Klutina

It didn't take too much convincing to get Brigg out on one more fishing trip before the baby comes! Last Monday he went down to the Klutina with my Dad and caught his first king salmon. Even though the boys missed him, they didn't mind as much as when he is at work. The whole day he was gone, every time they had to say a prayer they both said, " Thank you that Daddy can catch a big fish." I guess the next best thing to going fishing yourself is to have your dad go! Now we just have too see how Stratton does catching his own big fish this year in Valdez.

My Little Lost Boys

I am so glad that we live where we do. I love being able to send the boys out to play every day and I love looking out to find them hard at work at a project or adventure in the woods. Just the other day I asked Dash what he was doing and he said, " Don't worry Mom. I'm just exploring." The best answer I could get from my 2 year old!

Teklankika

Just a week after Brigg went biking in Denali, we went down to camp at Teklanika for 3 nights over the 4th of July weekend. We had a great time and it brought back lots of memories of camping there as a kid for me. We even introduced the boys to flying kites down on the river bed, just like I used to do when I was little. Stratton did a great job with his kite all by himself.

Dashell still needs a little more supervision, but thought that letting the line roll out was hilarious!

Stratton taking his Dad for a hike in the backpack. The boys were ready and willing for any hike or expedition we could come up with while we were there, although I think having older cousins there, too helped.

Stratton by the Toklat River making a funny face. He loved the day we rode the bus into the park and turned out to be quite a wildlife spotter! He has mastered binoculars and could even find the animals through them. Considering that I still sometimes find myself looking at the bush 5 feet away instead of the animal, I was quite impressed. His attention to detail can be handy for some things!

Dashell at the Toklat River. We all spent most of the weekend looking about like him- head to toe raingear and a fair share of mud. But we still had a great time and the boys didn't seem to mind the wet weather too much. They seem to take to camping completely naturally, much to our relief. They're going to be doing alot of it! On the other hand, although I still love camping, I'm not sure that I will ever take naturally to camping 8 months pregnant- I had to make sure no one was watching whenever I got in or out of the tent becuase it was AWKWARD. But this baby has to be broken in sometime, why not in utero? And really, other than negotiating the tent door, it wasn't so bad. But maybe I was just ready to get out and do something! Next year I want to be able to go with Brigg on all the adventures instead of sending him out while I expand at home.

More Soccer and Denali Bike Ride

I know this picture is out of focus, but I love how excited Stratton looks in it. Soccer has continued to be very exciting for Stratton, although I don't think he will ever be too aggressive. Lately he has been asking when he can learn to be a goalie so he can still play with a little more distance from some of the elbows and wild 4 year old kicks.

The beginning of teamwork always seems to involve a whole lot of tripping each other!

Aroung the solstice, Brigg went down to Denali and biked out from Eielson through the night with Neal and my Dad. They had a great time and I think that Brigg will be back again to do it next year, even if it took him days to catch up on his sleep!

Olnes Pond and the Musk Ox Farm

Just like last summer, I have not done a very good job of keeping up with our busy days this summer. Since life is about to get even busier in a week or so with the addition of another little Neibaur, I thought I better put down at least a few things we've done.

Stratton tries out a caribou antler at the musk ox farm. He liked the baby musk oxen the best, but they never got too close to where we were.

Dashell and Stratton think that qiviut is pretty cuddly.

We went to Olnes Pond one night to roast hot dogs and play and the boys got right into it. Both of them ended up riding home in their skivvies because they both ended up soaked, head to toe. I'm sure that is hard to imagine checking out these pictures and where their dump trucks chose to work.

All this summer time play is exhausting! Or maybe it is just sharing a room with your older brother that you can tease all night long. Hard to tell.

Riding with Stratton

Today I finally decided it was time to write down a typical car ride with Stratton so that when he is older he can understand what it was like to have him as a child. All of these questions were asked in the course of driving home from his swimming lesson today, so maybe 15 minutes total.
Why does doing my arms slower make me go faster?
Why was that little girl crying instead of swimming?
Where is that truck going?
Why are there cones on the road?
Why are they fixing the road?
How do roads get broken?
How do they fix roads?
Why are bulldozers and graders yellow?
Why is that grader green?
Can heavy equipment be red?
Can it be brown?
Can it be white?
Why is Daddy at work?
Why is Daddy a dentist?
Why do so many bears live in Alaska?
Why is it a good habitat for bears?
How can it be a good habitat for bears when there isn't any honey? (We favor the Winnie the Pooh interpretation of bears, apparently)
What do bears eat?
What kind of bears eat honey?
What kind of bear did we see in Denali?
Why do they eat blueberries?
Do they eat our blueberries in our blueberry patch?
Why do they eat ground squirrels?
Don't ground squirrels taste bad?
How long will you be at the post office with the baby? (One of his classic questions that make no sense at all....eventually I figured out he meant how long would I be at the hospital when I have the baby)
When will the baby come?
How will the baby come?
What day exactly will the baby come?
Why do you have to go to the hospital for the baby?
Why do we go to Grandma's when the baby is born?
When we had Cassidy and she jumped out of the truck did we have to go back and look for her? (This questions is referring to Brigg's and my first dog and an incident that happened over a year before Stratton was even born)
Why did she jump out?
Why did her leg get hurt?
What did it hit that hurt it?
Did it get better?
Why does the newspaper come in the morning and the mail come in the afternoon?
What are we going to do this afternoon?
At that point, we FINALLY pulled into the garage. I love my child who is dying to know everything about the world, but the constant onslaught of questions can be exhausting, especially since he seems to have inherited my own random trains of thought. I have no idea how I will answer them all as he gets older, and Dash asks almost as many. But at least now I have written down a single 15 minute period of his questions so that he will understand why his mom went deaf by his 7th birthday.