Alaska State Fair Time!!

I really don’t know how we do it. EVERY YEAR. Even if the forecast calls for rain, if the Powers clan is hitting the Alaska State Fair, the rain disappears. Not that I have absolute faith that it will happen every year, which is why all the rain coats...

Because of the grand expense of taking three kids (who want to ride every ride now that they are older) we only go once per year now. Usually with our church youth group. Like this time. I grabbed the kids from school, walked to the other end of the building with them....




....and hopped on the bus to the fair. Side note: Our bus driver was super hawt.


At the front gate, waiting for daddy (aka “hawty bus driver”) to park the bus. This is our friend Gavin. His dad is the Jr. High youth pastor at our church. He and Josh are the same age and will be starting kindergarten together next year.

The first thing we did was eat a little. My kids can’t handle spending extended time wandering and eating and I can’t handle spending extended time at the rides so we did a little of this, and a little of that, then back to this and so on. It was the perfect solution.

(Note to self: pack food for the kids next year. They just don’t appreciate a $9 corn dog like they should.)

I, on the other hand, fully appreciated my seafood bread bowl to the fullest of my capabilities. The giant earthquake burger is a fair favorite for Darrin as well. I didn’t get a picture of it this year but 2 years ago it looked like this.

Ride time.

The first ride of the year was this brand new caterpillar roller coaster. The boys rode it, Jordan didn’t (until later). They have a new found love and fascination with roller coasters thanks to Remlinger Farms and Washington Grandma.



Jordan couldn’t wait to get on the carousel. Girl has horses on the brain lately.



While I indulged Josh and Jordy with this lame waste-of-ride-tickets kiddy ride...


Daddy and Jake rode the hang glider.



Then it was time for another food run. Oh look! Hula hoops!

Jordan gave a good effort.


But I had no clue that Jake could rock a Hula hoop like a master.




Darrin had heard a rumor that the fair had kangaroos this year. We were skeptical because we couldn’t find them. Until we found them.



Then Grandma Diana took the kids into the bird cage to feed all the little gold finches or whatever they were. The wire mesh messed with my picture taking but basically all three kids went in, sat down with their hands full of food and the birds attacked. Jordan flipped her lid, lost her mind and food went flying everywhere and as her screams died down we all noticed that Jake, sitting quietly on the floor, had about 10 birds perched on his hands nibbling away. They landed all over him and he just sat there, loving every second of it.


Pelicans.


Grandma Diana brought this giant umbrella that we didn’t need. But if you know my kids, you know they are obsessed with umbrellas so we had to snap a photo under it.



We used up the last of our ride tickets on the GIANT SLIDE!


Josh and Gavin got to do a ride together. Best buds forever!


We ended the day at the toy booth where each kid picked a prize for being AWESOME. Seriously. Darrin and I reflected on it later that night. The kids were amazing. Their behavior was exceptional. No whining. No fighting. No making me want to stab my eyes out.

So proud of my super sweet babies.

The Truth

I found this on Pinterest this morning and had to share. Original credit (I think) goes here.

Anyway, I’m sharing because it’s the truth.

The Truth for Mature Humans.

1. Part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize that you’re wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to take a nap when I was younger.

4. There is a need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet? (I actually know the answer to this, thank you Martha Stewart.)
Fold A Fitted Sheet

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start the directions on #5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make great stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I didn’t make any changes to.

14. “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this - EVER.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring, but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice-mail. What did you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night that more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

20. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

21. Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was happening when I first saw it.

22. I would rather try to carry 10 over-loaded plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

23. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

24. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

25. How many times is it approriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear or understand a word they said?

26. I love the sense of camaraderie when and entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

27. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

28. Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber and dumber every year?

29. There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

30. As a driver, I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian, I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate bicyclists.

31. Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

32. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a purse, finding their cell phone, and pinning the tail on the donkey - but I’d bet my life, everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

The Big Day.

I feel like the first day of school snuck up on me this year. Maybe because I wasn’t focused on preparing a new kindergartener, but I just wasn’t anticipating/dreading it so much this year, and as a result, I found I wasn’t completely prepared this morning.

No coats.

Okay, I have big bulky winter jackets ready to go, but in today’s soft, cool drizzle, a parka was overkill. But the short sleeves they were both wearing probably wasn’t a good option for recess. So I dug out a couple of nasty old light weight coats and put them on while I donned a load of guilt on myself for not sending them to school on the first day with nice new play coats.

