy a new vehicle. We are now the (very) proud owners of a 2008 Toyota Sienna. If you're thinking...isn't that like a mini-van? You are right, but it's more like a stretch luxury vehicle. It's got a DVD player with wireless headphones, a back-up camera, navigation system, voice activated phone system through bluetoothing with our cells, leather, heated seats that do all kinds of crazy configurations for more storage or more passenger capabilities, 4 CD changer, a sunroof and all kinds of other fancy features that are sooo super nice for our family, but our favorite is the "auto-magic doors" as Ella calls them. They open at the touch of a button on your key chain so they're ready for loading up kiddos when you arrive at your car, from the grocery store, for instance! It's beautiful, comfortable, spacious and a great fit for us so far!

We've been on some picnics at the playground, to Bouncin' Bears for inflatable family fun, done gardening, cooking, science and art projects, trips to the pet store and Tastee Freez and lots of other fun things. Lem taught summer school for 14 days. This year they offered full day classes for 3 weeks (and then a 2nd session later) rather than the usual 1/2 day classes for 6 weeks, Lem teaching 2 classes per day. So, he was done with his in person teaching in just three weeks of school! He's still teaching two online classes but it's been so great to have him home extra time this summer to enjoy fun with me and the girls.

My cousin Danny went to California for a wedding and took his two oldest daughters with him. I watched his youngest, 3 year old Scarlett, for the week. It was Lem's last week of summer school so the girls and I did lots of fun stuff to pass the time, and having an extra kiddo in the house helped keep our days full and time passing quickly. We made muffins, decorated canvas bags, went on a field trip to the pet store, did painting and tons of other fun stuff together.

Sycely's doing a 6 week summer session at ballet. One of her Sunday School classmates is in her class so it's been fun getting to know her and her family better at the studio and at church. There are only 4 girls in her summer class and Sycely's the only one with any dance experience so the first class Miss Theresa had Sycely be her assistant and help demonstrate at the front of the class. Sycely was just tickled and felt like such an accomplished ballerina getting to help teach the class.

I took on a new skating student for the summer that I'm teaching 3 times a week. Chloe is 11 years old and is from France. She's here visiting her grandparents for the summer and so far we're having a really great time working together. She's super sweet and her English is fluent (thankfully, because my french sure is not!) with only a hint of an accent and though the maneuvers have different names in french, we aren't having any problems communicating at all. I do throw in a little french vocab here and there just to keep her laughing ;) I really wish she was going to be here longer so I could keep enjoying her company!

We had some special visitors this month. Our dear friends, the Johanneses came up for a couple weeks from Minnesota. Audrey and Erin were both in my pre-school class when I taught at Providence. Erin was Ella's age when I first met their family. They weren't just students, though. Lem and I babysat them regularly and grew close to their family, celebrating birthdays and going to the fair together. They moved to Minnesota (sadly for us) in 2004 and we've kept in touch with them since, watching (from afar) their girls growing up, sharing all our life developments via email, Christmas cards, blogging and facebook. It's been 7 years since we've seen the girls and they sure have grown! They may be growing up but they are still their same ol' selves that we fell in love with when they were pre-schoolers. The whole family came over for taco dinner and we had so much fun playing, reminiscing, catching up and making some great, laughter-filled memories.

Lem and I also celebrated our 10 year anniversary this month, but come on folks, it's 10 years, that's a big deal...of course it gets its own blog entry! ;)