July!!

Can you believe it's the end of July already??  I have a week and half before I go back to work!  I'm dreading it and looking forward to it at the same time.  July was a pretty busy month for us. 

Matthew had the week of 4th of July off.  I was so happy to have him home with us.  The 4th found us going to a BBQ and parade with our church.  It was a good day, didn't rain until the end of the parade. 

 If you would like to see more of the pictures you can go here.

On the 6th we decided to get out of town and do something touristy.  We decided to go to Seward since Matthew, Zachary and Kara have never been.  We got up early and hit the road.   We had beautiful weather the entire day.  We even got a little sunburned.    We stopped at Portage Glacier, walked through Seward, and went to the Sea Life Center. 

If you would like to see more of the pictures you can go here.


That weekend we had the Annual Bear Paw Festival.  It's a carnival and area set up with merchants and groups.  They have different events going on each day.  Zachary enjoys going and riding the rides.  My dad, Steph and Kylie joined us.

To see more pictures click here.

And we had a pretty big milestone.  Kara turned ONE on the 16th!!   I still can't believe it some days.  She is becoming more and more independent.  Now to get her walking!  :) 

To see more pictures click here.

Since Kara's party we have been trying to recover from the beginning of the month.  I have been trying to get back into going bed earlier and getting up early.  It hasn't been working so far.  :) 

Tomorrow is another busy day for us.  Church, school shopping, and the secret sister reveal at church.  I've been on a giving handmade gifts kick lately.  Hopefully my secret sister will appreciate what I made for her.

What a week.....

for celebrating!!  It all started Saturday night (the 18th).  Matthew and I went out to celebrate our 7th anniversary.  Can't believe that it has been 7 years!  Feels like yesterday but at the same time it feels like forever ago.  We went to Orso, a restaurant that we had never been to before.  It was very yummy!  Matthew actually made reservations, they decorated our table with confetti and had a card for us from the restaurant. 

After eating we walked back to the car through the Solstice Festival cleaning up.  One of these days we will make to the festival. :)  (On the solstice the sun rose at 4:20 am and set at 11:43 pm.)  We went from dinner to Barnes and Noble to pick up my anniversary present, a Nook Color!  I love it!  After picking up the Nook we went off to Title Wave, a used book store.  Are sensing a theme here?  Yes, we read a lot! 

Sunday was Father's Day and our actual anniversary.  We took Matthew to lunch at Qdoba, one of our favorite "fast" food restaurants.  I also got to see one of my friends from FSU on Sunday.  She came up to run the Mayor's Marathon on Saturday morning.  We got to sit and talk for some time while they waited for it to be time to go to the airport. 

Today was Matthew's birthday.  We started the day with french toast made from cinnamon chip bread.  It's one of our favorites.  Matthew decided he wanted to go play mini golf.  So we looked up what time the mini golf place opened.  Of course not til 3pm.  So we left here about 1pm and got lunch at Johnny's Chicagos.  We then walked around New Sagaya Midtown Market.  They have a lot of different international foods. 

We finally made it to mini golf.  It was Zachary's first time playing.  I had Kara in her carrier on my back.  It took her a while to get used to it.  And even carrying her around I still won by one stroke! :)

After the mini golf Matthew and Zachary rode in the go karts. 

Once we got home I needed to finish Matthew's cupcakes.  Of course things didn't want to work for me.  At one point I was ready to throw things.  Finally I got things working and they turned out really good.  Everyone really liked them.  We had a friend over with her kids for cupcakes and root beer floats. 

Cookies and cream cupcakes and root beer floats.  What a way to end a week of celebrating! :)

It's been a year....

Can you believe it's been over a year since we last posted?  Kara is now almost a whole year old.  She is growing everyday, along with her brother.  He decided to grow almost 5 inches in the last year.  I still can't believe he'll be in 1st grade come August.  When did time decide to move so fast?  I guess I notice the time passing more during the summer when I'm not getting up to go to work everyday.