Dumb, I know. Not just for forgetting but for making a big dumb deal about it now. Whatever. Mom’s care about this stuff.

When we arrived at the school, Hubby was there in the gym waiting for us and we found our teachers quickly. Jordan has Mrs. Wetzler, whom Jake had last year and we love and Jaycob has Mr. Szepanski who happens to be Jake’s best friend’s dad.

Jake ditched us pretty quickly to find his friends but I hung with Jordan while she had a mini breakdown. Overwhelmed I think, with all that curly hair.


Jake and his best buddies


Jordan and her teacher, Mrs. Wetzler.


Jordy at her desk.


Jaycob at his desk way in the back corner.

Have a wonderful day babies!

OH CRUD! I forgot to put love notes in their lunches!

Twas The Night Before...

The FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!




Doobie’s not going to school yet but he sure looks cute in his new bunk bed.

Kids’ Camp

Earlier this month, my eldest baby went to Kids’ Camp with our church. Alone. Like, without a mommy.

I was against the idea from the beginning. Jake REALLY wanted to go. And Hubby really wanted to let him go. When he first came home from church begging to go, I just smiled, patted him on the head and said a little prayer that he’d forget all about it. Quickly. I remember looking at Darrin like, NO WAY, and him looking back at me and shrugging like, WHY NOT?

Gasp!

NO!

HE’S A TINY BABY!

Who will make sure he eatswellwipeshisbutttakesashowermakesfriendsobeyshisleadersgoestosleepbrusheshisteethrememberswherehetookhisshooesoffhangsuphiswetstuff??????

Well, WHO?

Then Hubby went and signed him up for camp, two days before camp started, without a word to me.

So, I was forced to accept and embrace the idea within a span of two days.

The morning I dropped him off at the church for camp was worse than his first day of kindergarten for me. HE WAS SO EXCITED and I was a nervous, idiotic wreck. I made him practice carrying his backpack and sleeping bag/pillow around the house before he left so that I could assure myself he could carry it all from the bus to the cabin by himself when he got there. We practiced brushing our teeth and spitting because this was his first experience with real tooth paste, not the toddler kind you can swallow. I packed and then made him repack his bag so that he knew where everything was and where everything went. I reminded him to hang up his wet stuff and put his dirty clothes in the plastic bag I’d tucked in there.

He immediately climbed onto the bus and sat with his best friend (who he’s been best friends with since they were babies together. THEY ARE STILL JUST BABIES!) After I stood outside the bus blowing kisses and making faces at him for five minutes, I motioned for him to get off the bus to give me another hug. As he began bounding down the steps he stopped and turned to his friends and said, “I have to get off the bus for a minute, my mom needs to hug me.”

And then I left. ‘Cause I was getting choked up. WHAT?

But everything was going to be okay, you know why? Because he is eight years old. He’s not a tiny baby. And his best friend’s parents were going to be there the whole time. And his kindergarten teacher’s husband was his counselor, and the kids’ pastor’s wife was going to keep me posted via Facebook messages and phone photos and because one of the girls on Hubby’s basketball team was going to be there and make him call me every night.

This was the first photo I received. Lunch on the first day. He later told me that all the food was gross so he only ate bread and cake. When he called me that night he said, “Hi Mommy! I’m just calling to see if you’re okay.”

Sweetness and light. That’s what this boy is. Then he told me that he hung up his swimming shorts and wet towel like I told him but they weren’t by his bed because there was no good spot but it was SORT OF CLOSE to his bed so don’t worry.


This was the 2nd photo. Dinner on day two. (Notice he’s wearing the same clothes? Which, incidentally are his PJs). They had to do a silly lineup for dinner. More bread and cake.


This was taken before going home on the last day. Those are the tattoos he helped his team win and then applied to his arms and face.

When he came home at 10pm three days later, he was exhausted, excited and full of stories. He handed me an envelope with what was left of his snack shop money ($5.25 out of $10) which he didn’t use much of because they didn’t have anything healthy there. WHAT?

He laughed and pounded the table with his fist when he told me that he got to shower in the girls' bathroom because the girls’ dorms had their own showers. He admitted that he sometimes took longer than two minutes because it was SO WARM. When I asked if he used soap, he couldn’t remember.

