Seldovia

Bad Blogger!

Yes, I have been a bad blogger, but here's why.  I have internet that is much slower than we had in Washington.  And in order for me to upload my photos, I have to re size them all, and I really dislike doing that!  But I will try harder, at least 3 posts a week, OK??

Anyway, Taylor and my niece, Gavin, and I all went to a company picnic in Homer on Friday.  (I got a job working with the kids in our community)  We had to ride the ferry over.  It was not the best day to be on the water, it was quite a bumpy ride.  Taylor and I would have liked to have been anywhere besides that boat...Gavin just laughed at us the whole way.

 

This is them on the boat.

When we got off the ferry, we hopped in the shuttle van with 6 other crazy females!  We had over two hours until we had to be at the picnic, so we tried to decided where to go.  Our first stop???  Safeway!  We shopped for a few groceries, ate a little and the girls got Starbucks.  Then the three of us went to the local ACS office (Alaska Cell Service) so we could check out the cell phones.  Oh, I actually got to use my iPhone today, cuz I can get service in Homer!  Woohooo!  We picked out the phones that we think we would like to get.  The one I want to get is kinda cool, it has a touch screen, then flips up for a full keyboard.  Shad and I both need to get one for work, the kids have been fine for a month with no phones, if you can believe that! 

So we walked the rest of the way to the Elks Lodge for the picnic.  We were pretty early, so the girls just played around on the lawn outside.  It was right on the ocean, gorgeous day, but a little chilly.

 

The girls are modeling their pants that they painted last night when they were supposed to be painting Gavin's room.

 

Yes, I know, quite stylish!

 

They are two peas in a pod!

 

Taylor is working on her volleyball skills.  She says she will never get on another boat.  I'm not sure how she thinks she's going to get out of Seldovia for games?  You can't always fly!

 

Speaking of can't fly....you would think with as windy as it was that they could fly a kite...yeah, no such luck.  But I got some hilarious pictures of them trying to fly a kite!

 

And then on to the hula hoops!  Not sure where she gets it from, but that girl can hula hoop!  No effort....just round and round it goes.

 

After lunch they made some cool visors.  OK, they were only cool after they turned them upside down.  And this is their new friend Abby.

We had tons of good food, then went outside to play some games on the lawn.  When it was over we all loaded up in the van and headed back to the docks to unload all our groceries.  The ride home was even rougher than the ride over.  I think the other ladies on the trip enjoyed watching me squirm.  There was a family sitting on the deck below us with two teenagers.  Every time we hit a rough wave, they screamed!  Then we all would laugh hysterically, it made the trip a bit more tolerable.  I was hanging onto the table in front of me so tightly, my arms were getting a little tingly.  I called Shad and asked him to meet us at the docks, so he could give us a ride home.  I honestly didn't think I would be able to carry my grocery bags home.  Once we got to the harbor, I started to walk up the ramp, one of my bags breaks, and there goes the green taco sauce that I just bought!  And then the lemons....  Shad came and rescued me as always, but he did  think it was pretty funny.  When we got home, he actually walked me up the stairs to our room, I think he thought I might fall or something.  My body was so exhausted, I climbed in bed and took a little power nap.  I woke up just in time to go to bed...I hate when that happens!

Back to Nature

So, Shad decided at about 5:30pm this evening that he was going to install his Mom's dishwasher.  5 1/2 hours later, he has pulled up the entire floor in her kitchen.  It's a total construction zone in here, and I swear people have been driving by here trying to get a peak! (Small town/Facebook...word gets around!)

Anyway, I needed something nice and quiet, so I thought I'd share some Nature photos with you.  I hope you enjoy!

The Seldovia Slough

Rhymes with Stew.

It was so clear the other night, I got some great pictures of some of the houses along the slough.  The tide was coming in, I think.

 

It really pretty, but I don't think I could live in one of those houses.  It a little TOO close to the water for me.

 

The house on the far left is under construction, when it's done it's going to be beautiful!

 

The water was so calm tonight, and there were no kids fishing off the bridge, so it was quiet too.

 

We drove out to the beach so Ridley could get a little exercise.  She's still not loving the ocean yet.  I think it moves too much for her.

