Trip to Mendenhall Glacier

Where we're staying here in Juneau, we're just a few miles away from the Mendenhall Glacier attraction. It's a great place to visit on a nice sunny day, so that's exactly what we did. Along the trail, there are lots of rock walls and boulders to climb, lots of babbling creeks to explore, etc. The girls had a blast climbing everything they could find.

And, there were a ton of these flowers all along the trail. I had to restrain the girls from picking them all. So, instead, they decided to try and smell them all. They're so funny.

It was a REALLY warm day so Kaitlyn decided to tie her jacket around her. She tried to get me to carry it for her, but I've gotten to the point where I'm making the girls carry their own stuff. Otherwise, I'm always loaded down....not fun.

"Where's the glacier, girls?"

With all the "detours" and rock climbing the girls did, it took us about an hour to actually get to the spot we were headed for. But, once we got there, it was totally worth the wait.

And, here's a close-up:

One of the best parts was at the end of our trail there was a gorgeous waterfall.

It was a great day. The girls played in the water, which in quite a few areas wasn't totally freezing. We also met up with Anthony's sister and her kids. We're definitely going back there soon.

Don't forget to click on a picture to get a good look at all of them.

Suzie's Bear Encounter

Suzie has been really lucky all summer with not getting attacked by the bears. She's been having a ball barking like crazy and chasing them off. Well, today she wasn't so lucky. This bear fought back and Suzie got a little too close. Now she has a gaping slash above her eye. This picture was taken after I cleaned it all up, put antibiotic ointment on it and super-glued it back together. It was pretty big before that. Poor thing. Too bad the nearest Vet is like 4 hours away. Hopefully I got it cleaned out good enough and her body's able to handle the rest.

She was such a good patient. She didn't fuss or jerk away from me the whole time. She just looked at me with those big brown eyes and trusted me to take care of it. It was really sweet. She's resting at my feet now and getting lots of loves from the girls.

I thought for sure I was going to have to send Alexis outside while I took care of the wound. She got pretty hysterical about the whole thing and was just sure Suzie was going to whine. She told me she couldn't listen if Suzie started to whine. She had worked herself up into an absolute frenzy before I had even started. I sent her to her bed and she covered her ears. I was finished with the whole thing before she even realized I had started. I wonder what those emotions are going to be like when she's a teenager. Yikes.

Bike Riding

Kaitlyn says, "Take a picture of me for Grandma. She can see me on my bike." As if Grandma had never seen her on her bike before. Kids are so funny :)

Yesterday was the first day in almost two weeks that is wasn't raining. We escaped our travel trailer and took a much-needed bike ride around Hyder. Besides the fact that it was really cold, and we ended up pulling our hands into our sleeves while we rode, it was a pleasant ride. We visited a few friends and stopped to take a picture of one of our favorite houses here in Hyder.

We love the way this looks. How cute is that hen house? Don't mess with the rooster though. He's pretty scary looking.....no, seriously.

We're all getting really excited at the thought of going home soon. Anthony's job is wrapping up here and should be done by the end of the month. And, I've officially caught the end-of-seasonitis. At least, that's what the guys here call it :). Hyder's gorgeous and the people are great, but I definitely miss home (and it's getting way too cold).

The One That Survived

Before we left Juneau in June, the girls and I stopped at Fred Meyer to stock up on some things that we thought would be nice for our "trip" to Hyder. One of those items was an envelope of flower seeds. For anyone who knows me, this might sound strange because I tend to have a black thumb. It's so bad that I even managed to kill our "wedding" fern that we were given at my bridal shower (you know, the kind that are supposed to symbolize your marriage - Ya, that one). It only took me 6 months and that thing was a crunchy corpse {ooops}. Needless to say, I don't have the best track record with being able to grow viable plants. Regardless, when you're standing in front of the "kazillion-gamillion" (Katie's words) packets of beautifully colored and artfully arranged flower seeds, it doesn't matter if you're the Grim Reaper of plants, you just have to get a packet (or 12) in hopes that maybe just one will SURVIVE your "efforts". So, that's exactly what we did. We bought a few packets of pretty, multicolored flowers to take with us.