As he sat before us, at 10:30 at night, regaling us with hilarious stories, he pounded two pieces of pizza and a yogurt because he was starving from living off bread and cake.

The important thing is, he had the time off his life. And he made it through. He came home smelly and hungry but SO HAPPY. I survived, by the grace of God, and I think it’s good sometimes for a tired stay-at-home mommy of three to have a reason to miss her babies.

Hands

“Mommy, I know why God gave us hands.”

This, from Doobie as he wandered into the kitchen after me.

“They are so we can pray.....and to help somebody up....and to scratch their back if they are itchy...."

Campalicious

You mayhap recall I story I told in an earlier post about our RV, Rory and all his many maladies and general shortcomings. Not that any of that has stopped us from utilizing him this summer. His mysterious upper bunk flooding problem was solved by copious amounts of caulking over several days while we waited for it to rain so that we could test our patch jobs. Each new patch DID NOT fix the problem and it wasn’t until Hubby practically coated the entire roof that the leaking stopped. This was a two week long process which probably could have been shortened to a couple of days if we’d thought sooner about doing a hose test instead of rain test...

Rory’s other issue consisted of a complete and utter lack of refrigeration. We bought Rory several years ago and I’m pretty sure the refrigerator went out on the second camping trip we ever took. So we became cooler people. I mean cooler as in, little store bought box that keeps food cold, not cooler as in “heeeeeyyy” like Fanzi. Though, we are also cool like that. So for a few years we packed our little red cooler on camping trips. Or we didn’t go camping at all because camping in a flooded motor home with no refrigerator kinda bites.

One day over this summer, while I was with my parents in Seattle for a visit, I got to talking about Rory and his issues. My mom then told me about a guy (who was from Alaska, weird) that they’d met in Arizona who had a small chest freezer that he set outside his camper and plugged in to the hookups. I’m pretty sure I heard the Hallelujah Chorus as I considered the possibilities.

Fast forward to July and you find Hubby outside in Rory, ripping the old refrigerator out. It was big and heavy and unwieldy (and it’s still sitting in our yard because we’re totally awesome like that). The space it left is gaping and dripping with dirty insulation but it’s ready. And waiting.

A couple more weeks pass and the family and I are loaded up in Rory, heading out for some camping and stopping at Fred Meyer for some ice for the stupid cooler. As we all walked into the store, there right in front was a display of mini-refrigerators for offices and such, on clearance. When I say there was a display I mean there was only one left. Cue Hallelujah Chorus again.

We installed it in the Fred Meyer parking lot. Awesome sauce.

In typical Powers fashion though, there were issues. We had no hookups at our campsite so we tried running the new refrigerator off the house battery which kept frying fuses and tripping breakers. We didn’t have the stuff we needed to run it off propane either. But hubby did some Macgyver tricks by cutting an extension cord with a box knife and fandangled some weird wiring situation and suddenly the thing was running off of our generator. Suh-weet.

Anyway, we went camping, the weather was awesome, we biked, we swam, I EVEN SWAM and I don’t do that very often. We canoed, we rafted on our Airbed using a battle ax for an oar. It was a good couple of days. I think I took a couple of pictures.



Airbed boat with Battle Ax oar.


Bugaroo swimming across the lake with her arm floaties on.





Towing


The boys taking the Airbed boat out for a cruise.


It was a pretty good oar, even with the holes.

Photo Goodness

Love these turkeys! Pizza stained faces and everything.



Okay, this is actually not pizza. It’s flower pollen. And when I saw him I thought he’d cracked his face open on the concrete.

My Amia

There are perks to being a photographer, let me tell you. Like today for instance. I was invited to photograph a clothing collection for My Amia Boutique and guess who got to be a little model....hmmmm?



My Amia Boutique is a little girls’ clothing line designed and handmade by my wonderful friend, Heather Masters. She is amazing and I’m honored to be a part of her product launch! Like My Amia on Facebook by clicking HERE!

Lessons In Life

I’ve been saying for a while now how I want bunk beds for my boys. Not because they need to share a room, but because I think bunk beds are cool.

Up until a month ago, Doobie slept in a toddler fire truck bed in his little tiny room. In spite of the fact that he had far outgrown it, the toddler bed was really the only option for his postage stamp sized bedroom. If we put a twin bed in there, he wouldn’t be able to fit himself into the room with it.

