Here's the Boiler Bay area.
Here's the 3 capes.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Oregon Coast
We took a little sunday drive today, and ended up going all the way from Rockaway beach to Newport. It was a long drive, but we saw some really cool stuff. and we didnt' even stop for half the stuff we wanted to. It was one of those trips where we thought "oh it'd be cool to stop there...ooops too late." :) oh well. It was fun
Here's the Boiler Bay area.
Here's the Boiler Bay area.
Seattle, and Blake's house
Here's Blakes house, and some pictures of the snow. We got about 10 inches of snow while we were in Seattle - CRAZY!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Funny airplane moment
So, we flew into Seattle tuesday morning, and we tried sleeping on the plane, but didn't have much luck, at least I didn't. Mom did a little better. About 1/2 hour before we landed in Seattle, mom sits up, and taps me on the shoulder and says "I don't know how to make punch for 30-50,000 people! How am I supposed to make punch for all those people? I can't make punch for at least 30,000 people!" and it was just so funny. She didn't think she was asleep, but she was, and she'd been dreaming about getting stuff done for the wedding, and in her dream she needed all this punch, and it was just funny. One of the random moments that comes only when you've been awake an obscene amount of time. :)
But anyway, we're here and safe and sound. Had a great time visiting with Blake and Johanna today. They live in a beautiful neighborhood and home. And they have SUPER fast internet that I've been enjoying.
Anyway, just wanted to share our funny story, and tell you we were safe and sound, and sleepy. :) Love you all. Alicia
But anyway, we're here and safe and sound. Had a great time visiting with Blake and Johanna today. They live in a beautiful neighborhood and home. And they have SUPER fast internet that I've been enjoying.
Anyway, just wanted to share our funny story, and tell you we were safe and sound, and sleepy. :) Love you all. Alicia
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Off on our trip
Just wanted to post a little message before mom and I head off on our grand adventure. We'll be gone for about 17 days or so. We're going to Seattle to see Blake, then to Oregon for a scrapbooking convention and to see a few family members. Other than that just SHOPPING!! :):) I'm just looking forward to being able to go to some fun stores, and relax and enjoy some fun times, and some time with family. Should be a really good time. Plus we'll be doing some stuff for the wedding, so that's exciting :). Justin and I are thinking June 15th for the wedding date, in Anchorage, with a reception here either the next day, or the next saturday, depending on how the schedules work out. But, its an exciting and interesting time! Justin went to Paul and Nicole's tonight for dinner and canasta, sounds like they had a good time. :) Justin really like Paul and Nicole, said they were really nice and really neat. If you check out Paul's blog there's a picture there from tonight.
Other than that, dad's going to be here living the quiet life, just him and the cat. Well and the duck and goose. :) We're still waiting for the temperature to come back up, its been really cold here the last few days, but that will mean good road conditions, its been really dry and cold. We'll drive to Anchorage tomorrow, then fly out late monday night/early tuesday morning, and get to Seattle early in the AM. Then we're just going to hang out with Blake and Johanna and see Seattle. We've never spent any time there, so we're looking forward to that, and really glad to see their house, and hang out with them.
We'll try and keep something on the blog or email to let everyone know whats going on and how the trip is. Love you all! Alicia :)
Other than that, dad's going to be here living the quiet life, just him and the cat. Well and the duck and goose. :) We're still waiting for the temperature to come back up, its been really cold here the last few days, but that will mean good road conditions, its been really dry and cold. We'll drive to Anchorage tomorrow, then fly out late monday night/early tuesday morning, and get to Seattle early in the AM. Then we're just going to hang out with Blake and Johanna and see Seattle. We've never spent any time there, so we're looking forward to that, and really glad to see their house, and hang out with them.
We'll try and keep something on the blog or email to let everyone know whats going on and how the trip is. Love you all! Alicia :)
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Valentines Story
So I'm totally excited because this is the first Valentine's day that I've ever had someone to share it with! :) Its been so much fun. I ordered a package for Justin yesterday, a little candy basket with a stuffed moose and a rose.