When we first arrived here in Hyder and set up our travel trailer, I found one of the packets (Yes, you read that right.....ONE...not sure what happened to the others). The girls were so excited about the flowers that we planted them right away. We put some seeds in a pot and scattered the rest on the outskirts of our gravel pad. And, as is typical for 4- and 7-year old little girls, they checked on the seeds' progress every 5 minutes or so for the first hour and complained loudly that they weren't EVER going to grow. As the days past they started forgetting all about them, then a few weeks ago Alexis came to me all sad and deflated. She said, "Mommy, come look. There is something wrong with the flowers." Truthfully, I had forgotten all about them as well (thank goodness for all the rain). When we walked over to the little pot, what we saw did NOT look like flowers at all. It looked more like weedy, tall grass. I thought, "Great! They filled the flower seed packets with weed seeds - figures I'd only be able to grow weeds." We decided to just let them grow anyway since it was the only thing green I'd managed to keep alive (thank goodness I had completely ignored the plant, otherwise I might have succeeded in killing it).

Three days ago we found that our "weeds" had sprouted flowers.

 NO WAY!! 

Isn't it beautiful? We were so proud of it {smile}.

Of course, not knowing anything about flowers beyond what a rose, daffodil, tulip, and daisy are, AND not having saved the packet, we have no idea what kind of flower this is, but we love it anyways. As for the seeds we had scattered, nothing ever popped up - surprise, surprise {sarcastically, with an eye roll}.

Bear Visit.....Again

Now we know why Suzie was growling early in the morning. We got another visit from our local wildlife. It was even sweet enough to decorate the truck for us.

Whenever we run Anthony some lunch, I usually just have the girls eat their lunch in the truck on our way. Makes it easier - two things at once, AND they usually stay relatively quiet since they're concentrating on their food. The trick is to get them to remember to grab all their garbage and leftovers when we get back to the trailer.  Apparently, this is a skill that is extremely difficult to master......we've been working on it for months now {smile}.

I guess these "cuddly" creatures (actually, they're more like giant raccoons)just LOVE the smell of a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, I can't blame them, they are pretty delicious. Poor thing wasn't able to get to it though. He decorated our truck with mud trying to get in, but to no avail. Dejected, he wandered off to see if he could find anything substantial at the dump.

It is quite interesting to wake up to find your truck has been mauled yet again. However, beside very muddy, there was no damage - so we're thankful for that. Just another day in the Hyder life.

Mud Fun and Giveaway Reminder

This is the view we have from our travel trailer here in Hyder. And, as usual, the picture just doesn't quite do it justice. We've been here nine weeks now and I'm still taken back by the scenery. Everywhere you look it's just gorgeous. Of course you have to actually take time to look up from what you're doing to notice it though. I tend to forget that sometimes. But, this week I've been more purposeful in enjoying what's around me.
We'll be finding out soon if we're destined to head to Petersburg, AK at the end of this month, or if we'll be enjoying Hyder for the rest of the construction season. The hubby is kind of hoping we can just stay here.  It's always a hassle to get everything together and move to a different location, especially if that relocation means a ferry ride. Did I mention that the girls HATE ferries. Yes, well, more about that later.

If I have done my post correctly, you should be able to click on the image to get a better view. It's more impressive in it's original size :)
Earlier today the girls, the dog, and I went down to the dock to enjoy the fun one can have when the tide is out. We call it our "Tide Flat Fun." And boy did they have fun.

Can you see that mud in front of where the boat is? That "glowing" playland just waiting for little toes to run across. 

This was actually the cleanest part of the trip. I was going to post a picture of the aftermath but Alexis (the oldest) requested that I not put that one in. Something about being embarrassed :). I thought that didn't hit until age 11 or 12. Oh well. But, I'm sure you can get a pretty good idea of how little of their natural skin color was showing by the end. Especially since they pretended that they were seals for a good 20 minutes.
Fun day for the girls and fun day for Mommy. We'll see how laundry day goes tomorrow :).
Remember to sign up for the "Mystery Crafty Bundle" giveaway that ends 8/25.
Yvonne

Learning to Blog

Beautiful Alaska

We're having the stay-inside weather in Hyder, AK today. The cloud cover is so low that the planes will not fly through. Hence, no mail or groceries today (sigh). However, it does make for a nice day to browse the web and look at things I've been wanting to check out.

For example, I have been wanting to learn how to do some different things on this blog and so I started snooping around and found a bucket-load of information and tutorials. One of the things that I was interested in was how to put a button on here that allowed a reader to follow me on pinterest if their heart so desired :). I found the answer at BloggerSentral. I LOVE that you can just copy and paste and........BAM! There it is.

(go ahead.....click it....you know you want to)

Makes me want to do the HAPPY DANCE!

There is so much I need to learn about how to tweak and customize my little chunk of the net. I'll probably be so excited that I've figured something out that I'll want to post everything about it. The Pinterest button thing was baby step number 1. So cool :).

