Painting

I decided to break out Megan's watercolor book today to give her something new to try. She seems happy just to dip the paintbrush in the water. I think finger paints might suit her better right now. Her first try was to paint her eye, I guess brushes mean mommy's makeup to her. Then she tried to taste it, probably tasted better than the easter egg colors. She'll get the hang of it! Please excuse the macaroni and cheese face and bed head.

Happy 2nd Birthday Natalie!

The friends that Megan and I met at Mom's Group are now all starting to turn 2 years old! Geez! How time flies. The first 2nd birthday we went to was for Natalie. They had it at a place called Pump it Up Junior. I had never heard of it but it's actually not far from our house. Megan had a lot of fun playing on the toys and seeing all of the kids. She's a social butterfly!

Megan LOVES the Little Tikes car! Whenever she sees one, she is drawn to it. I think she had more fun sitting and playing in the car than all of the blow up toys.
Natalie, the birthday girl!
Lunchtime! Megan was such a big girl to sit and eat her pizza and her Capri Sun and then cake and ice cream. She is getting so big, her birthday is right around the corner!

Back to the Usual

Well, we've been back in Oregon for a week now. We've pretty much gotten back to normal, back to work, back to life. Megan is still on Alaska time in terms of her sleeping. She's been going to sleep around 10:00 and not waking up till about 10:00 which for her parents who love their sleep, are very satisfied with. We used to think it was nice to have some time after she went to bed for some adult time but now I love for her to still be awake when I get home from work and then be able to sleep in in the morning! That means that she is down to one nap a day in the late afternoon which seems to be working just fine for her.

Just in the last few weeks, she has added several new words to her vocabulary. She is getting so big and we are as of tomorrow on the 2 month countdown to her 2nd birthday! It seems so unreal!! A couple of new things she is doing are really cute. She has started to say "Dada" whenever she sees a big truck even closely resembling Josh's truck. Then last night when he was gone, she kept calling for him to come home. "Dada, Dada". Then she started slapping her leg like we do with the dogs to get them to come. How funny is that!?!

There is also something new with me. As of September 14, I will be a student again! I'm going to school to be a licensed esthetician. I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to start. I can't wait to say that I am something OTHER than a waitress! I'll be in school until July, graduation date is July 30th so it's 11 months long but hopefully it will go by fast. I'll be in class on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights and then every other Sunday. I'll still work a couple of shifts a week and selling Pampered Chef. I'm definitely going to be busy but it's only 11 months and at the end of the time, I will have a skill!! Yeah for me!

Last day in Nome

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With cockleshells, and silver bells,

And pretty maids all in a row.

Gone Fishin'

Last night we jumped in the car at 9:30 this time to go fishing. We went to the mouth of the Nome again. They are waiting for the silver salmon to come in and keep hearing rumors but we hadn't seen one yet. When we first got there there weren't many people there and then about 15 minutes later it was packed. After about an hour 2 guys caught salmon right after one another. I think it's the first time I've seen them up close. I started to think that maybe I'd like to fish, it would be relaxing. That is IF you didn't have to chase a toddler around and keep from drowning - because I've found that's not real relaxing. When I saw the fish fighting and gasping however, I think I had second thoughts. I've never thought of fishing like I do hunting, where I don't want to see anything die. I know it's necessary and all that stuff, I just don't want to see it. Don't worry, I am aware of my meat eating ways, you don't have to remind me of the irony. Anyway, once it got to the beating the fish over the head, I had to turn away. Even Josh said, "You might not want to watch this."

I love this picture of Megan and Josh. It perfectly shows their love of the outdoors and their love for eachother. Isabeau fishing. She could do it for hours.
I had seen Rylan empty his boot out and then I saw why. He was standing on a sand bar and just kept sinking farther and farther. Instead of moving, he just let his boots fill with water.
One of the many times I had to pull Megan back from going into the water.

Picking rocks.

"Wow!" We decided to quit fighting her and if she got wet, she got wet. Well, she got wet.

Family Fun

Here are some pictures from around the house. Megan being silly in the bath.

Playing Star Wars with Vern and Rylan.

Lazy Sunday Drive

Here are some pictures from our drive on Sunday.

Daddy and Megan looking out the window.

Here are the salmon that are returning to spawn. The males are called 'humpies' because for some reason when they return to spawn they get huge humps on their backs. There are thousands swimming back up river to their original birthplace getting ready to spawn.

We went to a place called Wooley Lagoon and found this creek running right along side the road. It was so beautiful. Josh got a bunch of pictures of what we saw.

"River Beauty"

"Wild Iris"

I think this is called "Monkshood".

The Carhartt overalls come in very handy for several different reasons!
Megan and I hung out in the truck while everyone got out to pick wildflowers. Josh took this pictures of Megan from the tailgate.

Just Us Day

Today Karen and Vern had a church event out at Salmon Lake which is about an hour drive, give or take. With Megan's unpredictability, we decided that a long car drive and a long day in general far from home - without a nap -may not be such a good idea. Instead, we decided to stay back in Nome and have a day to ourselves. After Megan's morning nap we went into town to do some touristy stuff. We had lunch at a place called Airport Pizza and then took some pictures of some of the town sights.

Here is Megan leaving the house with her little backpack. Before we know it, this will be daddy taking her to school. Sad!

I think this qualifies as the world's largest gold pan.
An old church in town. I'm not sure if it's still operating or not.
This is one of the now 3 grocery/all purpose stores in town. This is known as the cheapest but also the dirtiest and probably most likely to have outdated food. Safeway actually owns it and it's interesting that they don't take a little more pride in their product and store conditions.
Yep, this is really what everyone pays. The gas comes in once a year on a barge and they pay the same price all year until the next barge comes in. Who knows what they'll be paying when that arrives.

After our stop in town, we came back home, watched some Olympics and then decided that Megan needed to get out again. We went back to the beach that we fished at a couple of days ago because Megan had so much fun walking around and throwing rocks in the water.

After the beach we drove out into the tundra again. Josh took these pictures off the side of the road.

We almost missed these Musk Ox off the side of the road. This herd was a lot closer to the road than the last we saw so we got a few better pictures. They are so prehistoric looking. Their hair is really long and they have horns. They sort of look like bulls. Megan thought they were cows so she was mooing at them. Later when she lost it in the car, we were trying to divert her attention and tell her to look for more cows. So she moo'd and said "Ease?" Translation: "Please cows, come out?"