Fall 2022

Fall 2022 was a rollercoaster of emotions in the Harris household.  We were navigating life without our fur baby, Tundra. All of the "firsts" seemed to rebreak our hearts, as we had the reminder of missing one of our family members on each adventure and routine.  The kids were getting upset and/or making comments weekly, sometimes several times a week, about how much they missed him. But day by day, life moved on and we didn't have to try too hard to stay busy.

Our family caribou hunt, Shawn and Adam's sheep hunt, and Adam, Kevin, and my moose hunt are in separate blogs. 

Ashton was at the start of first grade and rocking it!  Josie and I were spending our weekdays with our preschool friends.  However, I had switched to part-time with Kinder Ready Kids; we also got to enjoy some mommy/Josie days. Plus, the part-time schedule gave me some time to volunteer at Ashton's school. I LOVE being on the other end, as the mom, instead of the teacher! :)

Josie's ride, vroooom vroooom! Complete with purple shoes and a purple princess dress. 

Ash working on his stand-up pedaling. We practice at the middle school track

Josie tried out dance class.  30mins ballet and 30 mins tumbling.  We went to this class in town, since they didn't require the traditional pink outfit.  ..... Josie wanted black of course

At first she seemed to enjoy the class and did well (for Josie) following directions.  But it wasn't long until she got bored and disliked being told what to do and how to do it.  At the end of the semester, she chose not to continue on since it wasn't enough like a "dance party"  Girl likes to move, but on her own terms. 

Nana came to visit and to stay with the kids while Adam, Kevin, and I went on our moose hunt!  She had a lot of one-on-one time with Josie while Ashton was in school.  Also, our hunt didn't take as long as expected (which is a good problem! We were successful right away) so Adam and I had someone to help with the kiddos while we worked on meat in the garage and we also had some unexpected time with my mom. :) 

Painting nails, purple and sparkles of course!

Lite Brite, which was actually one of my favorites when I was little.  Josie got this with a unicorn pattern set for her birthday.

Even though Ashton is reading, he still enjoys being read to. 

This year's moose rack

Adam and Nana with the kids

Nana, the kids, and me in our "backyard" Eagle River

Loved our nana time!

Josie in her favorite pants.  The bell bottoms from auntie Deanna!  Unicorn hat with the attached head lamp was also from auntie Deanna! 

We took a weekend trip up north to go after grouse and rainbow trout on a pull-out between Long Lake and Gunsight Mountain.  Its a good place for Ashton to ride his wheeler, so we took that too!  Its exciting to see his ATV sense and confidence rise with experience. 

Girls' walk

Adam took this gorgeous photo, the lake was perfectly still, but only long enough for this photo opp!

Josie and I had a turn to ride the wheeler while the boys went fishing. Josie has a heavy thumb on that throttle! Yeeehaaawwwww

Ashton with his monster rainbow! He gets to excited to provide food for his family now, so we took a couple home to bake for dinner. 

Hiking trails, hoping for some grouse

Meet Lucy, this lil sweetie was booted by her mama earlier than usual.  She still seemed so tiny, but Fish and Game said its not uncommon.  We saw her often throughout the fall, visiting our culdesac to munch on her favorite bushes and trees!  We had to be on the lookout for her, as she became accustomed to people, and would just wonder on in, even if the kids were out playing.  In the fall, she never approached them.  Although it was hard, because she was so darn cute, we kept our distance and helped her to stay as wild as she could, living in our neighborhood.  We were rooting for her and were always happy to see she always looked healthy and strong, despite being on her own. 

Back to her favorite bush, after the snow had fallen.  Preschool friends enjoyed watching her grow too! 

Daddy had a busy work weekend and needed some peace and quite.  Kids and I went to the Bear's Tooth theatre for a little date.  At this theatre, 21 and older can enjoy a beer from Moose's Tooth brewery as well as order food to be delivered to your seat or booth.  We had fun sitting in a booth for the first time. 

I have a love/hate relationship with technology.  Most of the time, I am heavy on the hate, mostly because technology evolves too fast for me to keep up with and I just don't enjoy it in general.  However, being able to stream my niece, Breanna's, state volleyball matches right from the comfort of our own home was a huge LOVE!!  Also, at the end of games when the camera was still rolling, I often saw my family on the court chatting with the players and other family members, so they would make signals and faces at the camera and I would take a picture to send back.  A fun little way to connect!

Halloweeeeeeeen!  Ashton did some of his own carving with kids' carving tools

Josie was in charge of picking the family theme and as you can see, it was ballerinas.  Daddy is in charge of finding and buying costumes and as you can see, he did great, as usual!  As expected, Ashton was not thrilled to be a ballerina but was okay with making it scary by being an alien ballerina. It was cooooooooold! -2 degrees  But we bundled up and had our culdesac party anyway, we made sure to have enough fire pits and heat lamps for everyone to get a space.  Also plenty of hot drinks!

This was the first year the city piled the snow in the middle of the culdesac, instead of the edges and into people's yards.  The kids all loved it!  Here is the first hill and version. 

We enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving with Shawn, Erin, Ellie, Remi, Sue, Steve, and Luke, at the Naber's house. Great food and company, as always.  For the long weekend, we went north to Lake Louise to try for burbot and lake trout.  

Wahoo for snowmachine rides!

and tube rides!

and peanut butter whiskey with moose sausage over the buddy heater, yuuuuuuuuum

The kids are big helpers with cleaning out the ice holes

They usually go for the snowcone before the hot chocolate, no matter the temperature outside

This massive laker was a complete surprise, due to our location on the lake and the fact that Ashton was targeting white fish!  The excitement of getting this monster through the hole was unreal!

Lots of lakers, which we release.  Beauties on this lake

We had some doggy friends join us.  They were from a neighboring cabin.  It was welcome company as we all enjoyed some dog time.

Just got back from eating at the lodge, which I LOOOOOVE!  One of my favorites, taking the snowmachines to the lodge for dinner and drinks, then coming back to set up tip-ups at camp. 

We got into the burbot too! yummmmmmy

Next up, since Thanksgiving was over, was decorating for Christmas and going full-on Christmas mode.  We had listened to Christmas music starting asap Friday morning, this is a requirement of being a part of Adam's family.

Lord help us in 12 years when this little lady has her license

Santa Clause! Big hugs from Josie

A long chat from Ashton!

Even though they are "Alaska grown" these kids still bleed black and gold. Go Hawks!

The transition between fall and winter is much different up here. Now that Thanksgiving is over, we can move on to "winter" even thought we have had the cold and snow since before Halloween! :)