Yvonne

"Fishing" Fun

A few weeks back we took a Sunday to ourselves and spent some time as a family out at the river. With Anthony working so much, we don't really get much time to do anything together (especially now that he's working 7 days a week). So our river trip was a definite highlight for the month of July. We drove down the Fish Creek road for quite a while and found ourselves a very secluded spot to park and play. Alexis was ecstatic to try out her fishing skills and she spent most of  her time working on her casting (which is one the best parts about fishing).

We got some practice in on casting and reeling. Alexis did quite well :)

We didn't catch anything on this trip, but it didn't really matter because she had a great time trying to cast further and further out into the river. It was a success in her eyes.

Kaitlyn decided that fishing wasn't really for her right now. She was much more interested in a little sandy pool that she could wade and play in.

She had a great time making a "castle" and then laying siege on it with her stomping feet. Her dress got nice and dirty from the whole thing. Again, a successful trip in her eyes as well :).

We were able to spend quite a bit of time just relaxing and spending time with one another. Suzie even had fun chasing an obnoxious bird around and then diving into the river. She's such a nut.

Killdeer Bird - VERY obnoxious :)
http://www.jrcompton.com/photos/The_Birds/J/Mar-07.html

The girls and I have since been to the river a few times by ourselves (with protection, of course) and had a great time playing in the pools of water. It's such beautiful landscape and so peaceful.

This picture is of a spot that is actually 1/4 mile behind our travel trailer. It's so close and there is hardly ever anyone there. This is a slow moving portion that runs into the highly volatile river just on the other side of that clump of trees. The girls get some good "swimming" practice in (it only comes up to Alexis's thighs) and I plant myself with a slingshot and a good book right on the edge. Great fun.

Yvonne

To Skagway, Up the Hill, and Back

We made it to Skagway on the ferry from Juneau with no mishaps, meltdowns, tantrums, or scares (either from us or the girls) so I give that section of the trip a gold star.  Especially since we all took a nap for a portion of the ride.  For anyone who knows me they will understand the happiness this brings.

Once we got off the ferry we headed straight for the nearest fuel station which happened to be two blocks from the dock and the only one in town.  Of course we didn't realize this until we had drove all the way through town, checked google maps, and realized our little blue arrow (symbolizing our vehicle) was pointed in the wrong direction.  As you may have guessed, that did not make Mr. Trail very happy having to drive back.  However, on the positive side, Skagway is not that big of a town so it only took a few minutes.

While Anthony topped off the truck and filled the 7 or 8 gas cans we have, I went in and got a couple maps showing our route to Hyder and where some of the fuel stations were on the way.  The lady (named Candy) was really nice and let me know exactly what she thought of the gas prices driving through the Yukon.  I could tell it was one of "those" kinds of subjects with her because I didn't ask anything about the gas prices through there.  However, that did not dissuade her one bit from jumping up on her well-used soap box to let me know all about it.  Nice lady.

Once we were filled up and settled in we started down the Klondike highway to travel the 14 miles to the Canadian border.  I had my paperwork for all of us, including the dog, ready to go for when we hit customs.  We started climbing the first hill through the pass and things went well for the first 2 miles.  We were all ooooing and ahhhhing over the scenery and I had even tried to trick Katie into watching out for giraffes.  But she was way too smart for me.  She said, "Mommy, there are no giraffes in Alaska.  It's too cold."  Schooled by a 4-year old. 

Unfortunately, after about 2 miles we started noticing this little cloud of smoke starting to form behind the Excursion.  At about 3 miles it had turned into quite a spectacle.  We pulled over and Anthony informed us that we were leaking transmission fluid onto the exhaust (insert heart-sinking and panic-attack moment here).  We continued another mile and then stopped to let the truck cool down a little, and repeated this process a few more time.  At this point it was really bad and when Anthony checked again he yelled at us to get out of the truck and get away.  Apparently, something had caught fire a little but soon extinguished.  We knew it was no use at that point.  Anthony and I looked at each other and I said, "Well, at least we're not in the middle of Canada."  So, back down the hill we went to find an RV park.  This particular portion of our trip got a big, fat thumbs down.



Yvonne

Sand and Homeschool

The girls have spent a lot of time on the beach near our campsite building castles, digging like dogs, finding seashells, rolling down the dune, and anything else they can think of.  I think they secretly have a bet going of who can bring the most sand back on their bodies.  I'm not sure who's ahead right now, I just know that I'm losing - and the vacuum cleaner is getting tired.

 

When it's not "sand time" one of the things that we're doing is homeschool stuff.  Alexis has started her 2nd grade curriculum and is doing very well.  Kaitlyn has started her 4-year old preschool curriculum and likes it for the most part, except when she has to color something yellow - she does NOT like coloring with the yellow crayon.

