Lizards and stuff...

I took some pictures of different things today. When I was getting ready to post I realized that I was missing some information. So the lizard, don't know what kind it is. Not too many of them in Alaska. Don't think its a gecko, maybe a chameleon? Also took a picture of the waterfall below. Don't know the name. It has been raining quite a bit and there was a lot of water flowing over the falls. Nice and pretty. I do know the hovering girls below, my lovely daughters, Kaitlyn and Kali.

Family Photo Shoot

Angela has been hassling me the last few months to get a family picture. If you follow the blog you will have seen that I have done photo shoots for quite a few different people. Unfortunately that hasn't left much desire to try and rope my own kids in for a formal family shoot. I will say this, the kids did very well for not having anyone taking the pictures. You can't see it but I was triggering the camera with a remote on a 2 second timer. Not really ideal but it seemed to work. Apparently the kids have had a camera stuck in their faces enough times that they know to smile and look at the camera. Also we are not above bribing. I know we shouldn't negotiate with terrorist, but candy goes a long way. There are a few more shots here. Lighting setup was a big softbox camera right with AB 400, shoot through umbrella camera left and rim light for the middle shot right behind Owen and Kaitlyn. Sorry for the lighting info. ~Erik

Sledding Fun

After Thanksgiving dinner the kids went sledding down my parents driveway. It was a bit to dark to get some normal pictures so I set up my flashes. The kids had a really good time sledding down the driveway and running back up. Kali doesn't like sledding too much, she is kind of afraid... but Owen and Kaitlyn sure like it. The picture at the bottom shows the set up. There are some other pictures here. ~Erik

Winter fun

Kaitlyn was cruising around on her kitty cat (the little snow machine) this weekend. Probably the closest we will get to a cat. You can see by the picture below that we have a little track in the back yard. The girls don't like the track because they have to turn and slow down for the corners. They just like to ride down the side of our street. Go figure, maybe I should set up a few jumps in the back yard. That might peak their interest. ~Erik

More Halloween

Here's the whole family on Halloween night. This was after the kids were finished trick or treating. Our ward does a Trunk or Treat which is nice when it is 21 degrees outside. The kids get a great trick or treat experience in about a half hour. We layer up the kids really good. Kaitlyn didn't put a jacket on the whole time (she had 3 shirts and tights, long underwear and pants on under her costume). The picture below is Frogilina - our prize winning pumpkin, complete with fake eyelashes. The picture says I heart Froggy with kiss marks all around it. This was Kaitlyn's favorite part to make. You can see it's nothing great, but even with nothing spectacular you can win prizes in a small town. Erik promised I won't have to write any more Halloween posts. -Angela

Halloween Fun

I love Halloween. By the way, this is Angela. Erik would never say that he loves a holiday. I, on the other hand, love all holidays. I especially love holidays with my kids! Kids just light up and get so excited about all the details and fun events. Halloween is especially fun for me because of the costumes. Most years I will rope Erik into dressing up and doing a big family theme, but he was off the hook this year. I let the girls pick what they wanted to be and then pick out patterns and fabrics. I love the way their costumes turned out! Did I mention I love Halloween? Kaitlyn was an angel, Kali a pink fairy princess, and Owen a vampire. I had a lot of fun with their costumes this year (partly because I just got a new sewing machine that is amazing). We also did a lot of fun things leading up to Halloween. We entered a pumpkin in the local library's pumpkin painting/carving contest and won the grand prize. It was supposed to be a literary character. We did Frogilina from the Froggy series by Jonathan London. If you haven't ever read a Froggy book, you should. They are so cute. Maybe I could talk Erik into taking pictures of our pumpkin and posting them. Anyways, I have gone on and on. Sorry for my rambling. Happy Halloween everyone! Enjoy the holiday season (I know I will).

High Key Shots

Here are a few high key shots I took last night. I figured that I needed a backdrop to get good shots but a white wall worked just fine. I set my background flash about 2 stops above my exposure to blow it out then used an umbrella to expose the girls correctly. You can see the setup in the last picture. Had Kaitlyn jump for dramatic effect. Did it work? Enjoy. ~Erik

Potty Break

We went up to Anchorage this weekend and the weather was a bit crappy. I was planning on taking some picture of the fall colors, but it was too rainy. The only pictures I got were when we had to take a potty break for Kaitlyn. I have found that I have to post pictures of all three kids now as the older 2 monitor the blog.
I said I didn't get any other pictures; that isn't true. I am trying to stitch 91 pictures for a new gigapan. The computer has been chunking on it for more than 12 hours, so it may not work. It is a shot at the Hope turnoff on the way to Anchorage. If it works I will try and post it soon.


Thanks to Beth and Ian for watching the kids while we went shopping. We had to get a suit for my brother Keith who is getting married in October in Mexico. I will be going to Mexico to shoot their wedding, so stay posted in October for pictures from a Mexican wedding. I am pretty excited to go there. Keith's fiance (Jennifer) lives in Campeche Mexico, if you want to check it out on Google earth.