 

But, I did manage to get two great pictures of her.  She's finally getting over that gangly teenager stage, and she's starting to look like a Newfie. 

An Old Fashioned 4th of July Parade

What a wonderful 4th of July we had!  We slept through the pancake breakfast, and barely made it down to the Parade line up with Logan.  I got him all lined up with the other kids on bicycles, then I asked him if I could leave him to go watch the parade.  He looked up at me and said, "But I don't know my way back home."  How sweet.  I explained to him that I would wait for him at the end of the parade route, and he was OK with that.

On with the PARADE!!!

As always, the Parade starts with our Chief of Police, Andy Anderson.

Two of Taylor's friends, walking their dogs.

Logan in his very first parade!

What's a parade without Volcanos?

Not sure what this was.....

These are the children of one of our former classmates.

She was so cute, she would stop and say Hi to anyone that talked to her.

I think I need one of these!  Maybe a pink one???  :)

Hugh Smith was one of our High School Teachers.

They had a sign that said, "Which way to the Delaware?"

And the parade finishes up with the Fire Truck.

I took this photo at about 10:00am.

And this one was about an hour later.  Lots of people! 

Shad an I ran one of the kids games, then sold Ducks for the Duck Race at the Chamber booth.  We had pulled pork sandwiches for lunch, and by about 3pm, I was exhausted!  We all had lots of fun, and it was definitely a memorable day for the kids.

Day Before the 4th

 

Today was quite the busy day, preparing for the big 4th of July Celebration here in town.  We started our day off down by the ferry docks.  We went to decorate Logan's bike for tomorrows Parade.

OK, so he posed for the picture, but he wasn't really into it.  We had pulled him away from one of his video games, and he was a little irritated with us.

 

Notice he's not decorating?  Shad and I did most of it.  He finally got bored and went and sat in the truck.  Nothing like mandatory fun!!

 

This is my Friend Sharon, and her youngest son, Skylar.  He and Logan are the same age, and made friends the first day we were here.  They will be in the same grade, and I think that brings their class total to maybe 4 or 5.  :)  Sharon is purposely avoiding the camera.

 

Here's another entry in the Parade.

And she is totally checking out her Dad's decorating skills.  Think it still needs more!

 

This is my Mother in Law, Sandee.  She is a fabulously talented artist, specializing in several different mediums.  She does watercolors, paints with Octopus Ink, sculpts and much more.  She was one of the vendors at the Craft Sale today.

 

Some of her watercolors.

 

These little Mermaids are her newest endeavors.  So cute, down to the tiniest little details.

 

And this is one of the first dolls that she made.  It was a gift for her friend Roxie.

 

And this is Roxie.  She makes candles.  Those candles made the room smell so good!  There are so many different artists here, I can't wait to start creating with them and learning new things.

One of the highlights of my day so far was meeting one of the crafters who had come from Homer.  It was my Photography teacher from 11th grade, Mrs. Rourke.  Her passion for art truly inspired me, and made me want to become a Photographer.  Unfortunately she moved after that year, and my Senior year we got a teacher that wasn't really interested in teaching that class, so I sorta lost my way.  Anyway, it was so cool seeing her, got lots of big hugs, and she remembered one of the projects that I had done for her class.  We were supposed to make an album cover, and I chose to do Pretty in Pink (it was the 80's remember!) anyway, I lined up a bunch of my classmates and recreated that album cover.  It was fun.  Back in those days....we actually used film.  I know some of you don't know what that is.  LOL  But we got to roll our own film, take the pictures and develop and print our pictures.  I loved my photography class.  Sadly, that darkroom is now a storage closet.  Maybe we can change that.  So...loved seeing Mrs. Rourke!

 

And here are some of Roxie's candles.  I think I'll be getting a few of thse tomorrow.  There was also a lady that did glass jewelry, I would LOVE to see how that's made!

 

After dinner (I made deep fried Halibut...Yumm!) We went downtown to enjoy a concert in the park.  OK...it was one band on some guys lawn, but it was great!  They were called "Tastes Like Chicken."

 

It was nice just sitting back and relaxing.....

 

seeing more people that we had known....

 

meeting a few new friends.....

 

And doing what we came here for, spending quality time with the people we love.  Have a safe and happy 4th of July.

