Why, oh, why did I rent it???

The entire 1st Season of "Lost" that is... holy shizzz....why did somebody not warn me.....all I can say: Lost is so freakin' addicting! Like I have said before, I don't usually get caught up in the all the hype...you know the hottest shows, the latest greatest thing. Actually I normally tend to avoid them like the plague. "Why?" you ask...because I know how I am....once I get wrapped up in something~it is all over. And I hate the idea of being committed to watching a certain program on a certain night at a certain time or face being totally out of the loop. That being said, I have been a tad curious how so many people could possibly be so caught up in "Lost". Well, that was until I made the mistake of renting discs 1 & 2 from the 1st season. That was this past Friday. It is now Wed. & I have already returned to the video store twice & finished all 16 episodes of season one. Uhmm...yeah, those 16 hours I spent glued to the TV might explain the 47 loads of laundry I need to do, or the 95 bills I need to pay, 715 dishes that I need to wash or the 17,000 square feet of floors I need to vacuum & mop. And yes, I am exaggerating just a tad but what can you expect..... My life seems so mundane after watching Dr. Jack Shepard use the spines of a sea urchin as intravenous needles for a blood transfusion or trying to figure out what's in the 'hatch'. I tell you, this show is completely mind-gripping...suspenseful...captivating....totally unrealistic....but it totally rocks all the same. And to make matters worse....I obviously haven't seen Season 2 yet. It comes out on DVD in September....and Season 3 starts the end of September..........I am sooooooo screwed.....

Kids + Camera= ????

So Friday night the kiddos & I loaded up and headed to Elmendorf AFB for the dreaded commissary run. If you have ever experienced a trip to the commissary, then you know what I mean.....if you haven't, then consider yourself lucky. And in case you are thinking "If it's so stinking awful, then why do it?" Well, groceries on base are about 1/2 the price as shopping off base and when living in Alaska (where all of our food is shipped in $$$) that is HUGE. Anyway, it's an hour drive to the base & the kids were dreading the trip, so I was trying to be upbeat & make it fun. D. spotted my camera on the front seat & asked if she could take a couple pics. Sure...why not....it's digital...I can erase it all later. And, yes I deleted about 40 photos of complete blur. But here are a few of the better ones..... Capturing her brother doing what he loves to do..... Thank you Uncle Bud :)
This is R.'s self-portrait..... okay...we have some work to do here :)
And D's self portrait......

And me giving D. the 'enough already look'...although it really didn't turn out half bad. Go figure..... I may even use this for a bit of changein my profile pic...hmmmm

Okay...so she's growing up.....

I am sooooo not ready for this. First it was her toys....see before we went to Ohio in June we had a yard sale with some friends & got rid of a bunch of stuff. As we were prepping I encouraged her to go through her toys & pick out stuff she doesn't play with anymore. Nada! She was insistent on keeping her things (which is really unlike her~ normally she is hyped to send out the old to make room for new). So fast forward a month & a half. Our guys go to Georgia for a week & it's just us girls. Well we revamped her room....new bedding, new cutains, a new lamp & a new bookshelf. In the midst of all this, she went through her walk-in closet & got rid of 95% of her toys....no kidding. I was shocked. She says "Mom, I'm getting too big for all that stuff. Besides I'll still play with Brother & his toys, okay?" Uh, sure, whatever........

Later in same week, we are in Fred Meyer & I'm looking at CD's.

D: Mom, can I go over there (points) & look at the IPods??

Me: Uh, do you know what an IPod is?

D: (with the clearest 'duh!' look I've ever seen) Yeeeeaaahhhhh.....you know the thing that you download music onto & listen to the songs you want. Do you me to show them to you????

Me: No...that's okay...I know what they are.

D: Then why did you ask??? (at this point she wasn't being smart, I truly had confused her.)

She goes off & spent a good chunk of time looking in the IPod case. The she comes back & the first thing out of her mouth:
"Mom, do you think I can ask for an IPod for Christmas?"

What???? I was ready for her to get rid of a few toys...you know, the little annoying Polly Pocket pieces you find everywhere, but I was soooooo not ready for this!

Then, we make a trip to Walmart & she asks to look at nailpolish. No problem. She has some money of her own & wants to know if she can buy something....sure thing.....I about fell over when she asked for little girls press-on nails. I had no idea they even made these!!! Well, I let her get them, but only for when we are gonna be home for a couple days. Dang this girl is changing & I am so not ready for it..........

So how did I treat my "baby's-growing-up-too-fast" blues?? I spent the evening finally organzing my scrapbook cubes that I got for my birthday back in March...yep, March. Can you say slacker? And doing so I got inspired to create a few new things...I'll let you know how it goes:) 

Some rainy day fun

So it's been rainy here for like forever & I'll be the first to admit it sucks!So what do we do...we load up 2 women, 6 kids & 2 dogs and head out for a 3 mile hike. Oh yeah! Armed with our rain jackets & puddle boots we head to Crevasse Moraine to let off some steam. As soon as we arrive, my dear Schotzie found a huge puddle at the trailhead & went diving....ewwwww, nasty wet dog.
But the kids were much better behaved & kept the stomping to a minimum (fearing loss of life or limb at the hands of Mom)! They had fun though & got some really good exercise.
And if 3 miles of hiking the steep hilly trails wasn't enough, when we got back to the van the girls begged to climb the 'sledding hill' & come back down the 'hidden trail' (read:mega steep). Hey, knock yourselves out!
And in case you are wondering, I'm serious about this being a sledding hill. And the 'stairs' the girls are climbing are just old railroad ties buried in the hillside to keep people from plummeting to the bottom. You should see the kids sledding on this sucker in the winter...it's nuts! 

FISH ON!!!!

So we went fishing out of Whittier with some friends this weekend & had a fab-u-loso time! It was wet,it was foggy, it was raining & it was fun!

So here I am with my catch of the day...a beauty of a silver salmon! Boy will that baby be good smoked :)

Robert did pretty well himself.....but he wasn't too keen on hold the dead fish :)

Desi rocked~ she caught her limit (2 silvers) that day!

Me & my girl....we had such an awesome time. Have I mentioned lately how much I love that kid......

I loved just looking at all the boats in the harbor. It was just so peaceful

And I just love the look of this hotel, right on the waters edge...

Anybody want a shrimp???

No? Then how 'bout a bucket of them??? We only left the shrimp pots out for about 5 hours (normally you try to leave them atleast 12) & we still got about 75 shrimp...75 HUGE shrimp! De-lish!

More photo love :)

Diet Coke....a girl after my own heart..YUM!

My boys on the 4th of July

let's get this one out of the way & move on to happier topics...

This is my baby girl about 24 hours after the dog bite.....but before it abcessed. Needless to say it got much worse before it got better. But a month and a half later things are looking better everyday.........

So I finally got the photos uploaded from our trip......

and I am slowly going to start sharing them. Enjoy............





Here are my super travelers waitng for the plane to Ohio....... Thank goodness for Gameboys :)















Within 24 hours, my kiddos were living it up in the water!

*The photo of D. to the right was taken about an hour before the dog bite incident. Seeing it just tears my heart out...it's amazing how quickly things can change... it kills me to know that a part of my baby girl's heart is forever changed.