Someone get this kid a haircut!

While Chelon was in Utah I had to work from home a few of the days. Today I had several conference calls and it was getting hard to keep him entertained while I was on the calls. So I decided to take him out to the tramp to hopefully wear him down for a nap before my next meeting. The minute he came in contact with the tramp the hair started standing on end. If you turn up the volume a bit, at one point you can hear the static electricity crackle.

to bathe or not to bathe...

Gabe took a bath with Olivia...and this is what we got!

too many bubbles? i don't think so!!

Happy Birthday Kassadi!! Beautiful 9!

Kassadi is 9! I can't believe it. She is such a beautiful, kind and sweet girl. We were supposed to have her big birthday party last year (because I am not one to do b-day parties every year) but because we were moving and she didn't know a lot of girls, we decided to wait until this year. I called around to several different places to check on pricing for birthday parties. I couldn't find anywhere (that Kassadi wanted to go) that cost less than $25 a girl. CRAZY! So Kassadi and I decided that we could do a fun party at home.

We "I" made really ugly but really yummy cupcakes! Gabe loved the batter. Kassadi doesn't like store bought cakes so she asked me to make one. Note to self...butter recipe does not make pretty cupcakes! After I frosted them they looked a bit better. But not much!

We decided to do fun boards that the girls could hang up in their room. The girls had so much fun painting their boards. I think that they each got 20 coats of paint...some did several different color mixes too! I had to stay away with my hands tied behind my back. I so badly wanted to help these girls paint!! But I knew that it would mean so much more if they did them all by themselves! They turned out darling too!

Of course she had to have a Hannah Montana pinata...that was fun and crazy too! I thought for sure someone would get hit in the head. We couldn't find a bat so we uses a copper pipe!!! The girls loved it though. Kyle was at the top of the railing pulling the pinata up and down to make sure that all 13 girls were able to hit it a couple of times. We did away with the blindfold because that was taking forever!

All in all, the party turned out great and Sass said that it was the best birthday ever. She got lots of great presents...lots of webkins, money, cute crafts, cute clothes, Polly Pockets, Hannah Montana stuff, etc. So the huge mess was worth all of the stress and all of the smiles!

Thanks girls for making Kassadi's birthday so special.

They're BACK!! Alaska 2008

Alaskan Cruise (typed by Steve)

*I know that this looks like a ton of pictures...maybe because it is! But I told Steve to take a lot of pictures and he took almost 600! So I had plenty to choose from. I uploaded all of the pics and I made Steve do all of the typing. I told him that he was responsible for our online journal too! So sit back ENJOY the "slide show" or just don't look at all :) !!

Mt. Rainier from the air as we flew into Seattle .

Our little row boat, the MS Oosterdam.

Boarding Saturday afternoon. Kyle with Papa Curt.

This was the drill that everyone has to participate in before we sail. I struggled to get the life jacket over Kyle's head so I mockingly pounded on it with my fists. Little did I know that was being recorded and ended up on the cruise video! Later it was removed. I assume it was because it could look bad to people without the context.

Seattle

Sailing into Puget Sound.

Our suite. I had to share this with Chad but it was worth it. Just kidding Chad, we had fun.

Formal night, I was so sea sick (the boat was really rocking, the table manager told me it was because there were too many honeymooners on the port side) but I hung in there long enough to eat some crab and then I went to bed.

The first port was Juneau. This is were we took a flight in a sea plane over glaciers back to a cabin on a lake. I don't have the words to describe it.

At the cabin we ate the most outstanding salmon I have ever tasted. It was glazed and smoked over alder wood and charred on one side. I'll never eat fish again because it will just be a let down.

Kyle, Steven, Brooke and I were in the woods earlier and we saw this bear. We threw all caution to the wind and violated every rule when dealing bears and we silently tried to track it so we could get close enough for a picture. We lost sight and as we came out of the woods we saw everyone standing around this tree. They waved us over and here was the bear. It had come out of the woods and the cabin dogs treed it. So we stood 25 feet away from this tree and took a hundred pictures of the same shot. It was very cool to see this bear up in the tree just hanging out.

Making room for more food

Kyle's ping pong buddies.

Hubbard glacier. We saw the ice calve many times. I happened to catch this one on the splash.

In Alaska, it's important to keep the twig and berries warm.

The pictures above were all taken in Sitka while on the wildlife tour. There were many bald eagles in the trees and we were able to view them up close with binoculars. It was cool to see so many of these grand birds. The whales in this area are frequent but we were told that to see the whales breach like they were is a special occasion because it doesn't happen often. One whale in particular put on quite a show.

Next stop was Ketchikan. After walking around the town we headed over to a lumberjack show. The show had the audience divided in half with each half rooting for one of two teams of lumberjacks who competed in different events. Each time a team won they would grab a wood chip and give it to an audience member of the group cheering for that team, one was given to Kyle and he got it signed by all four lumberjacks. The show was fun as they added in lots of banter between the teams as they compteted and this often included the audience jeering each other too.

Kyle tries escargot which is snail. He didn't like it!

This is supposed to be the tallest totem (200+ feet) pole in North America according to our tour guide who was showing us around Victoria.