Out Seeing the Sites

Taylor had friends the moment we stepped off the ferry.  She had been texting and Facebooking some of the kids in town for the past few months, so she was ready to socialize as soon as we got here.

The boys stayed a bit closer to us than I thought they would.  Logan of course, because he's the baby, but I thought for sure Chance would be gone just like Taylor.  Nope, not so much.

We took the boys around town, and showed them were dad used to ride his Tonka truck down the hill, and the Bridge he used to catch fish and jump off of in the Summer time.

 

Logan liked watching the fish swim under the bridge.  One lady befriended him, gave him her pole and let him fish for a bit.  He didn't catch anything, but managed to get in tangled up several times.  She was very patient with him.  She told him they'd fish again sometime soon.

 

I heard the story of Shad catching Paula with a fishing hook in the head, three times today.  She ran all the way home with the fishing pole dragging behind her.  This is the two of them reenacting the infamous incident.

 

Seldovia started having a chainsaw carving event a few years ago.  It draws quite a few people to town.  This year's event was just a few weeks ago, and all the carvings were still sitting down by the ferry dock.

 

This one is going into one of the parks downtown.  That's one log, carved in a weekend.

A fish with a saddle, what more could you want?

 

I like this one, it's now down next to the Harbor Master's Office.

 

Logan, "Mom, wait!  There's one more!"  He's my poser!

 

And then we walked down to the Harbor.  It's so quite right now.  Calm before the storm.  Over the 4th of July weekend the population goes from 300 to 3000.  It get's CRAZY!

 

But, right now it's calm and serene.

 

That's the new fast ferry to Homer.  It just started up last month, and it's $59 round trip.  Yeah, it's a bit expensive to get out of here.  The planes are almost $100.

 

Tonight we all headed out to the Outside Beach to have a Bonfire and roast hotdogs and Smores.  Ridley got into the water, but just a bit.  Some water dog eh?  Still won't go in over her knees!

 

The girls collected shells on the beach.  Nice evening with family.

Day 8....Seldovia here we come!

We got up early today, after a terrible nights sleep.  We won't be coming back to this hotel.  We packed up the trailer one last time (thank goodness!) and headed out to the Homer Spit to catch our ferry.

About 1/4 of the way out the Spit, yep you guessed it, one last tire blew.

And the worst part of it is, it's Sunday morning, in a small town where nothing is open.  We got lucky, the man at the ferry office was super nice.  He had a spare at home, and he sent someone to get it for us.  So we were able to get on the ferry, even though it was over 3 hours late.

This is right before we got on the ferry.

This is the Kenicott, normally it's the Tustumena that we would ride over.

You have to drive your vehicles onto an elevator, then it turns around and lowers itself to the bottom of the boat and you drive off.  How far up and down you go depends on how high the tide is.  It was a pretty low tide when we got on the boat.

We had been at the dock, with no breakfast since 8:45, and it's now 3:00pm, so we ate a nice (I use that term loosely) lunch on board.

This is Shad and Chance at the front of the boat as Seldovia comes into view.  It's not the prettiest of days, a bit drizzly, but it was still a beautiful site to see!

This is Inside Beach.

 

Some of the houses on the beach.

 

The Ferry Dock and part of Main Street.

 

 

The Russian Orthodox Church up on the hill.

 

The Harbor.  That snow is so close you can almost touch it!

 

All the family waiting to greet us.  The had a banner, but it got all wet from the rain.  It was a great home coming!

We spent the rest of the day showing the kids around town, and visiting with family and friends. 

The cousins reunited!  Gavin and Taylor hangin' out on the Bridge.

We are finally here.  The real adventure begins now!

Alaska...Day 7

With all those kids in the house last night, you'd think that we got no sleep.  But we were so exhausted, we slept like babies.  We slept in, then got up and had a nice family breakfast.

Chance, Logan, Isaiah, Josh and Freddie.

After breakfast we packed up all our stuff, and headed on the last part of our journey.  We have a 5 hour drive to Homer.

What a beautiful drive.  It was a little more overcast than I had hoped for, but it was still pretty.

About half way there, we stopped in Soldotna to pick up some last minute groceries.  As we were pulling out of the parking lot....

Yep, you guessed it!  That right there is tire number 5. 

