The Finger Store

This morning I was driving Stratton to preschool when he let me have another peek at how his little brain works. Some of you may know that my mom lost her ring finger last year in a wood splitting accident. Stratton has just recognized this over the last week and has told me 100 times about how Grandma lost her finger to the wood splitter. This morning, he was telling me again about how Grandma lost her finger. Then he said, " She should probably get a new one." I told him it would be nice if she could. After being quiet for a second he said. " But I don't think there are any finger stores. So she can't. That's too bad." I loved his idea for a finger store, but I don't think we'll see them popping up anytime too soon.

Starting Young

Stratton is an unbelievable 4 years old and has been growing up so fast lately. He has been saying some of our family prayers lately, and we have started doing a job chart for him each week to earn an allowance. Every Sunday night he gets his allowance, and we talk about tithing and put some of it into his tithing envelope. This morning he was saying morning prayers and at the very end he said " Thank you for paying my taxes." Brigg and I started laughing so hard. Who knew that 4 year olds had such weighty financial matters on their minds? We asked him if he meant tithing, and he got red and giggled, so I don't really think he's worried about his taxes, but it made us laugh.

Be a Good One

I came across a quote from Abraham Lincoln this morning that I liked.

" Whatever you are, be a good one."

I want my boys to know this. I don't care what they are. I don't care if Stratton really does grow up to be a pilot, like he currently tells us, or grows up to be a "strong robot" like he insisted on last year. (Well, maybe I mind the robot thing just a bit) I just want them to be good. They can be whatever they want, just be happy at it. Same goes for me. Do I really need to define what I am or do, or can I just be good at what I'm working on at the time? Just what's on my mind while folding laundry today.

Redemption can be so short lived...

Reading Winnie the Pooh to the boys by the fire on a quick overnight camping trip up the Chena a few weeks ago

Monday I had one of those days where everything I touched turned to ashes, in one case quite literally. By the time we had put out the massive grill fire that was supposed to be our dinner, I was completely discouraged. You know when you feel like you don't even want to start anything else because based on the day you've been having, it's bound to be a disaster. Wednesday we still started out rough, but by the afternoon and evening, everything was going great. The boys were being wonderful, not fighting and playing by themselves while I cooked dinner. Dinner turned out great. Life was as it should be. Then Dashell dumped 2 gallons of bath water on the floor when I turned my back to grab a diaper. Even so, most of it was absorbed by their shaggy bathroom rug and I still felt like maybe we were getting back on track. Next week, our life is about to get much busier again and our unstructured days of the last 4 months are going to be a thing of the past with preschool and all our other activities starting up, so in recognition of that, I thought that today instead of staying home to get some house projects done, I would take the boys to the park to play for one of the last times together this summer. I should have known that something so harmless and universally popular at our house as a day at the park was not going to turn out well. We were there for about 2 hours and Stratton spent at least 45 minutes of that time screaming and kicking in the gravel having a massive meltdown tantrum of epic proportions in front of a 4th grade class on a field trip. Dashell was fine at the park, but fights tooth and nail whenever we have to leave, so my attempts to make it to the car carrying 2 kicking and screaming boys were even more embarrassing than letting my child meltdown in public, so we ended up waiting it out in full view of the few other park goers there on this foggy morning. And the trigger for this drama? I reminded Stratton he needed to ask nicely if he wanted me to push him on the swing. Yes, that's right. My normally sweet and relatively well mannered boy had a massive tantrum because he didn't want to say 'please'. Lovely. At least I had a brief respite this week. That's why I posted the picture above. It looks like a perfect family campfire scene. Don't all families sit by the fire and read Winnie the Pooh on camping trips? But in reality, it was a brief respite from a chaotic and wakeful night that ended in a morning of rain and early return home. But looking at the picture makes me smile at the 10 minutes that the boys just wanted to sit and find out where Eeyore's tail was. I suppose that for me, the real achievement as a mother is when I can revel in the peaceful moments enough to weather the next inevitable storm. I can't always do that, but I am trying. I think that we all have been so thrown off by our move and starting over in a new place that we aren't even completely certain how to "get back to normal". Even the definition of "normal" will be new. I don't even know if we'll recognize when we get there, if we ever do. "Normal" is an elusive state with 2 rapidly growing and independent boys. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking normal, just a little more day to day stability. And we are getting there. Even as our days are getting shorter, the moments of sunlight in our family are getting a little longer and more regular. Lets hope my little boys sunshine increases as our daylight decreases.

Valdez!

This last weekend we took a trip down to Valdez for our last summer hurrah! We had the best time and hit the best weather. I think it was the warmest Valdez had been all summer. And we were ready for cold and wet. By the last day, Stratton was begging me for short sleeves, and I hadn't even packed a t-shirt for him...sorry, long johns and sweatshirts for you bud! Valdez has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. Brigg had only been through Valdez on our way to Cordova on a wet, cloudy, foggy day 2 years ago, so I think he was surprised by just how beautiful the mountains were. Plus, he finally got to go salmon fishing. 6 years into marrying a girl from Alaska, the man has finally got some silver salmon to show for it! We saw lots of animals, fish and sunshine. It was perfect.