Then tonight at the end of Mutual (I knew something was going on, because mom's been covering her email every time I come in the room, and emailing Justin, and making all these secret phone calls), all the young women and leaders went into the young womens room, but they wouldn't let me in. So I waited in the hallway for a couple minutes, until they had everything set. Then when they let me in, they were standing in a half circle around this chair, with a video player. So they had me sit down, and they hit play on the vcr, and it was cued up to the scene in Seven Brides for Seven Brother, about being a June bride, and they each had a copy of the words, and they sang it to me, along with the video, then gave me my flowers as they sang. It was so cool!! Justin put so much effort into coordinating everything and getting everyone involved. It was so sweet and so AMAZING!!
So here are some more pictures from my awesome day. Justin also got mom some flowers, and arranged for me to be able to sign the card too. its a tradition from his family, where you give the mom flowers on valentine's too. So much fun! I hope I haven't forgotten anything - it was a great day and I'm so happy and excited!!
Some Changes are comin' around here
As many of you have heard, Alicia has found a young man on LDS Singles. They started "chatting" on December 9th - and have spent all but one or two nights talking back and forth on the internet or on the phone for at least 4 hours at a time.
His name is Justin Clark and right now he is living in Blackfoot Idaho - but he has lived in Alaska before and is moving back up here next month. He has a job with one of our bigger road building companies here in the Homer area that will start when he gets here. Our good neighbors, Ron and Lydia, have agreed to let him rent out their cute little house next door (the white one in the back - not the one right next door to us). Justin's parents live in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico - and he was born in Deming.
So as Justin says on his blog, they were just sort of talking one night on the internet and they started feeling all mushy and now we are making lots of plans. It still doesn't seem completely real since they haven't actually met in person, but because of the timing of things, we are announcing their plans to be sealed in the Anchorage temple - assuming of course that they both feel the same way when they see each other. (save a date somewhere in the middle of June - we have to work around girls camp, youth conference, and king salmon fishing season - yes, he fishes and hunts like Brian does so she still has to plan her life around fishing and hunting seasons).
Alicia says he is the nicest, most considerate man she has ever met and everyone at church has been noticing that she smiles ALL the time and now that word is out, they all go, "Ahhhh, that explains the smiling and the spring in the step...." It's like she is gliding all the time about 3 inches off the floor.
It is scary for both of them to make this type of commitment long distance, but it is kind of a tradition in the Carper family. She was thinking up other family members who had done this kind of marriage, and she came up with almost 20. They have prayed a lot over this relationship and this decision and both believe that it is the right thing to do.
Cousin Paul met him for a few minutes and he said he was a nice cowboy type guy and from what he knew about Alicia, they seemed like a great match. thanks Paul and Nicole for the test run.
We'll keep you all posted as things unfold. Charlotte
His name is Justin Clark and right now he is living in Blackfoot Idaho - but he has lived in Alaska before and is moving back up here next month. He has a job with one of our bigger road building companies here in the Homer area that will start when he gets here. Our good neighbors, Ron and Lydia, have agreed to let him rent out their cute little house next door (the white one in the back - not the one right next door to us). Justin's parents live in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico - and he was born in Deming.
So as Justin says on his blog, they were just sort of talking one night on the internet and they started feeling all mushy and now we are making lots of plans. It still doesn't seem completely real since they haven't actually met in person, but because of the timing of things, we are announcing their plans to be sealed in the Anchorage temple - assuming of course that they both feel the same way when they see each other. (save a date somewhere in the middle of June - we have to work around girls camp, youth conference, and king salmon fishing season - yes, he fishes and hunts like Brian does so she still has to plan her life around fishing and hunting seasons).
Alicia says he is the nicest, most considerate man she has ever met and everyone at church has been noticing that she smiles ALL the time and now that word is out, they all go, "Ahhhh, that explains the smiling and the spring in the step...." It's like she is gliding all the time about 3 inches off the floor.
It is scary for both of them to make this type of commitment long distance, but it is kind of a tradition in the Carper family. She was thinking up other family members who had done this kind of marriage, and she came up with almost 20. They have prayed a lot over this relationship and this decision and both believe that it is the right thing to do.
