Grandma and Grandpa's Trip pt 2

We had a wonderful visit with my Mom & Dad. The kids look forward to their trip every year. (Paul and I do too.)

Below is Sarah with her Grandpa.

Paul and the kids found several glaciers to hike up and around.

Joshua posing by a rock carved by a glacier.

Quentin

I wasn't along on this one , but I'm not sure Quentin should be standing there. Who knows when it is going to break apart.
Benjamin went on one of the more rigorous hikes and did great. He was so proud of himself. The older kids called him a mountain goat. When he got back he was bursting over to tell me all about it.
On the road out of Valdez we had a little excitement. I was giving Paul a break and driving when one of the tires blew its tread. Thankfully it was one of the duals so I didn't feel it. It sure was loud though!

Paul and my Dad got it switched out with the spare...

After Valdez we headed down to Seward. The high school there had an invitational cross country track meet that the girls wanted to participate in. They had been training throughout the summer and it was fun running with all those other girls in the excitement of a real race.

They are right in the middle in the gray t-shirts.

Grandma with Abigail and Deborah after the race.

Quentin is in the eight grade so he ran in the community run which was also 5k.

Quentin with Grandma after his race.

Grandma & Grandpa took Quentin, Anna, Joshua and Caleb on the Mitch Seavey dog sled tour. Mitch has won the iditarod and they got to ride behind some of his dogs and learn all about dog sled racing.

The next stop on our trip was Soldotna. Until one was built a few years ago in Anchorage, Soldotna used to be the only place in Alaska to go to a Dairy Queen. We still make it a point to stop there and have ice cream if we are driving by.

Below Benjamin is sharing with Sarah.
We spent the night at Clam Gulch and then spent the next day combing the beach for interesting creatures, roasting hot dogs and trying to get the perfect family picture.

And again after the rocks from the picture above got surrounded by water.

Benjamin accidentally sprayed Grandpa with sand, oops...

Grandma & Grandpa

Deborah, Sarah and Grandma found some nice fireweed.

We put "longest orange peel contest" on our list of things to do while traveling in a motor home.
We love stopping at parks with playgrounds while we travel. They make great picnic stops.

Below Paul and the kids are seeing who can stay on the swinging beam the longest.

Joshua

The kids said good-by to Grandma and Grandpa at Merrill Field (the smaller airport where we had our motor home parked) and then Paul and I drove them to the International Airport.

We can't wait to see you again next year!

Valdez

The first place we took off to with my Mom and Dad was Valdez. None of had been there before so we figured we should go. We got there in the evening and took a walk on the wharf looking at all the fishing trawlers.

Grandma's decked out in her fluorescent red rain poncho because it was raining and so we wouldn't lose her:)

A sea otter swam around for us to enjoy.

The next day we went to see the Valdez glacier. The icebergs floating in the mountain lake were beautiful.

The kids crossed a creek and started exploring.

They called for us to join them so we all headed over.

It was tough going as the branches hung out into the lake and we had to hang on and swing ourselves around.

Grandma and Grandpa stayed behind.

There is nothing funner than exploring with Dad.

We came to another creek and built a log and rock bridge across it.

On the other side of the lake from where we started we spotted a waterfall and we hiked up to it.
Once we hiked up we had a great view and we discovered a few things.

The first was that we could see a kid standing next to Grandma and throwing rocks into the lake. We counted kids and found that Caleb was missing. He had gone out in the initial exploring party, but before the rest of us headed out he went into the motor home to use the bathroom. By the time he came back out we were too far for him to join us...
The other thing we discovered was that there was a road leading right to the bottom of the waterfall that we could have accessed easily. Oh well, it wouldn't have been near as much fun.

Below the girls are going back along the road to bring Caleb along and tell Grandma & Grandpa they could drive over.

Below Grandma & Grandpa are heading over in the motor home.

The boys had fun throwing rocks.

Anna got soaked.

Joshua and David

Me making sure Sarah doesn't fall off the edge.

Paul and the kids enjoying the view.

Traveling

We are in Anchorage...

My parents are here with us and we are having a wonderful time together. Paul and the kids have been climbing glaciers all over the state.

We haven't spent much time searching out internet hotspots so I'll have much to blog about once I get home. Abigail and I are at a laundrymat getting the clothes clean, downloading email and finding out what has been happening in the world for the last week and a half. My parents fly back to North Carolina tonight and we'll probably fly home tomorrow.

Salmon Run 2010

God has graciously provided us with another years worth of Salmon. The run this year was about three weeks late. We are already done putting up all the fish we need and finally the big run of fish is here. It worked out nice though, we got just the right amount of fish to handle easily each day.

Below we are drying and smoking some fish. That process took a few more days than normal because it has been so wet and cold.

The first thing Paul did this year was build a new cutting table and fish box. Below Myron and David are helping him put it together.
Sarah wanted to go out in the boat every time it went out, she always wants to go. Caleb is checking out the fish in the fish box. Notice the height of the water in the fish box and you can see in the later pictures how high the water in the lake rises from all the rain. In fact, the fish box is totally underwater now. We had so little snow this winter, I never thought it would get as high as it did, but the rain really made up the difference.

Below Anna is gutting a Salmon. She has helped every year, but this is her first year gutting fish.

Below Abigail and Deborah are cutting salmon to put in the jars.

Abigail is an expert at untangling fish from the net.

Below Paul and Abigail are working together. The little boys are quick to pick up any fish that drop in the boat and put them in a tote.

One evening Paul came home after a long day of flying, the Martin's had checked the net earlier in a cold driving rain, so I convinced Paul to take me out with him and we'd go check the net together. I had never gone to pick fish out of the net before as I'm always inside canning them.

Abigail, Joshua, David and Lavonne came along with us.

Below Lavonne and I are posing for a picture while Paul and Abigail are doing all the work.

All went well until we were straightening out the net. We had the flat bottom with the jet engine with no reverse. It made straightening the net difficult and the net got stuck in the prop. We pulled ourselves to shore and untangled the net.

Below we're headed home with our fish after getting the net all straightened out.

The seagulls hang about waiting for any scraps.
Below Ryan is helping Regina get fish out of the box. Regina got back to Nondalton just in time to help us with the last of the fish.
Below the martin's are returning from picking the net one last time before we took the net out of the water for the season. We could tell the main run of fish was starting to pick up because by the time they got back out to take the net out of the water there were eight more fish in the net.

We moved the net several places around the lake this year. The last place we had it was right out in front of our house. That was great because the kids could paddle out and check how many fish were in it. If you look in the background of the picture below, you can see two buoys marking the ends of the net.

Between us and the Martin's, I think we put up about 270 fish this year. Some smoked in jars, some fresh in jars...

and some frozen fillets.