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Is this school?

Kaitlyn went off for her first day of kindergarten this week. We're a little slower than all of our fellow bloggers getting the first school day pictures posted. I blame it entirely on Erik who likes to draw out our family trips into multiple posts. He thinks it adds drama or something (I just think he's weird). Anyways, she was super excited and was bouncing around the house all morning. She carefully chose her outfit and the contrasting bows in her hair. I did try to talk her into a different hairdo, but I decided not to push it and let her have her way if it made her feel good about herself. She ended up pretty cute all on her own. She is now a proud student at Redoubt Elementary (named for Mt. Redoubt, an active volcano here in Alaska) and has come home each day this week with a green paper frog, which basically means she did a good job sucking up to the teacher. Erik has asked her every day what she has learned. "Did you learn your ABC's? Did they teach you how to add? Did you do any work?" Kaitlyn responds by talking about the stories her teacher read to her and her gym class or music class. Erik then responds, "Hasn't your teacher ever taught anyone before? What are you going to school for?" I just laugh. I keep telling him that it's just kindergarten and only the first week. They are just trying to teach them how to follow rules and routines and such. Whether she's learning or not, she seems to love it and is getting a little more confident each day.

Dolly Varden Post 2...

Erik told me that it is my turn to narrate, so here it goes. Thankfully, when we woke up Friday morning, we had better weather. It was a crazy night getting there. Everyone was soaked and miserable. It's amazing how a warm fire and dry clothes can improve morale. Erik was able to get a fire going in the wood stove in the cabin and we got warm and toasty really fast. Unfortunately, it got a little too warm and toasty in the middle of the night and we ended up with all the windows open and still sweating pretty bad. The worst part was we all had long sleeved shirts and pants on to keep off the mosquitoes and we weren't about to strip down to get cooler. So, the kids would scream and we'd all be up. With all of my whining out of my system, I'll move on. You'd think we had a horrible time, but it was a great weekend, and if that's all I have to complain about, we're doing pretty good. As you can see, Kaitlyn and I found more berries! There were several types of berries around, but we just focused on watermelon berries for my friend, Becky. We could only find about 2 cups, but for watermelon berries, that's pretty good. I also had a bunch of activities planned for the kids like outdoor tic-tac-toe and a nature scavenger hunt. We went on a 50 foot hike. (I gave each of the girls 50 foot of yarn and had them make a path with it. Then we took a magnifying glass and closely inspected what was on their trail.) Kaitlyn thought the outhouse was really cool. It was a nice outhouse, as far as outhouses go. We liked that you could open the top of the door and really enjoy nature while you were using the facilities. Erik also took us on a real hike through the woods to find another little lake. It was short, but intense for the kids with uneven terrain and lots of ducking under branches. Anyhow, I guess there's more to come, so I'll sign out for now. -Angela


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Dolly Varden Lake Cabin...

The summer is coming to a close in Alaska and we wanted to get the most out of it. Kaitlyn starts kindergarten on Monday and we wanted one last family trip before it school starts. We went to the Dolly Varden Lake Cabin last year with the Hansens. We had such a great time that we decided to do it again this year. I have gotten a few comments from some of my friends that the kids always seem so well behaved. As you can see by the pictures they are... Kali, smiling on the boat ride, Kaitlyn driving the boat and having so much fun. Kali gently helping her brother through the forest. Owen standing so reverently and obediently on the boat next to his sister.
The term still shot is very true in our family. For a brief second (usually less than 1/60 of a second) the kids are great. Kali really did have her arm around Owen, this was right before she tried to push him in the Lake. Owen was being obedient, right before he screamed at his sister, climbed on the seat and tried to kamicazi out of the boat into the lake. Kaitlyn was very independent driving the boat, until she almost ran aground.

There is always a tremendous amount of work to get all the stuff packed, the kids loaded and drive to our destination. The trip to the cabin was even more memorable (not a good thing) than normal. The drive to the lake is about 35 minutes on a bumpy dirt road. As luck would have it, it began to rain, not just a sissy rain but a downpour. Angela and I thought, hey maybe it will stop by the time we get to the lake, No. Kaitlyn started going into a panic about the road flooding. She had seen something on the news about China flooding, apparently the images were disturbing. The only thing that calmed her down was the fact that I said we were pulling the boat and we could all jump in if it flooded too much. The whole time Kaitlyn was freaking out Kali was sleeping. We finally made it to the lake, rain still dumping and Kali waking up. She caught the tail end of Kaitlyn's fit and was able to pick up the baton and run with it. She started wigging out about the rain and the fact that we were all going to die.
Usually I have my camera out for tender moments like this but I didn't want to drown my little precious (yes the camera, not Kali). You will have to use your minds eye to picture the scene. I would like to say that I acted compassionately and lovingly like a father should, but I was threatening to beat everyone. It was an ugly event. Don't be judgmental, if you have kids, you have dealt with something like this. Eventually (about 45 minutes later) we made it across the lake and into the dry cabin. Angela will fill you in on the ensuing events tomorrow night. Stay tuned. ~Erik
Here are all the Dolly Varden Cabin Posts... Post 2, Post 3, Post 4

Girls night...in?

