Out of the Mouth's of Babes

Just wanted to share a couple of the cute things the kids are saying.

We are blessed to spend lots of time with friends and their kids. When we leave, I generally say "Bye guys" while waving to all the kids. On Friday, we had been playing with our friends and I said my normal "Bye guys." While putting Payton in her carseat, she was excitedly waving and saying, "Bye duys, bye duys, bye duys!" So cute.....

Payton is also starting to mimick the way I sit on the floor to play with her, trying to lean on her hand exactly like I do. :)

Driving home yesterday, it got quite in the car for a moment. We were driving by some new hydroseeded grass and Preston said, "Mom, are they making grass all over the Urth (Earth)?" I explained that they had made this new road and were making the sides look pretty by planting grass. Another moment of silence, then, "Mom, why does God give them Urth a big dwink of water when the Urth doesn't have a mouth?"

I love the innocense of a child! :)

Catching Up

I know it's been awhile since I've posted, so this is just a catch-up post. We are doing well, just very busy. Darron is desperately trying to finish up a Master's Program by Oct. 15th. He still has one test and four papers to write, so he is spending most of his extra time studying. That means, the kids and I are spending our time together and trying to leave D alone! :)

It is definatley Fall time in Alaska. The leaves are all golden and falling from the trees. The temps are in the 40's during the day and 30's at night. "Termination dust" has hit the mountains. This is the first snowfall that starts at the tops of the mountains and slowly works its way down to us in the town....therefore, it is slowly "terminating" our summer and Fall.

The kids are both doing great, growing like weeds. Preston is getting so tall and we're continuing to work on expressing our frustrations without major fits....the joys of a 3 1/2 year old! He is surrounded with wonderful friends and has a group of about 4 little boys is "hangs with" on a regular basis. Here's a great smile from my big boy!


Darron went Halibut fishing this summer with some of his buddies. They had a great trip and came back with a lot of fish for the freezer. This was D's biggest catch of the day...about 70 lbs!

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Payton is also doing great, growing up so quickly! She is such a momma's girl and I LOVE it! She is so happy (most of the time) and always smiling and laughing. She is learning so many words and tries to repeat everything we say. Her favorite thing to say right now is "no, no" while shaking her head....this is her general response to anything we ask her.

Preston and Payton love each other (for the most part) and their favorite thing to do together is wrestle and tackle. Usually, it's Payton taking her brother down. A few tears are shed if it gets out of hand, but most of the time the tackle sessions are full of laughter! It's so cute to watch!

Pres and Payton also love trying new things together...like Preston pulling Payton in a miniature red wagon around the living room! I think her toppling over was the funniest part for both of them. :)



These pictures are obviously out of order but here is Darron and his buddies with all of their fish....halibut, sea bass, link cod, and a red snapper!

And last, but certianly not least, the beginning of our summer was filled with putting in a backyard...a three year long project has finally come to life! When we bought this house 5 years ago, the backyard was mainly dirt, little grass. Over the years, the little grass became all dirt. We have spent the last two summers putting up fences so Maverick, our dog, would have his own area. We also had to take down old decks and make a deck for our hot tub (a big $200 purchase from Craigslist). Then, we had to move sheds, level out the yard, bring in 2 dump loads of topsoil, and spread it all. Finally, the hydroseed. I had pics of the entire process, but can't locate them now. However, this is the finished product! Complete with a hamock, an outdoor firepit, a box for a veggie garden next year, a trampoline, and a fort/slide/sandbox for the kids. We LOVE our backyard!! Thank you to my main man for working so hard to give our kids such a great place to play!

Well, that's our mid-summer/Fall catch-up. Now it's getting colder, my hockey season has started (yep, I play hockey with my girlfriends!), school is going, and we are beginning to hibernate for the long, cold winter!

Hope you all are doing well and thanks for checking in on our family. Leave us a comment and let us know how you are!

