Sweet Home Iowa

I was back in Iowa for 10 days and Adam made it back for 4. I HAVE SO MANY PICTURES... mostly of the nieces and Kane, it was very hard to pick and choose for the blog but more will be on my facebook photos soon!!

Good ol Iowa!

My girl Sadie with her duck. She is a good 12 years old now with a lot of the conditions older dogs get. But she is still full of sass and was SO EXCITED to see me... almost as excited as I was to see her!

The horsies

Brandon working with one of his horses.

Got to go on two rides! :)

This was something I had not experienced before. The vet came out to do dental work on the horses-- very interesting!

Girls with their Alaska gear! Look at how grown up they are!

Lookin for frogs!

We went to the imaginarium and had a blast. The "special event" was a very informational presentation of SNAKES! The girls loved it!

Shanin wouldn't pet the snakes but she is all about catching frogs and toads! Just like her cousin Heidi!

Playing in the playhouse. This was my cousins and we played in it growing up! The famous-hot pink playhouse!

Readin some books. Heidi and Shanin just finished Kindergarten and are well on their way to reading-- it brought tears to my eyes! Breanna is VERY interested in books and is getting ready for Kindergarten next year. Annie will be in preschool next year and does a great job using the pictures to tell her own story!

Future boyfriend and girlfriend. Well.. I don't know about future- they had a pretty good time playing with each other that day! ;)

Adam at the spillway.... he loves spillways and dams. They are the equivalent of a horse barn to me!

Big boy Gunner.... out exploring!

Mowing the pasture for mom and dad. (even though dad was perfectly capable of doing it... wink wink! He is healing super-fast from his shoulder surgery!)

Sydney in the kalidescope at the imaginarium.

Dad on the "flight simulator"... he kicked a little boy off and then refused to let another little boy have a turn. What a bully!

Emma is a little fish-- she loves the water!

Breanna having fun at the Dysart pool. This is the day when Deanna and I had them all loaded up and pumped for swimming.... then Iowa weather did its thing and it turned crappy on us. We swam for 45 minutes-- if that!

Silly Brooke and I swimming in the freezing water of Brandon and Deanna's new pool. We had fun!

Brandon doing a flip!

Sydney asked for it!! :)

Kane loves the trampoline!

Cousins reunited at last! Thanks to Tyler for taking the picture and putting up with us. I guess he is close enough to being a cousin too!

Mom and dad saved this lil kitty- Toby. Yup- he's a 3-legger but that doesn't slow him down!

At Drew and Adrienne's wedding. It was a gorgeous wedding!

Just putting the boat in at 11pm for some catfishing!

Scary eh? We didn't catch anything but it felt so nice to just get out on the boat, in a lake, with ma and pa Harris, holding a fishin pole!

I had a BUSY BUSY BUSY 10 days but had so much fun. Did the usual.... playing with all the nieces and Kane, horses, dogs, fishing, working outside, swimming, grilling, jumping on the trampoline, hanging out with my friends, etc etc. I even got to see my Jackson Elementary buddies-- go Stars! I had 10 days and it didn't seem like enough time, poor Adam only had 4! Luckily, he got a lot in those 4 days, even with sticking in the Des Moines area for the wedding festivities. The fam came down to see him Sunday morning before we left... I'm so glad he got to see MOST of our beautiful nieces (Syd and Brooke will have to get extra Adam time at Christmas!) He also got to see Kane-- who is a little spitfire... just like his Uncle Adam! We were absolutely amazed at how much they all changed- but especially the "babies"....Kane and Emma are totally different lil tikes compared to 6 months ago! Thank goodness for photos, videos, phones, and skype eh!??!

Well Iowa... until next time!! C'mon December!! (I did miss the mountains and the moosers though!)

......We are moved into our new house. We moved everything ourselves..... we chose a bad weekend to move-- Summer Solstice... Next year we'll get to spend the longest day of the year out camping and fishing with the rest of our friends! I'm getting as much done as possible with the house now (Adam is at a diabetes camp all week.. Kenai Lake) We leave for Florida in 8 or 9 days and then have visitors for the rest of summer! (yeaaaaaaah Brinkmeyers and Mom/Dad Harris!!!!!!)

