Spring still includes a good amount of snow for us! But the sun is rising up and over highland mountain, so we have direct sunlight again. "Break up" begins with the warmer temps and everything is a sloppy mess. The kids love it, puddles puddles puddles! We get our last weekend trips with snow and ice covered lakes.
Spring was different this year, as it was for the entire world. At the beginning of March, we watched the ceremonial start of the Iditarod and cheered for the mushers and pups. Adam and Kevin went on the annual Crosswinds trip for a long weekend over spring break. The kids and I spent spring break going to dentist and pediatric appointments and thank goodness we did because only a week later these appointments were restricted. The last day of spring break was our last public event. I took the kids and a couple neighbor girls to a St. Patrick's day pool party on base. And then COVID-19 reached the United States and everything halted.
spring time, break-up baseball!
Ashton called us all Batman! We were all dressed in black base layers, so batmen and women we were!
Josie has the need for speed. There will be no stopping her in a couple years.
We borrowed this awesome kids' snowmachine for the weekend. Ashton was very cautious and apprehensive. We were able to adjust the throttle and speed so it just slowly toodled along. He rode it around our culdesac a bit and we took it to Mirror Lake for a day of ice fishing and trying this machine out. He got the hang of it on the lake and started calling it "his". It was for sale but we decided to wait and purchase a kid's ATV instead.
Puddles puddles puddles. All gear and boots have to be dried out each and every day at this point of spring!
These two. They truly adore each other. As parents, we couldn't ask for a better relationship between our 4 year old boy and 1 year old girl. He protects her, teaches her, loves on her and for the most part is patient for her "Josie tornado" moments when she knocks down his towers or swipes all the dinos off the table. He introduces her as his sassy baby sister! Josie looks up to him for everything.....whatever he does, she wants to do too. We call her Ashton's shadow. Is she doesn't see him, you better believe she is calling for him and searching for him. Also- they share a bedroom! Whew this is a challenge but in all reality, it's probably going as well as one could expect for a toddler and preschooler! Our spare rooms are used for childcare, which is why they share. Neither of them are good sleepers, never have been. So when one wakes up, they both usually do. But we are making it work.
She loves to wrestle and try to smother him. He's usually quick enough to get away or avoid it though. When she catches him, there's often some painful outcome for Ashton.
Adam took the kid by himself for a weekend to give me time to catch up on other things. They always do fun stuff during daddy time. They went to Comicon on base... of course Ashton was all for an excuse to put on his Spider Man costume.
Obstacle Course
Building station
Josie won a shark toy
They then went mini golfing
Josie just climbed on everything
Moose visitor! Kiddos keeping check on him on our back deck as he munched his way through the greenbelt.
First spring hike up Mile Hi. Ashton is an impressive hiker, we are proud of him! Lunchtime break
Eagle River nature center hike, the views here are incredible
Lynx coming up our culdesac. One of my childcare mamas took this photo but by the time we looked out the window, it was gone. The kids enjoyed seeing it's tracks in the snow though. Lynx are elusive, so this was an exciting sighting.
Josie front carrying her baby while grocery shopping, wonder where she got this idea from! Ha!
Big bro, showing sis how to flip rocks to find worms and bugs!
There was a Resident Hunter's of Alaska (RHAK) gathering at Dave and Buster's. Ashton was in heaven!
Soooo many lights, noises, and things to do = stimulus overload.
Josie loves buffs, especially putting every one of them on at the same time.
We use our frozen berries to make delicious smoothies year round; the kids love them.
Daily stroll to to the mailbox
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| Getting big for this strider bike, we will be trying out a pedal bike this summer |
Tough girl all scratched up from a face plant into the cement off the front steps. She is miss independent and wasn't listening to mommy. Natural consequence that I cried over more than Jos.
This became a a familiar place for the kiddos... Daddy's training stairs.
Mother's Day hike up Bird Ridge off the Seward Highway
My boys. Daddy sees Ashton hiking and starts imagining their future sheep hunting adventures!
Love love loving this camper. So convenient, so comfortable, so spoiled!
snuggles
Post-bath time snuggles. Their routine after bath is to run out of the bathroom in their towels to snuggle with daddy. I think he was gone for this one but the snuggles must continue!
The reason for the cab-over, to pull our toys along too! Headed to the Deshka and Big Su to catch and release Kings. Plus hopefully find some hooligan for the kids.
Silly daddy bet mommy that she couldn't skip a large rock (bigger than her hand) more than 7 skips. Loser had to take a dip in the Big Su river, brrrrrrrrrrrr. HAHA
His facial expressions and goofiness have been fun. We are constantly finding selfies on our phones!
Tundra loves the Deshka river and catching kings too!
This year was another catch and release year. Hope these beauties can make a come back.
We were a little late for the hooligan, only found dead ones along the shore.
People catch hooligan for eating and for bait. You net them, similar to dipnetting with a smaller net. Except you can bring up a net full of them (a hooligan is a little bigger than my hand) if you hit the run right. We did this once with Shawn and Erin several years back. We tried eating them fried and canned. They were good but not amazing enough to make it a priority for stocking meat. So we mainly wanted the kids to have the experience. Maybe next year.
On to summer. With so many unknowns over COVID, we aren't sure what summer will look like. We have visitors coming up and a trip to Iowa planned. We have travel mandates for out of state traveling. Alaska is unique for the need to keep all of the smaller communities and villages protected from this virus. Community travel mandates have also been in place. There are a lot of strong feelings for those whose lives depend on hunting, fishing, gathering, and of course the tourism industry. One day at a time.
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