Ashton's Second Summer

Wow, we had a great summer!  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to write in the blog, which means some of the details will be missing as I try to cram this all in!

I hope everyone had a wonderful summer and are ready for Fall!  Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone experiencing the hurricanes and flooding down south as well as those in the fires and smoke out west. 

Ashton is now 18 months and quite the kiddo, he amazes us multiple times a day!  He loved his summer spent outdoors with guests and our trip back to Iowa.  Also, our friends, Erin, Shawn, Ellie, and Chena welcomed a baby girl, Remi, into their family in May.  We are so happy for them and enjoy watching her and her big sister grow!

He likes to shoot hoops, like his dada!  He is now chucking balls at the hoop one handed, attempting to dribble, and enjoys cheering for himself! :)

 Our first guests were Kevin and Jeanette.  We did some local adventuring first. This was our hike up Mile Hi to see the views!

 Dada showing Ash his favorite Alaskan animal, the dall sheep, at the Alaska Zoo.  Ashton loves loves loves animals and knows about 30 animal sounds now! 

Ashton and Grandmamaaaaaaaaa

Another local hike just across the river from us

We borrowed Shawn and Erin's camper for our trip up to the Denali Highway to camp, hike, hunt for moose and caribou sheds, and a little fishing. Our first stop was a lake that still had an ice layer! Tundra was ready to swim and Ashton wasn't going to run out of rocks to throw!

Grandpa and Grandma with their Alaskan grandbaby, trying to keep him out of the water!

This was on a trail we hiked.  There is a faint paw print to the left of the large, obvious one.  The faint print is Tundra's, who happens to have big golden retriever paws!  Kept an eye and ear out for wolves!

Grandpa strolling with Ashton

Hard to see, but some caribou we spotted from the road.  We told them we'd be back for them in the fall! (and we were....you will see later in this blog entry!)

Took a lunch break along the "highway", Grandpa and Tundra were on toddler chasing duty! 

Beautiful day for a ridge hike!  A tad windy and no sheds, but can't beat the view!

Camo family! 

Throwing rocks at the river!

Gpa and Gma Harris with their grandboys! 

We miss them so much!  We had a great trip up north even though we didn't bring back any nice sheds!

I still can't believe this darling boy is mine! 

Our Alaskan boy decked out in Iowa gear!

We are sure glad Ashton loves the outdoors as much as we do! 

Mama's boy! 

Those eyes, those lips, that nose, those cheeks!

What a cheeser!

Well, Adam was running a quick errand on the last day of his parents' trip when he decided we needed a new vehicle! Ha!  If you've been up here, you probably know about the trenches in the highway that are worn down from the spikes of winter tires.  If you hit them just right, or wrong, you can start to lose control of your vehicle.  This plus a down pour and hydroplaning sent Adam and our Equinox into the ditch.  Luckily he didn't get hurt and he didn't hit any other vehicles going across two lanes!  However, this totaled it.  HOWEVER, however........we got a Ford Explorer to replace it and I absolutely love it.  Also, I think it is very important to note that just a couple days later, they repaved the lane that caused this accident.  What a way to end the Harris grandparents' trip! 

 A Father's Day picture for Adam.... dada's boots and hat!

 And one for the Grandpas, future fishing buddy!

Our next guest was our niece, Sydney.  We decided once each of our nieces and nephews graduates high school, we will fly them up for a trip to visit us and adventure, with the hopes of them wanting to stay.....just kidding, not really!  We let Sydney go back to Iowa since she was starting school at the University if Iowa and becoming a Hawkeye!  Go Hawks! 

Anyway, Syd wanted to kayak so we went to Eklutna Lake for some 4-wheeling and kayaking.  They almost didn't let us go out on the lake due to the wind and weather, but decided we could if we stayed near shore.  We did and it was fine!

Gorgeous colors!  Syd took a picture near this location but managed to capture the color of the water, sky, grass, perfectly.  She took the photo to her 4-H fair and it went on to state! 

We 4-wheeled back towards a glacier that you can get a glimpse of from the trail and hike to.  We didn't have time to hike since we were kayaking as well.  This was our view for our lunch break.

We watched these 3 goats for a bit!

Next up for Sydney was fishing for King Salmon!  Adam and I landed these on our 8th anniversary out of our new boat!