Cousin Paul met him for a few minutes and he said he was a nice cowboy type guy and from what he knew about Alicia, they seemed like a great match. thanks Paul and Nicole for the test run.
We'll keep you all posted as things unfold. Charlotte
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Kitchen re-do, still halfway, the afters
Here's the yellow contrast wall. I didn't want the kitchen to be too dark, with too much red, so I used the red on the back wall, since it was limited in size anyway, from the cupboards and window. Then I used the yellow to lighten it up. So, on the left wall is yellow, the back wall is red, and the right wall is the green that comes in from the living room. It sounds convoluted, but it all seems to go together. And we have this fabric wall that I pulled the colors from, and we'll use the fabric to make some small curtains on the window, so it makes more sense.
Here's a good look at the red back wall, sorry about the glare from the flash. I didn't want to use paint with gloss in it, but since its a kitchen, we didn't really have any choice.
here's the rooster and chicken back up on their roost. :)
here's the back corner.
So the master plan is to add a black granite backsplash, we already have the granite and everything we need except the wet saw, we just haven't had time. Then we want to put a black laminate counter - everyone else is going granite, but we still like the formica laminate stuff. Then I'm going to sand down the lower cabinets and seal the or stain them or something. The black granite goes really well with the appliances which are basically black, well the stove, ovens, and dishwasher anyway. I'll post some more pictures when I finally get up the gumption to try working with the granite tiles. :)
Oh, I forgot the reason for all of this was so that we could get the house reappraised for mom and dad's refinancing, which went through, so that is good. We only had about a weeks notice though, so we had to squeeze this all in between Christmas and New Years. We also repainted the master bathroom a nice cheery yellow, and did a lot of de-cluttering, which in some parts of the house included taking everything and stuffing it into a box. :) But everything looks nice now. Just a few more projects to work on, something to keep us busy in january I'm sure. Anyway, thanks for checking the blog. Love to you all. :) Alicia
Kitchen re-do, half way, the befores
Pantry wall and door before.
Looking at the refrigerator and pantry, patched wall and all.
More of the befores. Don't look to closely at the counter, it was a bad mix of the stuff from on top of the cupboards and the stuff that I bought at the grocery store that day.
Here's part of the kitchen before. I forgot to start taking pictures before I took the wallpaper off, well as much as I took it off anyway. :)
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Quiz - Charlotte
Family Christmas Countdown: "
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate with a scoop of ice cream on cold December nights - but then egg nog from Christmas Day to New Years.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
At our house Santa wraps the presents. He doesn't come on Christmas eve - he leaves them there before Christmas
3. Colored lights on tree/house or clear?
Colored for me. All the businesses do clear and they all look the same. Although, we usually do tiny clear lights on the tree so that the focus is on the ornaments
4. Do you hang mistletoe? NAH. If you've ever lived where mistletoe grows, you know it is a fungal parasite that grows on other trees and that kind of ruins the mystique of it.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
As soon as Brian will let me. If it was just me, I would decorate on Thanksgiving weekend, but he doesn't like that. Now Alicia does most of it.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Baked Ham, I guess
7. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
We switch off between all the funky old folk ornaments we have collected and made over the years or we do the tree all in blue and silver. We decorate it on the second Sunday of December during the National Finals Rodeo.
8. When Did you learn the truth about Santa?
I don't remember how I learned. When I was about 8, I got to stay up for the first time to be an elf, so it must have been around then. What I learned is that Santa is very busy and he needs lots of elves to help him each year. I still believe he is real.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
SIGH..... Brian's family opens all their gifts on Christmas Eve - some years we have opened them as early as 4:30. GROSS. But I enforce a rule that no Christmas present can leave the living room area until the day after Christmas.
10. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Probably the year we were really poor and I got the hand made marble game that made a lot of noise and some how mysteriously disappeared.
11. Can you ice skate?
Indeed I used to. I learned how in Montana - where the towns have the coolest public ice rinks.
12. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Little House on the Prairie books. I'll write about that later.
13. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Helping those less fortunate to have a good holiday - Angel tree, or Adopt a family, or whatever.
14. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Homemade ice cream - made with -20 degree snow instead of ice.
15. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
the Angel tree shopping or the adopting a family
16. What tops your tree?
I prefer a pointed glass tree topper like we had as kids, but I am stuck with that stupid lighted, tin foil Mexican star.
17. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
OH HOLY NIGHT.
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
I like them both - there have to be recievers in order for there to be givers.
19. What is your favorite gift you’ve ever given?
One year, when I was 16, Earlene liked this blouse that was really in style and I was making one right in front of her, and I told her it was for me for a party I was going to after Christmas, and then on Christmas morning she opened it and it was for her all along. I like gifts like that that are such a surprise to the receiver.
20. Are you ready for Christmas this year?"
Ummm, I usually start Christmas prep in January, but this year has been a particular year for us, so I'm sort of running around in my brain going AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! Although we did get the box to Iraq sent on time.
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate with a scoop of ice cream on cold December nights - but then egg nog from Christmas Day to New Years.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
At our house Santa wraps the presents. He doesn't come on Christmas eve - he leaves them there before Christmas
3. Colored lights on tree/house or clear?
Colored for me. All the businesses do clear and they all look the same. Although, we usually do tiny clear lights on the tree so that the focus is on the ornaments
4. Do you hang mistletoe? NAH. If you've ever lived where mistletoe grows, you know it is a fungal parasite that grows on other trees and that kind of ruins the mystique of it.
5. When do you put your decorations up?
As soon as Brian will let me. If it was just me, I would decorate on Thanksgiving weekend, but he doesn't like that. Now Alicia does most of it.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Baked Ham, I guess
7. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
We switch off between all the funky old folk ornaments we have collected and made over the years or we do the tree all in blue and silver. We decorate it on the second Sunday of December during the National Finals Rodeo.
8. When Did you learn the truth about Santa?
I don't remember how I learned. When I was about 8, I got to stay up for the first time to be an elf, so it must have been around then. What I learned is that Santa is very busy and he needs lots of elves to help him each year. I still believe he is real.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
SIGH..... Brian's family opens all their gifts on Christmas Eve - some years we have opened them as early as 4:30. GROSS. But I enforce a rule that no Christmas present can leave the living room area until the day after Christmas.
10. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Probably the year we were really poor and I got the hand made marble game that made a lot of noise and some how mysteriously disappeared.
11. Can you ice skate?
Indeed I used to. I learned how in Montana - where the towns have the coolest public ice rinks.
12. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Little House on the Prairie books. I'll write about that later.
13. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Helping those less fortunate to have a good holiday - Angel tree, or Adopt a family, or whatever.
14. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Homemade ice cream - made with -20 degree snow instead of ice.
15. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
the Angel tree shopping or the adopting a family
16. What tops your tree?
I prefer a pointed glass tree topper like we had as kids, but I am stuck with that stupid lighted, tin foil Mexican star.
17. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
OH HOLY NIGHT.
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
I like them both - there have to be recievers in order for there to be givers.
19. What is your favorite gift you’ve ever given?
One year, when I was 16, Earlene liked this blouse that was really in style and I was making one right in front of her, and I told her it was for me for a party I was going to after Christmas, and then on Christmas morning she opened it and it was for her all along. I like gifts like that that are such a surprise to the receiver.
20. Are you ready for Christmas this year?"
Ummm, I usually start Christmas prep in January, but this year has been a particular year for us, so I'm sort of running around in my brain going AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! Although we did get the box to Iraq sent on time.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Check Holiday blog
During the holiday season - keep up with us and our family by following the family holiday blog. the link is to the right on this page. HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!!!
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Christmas Cookies
We started our holiday season with a new project. We usually make all our candy on Thanksgiving weekend, but this year, we ate Thanksgiving at the Bishop's. So then on Friday, we spent cooking our own turkey and such, so we didn't make candy - just one batch of million dollar fudge. We made caramel corn last week to send to Spencer in Iraq, so we didn't make it this weekend.
