Slush Cup

Every year in the spring, at the end of the ski season Alyeska Resort in Girdwood holds the annual Slush Cup. Skiers dress up in crazy costumes and try to jump a icy cold pool of water. The link below is a video on you tube of my friend Rachael attempting to jump the pool dressed as Elvis. For more videos go to you tube and search for "slush cup alyeska". The crazy things us Alaskans do to keep entertained in the cold months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpCTyBT_yhs

Oh, my! Lions Tigers & BEARS!

Here is a Bear that was in my friend Kerri’s yard. This bear liked to hang out at her son’s bus stop which you can see from her back window. Guess he thought it was easy pickings. Maybe now that school is out, maybe she will go somewhere else. Mike and I house sat for them last summer and there was evidence of a bear hanging out then also. Not for sure it is the same one though. Sydney and Josie (Kerri’s daughter) like to play out in her yard. So that makes me a little nervous. If you ask Kerri, she would probably bump yard work up to an extreme sport. The goal is to see how fast you can get your flowers planted without being dinner to the bear. But the longer you live her in Alaska, the more you get used to sharing the backyard with all the wildlife. The bottom picture is the bear in her back yard, where the children play. The top picture is the bear going to make an unannounce visit to her neighbors.

Next feature: Coming to a yard near me: Moose in MY Yard

It was reported in the Anchorage Daily News a couple weeks ago that a mother moose is more dangerous and deadly than a bear. Makes sense, us moms can be mean when you mess with our kids.

Our Clebration of Memorial Day Weekend.

We went out to celebrate this weekend by going camping down south. If you live in Alaska, you know that there is only two ways to go, North or South. We choose South. We started towards Skilak lake and Hidden lake close to the Russian River. After maneuvering around mudholes and fighting for the last campsite, we maneuvered the 25ft motorhome into position and got settled in for a damp and somewhat rainy night. Sydney did not seem to be too bothered by it, she and I took a two hour nap and then watched Nemo. Later we cooked a little and then went to bed. It wasn’t bad, Mike and Paul had a tarp over our fire, so we were out of the rain. I will write more about the rest of the weekend. Gotta get ready for tonight.

Countdown Reset!!!!

Urggg!!!!! My countdown to close on our house has been reset. We were supposed to close tomorrow, but the underwriters are taking their sweet time. I think there is also some confusion about the date it went to the underwriters also. It should have been the 9th, but now I am being told the 14th. This just messes up everything. I had my heart set and my plans set on being able to paint, fix stuff and maybe plant a few flowers. I am beyond irritated at this moment. The only bright spot right now, is that I am about to go meet some friends for appetizers and drinks before the Elton John concert. Now, that makes us have to close sometime next week and push everything back a week. Which makes us not be able to move out one extra week. Urrggg!

Snips of Sydney

Like I said earlier, Sydney has been sick. Yesterday morning after breakfast, her nose was running. I told her to go get some tissue out of the bathroom. She actually minds pretty good most of the time. In she went and out she came running with the toilet paper stringing behind her. I mean what are you going to do? Except laugh. She thought that was fun and kept running back and forth through the hallway. Got a few pics of that, I will try to post them later.

As I said earlier in the other post we had a Moose visitor on Sunday afternoon. When it finally decided to leave our yard. Sydney yelled “Come on Dad, The Moose is Lost”! She was frantically looking out the window saying “Moose where are we”? It was too funny. I keep trying to remember the cute things she says & to write them down. I have some wrote down somewhere. They are priceless and I will love to read them 16 years from now, when she is getting ready for college. At which that time, I will sit and bawl about my baby going to college. Later after the Moose left, she went and found my cell phone and was making a call (to who, we are not certain) but was telling them the Moose was Lost and Gone. Later she did actually call Kerri. We are going to have to work on her not playing with the phone, although we make her talk to Grandma and Papa Nelson all the time on it.

New House Update

We are suppose to close on the 29th and then hopefully paint and work on the house and move in on June 7th. I have a ton of projects that I want to do. But my hands are tied until we are in our house. Painting, putting down tile, landscaping and flowerbeds, new light fixtures, refinishing furniture, a garage sale to get rid of some of our stuff to make new for the stuff that has been given to us, trying to make my own art. Tons to do I tell ya! Anyway, I am getting excited. Trying to recruit painters and movers. Maybe, I need movers and shakers also. Countdown..10 days until we close, and 19 until we move in, and 40 until our first house payment and we will be eating top ramen. Whoo Hoo!

Start of Summer

For me, this weekend was the start of Summer. I went to the Kempton Hills Garage Sale and a few other ones as well with Kerri and her two kids. Sydney had gotten sick on Thursday and had to stay home. She was suppose to have a play date with her friend Josie Sat afternoon and then on Sunday as a backup plan. Neither one worked out. She was sick, running fever and throwing up most of the weekend. No need to spread that around. She’s still sick today. Anyway, the start of Garage Sale Season…I mean Summer. Gotta love it! Got a few things, but nothing of any significance. An older cabinet to house Sydney’s toys and games in the family room. I need to find some chairs. We had a table given to us, and I want to refinish it. But I need chairs to go with it.