Then, one day, I stumbled upon a bunk bed at a garage sale. For $20. The catch? No hardware. Oh, and only one set of side rails to support the mattress. No problem. I’ll turn it into a LOFT BED. The perfect solution for my son’s minuscule bedroom. Sleep on top, play underneath.

“Yes!” I think to myself. “This is the perfect solution.”

So I purchased the bed.

I painted the bed. (Two coats of primer, three coats of paint, 2 coats of polyurethane - took FOREVER).


After a gazillion trips to Home Depot for hardware, and a bit of wood to to make it safe, a trip to the furniture store for a mattress, (of course they only had the expensive kind) the loft bed is complete.



Isn’t it lovely?

Now, here is the lesson I’ve learned.

Putting sheets on and taking sheets off a bunk SUCKS.

Not only that, but my son is still working out the whole peeing in the bed in the middle of the night thing. So I have to take sheets off and on at THREE IN THE MORNING every other night.

So, basically, $300 later, it was the worst $20 I’ve ever spent.

How Rude

Another installment of Things I Can’t Believe I Had To Say.

“Don’t throw socks in people’s food!"

Where Am I and Why?

This month, July 11, to be exact, marked the 10 year anniversary of our arrival in Anchorage, Alaska to live. Why did we move here you ask? I too, ask that question. Every. Single. Day.

Not really. More like every other day. Okay, every winter day. Which is basically every day...okay, moving on.

It all started with a really bad day at work (for me) and a well timed phone call from out of nowhere (to Darrin) and suddenly we were like, “we should move to Alaska!” Darrin was gone within the month, I followed almost two months later.

Perhaps a little back story is in order here.

Darrin lived in Alaska as a teenager. He graduated high school there, joined the Air Force there, and up until he moved to Washington to find me, lived there.

Then he moved. And we met. Then we married. Fast forward two years and I’m leaving a job at Microsoft, loading up my Toyota pickup and Darrin’s Jeep Wrangler, kidnapping my younger brother Josh and driving to Alaska. With our cat, Moe.

I should also mention that Josh and I had our wisdom teeth removed (together, on the same day, awww!) the week before we hit the road. Because we have to do everything in the most complicated manner imaginable. Plus, we were both about to lose our health and dental insurance.

It was sad for me to leave. I think my dad was pretty irked considering he’d given his permission for Darrin to marry me if, and only if, he never moved me to Alaska. Darrin doesn’t remember that part. STORY OF MY LIFE.

Anyway, our journey took an incredibly speedy and exhausting SIX DAYS. If you’ve ever driven to or from Alaska to ANYWHERE in the lower 48, you are laughing at us. I know that. It’s okay. You should be jealous. You missed out on staying in some of the seediest dives you could ever imagine because you were too busy driving all night and day to get there in two days. We’re all very impressed. Really.

As we rolled into the city of Anchorage, Darrin informed me (via CB radio) that our apartment was right near McDonalds (YESSS!!!) and I started to get annoyed as we drove past THREE McDonalds and still weren’t home. After six days of driving, I just wanted to be home. Not sure why I was so excited, because home was a smelly, nasty apartment behind the local Bingo Hall/tattoo parlor.

This is Josh holding Jack. Jack as in, Jack In The Box, antennae ball, Jack ball. We put him on brand new as we rolled out of Duvall, Washington. He’s in a lot of pictures. In the end he was missing most of his face. In this shot, we were stopped at one of the many road construction road blocks.


Also this happened a time or two. Darrin would recharge the Jeep every morning while Josh and I rinsed out our gaping mouth surgery holes in whatever local rest area had the least yellow water.


This the Alaska/Canada border. There is a swath cut through the wilderness all along the perimeter. Kind of awesome. Who has that job?


We caravanned all the way. Taking turns driving each car and having a passenger. We communicated via CB radio and it was awesome. Moe peed on Josh’s sweatshirt at one point and to this day, though Moe is long dead, Josh still hasn’t forgiven nor forgotten.


Finally home. This was what our vehicles looked like when we got there.

Jeep Movie

We are a Jeep family. We own four Jeeps. We should be sponsored.

Deadliest Crabs

Three of my brothers and their Maryland Blue Crab adventures. June 2011

Happy 4th!

Happy national hot dog roasting day!

God bless the U.S.A!!

That One Time, When it Didn’t Rain...

On a cloudy gloomy day like today, I really miss Washington. Because, one time, it was sunny there.