I'm a BIG girl now!

August brought us many big events this year! Katie turned 5 and we made the decision to send our smallest sprout to kindergarten. (Literally, she's 1% for height!)... Here's the big girl on her first day of school... Riding the bus with the bus driver. He's waited 2 years to get her on his bus. He loves Katie and begged us to take a picture..
So excited to be waiting for the bus. And after 3 days of school a little girl joined Katie at the all boy bus stop.. That really made her day, now she has a best friend!

Back to School

Summer flew by fast and we've been back at school for a week or so. Alex is now a 4th grader, wow I remember his first day of Kindergarten! His favorite things are still football, birds, and airplanes. He's become quite an artist and loves to draw pictures of birds that he sees. He is developing his responsibility and maturity. Sammy is entering 3rd grade. He has a male teacher that he really likes. His favorite things are reading, legos, legos and drawing lego batman characters. Sammy is a sponge for information and is always asking "what does this mean" and it's usually a word I have to think about or look up! Katie just turned 5, (birthday pics soon!) and was very eager for Kindergarten roll in today. She's very social, happy and eager to have friends. She is excited to ride the bus to school and stay there all day. I'm still at the high school and it's a break working with a different age group of kids. Maybe I'll have all the secrets by the time my own kids become teenagers, yep that age will scare me for sure!

Disneyland Vacation

Thanks to a great last minute deal from Alaska Airlines, we just got back from a week at Disneyland... We took the boys down about 4 years ago, and they are still of an age where it was exciting to go. I didn't tell them what was going on, until I woke them up in the middle of the night to catch the plane. The day prior to the trip, I gave them a writing assignment to see if they could guess a big surprise, as a reward for filling their reading logs. Alex actually guessed an airplane trip to California. Sammy guessed a Lego toy day, where he could buy all the legos they wanted...

Our last trip was in April, where fireworks were weekly and characters few and far between. Wow! In August there are 2 parades a day, many shows at night, and characters at every turn...

Katie loves Princess Tianna and Minnie Mouse was her favorite.

Alex is a big Donald Duck fan..The boys are now tall enough to ride any ride, and they each had their favorites. Sammy loved the Haunted Mansion and Fantasia, one of the nightly water shows... Alex was roller coasters all the way....

It's a buggy life....

We did one character breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen and it was well worth the money as we had characters at our table the entire meal... Katie was treated like a princess and had a dance with Aladdin.

The kids were a great age to truly enjoy all the park had to offer. Truly glad we had the chance to go before the boys got too old to not think it was cool...

Days of Summer

We're in week 3 of swimming lessons, the kids love being in the pool. It's complicated with 2 of them with ear tubes but we do the best we can to make it work. The boys are in the same class together so that makes it easier. Above is Sammy getting ready to enter his class and below is Alex on the diving board in the 9 foot section. Hard pics to see as the lighting in the pool area doesn't help me take pics!

Katie jumping into the 3.5 foot section, she has no fear this year. Last year she screamed and wouldn't go near the water. All the difference in the world, with a different teacher this year.

Katie listening to the safety speech...

We usually have female moose and babies around our house. This is the first bull moose that's been hanging around for about 3 weeks. He comes by everyday and he's a bit agressive so we're more watchful. My dad was working on our block wall towards the back of our yard and the moose fake charged at him, so we watch for him carefully. I'm not sure why he's hanging around here this time of year. He's young and needs to learn a few things!Lego Madness. We had a stop, drop and build day (i.e. rain!). The boys spent hours perfecting their perfect lego from scratch. Alex built a truck and bobcat.

Sammy is all about Batman this summer so of course he made a batmobile.

Brotherly love. Sammy stops riding his bike for a quick hug from his favorite sister.

Alaska Scenery

In random order, here's a few shots from Anchorage to Seward from our train trip....

Heading North to Anchorage...


Along the Seward Highway.


Around Portage
Spencer Glacier--The boys loved the story about how this glacier was named. Spencer died while hiking around the glacier and they found his body a year later, but his $$ is still rumored to be hidden somewhere in the glacier in it's metal box...
Train crossing a valley.
Glacier...
Seward Boat Harbor on a beautiful day!
Sea otter napping in the sun.
Sea Otter that wanted to play...
Train along Kenai Lake...
Black bear... We saw a brown bear, eagles, Mountain sheep, and a momma and baby moose, but this was the only one I got on film...
Climbing the mountain...