We took it easy on Sunday. Hung out, had breakfast and actually sat down at the table to eat it together. Sydney got cranky and sleepy, so we put her down for a nap with Grandma and went to Costco and Fred’s to get some groceries. Then we came home, played catch a little in the front yard. Sydney liked that. She loves to play ball, be outside and play with animals and kids. She’s so cute. Of course I am bias. Then we took off for Home Depot/the Mall. I went to Home Depot to obsess over paint chips & tile, while Mike took Sydney to the Mall to walk around and look at Excalibur Sports. When we returned home, there was a Moose taking a rest in our yard by the Wishing well. It was probably about 2 years old and still had its velvet on his antlers. I bravely snuck to the neighbors yard to try and get some good pictures of it. Then I tried to get some pictures of Sydney with it in the background. There was a car between us and the Moose. Later we watched it from our bedroom window with Pat. It stayed around for about 5 hours. I went for a walk around 8:00 and had to be careful coming and going.

Mother's Day Weekend

Here I am…..I haven’t gone away. I just get busy and forget to write. Had a nice weekend.

On Friday after work, Mike and I stopped at Fred Meyer’s to check out their batting gloves and softball mitts. I tried a couple on. Mike bought himself one and then we went home. When I was getting out of the car, I suddenly saw that one of my wedding bands was missing. I freaked out. Back to Fred’s we went. Ran over to the sporting section and started looking through gloves to see if my wedding band was there. Mike found it down in one of the gloves. Whew! Talk about a sigh of relief. Can imagine guy buying a glove. Going home to play catch and discovering my diamond encrusted band in his glove. “Here honey I got you something” Man that would be nice surprise in a $30 glove.

Went to an all day crop on Sat. I started around 10 in the morning and left at 11:15 at night. Couldn’t have picked a worse day for a crop. It was nice and sunny outside. Or so I heard! Got several pages done or almost done. I have a bad habit of getting the pictures on the pages and moving on. I like to pick the layout, paper and accessories if possible and skip the title and journaling. Hey, they are in an album or getting closer than they were to being in an album. I guess I am a mood scraper. I do what ever I am in the mood for. Maybe the most recent. Maybe two years ago, maybe a certain theme. I am sure I might get more done if I had more of a plan and stuck to it. But I will do so much Christmas and then get bored and then go to baby pictures of my daughter and then switch to wedding stuff. I still have that box of grandma’s pictures and keepsakes to do something with. I started and finished about 6 heritage pages and that is all she wrote on that subject. When I finally opened the box after about 8 years of sitting and moving where ever I went in Alaska, I cried while I was looking through it. I miss my Grandma Hampton. I am going to cry just typing about her right now. There is so much that I would like to share with her. Sydney, Mike, my wedding, our new house. All the normal everyday things. I know Jerri Rae feels the same way about Sheylon and not being able to tell grandma about things. I know she is in heaven looking down and smiling. I know she would love Sydney and get plenty of kisses from her, and I am sure Mike would charm her as well.

Sunday was a great Mother’s Day. We went to church; Mike took me and his mom out to eat at Outback. Later I was able to squeeze in a nap, before we went to the batting cages. It was fun. I need lots of practice before playing softball on a league this summer. They brought out a small helmet, bat and the batting T. Sydney loved hitting the ball. She was so cute. Then she would sit outside the batting cage and yell “Try it again Dad”. We would clap for him and then she would offer encouragement to him. Not sure why, he seemed to be doing pretty good. I should go back more often. I was sore from swinging the bat. Seemed to have got a core workout in addition to practice connecting with the ball. Other than getting hit in the shin with a softball, it was a nice day, not to mention my darling daughter and husband got me pretty nice smelling flowers in our wedding colors for Mother’s Day also.

Sunny Saturday

Today was a perfect start to the weekend. Massage, Sunshine, Time spent with Family, Playing in the Park, Walk along Westchester Lagoon, working out at the gym and swimming. Whew I am tired. Barely have the energy to type, but here I sit, surfing the net and typing. I will probably pay for it tommorow. Glutton for punishment I guess. I always go until the point of exhaustion. Plenty to do tommorw too - church, wash car, take down christmas lights from the trees, make some cards for friends. Then before you know it, it will be time to go off to work once again. Why can't the weekend be 5 days and the work day 2 days. Sounds much better to me. I say we vote on it. Took some pics of Sydney at the park today. . She had a real good time. She loves to be around other kids. Getting a little too brave for me. Her dad lets her climb on things I never do. He tells me they do it all the time when I am not around. I guess i am a nervous nelly.

It was kinda freaky today at the park. We pulled up and the old taxi cab was in front of us. Tons of people were in the park and parking was hard to come by. This older lady was screaming at this young mom in the park, then her older son jumped out and started screaming too. They were cussin and yelling your an F#@# Idiot, your stupid and lots more then the mom walks up to them and gives them the bird and tells them to puck off. They kept ranting and raving at each other slamming car doors, getting in and out of the car. It was quite the scene. The the older lady got in her car and her son got in his car and took off. We were finally able to park, after they got out of the way and left. Mike said, they all are acting that way in front of their kids and cussin like that in front of them. It really was sad and embarassing to me. Of course none of them were embarassed. About ten minutes later, the older lady returned and was looking for the younger mom. I ran into the mom a little later and asked what the problem was. She said that the people went up to her car, where her dog (rather large dog) was and was harassing it, while it was barking at them. She yelled at them to leave it alone and then the fight broke out. She said they were calling her stupid and the dog was stupid. She said she about let the dog out, so it could take care of its self. Anyway, silly story but probably the most excitement we seen today. Too bad, the world is full of crazy people. I think that mom and son were a little wacko myself. Ok, I am going to bed, my eyes are starting to cross and my fingers are not listening to me and are doing their own thing.
Good Nite.