Deborah's 14th Birthday

Deborah turned 14 this month. She is growing into a beautiful young lady.

In Alaska when you are 14 you can take a written test and get your driver's license permit that allows you to drive with someone over 21 who has had their license for at least a year. Deborah has been studying the book and taking online practice tests. She and Paul tried to go to Anchorage last week, but is was snowing in the pass when they could go. They'll try again this week so Deborah can get her permit and Paul can get groceries.

Below Deborah is getting a pie ready for baking with help from Sarah, Benjamin and Anna. She is great with her younger brothers and sisters. They love helping her with whatever work is at hand.

We had two cakes for Deborah's birthday. Lavonne's Aunt Dorthy and Alec came by with a delicious birthday dinner.

Later we made pizza and I made some M&M and Sweet Tart cookies Quentin had made into another cake for Deborah so we could sing to her again.

Singing Kids

The little kids love imitating their older brothers and sisters who play the guitar, piano and drums for our worship services.

David and Benjamin

David

Gilana and David

Benjamin singing his heart out...

Sarah figured out that if she babbles into the microphone it comes out the speakers and sounds really cool...

Caleb's on the piano and David's on the drums...

If you want put a big guitar in it's guitar stand, you usually have to move one of the little guitars out of the way. The little kids love putting their guitars in the guitar stands.

Sarah's learning to stack wood

With the cold weather comes the fun of going after wood to keep the house warm. There is not enough snow yet for the snowmachines. So, Paul, Quentin and Joshua are loading up the Honda with chainsaws and hooking up the trailer to go after wood. Josh and Lavonne are house sitting Lavonne's Mom's house and the power outages caused their furnace to go out. So, Josh took their ATV and trailer to get wood for his Nana's house too.
They older kids bring the wood to the basement and the younger kids stack it. This is Sarah's first year stacking wood so she still thinks it's lots of fun to help her big brothers. Below Caleb is handing her a log.

Freeze Up

Every year the ice freezes in the creek first. Below you can see the water still flowing under the ice.As the creek flows into the lake, the frozen portion extends further and further out into the lake. The creek has a nice slope to it, and the kids love sledding and even skating down the creek as far as the ice will allow until the lake freezes. For the Grandmas out there, the water is actually quite shallow where it meets the ice and the kids rarely get too wet.

It got quite cold and the ice got thick fast during a time when there was no precipitation. It made beautiful ice. You could walk on it and see fish swimming right under your feet, very cool!

Below, Paul is demonstrating to Benjamin the finer points of spinning the Honda and making donuts on the smooth ice.

Caleb is examining his reflection in the ice as he works to perfect his ice skating form.

Freeze up also allows Paul to land on the lake and park right by the house. It makes it much easier to heat the plane before flying it. Instead of dragging a generator to the airport he can plug an extension cord into the shop.


The pristine condition of the lake never lasts long and the kids have to get out with shovels and clear off a spot to ice skate.

Trapping Mice

The boys have been begging Paul to set up a trap line, so they can go trapping. Paul trapped a lot when he was in high school and he really wants to take the boys, but they haven't gotten it going yet. So, when a mouse was spotted behind Paul's chair in the living room and in the basement, the boys seized the opportunity. They set many traps and caught most of the kids (including Sarah :(.

Caleb, setting and resetting the traps.

And, mighty hunters that they are, they caught a mouse behind Paul's chair. Paul was a tiny bit sad because a few times he was able to watch his buddy squeeze big chunks of food through the narrow crack.