LOTS of BUSYNESS

Adam here - Been a while since either of us has written in here. I wanted to quickly jot down a couple things so people are up to date with the happenings here....

Reasons we are busy:
- My residency is finishing up and I am scrambling to complete all requirements and finalize a bunch of projects
- We are currently (somewhat) remodeling our new house
- Have yet to pack our old condo and move to our new house
- Cleaning and more cleaning
- DK just got back from 10 days of being home, and I just returned from 4 days of being home. My buddy got married and if it wasn't storming like crazy it was uncomfortably hot and humid (don't miss it)
- Buying lots of stuff for our new house takes a TON of time!


The following is an email Danielle sent to family and friends. I thought it would be appropriate to put on here for all of those that did not receive that email...

Check this out (http://www.adn.com/2010/06/15/1324609/bear-attacks-cyclist-on-anchorage.html ).... this guy works with Adam at the hospital.

Very interesting.... there has been debate on shutting down this area starting on June 10, for the summer, it was denied by the mayor. This attack happened on the 14th! The mayor's reasoning being... we live in Alaska, we KNOW we'll have wildlife encounters, we need to know what to do. I'm curious if this will all change after Shawn's experience. This is a large "park", lots of trails. We have been in there a few times. On one side of it is our friends (Shawn and Erin) house, and they walk their dog -Chena- there almost every day. A black bear was sighted near their house in the spring.

Kinda crazy, huh?!?! WE LIVE SO CLOSE TO WILDLIFE--- we share these areas with moose, bears, etc. So the thing is.... Shawn (Adam's coworker) knows the area, knew of the possibility of a bear encounter, and knew what to do- he played dead! The mama had no intention of EATING him, just defending her cub! It's unfortunate that it happened, but I'm very impressed with Shawn-- he understands the reasoning of the attack and is "okay" with it. Hell... he insisted on working the rest of the day!

Anyway... this was very interesting and I wanted to share it, especially since Shawn is a coworker of Adam.
My point of view is... if I were in Shawn's exact positon-- played dead and got away, I believe I would react like he did-- understand the reasoning of the attack and not demand for the department of wildlife and game to kill her. BUT if I were in that position and had our handgun... I forsure would've used it! Most of the attacks that we've heard about, read about, or watched on TV, end with a survivor. A badly beaten survivor, but a survivor--- because the bear isn't out for human blood and has no intention of eating humans. It's because the bear was frightened/spooked or defending itself and/or its cub. HOWEVER there are a few attacks thrown in there that were fatal or pretty damn close, there just happened to be a Crazy-Ass bear. Much like there are Crazy-Ass humans! SOOOOO.... how does a person know the difference between a defensive bear and a Crazy-Ass bear when it is charging you?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!!!!!!!!! YUUUUUUP!

--have a handgun?? use it!
--have bear spray?? use it!!
--brown bear?? play dead!!
--black bear?? fight back!!

NOW the question is... some brown bears are black in color and some black bears are brown in color! THEN WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU DO!??! If God has intentions and reasoning of a person being attacked by a "brown" or a "black" bear- then so be it. And therefore, I guess God determines if it ends with a badly beaten survivor or fatal! Trust it to God's hands!

WHEEEEEEEW, thanks for listening/reading my rant! I LOVE living in Alaska.... we have exciting, new adventures almost every weekend in the most beautiful environment EVER! But.. when we came across those ginormous grizzly tracks on our hike-from-hell earlier this spring and when situations like this one come up, it makes you want to pee your pants! And it really makes you think..... I've done more "thinking" in this one year than I did all 5 years of college!

So.... on that note-- COME UP AND VISIT!!!! You'll have an adventure of a lifetime, enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, and learn things that can't be taught from a book-- but true-life experience!

hope that all made sense-i just kept typing!
Love you all!
:)DK

**** Next email will be lessons on moose attacks! JUST KIDDING! ..... get behind a tree, a car, a pole.... put SOMETHING between you and that moose and PrAy!