Camping in Chitna, AK

This is the last part of our vacation trip in Alaska, for this time anyway. My dad had flew into Anchorage a few days before, but the main purpose of his trip here was to give salmon dipnetting a "go". So, we arranged and scheduled into the last leg of our trip with the Crandell family to leave Anchorage and go camping/fishing in Chitina for a weekend. The drive from Anchorage over to Glennallen is SO beautiful. This is a large glacier that is on the way.

When we got to Chitina, the men loaded their 4 wheelers, set up our big tent and were off! They went further up the river to a more narrow, and therefore more concentrated area with salmon over an hour away. Clayton and my dad shared a 4 wheeler, and Jonathan Crandell is on the other one. Good luck guys!

I love this picture. I think they are just a little excited!

After Mandi, her mom Laurie and I got camp the rest of the way set up, we took the kids down to the river to throw some rocks. We had pretty strict rules at camp because we were so close to the river, so this "allowed to throw rocks time" was a blast for them. Above: Jordynn, Hannah, Trayton and Kade is hiding behind him.

Weston and Kaiden

Weston

Kade, Trayton and Hannah

Kaiden

Hannah and Jordynn

Shortly after the rock throwing, we went for a walk up this side of the mountain. Hannah tripped and fell and as you can see turned the night into an ER visit.
I'm sure the night was just as long for Laurie with the rest of our 6 kids and it was for Hannah and Mandi and I. We all survived! And now this trip we will never forget!!

This is the morning after. Weston tied together several ropes he had found around the area to make a long "fishing line". The kids were all eager to go fishing off the bridge.

Weston, Kaiden, Trayton, Kade, and Jordynn. (Hannah was still in a drug indused coma! And baby Braylynn was sleeping soundly too!)

Hannah was not too happy when she got up. I think she was trying to decide if she still like Mandi or not.

Thanks to Jordynn, she chippered up fairly quickly and all was forgiven and forgotten!

After lunch, Laurie (Nana) did several science experiments with all of the kids. She is a science teacher at home and had brought really fun activities for the kids to do. The kids LOVED it! Jordynn is trying out the magnifying glass.

Braylynn, just being cute.

It was also Trayton's Birthday! After lunch we celebrated and sang to him and gave him a couple gifts too. I brought some fun styrofoam airplanes with launchers for all the boys to play with and we gave Trayton a much cooler and more sturdy version. Here they are playing with their planes....for hours!

Weston and Kaiden

Kade

Trayton - See, his is MUCH cooler! It's a rocket and launches pretty far!

Kaiden

Jordynn. Plane-less, but still having a good time!

Trayton got a book from his Nana for his Birthday. It was sooo cute, but predictable. Mandi started to read to Trayton amd soon after Jordynn climbed up on her lap too. Then Kade came over to listen, and then Weston and Kaiden too. By the time she finished the short story all 7 of the kids were crowded around Mandi and Trayton and the book. I love that our kids love reading and LOVE books! Such a treasured time in our house, it's fun that they got to have just a taste of that while they were camping too!

Dinner time! Roasting hotdogs and marshmallows! What more do you need when you go camping???

Kade, Mandi, Trayton, Kaiden, Jordynn (asleep in the chair), Hannah and Weston.

Soon after dinner, Clayton showed up on the 4 wheeler and said they had caught a TON of fish. He came to get the coolers and head back to their fishing spot so they could bring their load back. While we waited for them to come, we had the kids wash off in the freezing cold river water and get ready for bed. This is Kaiden, having a go at it.

Jordynn

Kade was a good sport. It took a lot of splashing himself to get all of the sticky marshmallows off. Afterwards, he told me his hands and cheeks were a little tingly (numb? poor guy)

Trayton's go at it. Nice and clean!

And then there Weston. He kept telling me he wasn't even that dirty! He did however WANT to wash off, he just didn't think it was necessary.

Luckily, we found him underneath all of that dirt!

I only have pictures of Jonathan's fish. This was the biggest catch of the trip, so its the one worth showing right? This is a King Salmon which you are only allowed to catch one per family. My dad actually caught ours for us (shhh, don't tell! Lucky guy!!) Clayton and my dad in total came home with 28 salmon and 1 king. Jonathan I think ended up with almost that same amount too! That, in weight just for our family, was over 200 lbs of fresh salmon! WHOO-HOO!!

Head wound #5 for Hannah

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
BLOOD BELOW
VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK


My poor baby girl. By the time she is 6 she is going ot be unrecognizable I am afraid. This is her 5th time busting her head open all in 18 months time. She kills me! Let me start off by saying that Hannah has some ridiculous balance and skill....no, I'm serious. She really does. BUT, when she falls, she forgets to use her hands sometimes(????)! I don't get it. How can I teach that? I don't even want to attempt teaching, our luck she'd forget again and we'd end up in the ER with a lot of explaining to do. Shouldn't that be, umm, I don't know, a REFLEX anyway?!! Good grief.

