It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

So school started for Zeke last week (on Tuesday), and as you can see, he was a little more than excited to get back to it. Three of the kids who were in his class last year are in it again this year, along with one new little girl. That makes it a nice small class of 4 students. He has the same teacher, teacher's aide, and speech therapist as last year too. So he pretty much just walked right and got right to it on his first day, almost as if the summer hadn't happened. His teacher said all the kids were very excited to get back, and have been having a lot of fun learning already.

Today I filled out the form for Zeke to start taking the bus to and home from school. I have to admit that it makes me a little sad since I feel he's too young for it (even though I know he'll LOVE it). Of course I also worry about all the things that could go wrong since I won't be there to take care of him (I promise I don't have any control issues). And as far as I know there aren't ever any problems with the buses so I really need to get a grip. But really, I like bringing him in and picking him up. And he likes that too. But I was told that I could call the bus in the morning if I wanted to drop him off and/or pick him up on any given day, so that's good at least. And it really will help out in the mornings. The last few days we've gone to school have stressed me out a bit. Between Zeke asking every 3 minutes if it's time to go, and Deacon refusing to do anything I ask until I threaten to spank him, and Finn crying because he's been put down when he didn't want to be, and me rushing all over the place trying to get everyone (myself included) fed, dressed, and out the door (which could be made a little easier if I got out of bed earlier...I guess). So now I'll just have to get Zeke fed, dressed, and out the door every morning. Obviously I'll have to get dressed too, but this will allow Deacon to take his time in the morning like he seems to need to, and it'll allow me to spend a little more of the morning with Finn instead of just nursing him them putting him under his playmat until it's time to leave, when I put him in the car and off we go. So yeah. It'll be good...once Zeke and I both get used to it.

But school is back in session, Zeke is LOVING it, and in case you're wondering where the title for this post comes from, I suggest you watch the following video. I promise, it'll be worth it. You may even remember it from when it was on TV.

The Rain, Rain, Rain

came down, down, down in rushing, rising rivlets.

Okay, maybe it wasn't as bad as all that, but it did rain here for 35 straight days. That's right, 35 days of rain. We TOTALLY beat the previous record of 28 days. We so...um...rock?

So yeah, 35 days straight of rain. That really does not make for an outdoorsy kind of summer. We still had a blast this summer with all our visitors, but all that rain kind of makes one go a little loopy. Case in point, here's Zeke after day 30 (or so):

Things got really interesting when the Spahrs were here. One of the nights they were staying with us, the wind picked up to go along with the rain. Around ten or so that night, I heard a thump in the backyard as I was washing bottles for the next day. I went out the back door and saw that one of our neighbors trees had fallen over in the wind, and landed on our deck.

For your viewing pleasure is a picture of the tree the next morning, Scott supervising as Josh cuts up the fallen tree, and a picture of Josh cutting up the tree. Our neighbors (whose tree it was) were gone when it happened, so Josh and Scott happily took care of it themselves when Josh got in from work the next night. My favorite part of the tree coming down happend the morning after, when I showed the tree to the boys. Zeke saw that the tree had come down and asked, "Where's the beaver?" Isn't he cute? He knows that beavers gnaw down trees (thanks to Lady and the Tramp, and Sesame Street), so when he saw that the tree had come down he was looking for the critter who he figured was responsible for it all.

The ironic part of all the rain? It stopped on Wednesday. Wednesday the sun started shining, and the weather warmed up, and it has been lovely (for the most part) ever since. Wednesday, however, was also the first day of school here. Poor kids, the first nice day in 5 weeks and they all had to spend it in school.

I just hope it stays nice for a little while longer before the snow starts coming down.

August's Visitors Part Two

Shortly after my parents left, we had more visitors come stay with us. Good friends of ours from Germany, Scott and Amber Spahr, were in Alaska visiting an aunt of Scott's up in Fairbanks, and decided to come spend a few days with us while they were in the state. I was trying to figure it out, and I'm pretty sure it's been about 5 years since we've seen each other. Crazy! Especially when you realize that over that five year, we've added Zeke, Deacon, and Finn to our family, and they have added Anna (plus another on the way).

Our kids became friends in no time at all, and we all had a great visit. From watching movies:

To going to the zoo (and later that night out to dinner...thanks again you guys!):

To checking out the Imaginarium at the Anchorage Museum:


we had so much with our friends. Thank you, again, for coming to see us Spahrs. We had a blast.