Here is a picture of one of our wildlife spottings. This sea otter was in the harbor eating its dinner just a couple feet away from the dock. (No, the dog in the picture isn't ours, even if Brigg would like it to be. It belonged to a nearby boat.) Anyways, we took the boys down on the dock to see the sea otter up close and found out that Dashell LOVES sea otters. He kept calling it a puppy and trying to get in the water with it. We had to physically fight him for about 10 minutes to keep him from jumping in the harbor to get an up close look at the otter. We eventually had to leave just so we didn't end up with a soaking wet baby. Instead we left with a screaming and kicking baby. I am fairly warned for next year...if there's an otter in the area, Dashell will be trying to jump in the water with it.

Dashell loved the trip if for no other reason than being close to a harbor and being able to point out every single boat that he saw. And fish. The Wappett gene for "fish brains" skipped Stratton, but is very much present in Dash. He loves fish. He would have spent all night spotting fish off of the pier or looking at the spawning salmon. He even wanted in on the fish cleaning action after we'd get back from fishing. Stratton, on the other hand, was much less interested. The first day, he stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while we were out fishing and they went to one of the salmon streams. When we got back, he told me that he saw " Lots of fish. They were huge and scary." Perhaps an exaggeration on both counts, but he stuck to his opinion. Every time we'd try to get him to touch one, he would refuse vehemently. So, Dashell appears to be the natural born fisherman of the two. We'll just have to teach Stratton. Once he starts catching them, it shouldn't take too long for him to be as excited about it as Dashell.

Here's a picture of Brigg with about half of one day's catch hanging up.

And this is him with one of the first silvers he caught. You can't fake that smile. I caught the only king salmon on the trip, but it was a small one, so I'm not sure it counts for bragging rights. I was the variety catcher. I caught my silvers, but also a chum and the king, although my nephew was the one to bring in a huge jellyfish along with one of his silvers. Brigg was a natural. My mom thinks he definitely shows potential for getting addicted to fishing. Next year we'll have to see if we can up his variety. Maybe some reds and a king for him, too. When he qualifies for an in-state fishing license so the king tag isn't so pricey.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. Driving home Tuesday afternoon so Brigg could go to work Wednesday morning felt criminal. How could we drive out of Valdez in such beautiful weather? It felt like it would only be right to stay until the clouds rolled in. While we were in Valdez, Stratton would tell us every 10 minutes, " I really like these mountains." He fell asleep as we drove over Thompson Pass and when he woke up, he started crying because the mountains were gone. We like the mountains too, Stratt. Don't worry, we'll visit them again next year.

Welcome to the Neibaur Home!

I can't believe I didn't include a picture of our house. Here it is- welcome to our home! If you're ever in the neighborhood, stop on by. We would love to see you!

Alaska!!!

Once we made it to Alaska, everything went so much better. In many ways, we couldn't have been more blessed. We arrived, took a couple days to regroup, and then when my parents got there after their very long drive north in our car, went house hunting. We loved one of the houses we saw our first day looking, but were going to give ourselves a week or so more to keep looking before we put in an offer since it had been on the market for awhile and we wanted to be sure before we put in an offer. That night, our realtor called and told us that someone else had put in an offer, so if we wanted to put in a competing offer we had to do first thing in the morning. After a little bit of back and forth over rushing into something so big, we did it. And then kept looking while we waited to find out if our offer was accepted. And then it was!!! And we were so excited! We LOVE our house and are so glad we went for it even though it happened faster than we anticipated. And then we had to wait and wait and wait to close on it and move in. So we stayed with my parents and waited. We were waiting to close on our house, waiting for our stuff to arrive on the moving truck, waiting for Brigg's license to come through, waiting for Brigg to start work, just waiting, waiting, waiting! And it all happened! And faster than we anticipated by a long shot....except the house. Brigg had his license and was working by June, at least a whole month earlier than we expected. Our things arrived and had to go into storage until we had a house for them. So then we were just waiting on the house. But we filled our time with lots of other things.

We went to the river and played in the rocks, sand and freezing water. The dog and the boys love it when we go to the river to play for the morning.

Stratton got a big boy BLUE bike. He had been asking for one for months, but we knew we didn't want to move one, so we had always told him he could get it after we moved to Alaska. I think he asked about the morning after we arrived. And now he loves to ride it. At first, he braked every two feet but now he is getting faster and faster. He is growing up so fast!

We found a job we like to do as a family- car washing! And we had alot of it to do after our car made that long drive here. Of course, it turns into boy washing, too. But it is still a fun thing for all of us to work on together.

And finally, we filled our waiting time with fishing! Stratton got his first fishing pole, we went halibut fishing and clamming in Ninilchik and started to work on filling our freezer. And then we moved into our house and have been working on making our new home just right! Hooray!