Utah trip 2010!

We made our annual summer trip to Utah last month. Normally this is a 2+ month trip with plenty of time to visit all our family and friends. This year we cut it down to three weeks - three very very busy weeks! I managed to leave my camera in it's case the whole trip, so I have no pictures, but here's a bullet list of highlights.

• Hughes family reunion - another great one! Thanks Phill and Melissa!
• 4th of July - Could only get better if we weren't torn between our two families who were almost all in town for the party!
• Double date to Durango with Becky and James. I loved having time to just hang out.
• Trip to Salt Lake - school shopping was good, but temple square was great!!
• Stayed with Regan and Mori, there home has become our favorite bed and breakfast.
  
• Richmond family reunion - good camping trip; hot, lots of bugs, but good company!
• Pool party at Robby and Laurel's in Phoenix. 114 degrees!! Loved the pool, food, and hosts!

We met two new nieces and a brand new nephew, went swimming a few times, and never had a chance to get bored. And the good news is, we are extremely close to having enough miles to fly the whole family for free next year :)

Grandpa finally gets a Salmon!!

We've taken my dad to some beautiful fishing spots! We've tried every trick and tip people have shared.

But the Salmon just aren't running right now. My dad has caught a couple trout that were big enough to eat, and he's eaten crab every day (9 days in a row) until today. But he really wanted a salmon. So I was really excited for him when I came home from a trip to town today and heard that he got a big silver salmon.

Then I found out that he bought it from a big commercial fishing boat down at the dock!! Oh-well, he was obviously very proud of his salmon anyway. And he ate it for lunch and dinner, even though it ruined his run of none stop crab.

Liz's Birthday and kid's fishing day

This year Liz agreed to a smaller (mostly family) party in exchange for her getting to help with all the party preparations. She helped make mini cakes for everyone to decorate. She made and filled the pinata. And she blew up the balloons and put them all over the house. We had a great time. Everybody's cakes turned out great!
The pinata survived all the way through round one (everyone from Sammie to Grandpa took a turn), then we started over. It didn't make it through round two though. I thought this was one of the better looking pinata's I'd seen lately. And Liz loved making it!!
The next day was the Kid's fishing day put on by the forest service. It's a great carnival type event where every booth is somewhat educational and free. And they had great prizes and a free lunch. Everyone enjoyed the fly tying booth- even Liz and Sammie.
The casting game was a favorite also. It's kind of like a bean bag toss, but you cast a little plastic fish into a big wood fish's mouth. Dylan and Chase even enjoyed it.
Sunday afternoon Liz did Dylan's and Chase's hair. They were great sports. Liz loved it!

I love summer vacation so far! I just wish I had a maid to take care of the house while I'm playing with the family.

My Dad and brothers visit

My dad and the boys are over halfway through their visit already so I decided it was time to post some pictures of the fun we've had so far. Unfortunately they had to time their trip around sports seasons instead of around fishing seasons. So we haven't been doing so good on the fishing but I think they are all having a good time. The first day they were here we all got to the house around 8pm. But we were all hungry so Stewart took the boys to check the crab pots and brought home dinner. Dylan and Chase ate quite a bit that night but then Liz stepped in to help Grandpa finish up.
The next day we had to take care of business before we could get into the vacation. I took my dad and some kids to Craig to pick up their luggage (it wouldn't fit on the plane when they flew over from Ketchikan). And Stewart took the boys and Caleb to Thorne Bay to turn in a bunch of school stuff. We all saw a few of the new fawns but these pictures are ones that the boys took.
Later we took my dad out to find his dinner. He enjoyed pulling up his first pot to find his very own crab.

Spring time fun!

Marathon
Yesterday our family was part of the two teams that Coffman Cove put together for the annual Prince of Wales Marathon. We enjoyed the exercise and sunshine even if we weren't the least bit competitive. I never plan on being able to run a marathon, but we definitely plan on participating again next year. I'd kind of like to walk/jog the whole thing. We'll have to see what I think by next spring. Here's a picture of most of the people on our 2 8-person teams.