The girls have been begging for a sleepover for a while now. On Wednesday everyone goes back to school, except for the kindergartners. Kaitlyn wanted to have her friend, Andie, come over before school started. Since they are both going to be in kindergarten, I figured it would be a good night for a sleepover. Everyone else is preparing for school tomorrow, but we get to party! We made cookies that they decorated with a variety of chocolate chips. Then we popped popcorn and watched "Strawberry Shortcake." Who knows if they'll actually go to sleep tonight! Erik and Matt (Erik's brother) are being good sports about all the girlishness. As I type this, the boys are enjoying a scene from "Strawberry Shortcake" as well. What fun!

We are being invaded...

You may have thought the picture of the outhouse a few posts back was bad, I think this is worse. For the last couple years we have seen a few carpenter ants scurrying around our house. Usually it was couple ants per week, the encounters would end bad for the 6 legged creatures. We would squish them and not think much of it. We started seeing the ants more frequently, so we decided it was time to call in an exterminator. The guy showed up expecting a routine outdoor treatment (where they spray around the edges of the home). I brought him inside to look where we thought the ants might be. He ended up in the basement pulling insulation out of the drop ceiling looking for ants. I had the girls in the front room to stay away from the pesticide. All of a sudden we hear the pest guy screaming, "there's even more over here... we have the source... I can't believe it... there's thousands of ants," etc. etc. Meanwhile, Kaitlyn is freaking out because a grown man is screaming and she thinks we're all going to die. Anyways, the guy goes home and the next day we have ants crawling on our walls, the floors, and falling off the ceiling onto our heads. We had been invaded. Erik called the guy back and, even though he thought we were being unreasonable, he came back over. He was shocked and said this was the worst invasion he had ever seen. He sprayed a few more gallons of pesticide and said they should be dead in 48 hours. Luckily, we had our Jakolof trip planned so we had somewhere to go for 48 hours. When we came home there were dead ants everywhere and we had our work cut out for us. We cleaned them up and cleaned up the pesticide and now we are officially ant-free! What a mess!~Angela

Jakolof Bay Part 2....

I will apologize in advance, I used my wide angle lens for most of the following shots. I just love how it gives an idea of the surroundings. Like I said before, Jakolof Bay is one of the prettiest places on earth. You may have surmised from the pictures that it wasn't overcast or raining, a rarity this summer. For 3 days straight, the sun was shining. I am sure that it is because my wife is living right. Anyways... you may ask yourself, what does one do in this so called Jakolof Bay. No Internet, TV, or running water (the tides don't count). Well, you have to spend time together as a family. Kaitlyn's favorite thing was fishing. There were small fish that hung out right at the dock and were just waiting to get caught. Kaitlyn had the knack and in no time had caught half a dozen (don't worry we let them go). She mastered the bait casting reel and didn't have a single backlash. I won't lie, I was pretty darn proud of her. Her only setback was when she hooked her hand, which caused her to tweak a bit. The world was brought back into order when we finally got a band aid on her hook wound. Kali's favorite activity was searching the boat for treats. The girl can eat a 7 course meal and still be hungry for snacks, I think she has a tapeworm. Owen just liked being outside with his uncle Matt. The whole trip he kept saying "DUDE....MATT", almost like someone with downs syndrome. Sorry, please don't be offended that's just what it sounded like. I tried to figure out what Matt's favorite part was. Through his grunts I surmised he liked helping Kaitlyn fish and sleeping. I had to post a picture of the outhouse because it was so nasty. The pooh was literally inches from the seat. Enjoy. I will be posting Part 3 tomorrow night so check back. I will give you a bit of a teaser-"Berries, aka crack"
Next posts are as follows Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

This is the life...

Finally summer showed up. For a day, maybe 2 if we are lucky. The girls didn't know what to do, it was a whooping 68 degrees. Kaitlyn asked Angela for something to drink with a straw. As she was sipping on her tropical drink she told Angela very matter of factly "This is the life..." Our poor sheltered eskimo children, they don't know what a hot day is. ~Erik

Seldovia 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! We've spent the weekend in a small town called Seldovia. In fact, we are on the boat in the harbor posting this on the blog. We had a fun time. Owen didn't want to sleep the first night (we'll see how tonight goes), but other than that, we've had a blast. Kaitlyn and I ran a 5k this morning, the second of her young career. I say ran, but it was more like sprint and then walk and sprint and walk some more. She finished in 50 minutes! They had a small parade and games and a pancake breakfast at the firehouse. Erik's parents and Matt and Missy came out too and helped us out a ton with the kids. We have just had a nice weekend away from everything and hanging out with the family. We hope everyone else had a great weekend too.
Angela