Good thing Ashton's favorite meal is grilled king salmon!

Enjoying dinner cooked over the fire!  I believe this was smoked salmon quesadillas

We camped in a tent on "our" island for 4 or 5 days, I don't remember! Our happy camper even with 5:15 wake ups!

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The salmon run was rough and we were thankful Syd landed this king after hours and hours of trying!  She stuck with it and did great! 

 LOVE this!  Ashton had a great time with Syd!

 Boat ride!  Oh yes, the boat in these pics is our new one with a removable cover for weather.  IT WAS SO NICE to have that cover to protect from wind, rain, and sun for Ashton!

 Buddies!

 That's our girl, camo and an Iowa hat!

 one tuckered toddler!

 watching the float planes land and take off on the Deshka River while waiting for our salmon!

 cool dude is on some sort of rock mission

This is the face of a happy, exhausted, 16 month old boy on his way home from a 5 day fishing/camping trip.

Next up was a trip to Seward for a hike up Mount Marathon and to Exit Glacier.  Mount Marathon is the mountain I've raced up on the 4th of July the past two years.  More to come on that.  Syd made it to the top!  I took her up the "roots" portion of the mountain and met her up with Adam, Ashton, and Tundra who went up the switchback.  They went up the rest of the way together while I practiced and checked out the mountain routes and conditions for the upcoming race.  She is looking at Seward and Resurrection Bay.

Syd had just climbed that mountain, impressive for a flat-lander! 

Exit Glacier!  I nursed Ashton while Adam, Ashton, and Syd got a close up experience. 
Have you ever licked a glacier?!?!

Beautiful day for hiking and glacier exploring!

This picture makes me smile every single time I look at it!  You can tell how much Ash adores Syd by the smile on his face! 

She got to see some moose on her trip!  Cow and twin calves were in a hurry on JBER base.

I spotted this bull on my way to the grocery store, I pulled back around to pick Syd up quick and luckily he was still there munching away so she could see him and take some pictures!

We LOVED having Sydney up here and can't wait until she comes up again!  We also hope to make a trip back to visit her at the good ol U of I while she's there, perhaps go to a tailgate and show her how its done! :)

More on Mount Marathon.... this is looking across Resurrection Bay at Mount Marathon over Seward below.  If you didn't catch my pictures or story about it last year, check out the links below and/or google some more videos!  It's pretty crazy and yet so addicting!  I improved my time this year by almost 8 minutes.  I got 111th place out of 280 finishers (350 women are selected and given bibs each year) with a time of 1 hour 17 minutes.  I am super happy with my performance this year although I know of places where I could've gone faster and am eager to improve more next year!  I was in the 2nd wave of runners and placed 7th in my heat!
http://mmr.seward.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ktva11/videos/10154498901352511/

 The mountain in the background with my finishing shirt and #1fan!  No bloody injuries this year but some sore ankles!  My ankles were pretty weak when training this year and gave out on me three times down the mountain!

 You guys, the street portion of this race is the worst I tell ya!  I believe it is a 1/2 mile but it is an incline at the start of the race which poops ya out before you even get to the mountain and then at the end of the race the cement is SO SO SO hard that your legs feel like they are going to shatter with each step!

 Shawn was my inspiration for entering this race, I believe this was his 5th year running it!  He has improved each year, takes joy in training for it, and agrees with its addictive nature!  BUT CHECK IT OUT..... this year we had the SAME BIB NUMBER! 

We think Adam hacked the system and changed our bib numbers to be the same! LOL

So the worst part of the race this year was the BUGS!  All of those black dots in this photo are the bugs that clung to us.......after we got above treeline?!?!?  YES, they were at the top of the mountain  and were absolutely horrible!  I have never, ever had so many bugs on my body at one time nor swallowed so many!  THANKFULLY they weren't biting!

We took a long weekend for the 4th and played a bit in Seward as well! Adam went out to fish for halibut and rock fish for our freezer.  Ashton and I went to see his catch and saw this lively group of otters playing around the boats! 

What an experience!  Ashton was upset he couldn't pet them!  .....me too!

We also went to the Sea Life Center, which really is an amazing place.  Ashton loves animals, so he had a great time! 

Touching some starfish/sea stars!

