Fall 2021

 On to Fall, the shortest season of the year! 

The kids were very excited it was FINALLLLLLLY time to harvest potatoes and carrots.  Neither of them like potatoes, they barely even each french fries, but they will dig them up all day long!

Lots of purple and red potatoes this year

Josie preferred the colorful rainbow carrots and Ashton the biggest orange ones he could find!

The whole crew went with daddy to take the "Bob Boat" for a test drive on Finger Lake.  Wahooooo

We spent Labor Day weekend with the Nabers, camped in our cab-over campers along the side of an abandoned road near Sheep Mountain.

Adults played games too!  Had to have a drink in your hand and try your best at this frisbee beer game, after all, losers had to eat the foot and leg of a ptarmigan that was hunted and cleaned that day! 

Getting the ptarmigan leg ready for roasting.  They actually said it wasn't that bad, tasted like chicken. Ellie and Remi even tried it! 

Ashton's first willow ptarmigan with his 22!  We were after rock ptarmigan but ended up coming across these beauties.  Unfortunately, we had to leave Tundra back at camp with the Nabers since he wasn't feeling well, so we had to work extra extra hard to these birds.  I'm not sure who was more excited, Ashton or mommy/daddy.  The best part was how eager Ashton was to get back and show Tundra.

A dad and his boy, walking the ridgeline

Adam and Ashton are the dark spots below me.  Trying to bust some ptarmigan without our bird dog.  I was up higher, keeping eyes on the sneaky lil buggers. 

We also got to teach Ash how to put a stalk on some dall sheep!  I spotted some grazing on the mountain side and called the boys up to check it out. Ashton took his first peak over at them. 

We got low and side-hilled to get a closer look.  Adam and Ash army crawled to take a look over the point

We got within shooting range of this group of 8.  2 rams and the rest were ewes and lambs!  It was exhilarating to get Ashton this close, even though it wasn't open season!

These two peas in a pod.  Darling, sweet little trouble makers!

When I was making a s'more, I turned around to get my chocolate and it was gone!  Adam and I blamed Ellie since she was the last one we saw near us by the campfire.  But then..... these little sneaks revealed that they had in fact snuck in and stole my chocolate without any of us even seeing them.  THEN they did the same with my graham crackers except I caught them out of the corner of my eye.  However, it was too late and they were already running away with graham cracker in their mouths, giggling. 

(Side note- the kids like to wear these ski goggles as smoke goggles near the campfires in the summertime! Clever)

Ashton's wheeler made the trip with us and was ridden up and down that little side road a hundred times.  Ellie learned to drive it too!  I think Ashton and Ellie's favorite part of the weekend was talking to each other via their walkie-talkies!  Pretty entertaining to watch and listen to them. 

These old pups have been adventure buddies for life.  They do a lot of laying and observing nowadays though.

We all went on a hike, up, up, up!

This part was incredibly steep, but our little Alaskans did great and didn't skip a beat!  I believe Uncle Shawn was carrying Josie at this point. 

Kings and Queens of the road! 

Ashton did some target practicing.  Tundra was beside himself with excitement, he knew what was to come.  The boys all tried a trail that we usually kick grouse up on, but didn't see anything this time. 

Josie's first drawing of an actual person!  

This girl simply could not wait to put all her gear on before going outside into the new snow. 

This happened multiple times with our VERY EARLY snowfall this year.  I would be out front shoveling, early in the morning, clearing snow for our daycare families and Josie would come running out like a wild animal in her jammies and boots.  "Snoooooooow!"

Josephine's first haircut!  Her hair took forever to grow in, but when it did, it grew really long, really quick.  She needed a trim to help with the knots and snarls.  She absolutely loved every minute of it and did so well!

Ashton got his second wiggly tooth.  When it was deemed fit to pull, Ashton's idea was to tie a string to it and have daddy pull it out with the wheeler.  And that's just what we did.  The tooth went flying of course and we had a whole search crew (neighbors) looking for it.  It was never found. 

Ashton thinks the tooth fairy found it for him, because she saw and knew what happened.  She then left the tooth with the money so he could take a look at it.  She came back for the tooth later.

***I was a genius and kept the first tooth he lost.  We used it in place of this lost one since they were both front, bottom teeth***

A Sunday night tradition around here.  The kids helping daddy crack the eggs to prep for his week of scrambled egg breakfasts

Josephine stuck a pea up her nose and luckily, daddy was able to get it out.  She often sticks things in her nose and ears.  Because of that, we purchased special tools to keep in both of our vehicles for when we are out and about and need to extract some piece of nature from an orphis.  This was definitely the worst case though and almost a trip to the hospital. 

Josie is obsessed with purple, so I bought us matching purple hats for winter. ..... she won't wear hers. (SIGH)

We gave in and got a family pass to the Alaska Club, a gym with lots to offer AND IT BETTER, because it's freaking expensive.  That's why it took us so long to sign up.  But my goodness, we love it!  There is childcare for when mommy/daddy work out.  (COVID precautions in place too) A pool for open swim and swim lessons. This bball gym.  Massage options. etc etc.  Adam has enjoyed playing basketball in the gym with the kids after his workouts, when he picks them up from childcare.  The kids love going to the childcare, it's a clean and fun environment.  They have made friends and really like their teachers in there.  (The teachers like them too!)