Anyway, we wanted to be creative in the kitchen, so we invited the missionaries over to make cookie plates for them to take to people. They ended up not coming so we went ahead and made the cookies and they came today after church and Brian helped pack them up. Then we tied pass along cards for the Nativity video on to them. It felt good to do a little service. We are trying to spend our holiday season this year focusing on other people and on things we can do for others with materials we have at home. It was a very good and satisfying start to our holiday season. I highly recommend it!!!!!
LOVE Charlotte
Anyway, we wanted to be creative in the kitchen, so we invited the missionaries over to make cookie plates for them to take to people. They ended up not coming so we went ahead and made the cookies and they came today after church and Brian helped pack them up. Then we tied pass along cards for the Nativity video on to them. It felt good to do a little service. We are trying to spend our holiday season this year focusing on other people and on things we can do for others with materials we have at home. It was a very good and satisfying start to our holiday season. I highly recommend it!!!!!
LOVE Charlotte
Monday, November 20, 2006
BRRRRRR!!!!!
WOW - it has been cold here. The wind has been in a hurricane pattern - circular, just off shore - sustained winds of 76 mph and gusts up to 94. And it is zero degrees out. If you don't have a windchill chart handy I can give you the exact windchill factor - STINKING COLD!!!!!
It is dumping massive amounts of snow in the Juneau - Sitka area (not really part of the state - just our capital, we all think we should give it back to Canada - it's way over on the continent). anyway, the rest of us here in the south central part of the state don't have that much snow. We had 2 inches, but the wind has taken it all and put it in like 3 drifts that are about five feet wide and maybe 6 inches deep. the rest of the ground, is barely white.
As you all know, our house leaks on the north side and it has been very cold in here. We have 3 space heaters (which I worry about all the time) that we have to use to keep the bathrooms and our bedroom inhabitable. Not too much worry about them starting a fire actually - they are on the same circuit with half the first floor. If i use my hair dryer, or my stereo, or a breeze causes both heaters to kick in at the same time, the circuit flips. So we end up never leaving them on when we aren't here and awake. We always have to turn them off to leave the house, because I have to turn on the light and use the hair dryer and I can't do that without turning off the heaters. It is a very effective system.
Brian got home from his long haul trucking trip on Tuesday morning. He flew down from Anchorage - Ray's granddaughter was having an operation there, so he stayed and Brian flew. He started the next day at the school. He is glad the job is indoors in this weather. We are all adjusting to the hours. We had lots of practice with swing shift when he worked at the mill. He works with nice people and he has great benefits. He did well truck driving, he missed us a lot.
Alicia taught a class at the scrap book store on Saturday - it ended up lasting all day - it was a Christmas card marathon. We spent weeks preparing the kits for it. We had 7 different card styles and each person was supposed to make 4 of each card and we were expecting 6 to 10 people. (try the math on that - some of the cards had like 30 pieces to them). It was a lot of cutting and folding and punching and counting. WHEW. We will post them on the family Christmas blog - they are in the other computer. We had fun at the class. It was close friends and we had the run of the store for the day. I couldn't walk after I got home, but it was probably worth it. It was the first time I had gone out in the cold weather. Too hard on the arthritis.
then this morning, she made me go to church. I was really sore, but I really wanted to see our friends' baby blessed in church and they had come all the way from Maryland (Army), so the least I could do was drag myself down there. I was glad I went, I haven't been able to go to Sunday church for almost 3 months. I really felt out of the loop. It was fun to see the kids again, but made us all sad that we don't get to see them any more since they moved away.
Someone stole Alicia's identity on e-bay, so she has been dealing with that all week. We had just checked our credit ratings for the first time last week, so we hate to waste another check with the credit bureau, but we really would hate for her credit to be compromised. E-bay assures us it was a "contained" breech in their system and that she isn't at any other risk from it. but she had to change all her passwords on all her accounts everywhere. that took hours and now we all have to stop and lookup every password, where as before we had them all memorized. Welcome to the 21st century, I guess.
