The most honorable project I've ever made

This past weekend, our Battalion lost two soldiers in Afghanistan and seven were wounded. I was asked to make the families Gold Star Banners along with the help of my friend. Pray for their families as they walk through the grieving process for months to come. Please continue to pray for the safety of all our soldiers in Afghanistan and around the world, the wounded, and all military families that endure separations.


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Location:The most honorable project I've ever made.

Independence Day!

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The Fireweed!

Jordan and Ava just read the last post and said, "Mom there is no fireweed in any of your pictures!" Oops! Forgive me, but these days I am caught somewhere between folding laundry and finding time to play with my kids and then my brain is trying to balance somewhere in the middle.



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Angel Rocks

Today we beat the rain that we've been having and hiked up to Angel Rocks. My kids were troopers and enjoyed playing around the rocks and picking wildflowers. The flower in the picture is Fireweed. When the last flowers at the top bloom, it is said that we have six weeks until the first snow. I've payed attention to this for our four summers in Alaska and it is fairly accurate.











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All Aboard!

Last weekend I booked a trip to Denali National Park on the Alaska Railroad. My friends Joanna (plus her Mom) and Erin joined me for a long day of riding and hiking! Altogether we had twelve kids ranging from the ages of 11 months to 12 years old.
We packed a picnic lunch and decided to hike a 3 mile route out to a small lake and back. There was a giant sign at the base of the trail, warning that grizzlies had been spotted in the area in the past. Ava freaked. I calmed her down, assuring her that there were way too many of us and surely we would scare them off the trail. I was fairly confident in my tale, until we found bear POO in the middle of the trail. Thankfully, we only saw one bear....safely from the moving train!




Yes, that's the bears potty break. :-/



There was still snow under this little foot bridge.



All the kids, after the trip. (minus Beckett!).



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Time is flying by!

It's been forever since I've updated... But I finally had two seconds to pause and figure out how to blog from my iPad. Charlie took the laptop to Afghanistan with him and so I'm now an Apple girl... although I prefer berries!

I'm 1/6th of the way through my deployment marathon. Most days pass by with a blink of my eyes because I'm constantly working hard to keep up with our busy life. But, I do have to say... I am not a whiner in the sense of "poor me, my life is so terrible because my best friend is gone for a year." But somehow people find it necessary to remind me that, "this is what we signed up for." I've gotten a little snarky in my sole, physical parenting lifestyle and started responding with, "Got it. But did you know that if my husband and every other soldier didn't volunteer, there would be a draft and it would be you or your own husband."

But seriously, we are doing great. It started out a bit tougher than I expected for our kids. But they are on cruise control now and are doing great. Ava and Beckett had their tonsils and adenoids removed on June 7th and three weeks later they are all recovered. On our worst days I remind myself that conditions are so much worse for Charlie and he is most likely missing us too.

On the Charlie note... He is doing great. Working ultra-long days and living in a tent with one semi- " real" meal a day. He doesn't have much time to communicate with us because they don't have phones where they are and Internet connections are spotty at best. When we do hear from him it is a real treat.

Next up is a a post with pictures. I've got quite a few photos from our summer fun!


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Trial and Error