He's looking for a piece of wood to put under the car jack, but I think we left it in Stephanie's yard.  Ooops.

We got back on the road, and pulled into Homer around 8pm.  We checked into the hotel, and then headed to dinner at the Fat Olive.  It was recommended by a few of our friends.  I had this amazing Portabello Mushroom sandwich.  It had mozzarella, basil, red peppers and cucumbers drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette.  So good after all that travel food.

After dinner, it was back to the hotel and off to bed.  I'm still tired.  And all this daylight is not helping.  It's light at 1 in the morning, kinda hard to get in the mind set of sleeping.  Tomorrow is the ferry, and Seldovia.  We are all so excited to see everyone!

Yes, It's Day 6

Did I leave you hanging?  Well, they made it to the trailer, it hadn't been stolen.  I was so relieved.  That was everything we owned, down to the toothbrushes!  Anyway, they slept in the car til morning, then took off the two wheels and headed to the nearest town to wait for the tire store to open.

Can I just say "Shame on You!" to those business owners just looking to make money off of travelers that are in a bit of a pickle.  That crook charged Shad $350 for two tires!  But he had no choice, that's all there was for a few hundred miles.  What can you do?

They went back to the trailer and fixed all the tires.  Then Shad realized what the problem was with the tires.  No it wasn't all my heavy Scrapbook supplies!  That first tire blew because of the terrible roads.  But when we had the two new tires put on, the dill weed in Whitehorse gave us tires an inch bigger than they were supposed to be, so they were rubbing on the wheel well and that's why they blew.  I have half a mind to drive back there and....yeah right.

So they got back to the house around 12:30, totally exhausted, but feeling like they had accomplished something.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just lounging around.  Shad took Logan out on the ATV for a ride. 

Logan liked the ATV, and Chance can't wait til we get some of our own.  The kids can drive them on the road in Seldovia at 14.  Yikes! 

He's just so cute.  He's the only one that still poses on command!

That evening Shad's youngest brother and his family came over for dinner.  We hadn't seen him since he was about 10. 

That's Shad, he's the 4th child, Stephanie, she's the 3rd, and Bear is the baby, the 6th child.

So the kids got to meet 3 of their cousins.  All boys.  All with shaved heads like Logan, so cute!  And they are all like 6, 7 ,8 ,10 and 13.  I need to line them up for a picture.

That's Freddie, Logan, Josh and Taylor. 

We had a great time visiting with everyone.  All the kids spent the night, 8 kids total.  I think Stephanie in totally insane!  But they were all great.

We are heading to Homer tomorrow afternoon, I'm hoping that it will be a nice, quiet, uneventful drive.  Fingers crossed!

Could Day 5 be more Exciting than Day 4???

Oh yes, I think it could be!

Lots of beautiful scenery today.

  

We made it through the US border with no problems at all.

As soon as we crossed into Alaska, we stopped and had lunch at this great little picnic spot.

Whooo hoooo!  Lunch in Alaska! Can you tell their excited to be here??

And look at those Gas Prices!

Nice!!  :(

Now remember those bad roads I was talking about?

Doesn't that look like fun??

The first town we cam to in Alaska was Tok.  We'd originally planned to camp here, but decided to go on to Palmer to Shad's sisters house.  About 20 minutes past Tok, we blew another tire on the trailer!  

It was the same tire that had blown the night before, the new one!  We quickly pulled over, and the first 3 vehicles that drove by us, all stopped to help out.  We said we were fine (we got a spare when we had the flat the night before) but this really nice trucker from Canada stayed and helped Shad.

When they fixed the tire, we drove back the 20 miles to Tok, and bought a spare tire, you know....just in case.

So onward we go!

Lot's of really cool clouds today, the kind you can really get lost in!

 So, it's 10:30 at night and we are about an hour and a half to two hours away from his sister's house, and what do you think happens???

Well of course!  Two flat tires at once!  10:30 at night, almost 2 hours to the nearest town, what to do?  We made the decision to leave the trailer and drive into Palmer.  We got to Stephanie's house after midnight and she had dinner waiting for us.  Shad and Chance grabbed a quick bite, then took off back to the trailer to stay with it til morning.  Tune in tomorrow to see what happened!  LOL