What our second grade looks like:

Explorer's Bible Study

We love this bible curriculum.  It's called Beginnings II - God's Promises and does a good job going through the Old Testament in 150 lessons.  We're about half-way through it right now and it presents the scripture very well for young readers.  Alexis either reads the lessons to herself or aloud and then answers the questions that follow. I highly recommend this curriculum.

Horizons Math

The math curriculum that we use is from Alpha Omega Horizons curriculum. We love Horizon because it does a good job of introducing math principles and building on them, and then reviewing.  Being able to really understand something has a lot to do with repetition and occasional review.  This curriculum does that very well.  It doesn't just move on to a new subject and forget about what had been learned previously.  It all builds together.

Horizons Phonics and Reading

We also use Horizons for our phonics and reading curriculum.  We had previously used LifePac for the language work in 1st grade, but it didn't really meet our needs.  This curriculum is more comprehensive and better laid out.  Also, the readers are much more interesting.

Evan Moor Daily Science

 This is not my first choice of science curriculum for Alexis.  However, it is a good overview of general topics such as: How do butterflies turn into caterpillars?, Life cycles, How is a fox different from a wolf?, How does a seed turn into a plant?, etc.  Next semester we will be digging a little deeper into topics using the Apologia curriculum.  You must check out Apologia if you have never heard of it.  It's wonderful!

All About Spelling

This is a jewel in the land of spelling curricula.  We're working on level 2 right now (finished level 1 last month) and it explains everything so well.  The student learns why words are spelled the way they are.  They learn the rules of word structure and are drilled on phonograms.  Everything is thoroughly reviewed.  As soon as we started using this Alexis's reading level jumped up.  It's wonderful. It's multisensory with magnetic letter tiles, flashcards, word banks, writing exercises, readers, and other manipulatives. Love it!

¡El Español Fácil!

We will be ordering this in June.  You have to check out their website and read about the program and their statement of faith.  There are different levels for different ages.  The K-3 is a three level course that makes Spanish really easy to learn.  We can't wait to start it.

Tapestry of Grace

We will also be purchasing this in June.  I'm really excited to finally have an excellent history curriculum that is biblically based and chocked full of resources, activities, projects, and much, much more.  You just have to go to their website to understand how amazing this program really is.


We've also started to do some typing lessons - learning the "home row" and getting comfortable typing the home row keys without looking.  I didn't purchase any curriculum for this.  All I do is bring up the notepad on the computer, type in approximately 20 3-letter "words" using the home row keys and have Alexis copy it right underneath.  It works out really well.  I'm able to keep track of the characters missed and time her progress.
__________________________________________________________________

One of the things that is really important to me is documentation of our schooling efforts.  I have found the ultimate tool for that and am completely in love with it.  Homeschool Tracker Plus is a lifesaver for homeschooling moms.  You just enter your schooling data each day while the kids complete their work and all the various reports, analyses, and schedules are right at your fingertips.  There are so many tools you can use in this program that a single person would probably never use absolutely everything that it offers.  But, trust me, you'll want to try.  It's awesome!

If you have any questions about the above curriculum or tracker program, don't be afraid to ask.

Yvonne

Off Again

I have to say that the sunset in Juneau is pretty amazing.  Of course the picture doesn't do it justice at all.  However, this is the view from the beach in front of our travel trailer.  We get to enjoy it for two more days until we leave for Hyder, AK.  It's been fun watching the cruise ships come in and out, especially the ones that run at night.  It looks like Christmas floating on the water with all their lights ablaze.

 I finalized our ferry reservations yesterday for our trip over to Hyder.  We will be ferrying over to Skagway, AK and then driving the rest of the way.  It's more cost effective to do it this way than to ferry over to Prince Rupert.  So, that's what we'll do.

This is the ferry we'll be riding on.  It's called the Matanuska.  Alexis isn't very excited about the fact that we're riding another ferry.  She keeps insisting that we need to fly to wherever it is we're going.  Poor thing gets bored out of her mind with the Alaskan scenery.  She just asked me if the ferry has a waterslide on it.  I guess you know what she's wanting to do.

Once we get to Hyder, this is going to be our first view of the town.  Isn't it just the bees-knees :).  I have been informed that there are more than 100 people there now.  Oh, and we can drive 2 miles over to Stewart, British Columbia and get some Canada tourism in.  We haven't been told where exactly we're supposed to be staying, but the superintendent from Secon told Anthony that he would be finding us something.  I guess it's one of those "come on over to the middle of nowhere and we'll figure out where to put you" kind of trips.  Woohoo!  Can't wait.  (note the slight sarcasm)



Yvonne