Well, either way while we were camping in Chitna with our friends, Clayton, my dad, and Jonathon (Mandi's husband) went salmon fishing an hour or so away from camp for 2 full days. Leaving Mandi, her mom, and I back at camp with our 7 kids. No biggie. I don't mind camping, and my kids love it! What can go wrong? Oh, why do I question things??? So, the first evening there, just after the men left a couple hours before, we decide to take the kids for a walk up a steep gravel road at 7pm. Hannah tripped about 70 yards up and forgot to use her hands again. (I wonder if she just doesn't want them to get dirty...hmm) So, naturally she used her forehead to catch her fall on a jagged rock. She of coarse started screamimg that "real hurt" cry and I knew it was bad. I was only a couple feet away from her so when she turned around holding her bloodstaining face, my instincts were confirmed. Here, I was provided an opportunity to be a "super mom", but instead I opened my mouth and said in a nice and whinny tone, "No Hannah. Not on your head..." Yep. Super DUD! I am awesome. Not that I didn't immediately rush to her aide and run down the hill holding her while applying pressure...I just could have at least asked if she was ok or something! Anyway, it made 2 separate cuts, both you could see the skull inside of. BLEH! So it was obvious that we were going to need some stitches and soon. We left Mandi's amazing mom Laurie (thank you), with the other 6 kids and took off to find help 2 HOURS AWAY!!!
The night was long and eventful. As we were driving to get there we realized that we had all of Mandi's kids stuff in her car. Their clothes, her babies diapers....you know, things that grandma will need. But it was too late then, poor Laurie. When we finally got to the Glennallen clinic we were the only people there and went right back. The doc's wanted her alseep so they could make it look as nice as possible, so they drugged her up a lot. She fell asleep over and over again, but everytime they would touch her she would immediately wake up. (Did I mention that she has had to go through this 4 other times. She knows what they are going to do, she isn't dumb.) So after several hours of getting her to sleep countless times, they finally gave up on that idea and decided just to burrito her in a blanket and force her still. (again, she knows the drill and no matter how much of the sleepy meds she had in her, Hannah gave them a run for their money!) Mandi got to do the blessed honors of straddling her and pinning her body down while Hannah bucked and bucked her (thank you, too!). It took the "mean Doctor Carl" over an hour to do her stitches, inside and out. But toward the end, there were a couple stitches that he just gave up on because Hannah wouldn't hold still any longer. So, he steri-stripped them and hoped for the best. Telling me, that this scarring isn't going to look pretty at all. He had tried his best, but maybe later on she could get plastic surgery done. Nice. Honestly, I think he did do a good job. He was very patient and loving, even while Hannah was screaming terrible and mean things to him.

When we got home, I scheduled an appointment with a plastic surgeon friend of ours in the ward to have him take a look and re-dress her wound. (There was no way I was taking those super sticky steri-strips off! I'd re-open it all back up or something.) Well, "Nicer, but still mean Dr. Shad" said it actually healed pretty good. He did take out the stitches and then super glued it (because of the couple spots of missing stiches) for better healing and better scarring too. He said for now plastic surgery is a no, but maybe when she is a teenager. Whew! I don't think she could handle going back to the doctors again for a while. Everyday, she asks me if she has to get any shots or pokes as it is, the poor thing. Not to mention, I might as well wait until this phase is over with her using her head to catch her falls. Get it all taken care of at once!

I do have a final picture with all of the super glue off and everything, but Clayton has my camera with him in Indonesia for a couple weeks so I will have to update this later. In a vain sort of way it's....ok. Like my friend Cindy said, "She can always just have bangs....". But otherwise, it suits her personality just fine. All I ask is PLEASE Hannah, use your hands!!!!!

Mayor's Marathon & Half Marathon in Anchorage

Sooo, where to begin.
In Alaska the summer solstice is a pretty big thing here being that the sun never sets, so they like to celebrate with running(??? Who does that?!). Well, Clayton and I are fools and accepted the challenge this year. Ok, really it isn't that bad. For the marathon coarse, you run 26.2 miles in the mountains and throughout the city on a fairly level coarse with some hills. Truly though it is scenic and just plain beautiful! Half marathon is not quite as awesome, because it is only 13.1 miles it doesn't go in the mountains at all, just through the city, but still scenic and still beautiful! So Clayton ran the full 26.2 and I ran the half. His race began at 8:00am and mine at 9:00, but they shared a finish line. This created a small problem. My last half marathon time was 2 hours and 19 minutes, and I was already starting an hour later than Clayton. Also, Clayton had a goal time of under 3 1/2 hours for his full marathon. I knew he could make his time, or even beat it. Me....I wanted to beat my old time for sure, but 2 hours is what I was really going for. Problem is, I hadn't been running/training for this AT ALL. I decided literally days before the race to do it. I knew I was in good shape, I have been working out regularly for a while now, but running is different. So be it! I still wanted to do it. I just couldn't let Clayton pass me before the finish line, there is just no way! So I had no choice but to "book it"! I really wanted to be there at the finish for him!

This is at the starting line with my good friend Mandi before the race. Nervous and totally afraid he was going to whoop me!
Me crossing the finish line!!! 2:00:09!!!! Are you kidding me?!?!?!

Whoo-Hoo!!!! I did it in 2 hours!!!!

And I got to see Clayton finish his race too! Here he is in the black coming around the bend.

And his finish time...3:29:42! That is crazy fast if you ask me. He took 42nd out of all the men, and finished 46th total out of over 1,200 runners. Needless to say, I am SO proud of him.

After our races, we were both feeling it. But, a picture had to be taken!

And one with all of us too. Casey and I made the kids' shirts. They were pre-made with My Dad ROCKS! 26.2 miles in ____. So quickly after he finished, I wrote in his time before we met up with him. It was pretty cute. The kids were so pround of him too, they love their shirts and loved showing them off to the other runners.

All-in-all, it was a good time. I am glad we got to do that together. I love having good physical health and a strong body and I am so grateful that he and I can do things like this together! I hope we have another 30 years of this!

Weston's photography skills

7 year old + moms camera + 2 guinea pigs = some goofy moments!

Oh, I love what I find every now and then when I scroll back through my images! Lots of times it is just a bunch of toys or lego creations or a random shoe, but every once in a while I'll find a good gem. I thought these pics were just too cute. Thanks Weston :)