Aching Heart

Tonight, I had the honor to go to a Celebration of Life for a sweet little four year old named Hannah. I first met Hannah a year ago when her older sister, Katie, was one of my fifth grade students. During Parent-Teacher Conferences in November, Katie's mom told me she would be traveling out of state for her younger daughter, Hannah. I asked a little about what was going on and little did I know that was the beginning of a year of prayer and thankfulness over this special little girl.

When Mrs. Kingsley was pregnant with Hannah, they discovered by ultrasounds that she had some heart defects. She wasn't suppose to live through birth, but that was the first miracle God performed in this little girl and families life. Hannah was born with Congestive Heart Failure and at just 8 days old she had her first heart surgery. The doctors told the Kingsley family that she would most likely need a heart transplant at some point in her life, and they were amazed she had even lived this long.

During her 4 years and 9 months of life, Hannah lived through 5 major surgeries and countless procedures. Just over a week ago, Hannah got sick and it began to turn into pneumonia. Her little heart finally gave out and she had congestive heart failure and passed away on August 28th. Although the family knew that each day was a blessing they weren't suppose to have with Hannah, they thought and hoped they would have many more years with her.

From the time I met Mrs. Kingsley a year ago, we have both been very open about our faith in the Lord. I have had numerous conversations with her and have prayed through the most recent surgery this past January for Hannah. The Kingsley family is, and has been, an incredible witness for the Lord. Little Hannah loved the Lord with all her heart and wasn't ashamed to tell people of the love of Jesus. Mr and Mrs. Kingsley have always thanked God for sharing HIS little Hannah with them for the 4 years they had, thanking Him for each added day. They have not been asking "why us" but, instead, have known that Hannah was HIS and they were blessed by her life and are thankful the Lord took her to be with Him, healthy and pain free.

My heart is aching tonight for the Kingsley family. As a mother, I can't imagine watching my child go through so many procedure and surgeries, many of which were very painful. I can't imagine watching my baby be sick and fragile. And I can't imagine saying my goodbye's for the last time on Earth. I came home tonight and just held my "baby" Preston and cried over him. I am so thankful for my two beautiful, healthy children.

Please join me in lifting the Kingsley family up in your prayers: Gary, Brenda, Meagan (19), Ryan (12), Katie (10) and Zachary (2). And if you have children, be sure to love on them and give them extra hugs and kisses.

May the Kingsley family continue to be a great witness for the Lord and an encouragement to you and I.

You know you live in Alaska when....

You go fishing only to see this bear!

Do you see the black bear in the trees? Well, we didn't....until we were about 5 feet away from it! It was an incredibly amazing, and bit frightening experience!

We had just walked up on the boardwalk of the river after fishing all day. We had walked about 6 or so steps when Darron suddenly jumped back yelling "BEAR!" We all looked to the side and saw this beauty watching us from the trees. We see bear at the river all the time, but generally IN the river...not on the Boardwalk. With guns in tow, we were able to safely walk past her with no problems.

I guess we had been fairly warned by this sign! :)


This is the Kenai River, about 2 hours south of Anchorage. This is our favorite fishing hole. When the salmon are "running" we generally catch them here, along with everyone else as you can see. Believe it or not, this was not a crowded day. When the fish are really hot, it's literally almost shoulder to shoulder fishing. Some might say it's not fun to be that packed in, but as long as there is a fighting salmon at the end of my pole, I have a blast!

And here are our trusty men filleting all the fish we caught! The limit on red salmon is three a day. Darron can catch a fish in a mud puddle, so he always limits out. I had actually caught about 5 this trip, but only 1 was legal....the rest were either "snagged" in the tail or head, or got off right as I was about to have it to the shore. Oh well.

We try and make it to the Kenai River a couple of times each summer to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL river and mountains, along with good friends and fun fishing. This was our trip last Monday....Darron played hookey from work and we went for the day with Craig and Becca. We had a GREAT day, saw 4 bear total, and came home with 3 salmon each for the freezer.

I'm about to put my on the smoker now....

I truly love living in Alaska and all the adventures it has to offer....I just wish my family lived here with me!

Washington DC Trip

I always forget this uploads pictures backwards, so my trip is a little out of order. Oh well.