Sweet Tundra boy with his new teddy

Ashton played basketball on Friday nights throughout the fall.  They learned and practiced skills through drills and games.  Towards the end of the season, they started to scrimmage another team.  It was both hilarious and intriguing.  Of course it was funny to watch a bunch of 5 year olds try to play a game of basketball for the first time.  But honestly, they did much better than I had expected and it was lovely to see and hear them cheer for their teammates and encourage each other.  Ashton was probably the loudest of both teams and I don't think he ever stopped cheering or saying, "I'm open!" :) 

We spent a weekend at the Naber's cabin.  This was one of the walks we took.  Lots of walks and exploring. There wasn't enough snow for sledding, skiing, icefishing yet.

Ashton's kindergarten photo!  He has never, ever smiled like this before!  But we love it! 

Difficult to see, but towards the bottom left of this photo is the gigantic black bear that hung out in our neighborhood this fall.  Visited us at our house several times and almost came up our front deck.  This is taken from our front window.  We had to scare of him a few times. 

Ashton's class made these pumpkins.  Can you guess which one is his?  (Keep in mind his dad is Adam, a pharamcist)

Perfectionist!??!

And then there's Josie.  THIS is the pumpkin she picked out when we went to the store to find some for carving.  They had orange and white pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.  Her eyes absolutely lit up and she squealed with excitement when she saw this one and insisted on it.  Meanwhile, Ashton picked out the most perfect pumpkin he could find!

We got Josie her pumpkin but got a second one for carving!  Both kiddos picked out their pumpkin face patterns and helped.  Ashton even got to do some cutting this year with our special pumpkin carving tools

Not sure if you will be able to read this, so I will type it out.  This is Josie's sticker story. She picked a sticker and made a story about it, including further illustration.  This sticker is of a one-eyed, green monster.

"There was something spooky in the sky and it was a monster.  Him had 1 eye and with a horn. Him was nice and I picked him up.  Then him was nice and little and him want his mom.  And I was his mom." -Josie Rae -3 years old- October 2021

Ashton picked the costumes again this year.  Super heros!  Tundra got to keep his spidey costume from the past two years.

Adam made his very own Hulk costume.  He spent HOURS on it and it looked great!  I was wonder woman, Tundra was spiderman, Josie was PURPLE batgirl, and Ashton was black panther! We were suppose to have a couple fire pits, Halloween movie, hot drink station, etc out in the culdesac for Halloween night but the weather had different ideas.  It was cold and rainy the entire day.  Right after we decided to postpone our culdesac party, the rain stopped and it actually would've been a good night for it.  Oh well!

We got out the fire pits, warm drink station (with peanut butter whiskey for cocoa, fireball or rum for cider), projected the movies Casper and then the Lion King on the side of the camper, and invited the neighbors and Eagle River friends out to join us another weekend night.

Josie's first drawing of an animal.  A whale!  Complete with a poop!

Snow started falling in September this year.  We had quite a few smaller accumulations of snow before it dumped 18 inches on us in 24 hours!  The road grader had come in and scraped up snow in our culdesac but the plow hadn't come through yet before this bus got stuck in the piles.  Adam went out to help!

And this is an example of the berm that is left by the road grader.  The plow used to always take care of these that were left at the end of driveways.  Now they do maybe 1/4 of the time.  Mostly, they are left for the resident to clear.  This was A LOT of snow and very hard work for Adam and I.  We cleared it for our neighbors who were out of town.  I can't believe the expectation is for people to clear it themselves!

Ashton did a great job for his COVID vaccinations! We are just waiting on the day when Josie can get hers too.

The fall weather was rough.  Snow early on and a lot of negative temps.  We had more days that were AT LEAST -15 at house than ever before.  This meant we had more days than not that I've had to keep daycare kids inside.  UUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH that's the worst.  Here's Josie and one of her buddies doing some indoor exercise videos! 

We spent Thanksgiving at Erin and Shawn's with their girls and Erin's parents.  After everyone's tummies settled a bit, we went outside to sled down their driveway with head lamps!  It was a great Thanksgiving.

We missed a few weekend trips throughout fall due to the weather.  We had enough and decided to go on an overnight camper and icefishing/snow machine trip anyway one weekend.  It was suppose to be around 0degrees during the day and -10 at night.  Doable.  Weeeellllll the forecast was a bit off as we pulled into the lake it was -13.  We stayed anyway, that's the great thing about a cabover camper, if the heater wasn't able to keep up with the cold, then we could just jump in the truck if needed.  We set up on the lake, a frigid day but the sun was out and it wasn't windy so it didn't seem that bad.  TUNDRA would disagree, he decided to just hang out inside the hut with his head poking out if we were outside.  He didn't want to miss anything but his paws were getting too cold.  (he won't keep his booties on)

The kids obviously were not bothered by negative temps as here they are, enjoying fresh snow cones.  Adam got flavoring and added it to snow right outside the hut!

A couple of our friends, Luke and Beki, have a cabin on this lake and came over to see how things were going and if the fish were biting.  Adam brought them out to the hut via tube rides behind the snowmachine! 

That's it for our Fall.