It Smells So Nice

Before I put up some more posts about life here in Walterland, I wanted to post about Scentsy wickless candles. It's been popping up in conversations and blogs and things lately, so I thought I'd write about it right here.

First, I'd like to let you all know that a fellow blogger is giving away a Scentsy plug-in warmer (like the one pictured to the right here) and 3 scents. If you want to enter the contest follow the link to her blog and leave a comment:

Me and My Soldier Man

Now, my neighbor across the street sells Scentsy stuff as well, and I have to say that I really like their products. I went over their today to get new catalogs because I recently broke my warmer, and I said to my neighbor that she needed to have another party that I could attend, because let's face it, they're fun. She turned around and said that I should have a party instead. So I guess that had me thinking, if I did have a party, even though most (all?) of you couldn't actually attend, would any of you be willing to look through her catalog online and maybe order something? Please don't feel like you'd have to because I'm not even sure I'll actually have a party, but I'm curious now.

And now, here is my own little "testimonial" for you. One day I had my warmer going, and the wax was all melted and warm and what's-it. Zeke was running through the house, swinging around a shoe lace, when he managed to land it directly into the warm wax. Before I could stop him, he swung the shoe lace out of the wax and it landed right in his eye. BUT, since the wax never gets warm enough to burn someone, he was perfectly fine, just a little annoyed that something got in his eye. No burns, no marks, nothing. Lovely.

Oh, and their scents are aroma-riffic.

August's Visitors Part One

So. As I said in my post the other day, my mom and step dad came out to visit us for a little over a week this month. They got in on Tuesday the 3rd, and we couldn't have been happier:

Wednesday morning, Josh and Matt took my step dad on a two day fishing trip. Apparently my dad did pretty well since he caught most of the fish (the other guy in the picture is Matt, Josh's friend from work - it was his boat they went out on):

After they got back, they spent a good part of the morning on Friday cutting, and washing, and trimming, and vacuum sealing the many, many pounds of fish they caught. The boys were more than happy to supervise the process to make sure it all went well:

Saturday saw a little break in the rain (for a few hours anyway) and so I took my older boys and my parents to the zoo. And no trip to the zoo would be complete without popcorn and kit kats:


Sunday afternoon, Josh took my dad and the older boys on a hike down to the river, while my mom, Finn and I stayed home and made dinner:


Monday morning we took advantage of another break in the rain (I'll post about the rain we've been having later) and took the boys to the playground for a little bit:

That afternoon, after nap time, I took my parents and the older boys onto post to check out the airplanes and to get some groceries from the commissary:

On Tuesday, my parents took a train ride from Anchorage to Whittier, then took a day cruise around:

As you can see it was a chilly day. They did get to see a bunch of glaciers as well as some sea lions (the sea lions are the black dots on the ice block in the water):

Wednesday morning it was raining (again) so we tried out The House of Bounce in town. It was pretty cool. There was a bunch of blow-up jumping things in there for the kids (and the parents!) to jump around on. The boys had a blast, and I think Josh had a fun time too, even though he banged himself up pretty well:

While the kids were napping, the rain stopped, so I took my parents to the Heritage Museum. We got there just in time to see some authentic dancing:

There was also a very rare event going on that day. Apparently four of the tribes that are represented throughout the museum had agreed to share a house at the museum (outside is a pathway that leads around a lake, and along the path are different Alaskan house types to go into and see how they live, etc). To commemorate this big deal of a thing, each tribe commissioned a local (to them) artist to carve a totem pole to represent their tribe. Then, each day last week one of the totem poles was raised in the house. It was a pretty big deal, and we were pretty excited to have been there to see it:

They said the totem weighed a little over 900 pounds. It wasn't very tall, but it was wide. And thick. Very cool.

And then Thursday my parents left to go back to New Jersey. All in all, it was a great trip, and we had a great time. Thank you Mom and Dad for coming!

PS...for those interested I will eventually get the pictures up on Flickr, but there are over 200 of them to sort through, so it might be awhile before that happens. Until then, see ya!

Are You Still Out There?

It feels like forever since we've been here, doesn't it? I apologize. My mom and stepdad were visiting and so blogging just didn't happen for me the past two weeks. I'm going to try and get another post or two up this weekend since we have more guests coming in on Monday. But now I have to go and make some dinner for my man-cubs. Tootle pip!


-posted from my iPhone.