I left late Thursday night, July 9th for Washington DC/Virginia and was gone until July 19th....almost 10 days! Earlier this year my teaching partner, Valerie, and I were accepted to the We The People Institute at James Madison University in Virginia. We applied with over 100 other people and we were one of 45 to be chosen. Our trip was all expenses paid....airfair, food, lodging, etc. We were so excited! We were in lectures/groups all day, everyday and we had some homework to do each night. We were learning about the Constitution and its history and how to teach about it in our classrooms. Although I am not a history nut, this conference was AWESOME!

We were each put into group of 5 or 6 for the week with a mentor. THis is my group: me, Joan, Karen, Angela, and Julie. Bernard was our mentor. He was definately the BEST! We had to prepare all week for a Simulated Congressional Hearing in which we had to, as a team, give a six minute prepared speech answering specific questions about the Constitution. Then a panel of judges would have four minutes to ask us follow-up questions. This is my team at our Congressional Hearing. It was fun to show off all we had been learning.
We stayed at James Madison University (Father of the Constitution). We lived in the dorms and ate in their cafeteria. The food was actually outstanding! We each had our own room and we had one bathroom mate. My bathroom mate was a girl named Kelly from Ohio. We spent a lot of time together and got along great.

One of my closest friends from ACU, Amy, lives about 45 minutes from JMU. She and her little boy Charlie drove down to take me to dinner one night. It was SO GOOD getting to catch up in person. Thanks to our blogs, I felt like we hadn't missed a beat with each other. That night was definately a highlight of the trip for me. Her little three year old boy took this picture of us....impressive! :)

This was Gifford Hall, the dorm we stayed in. Beatiful on the outside, decent on the inside!

Valerie and I flew into DC about two days before our conference started so we could tour all of the major monuments. We didn't have time for any of the museums, but we were going all day and night to capture the monuments. This is this Vietnam Memorial....very somber and humbling.

We made it to the Arlington National Cemetary and we were able to see a Changing of the Guards...awesome experience. It's incredible to try and take this all in. It makes me very proud to be an American and so thankful for the thousands that have given their lives for our country and our freedom.

The Washington Monument. We actually got to ride the elevator to the top of this and lookout! I guess they only give out so many tickets for the day at like 8 in the morning. We made it to this monument at 8 at night and were asking about it. A younger teenager was working the line and we played the "we're teachers from Alaska" card, and he let us slip in the line with no tickets!! It was so cool! And by the way, the neon green sticker on my shirt was for the trolley we were riding, not a new fashion statement! :)

I flew all night and landed about noon on Friday. By 3 pm we were off and going...first stop, our Alaska State Senators office. One of our senators, Mark Begich, was at his office between meetings. This sign is at his office door. His staff told him we were in from Alaska and we were teachers and he told them to send us in. He visited with us briefly and took some pictures with us. :)

Excuse the windblown, stuck to the side of my head, hair. This is in front of the Capitol building (obviously). We did go inside, but we didn't want to take the long tour....too much to do. Here's a cool fact: the Senator's have their own office building to the right and the Representatives are in their own office building to the left. Each building is connected to the Capitol by an underground tunnel that has it's own trolley for the Congressman. And yes, I got to ride the trolley with our Senator's staff member. How cool is that!

While in DC, Valerie and I stayed in a hotel that was about two blocks from a metro station. We took the metro (like a subway) every where we went. By the end of our two days, we were metro PRO'S! It was actually very clean and a pretty cheap, cool way to travel. We had fun and we were proud of ourselves for figuring it all out so quickly.

I had a terrific time on my trip and I missed my family greatly! My heart actually ached for my children by the fourth day, but I tried to fully enjoy my trip. Darron was fabulous with the kids and encouraged me to enjoy myself and to not worry about them. I do think he missed me though because when I got home he had reorganized/cleaned the laundry room, the house was spotless, he had bought a new comforter set for our bed and he had written about 20 little notes and left them all over the house for me. So sweet! I told him if he wasn't careful, I'd go out of town more often! :)