 Next up was Bapa and Nana Kucera's visit!  They were a huge help with Ashton during the first part of the trip while I ran around like a crazy person getting errands and things done for our family's to-do list as well as my childcare's!  It was so nice having them here to help out! 

Our main trip was dipnetting and fishing for sockeye/red salmon on the Kenai River.  Again, we absolutely needed them here to help with Ashton so that Adam and I could take off with the boat at 4:45 am to dipnet our family's fish for the year.  We didn't get all of our fish last year since I wasn't able to go out without help for Ashton(it is too dangerous for children).  So we requested they come at this time specifically for this reason, plus they love fishing!  We dipnetted 45 red salmon and were lucky enough to get 9 by shore fishing, it was extremely slow while we were there but mom and dad both caught fish and we were able to send some back for their freezer! 

We tent camped and it rained every single day.....soooooo that was messy but we were thankful for the opportunity to get some fish!

You can tell from this picture that the fishing is slow, they aren't shoulder-to-shoulder combat fishing!

Nobody got a picture, but I had Ash on my back in his pack one morning while I fished.  Long story short, if you are up early (or all night) with a toddler with a tummy ache, you might as well be fishing! We didn't catch any at that time though. :(  Would've been fun to show up all the men around me!

 

Yep, Iowa is in his blood!  Kid loves corn on the cob!

Happy to be outside in t-shirts and without rain gear!

It makes me happy that Ashton still loves books, wahoo for Grandpa taking over so I didn't have to read 27 books to him that day! :)

 Bapa and Nana got him icecream of course!

Grandma teaching him about farms and horses! :)

Ashton and I went back to Iowa while Adam was on a sheep hunt with Shawn.  Our trips to Iowa are very special for many reasons!

Books with Grandma! 

Grandpa has the best toys!   

We visited Grandma Grandma in Ottumwa!  They had a great time with this ball!

 We went to the Blank Park Zoo with all of his cousins!  The lions put on a show with lots of crazy sounds and some paw swiping, Ashton didn't like that part!  He also wasn't so sure about feeding a giraffe!  Sometimes animals are better at a distance.....or in a book!

We met up with cousin Katie, Adam, and Otis! 

We also met up with our friend Danielle :) and her son, Hudson, at this park for a playdate.  Hudson and Ashton haven't seen each other since he was 4 months old when they lived in Alaska.  They are near Des Moines now!

Busy park for play dates because we ALSO met Jenny, Nathan and their kiddos Madison and Ryerson as well as Carol and her newest addition to the family, Ava (her hubby was with their sick son) to play and catch up!  Life sure has changed for us since the college days!
  Ashton knew this park pretty well by the end of our trip!

While in Des Moines we also got to see my high school friends, Brooke and Sam, as well as their kiddos for a play date!  Altogether there were 7 kids, it was very entertaining and great to see these ladies!

We stopped to visit Grandpa Kucera!

Somebody found a rotting apple on the ground and mama had to dig it out of his mouth!  He enjoyed a good one while watching his cousins ride horses!

Ashton's first real ride besides sitting bareback! 

Pool time for this cool dude

Cousins caught some critters while fishing and on a creek walk. 

While in Traer we also got to see Braxton, Danae, and Tyler to play and catch up a bit! The boys also got to enjoy a bath time together! <3 p="">
We also got back just in time for the Wacha reunion, so we got to see a lot of our Kucera family as well as extended Wacha peeps!

Off we go!  It gets more and more difficult to leave now that Ashton is getting older and having a blast with his cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents, and Iowa friends!  I dread when the time comes that he asks to go there without understanding the distance and concept of traveling.  That was a heartbreaker for me when my nieces/nephew would ask me to come over for the night when we first moved to Alaska. :(  Before we know it, we'll be sticking him on a plane and sending him to Iowa for the summer........just kidding, he will have fish to catch! :) ha! 

Although the terrain is frustrating for him, he does enjoy plopping down in a blueberry patch and eating all that he can reach!  Blueberry poops for days!