This summer I am trying to focus on better eating habits, getting into the habit of the gym, and creating wonderful craft items for myself and friends.  I have started following lots of cooking, crafting, crocheting, and knitting blogs.  I joined ravelry.com for inspiration and a place to keep all those patterns of things I want to make with yarn.  I have recently bought a pair of knitting needles and I'm trying to get the hang of it.  I get 2 rows done and then drop stitches on the end and can't figure out how to pick them up again so I pull it all out.

I have however finished a blanket for my mom for Mother's Day and her birthday since they were just a few days apart.  I took me two months to finish including take some time off at the end of a very stressful school year.  This is to finally fulfill the promise that I would make her a afghan that I made in high school...only 12 years late. :)

We also decided that we should get out and see more of Alaska.  Of course I am the only in this immediate family to have lived and traveled in this state.  We haven't been able to do much yet this summer, poor planning on free weekends, and other very busy weekends.  However we did take a trolley tour of Anchorage with my parents.  It was fun but didn't really take us anywhere I hadn't been before.  Here's a picture of us on the trolley.

So that should bring you up to date with us.  What's new in your world?  :)

Oh, how things have changed....

It's amazing how much has changed in the almost year since the last post. I have to admit I'm slacker. School started and everything else just got pushed aside. We'll see how things go this time around. :)

In November we found out that I am pregnant again, and as I write this at 34.5 weeks pregnant I feel like it's been forever!! I am so ready to be done and meet this new little person. We do know that it is a girl and Zachary is super excited to have a little sister.

The school year went really well and I'm thankful that I will be in the same school, same room and same grade come August. I have never had this happen before! In 4 years of teaching I have been at 4 different schools and set up 5 different classrooms! However this August Zachary will starting Kindergarten too...he's just growing up too fast!

Our first year in Alaska and Alaska Live Steamers

It is official Zachary and I have been in Alaska for a year now. Matthew still has a few months. It has been pretty uneventful once school started. I was originally hired at a school in Anchorage and due to low enrollment numbers in Kindergarten I was transferred to another school in Eagle River. Things turned out well though. I love the school that I'm working at and have made many friends. Zachary loves his preschool and is learning alot.

Zachary also had his first experience of playing in the snow. Mom and Dad have a hill in their front yard that we would sled down. Zachary doesn't like going down alone though. Maybe this winter he'll do it.

This summer we've kept busy. We took Zachary to the Alaska Zoo. He loved watching the seals, otters and polar bears. On the 4th of July we tried to take him fishing again with Grandma and Grandpa but it was too warm and the fish weren't biting. The lake was also getting pretty crowded so we headed up towards Talkeetna. It's about a 45 min to an hour drive from Wasilla. On clear days you can see Mt. McKinley from Talkeetna. Unfortunately with all the forest fires we couldn't see it but we did walk around and do the tourist thing.

In July the city of Eagle River puts on the Bear Paw Festival. We took Zachary to the parade and he got a lot of candy. One of the floats dumped a whole box on lollipops right in front of us. Zachary got to ride the rides and play a couple games. It was pretty warm though (in the 80's) and we ended up going and sitting in a restaurant to help cool off. Overall it was like a miniature state fair.

Zachary and I also spent a day with my dad while he had work done on the truck. We went to the Alaska Heritage Aviation Museum. It was pretty neat. They also had a plane on display that dad was the crew chief for in the Air Force. Zachary enjoyed seeing all the different planes and parts of planes. After lunch we took Grandpa to the zoo. He hadn't been back to the zoo since we left Alaska in 1995. During this trip to the zoo we watched two bear cubs play in their cage. One of them actually tried climbing the fence.

On Saturday we finally made it out the Alaska Live Steamers. Mom and I have wanted to take Zachary since last summer. The Alaska Live Steamers run mini trains around the forest and they have little toy villages that you pass. Our engine was a replica of Thomas the train. Zachary was very excited to see Thomas. Overall it was a great experience and Zachary absolutely loved it. He wouldn't stop smiling and he didn't want to leave. He kept asking we could go back tomorrow and ride again.

Here are links to pictures so you can see some of the fun we've been having. I'm going to try and keep the blog up to date with our adventures.

Pictures from when we first got here
Winter
Alaska Zoo
Fishing/Talkeetna
Bear Paw Festival
Alaska Aviation Museum
Zoo with Grandpa
Alaska Live Steamers