Geo caching
I know geo caching has been around for a while but I never understood it until a couple weeks ago. I love it. We've only done 4 caches so far, but the kids and I are looking forward to doing more on the island and when we come to Utah this summer. It's a great game to get us all outside doing something and exploring new places. The kids love posing for pictures so here's a couple fun ones we got while on the hunt for a cache. This first one is at the base of a big tree. It just had this big hollow rotted out spot in it - perfect for posing kids.

This one is Josh with a moss wig. He found this big clump of moss and decided it would make a good wig. The girls both tried it on too. We had to wash everyone's hair when we got home.Bird feeder
We put a couple of bird feeders outside the kitchen window a couple months ago. We get a whole bunch of little finches or something, but we also get a couple of these beautiful blue jays. They don't sing nearly as nice as the little birds, but they sure are pretty.Other wildlife
Today on the way to church we saw our first newborn black tail deer. They will probably become a common site in the next couple weeks. They are probably only a little more than a foot tall - so tiny!! We also saw a bear. Not the first, or even the first one of the year, but it was the biggest we've seen by far. And the closest I've been to one. I enjoy seeing them, but I'm glad we don't see them all the time, then I'd probably worry about them more.

Moving

Big announcement! We're moving!!! OK so it's not that big of deal to most of my readers that we're moving from one small town on an island to another smaller town on the same island. But we're excited. The town we're moving to is called Kasaan (the "aa" sounds like the a in sand). We'd thought about Kasaan before, but thought that the school would be closing due to a lack of students next year. But the Superintendent stopped in to visit last week and asked us to think about moving there. To his credit, he did not push us or try to make it sound like a wonderful idea. He also did not play the card of needing us to "save" the school by adding our 4 children to the 8 already there in order to make the minimum 10 students to keep the school open. He simply laid out the facts and told us to think about what would be best for our family. We knew what we wanted to do, but put off a decision long enough for me to make a trip over to see the town in person and of course pray about it. But both of those just reinforced the feeling that it would be a good move for us. So at some point this summer when we get all the details worked out we'll be moving to Kasaan. It is a Haida village (Alaskan Indians). It's 60-70 residents are about 50/50 native and nonnative. The school actually doesn't have any Haida or even Tlingit (the other local tribe) students, but it will have three Yupik high school students (from a village somewhat close to Chevak.) We've already met a lot of the people and everyone seems very excited to get a new family in town. This will be a small move in some ways - we get to stay in the same branch for church (the drive to church will even be a very similar length) and we also stay in the same district so all of Stewart's supervisor type people will remain the same (which is good - we like them). But moving to a new home and community is always a big deal. Totem poles are a big part of the local culture. They have a great collection of totem poles and Kasaan is also home to the only remaining Haida clan house in the U.S. We're excited to get more involved in the local culture there and will share pictures soon.

Back track to October

I was dumping pictures from my daughters camera onto the computer today and realized that I had borrowed her camera to go to my brothers wedding in October. I don't have a single picture of the happy couple but I have at least a dozen of this adorable group of cousins.
This is 7 of my parents 10 grand kids (my mom hand made all five of the girls dresses). The only kids missing are my older three kids. Sammie is my only one that got to go on the trip with me - she's the third from the left. Aren't they adorable!! With kids this cute around who wants pictures of a bride and groom?

My other favorite pic from our trip. My kids have been given airline stickers in the past. They usually say things like "FRAGILE - handle with care" or "COOL" - meaning refrigerate. But when the woman in the Ketchikan airport opened her drawer to get Sammie a sticker- Sammie spotted the one with orange writing (her favorite color) and insisted on having that one. The poor lady was obviously torn between pleasing a stubborn 3 year old and facing the consequences of labeling a child in such a way- but she eventually gave in and gave her the Sticker she wanted.