10K Midnight Sun Run

Last night I ran in the annual 10K Midnight Sun Run in celebration of Summer Solstice. Summer Solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska means you literally get 24 hours of daylight. The daylight is awesome! You either love it or you hate it. But if you are like me, you love it because you are well aware that winter equinox means hardly any daylight.

4,000 people ran in the race last night. There is a costume contest as well and my goal was not allowing the man in the big, fat bagel costume to beat me. Thankfully, I beat the bagel! More than just a race, it is a celebration of summer solstice. Almost every house along the route has a crowd of their own as they barbecue, drink beer, soak runners with water, and play music.

Here are a couple of photos of some folks from our Brigade and Battalion that ran the race with me. Charlie was missed, but we are alternating race events for the summer and he had just completed a 100 mile bike race last weekend. These photos were taken 11:30 pm!

Inspired by Kristina

Last summer I helped a good friend plant a vegetable garden at her house in Germany. This year I decided to see if I have a green thumb of my own. I am pleased to report that we have zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes on the plants. They are very tiny, but still flowering. I can't wait until we can eat it!

PROJECTS

When I take on projects like this:

Something has got to give, like this:

I started painting Brady and Beckett's bedroom two nights ago and it turned out to be a much larger project than I had anticipated. I had no idea how hard it was to move bunk beds from one side of the room to another and turn an area rug without another set of hands. Now it's done and I have some other household chores to catch up on....

By the way.. the window photo was taken at 11:46 pm! Loving the AK daylight!

Caribou

We drove to Anchorage for Memorial weekend and on our way, we were able to catch a close-up of 2 caribou. They were lazily grazing on the side of the road and were not at all phased by us.
I wish I had more pictures to share with everyone from our trip, but I forgot my camera and my phone took this caribou picture and that is all I have for pictures.
We spent the weekend with some Army friends and then had a chance to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle who live in Anchorage. If I could choose between Anchorage and Fairbanks... Anchorage would win. After all... they do have a Target! (And of course... friends, family, and more mountains!)

Big and Little

How to Bake an American Pie

We spent our afternoon baking an apple pie together. Tomorrow the post commander will be reading the book, "How to Bake an American Pie" by Karma Wilson to our kids at a story hour put on by The Military Child Education Coalition. There is also an American Pie bake-off at story hour, so we decided to enter and the kids did the majority of the work and I supervised.

Step 1: Peel those apples!
Step 2: Cut the apples (I did most of that, so no picture).
Step 3: Squeezing some fresh lemon juice and shredding the lemon for zest.

Step 4: Measuring the yummy stuff: sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.

Step 5: Rolling out our dough that we made the day before.

Step 6: Adding the top crust.

Step 7: Adding egg to the crust.

Step 8: Bake at 425 degrees for one hour and....TAH-DAH you have and AMERICAN APPLE PIE!!!!

Busy, busy, busy!

We have been ultra busy these last few weeks and I haven't quite figured out where the month of April has gone? Let's see... we got a puppy, our household goods were delivered, we've been unpacking and some more unpacking. And just when I thought we are almost done, another shipment comes tomorrow. All of the stuff that we put into storage before we moved to Germany over 2 years ago, is being delivered tomorrow. At 10:00pm tonight, I made Charlie help me carry the Army's washer and dryer into the garage, so that the movers can move mine right in.
We got our very own Harley. She is 6 months old and supposedly a lab, husky mix. Her name was Nikita and that just wasn't cutting for us. Seeing how Beckett is still calling ALL dogs Harley (after our friends' dog in Germany), it was the most fitting name. She has been pretty good so far, although I think she needs puppy school. Aside from a couple of incidents, she has been a decent dog. I still think a newborn baby is easier, or maybe because that is what I have the most experience with!
We did manage to make it down to Denali National Park this past weekend. It was too cloudy to see Mt. McKinley, but the kids enjoyed it and they still had about 3 feet of snow on the ground to play in. We went with some new friends and we managed to snap a family photo where every member is looking at the camera. And it only took 3 PICTURES!!!! It might have to be our Christmas picture this year.