 We went on our first family hunt!  Adam had a caribou tag, so we took off for the long Labor Day weekend!  We left Friday night after work, pulled into a camping spot at 12-something in the morning and were laying down to sleep around 2 a.m.  Oh and it was 36 degrees when we arrived!  Ashton usually does well with sleeping in the car but not so much on this trip due to heaves in the road the further north we got, so he was one tired boy!  We met up with another family we knew would be in the same area at a gas station along the way and decided to stick together for the weekend, they have 4 kids! Late night for everyone!

Our home for the weekend, an Arctic Oven tent.  Made for Alaska!  There is a little propane stove set up inside and it actually stays pretty toasty in there! 

Mama and Ashton on his first 4-wheeler ride, crossing some water!

Adam's nice cow caribou and Tundra's first big game hunt, he did amazing! 

We all headed out the next morning for caribou, the other family had two tags.  Unfortunately, Ashton didn't handle 5 hours of sleep very well and enjoyed his first 4-wheeler ride SO much that when it was time to get off and hike, he had a meltdown.  You can't sneak up on caribou with a crying toddler, so Ash and I stayed behind while everyone else hiked out (Adam and the family in different directions) with the hopes of meeting up with Adam and Tundra later.  Well, he obviously fell asleep right away on our ride back to camp, so I turned back around and could still see them hiking so I planned to catch up.  Nope, the second the wheeler turned off Ashton's eyes shot wide open and the crying continued!  So we went all the way back to camp and took a nice, long nap in the tent.  I was totally bummed to be missing out on this hunt, but couldn't blame Ashton for what we put him through!  The main mission was meat in the freezer!

Ash and I went back out a couple times throughout the day to see if we could catch a glimpse of them hiking or get information from other hunters on their whereabouts so we could hike to meet them.  Unfortunately, Adam had my binocs packed with him since we originally all started together! We didn't see them and didn't come across any other hunters on the trail so we decided to make it a berry picking day!  It was a crazy day for weather, starting with snow right as we got out of the tent in the morning with periods of snow and warm sunshine interchanging throughout the day. This meant a lot of layers coming off and going back on, then repeat!  We got a lot of berries to add to our freezer stash.

Adam and the other family, the Lubers (Adam went sheep hunting with Scott last year) didn't hike too far from each other and kept each other in sight.  Liz took a nice bull and Adam took a cow right next to him immediately after he saw the bull go down and knew that was her pick for her tag. Wahoo, two caribou within hours of the first morning of hunting! This family is amazing, they have 4 children- 6 years old, 5 years, 3 years, and 1 year who all hiked out together, harvested the bou, hiked out, and 4wheeled back! AND they did it again the next day for Scott's tag!        

Sunday was open for a fun day since we had our caribou!  We did some ptarmigan hunting and grayling fishing.  We caught more grayling than we could keep track of and I added a ptarmigan to our meat to take home!

Ashton checking out the fish!

Mama and her boys!

Spotted this caribou swimming across the lake!  Smart! Didn't see any hunters on the other side!

The little black dot is the bou

I made the picture bigger but I still don't think you can see it.  Ashton is watching a young, curious caribou as it was running toward us (and knew we were there!).  A cool experience yet a little scary since there were  A LOT of hunters around and you never know their demeanor.  I was worried we would get shot at, so we shooed him off!

Riding with dada!

I told ya, we even have outdoor books!  He has to read multiple times a day!  Reading, Wiggle, Waggle, Woof with our friends

Our sweet boy!  Thanks for the perfect hunting hat Bapa Kucera!  (sheriff's association hat!)

Adam's first "dry fly" grayling!

Ashton practicing his fly fishing skills!

 Snow in the mountains and a glacier shot on the drive out.  What a great weekend! 

The real work begins when you get home! Unpacking and processing the meat!  We do all of the meat ourselves, so it is quite the chore, especially with a toddler running around!  It seems we just got everything taken care of and then Adam started packing for the next trip.  My brother, Brandon and sis-in-law Deanna fly in on Thursday and then they all head out on a moose hunting trip with our friend, Kevin on Friday!  They will be hauling the boat and 4-wheelers up north in hopes of bringing home two moose! 

I am so very excited for Brandon and Deanna to have this experience and am pretty emotional about not getting to go along with Ashton.  This is a con for not teaching right now, there are no substitutes for a childcare provider!  However there are more pros and I know Adam will take good care of them and they will have a blast.  I look forward to the stories, pictures, and hopefully... meat!