Well, that is about all our news. Oh, the single guy in our ward passed away this week (he was 73). So I don't know what the single women in the Homer area will do. Pickings were slim - now they're dead...... what are you gonna do. Looks like no grandkids for us this year...... (and Alicia will KILL me for this paragraph. She doesn't find humor in her plight as much as we do. )
LOVE< Charlotte
It is dumping massive amounts of snow in the Juneau - Sitka area (not really part of the state - just our capital, we all think we should give it back to Canada - it's way over on the continent). anyway, the rest of us here in the south central part of the state don't have that much snow. We had 2 inches, but the wind has taken it all and put it in like 3 drifts that are about five feet wide and maybe 6 inches deep. the rest of the ground, is barely white.
As you all know, our house leaks on the north side and it has been very cold in here. We have 3 space heaters (which I worry about all the time) that we have to use to keep the bathrooms and our bedroom inhabitable. Not too much worry about them starting a fire actually - they are on the same circuit with half the first floor. If i use my hair dryer, or my stereo, or a breeze causes both heaters to kick in at the same time, the circuit flips. So we end up never leaving them on when we aren't here and awake. We always have to turn them off to leave the house, because I have to turn on the light and use the hair dryer and I can't do that without turning off the heaters. It is a very effective system.
Brian got home from his long haul trucking trip on Tuesday morning. He flew down from Anchorage - Ray's granddaughter was having an operation there, so he stayed and Brian flew. He started the next day at the school. He is glad the job is indoors in this weather. We are all adjusting to the hours. We had lots of practice with swing shift when he worked at the mill. He works with nice people and he has great benefits. He did well truck driving, he missed us a lot.
Alicia taught a class at the scrap book store on Saturday - it ended up lasting all day - it was a Christmas card marathon. We spent weeks preparing the kits for it. We had 7 different card styles and each person was supposed to make 4 of each card and we were expecting 6 to 10 people. (try the math on that - some of the cards had like 30 pieces to them). It was a lot of cutting and folding and punching and counting. WHEW. We will post them on the family Christmas blog - they are in the other computer. We had fun at the class. It was close friends and we had the run of the store for the day. I couldn't walk after I got home, but it was probably worth it. It was the first time I had gone out in the cold weather. Too hard on the arthritis.
then this morning, she made me go to church. I was really sore, but I really wanted to see our friends' baby blessed in church and they had come all the way from Maryland (Army), so the least I could do was drag myself down there. I was glad I went, I haven't been able to go to Sunday church for almost 3 months. I really felt out of the loop. It was fun to see the kids again, but made us all sad that we don't get to see them any more since they moved away.
Someone stole Alicia's identity on e-bay, so she has been dealing with that all week. We had just checked our credit ratings for the first time last week, so we hate to waste another check with the credit bureau, but we really would hate for her credit to be compromised. E-bay assures us it was a "contained" breech in their system and that she isn't at any other risk from it. but she had to change all her passwords on all her accounts everywhere. that took hours and now we all have to stop and lookup every password, where as before we had them all memorized. Welcome to the 21st century, I guess.
Well, that is about all our news. Oh, the single guy in our ward passed away this week (he was 73). So I don't know what the single women in the Homer area will do. Pickings were slim - now they're dead...... what are you gonna do. Looks like no grandkids for us this year...... (and Alicia will KILL me for this paragraph. She doesn't find humor in her plight as much as we do. )
LOVE< Charlotte
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Whiskerless dad
I took this picture last week or so, to send in with a job application, and we were thinking that most people hadn't seen dad without his whiskers in a while (if ever). before he shaved last year I had never seen him without a beard, so it was totally different, but its nice, easier to see his smile and tell when he's joking. But anyway, just wanted to show you all what he looks like without whiskers. We talked to him for a few minutes this evening. They are in Seattle and he was hoping to get to see Blake but the traffic was so bad that they couldn't get to see each other. They talked for over an hour and in that time, Blake had been able to go 2 blocks, and dad hadn't moved at all. So it was a bummer they won't get to see each other - to be so close and so far apart! We also found out his hours for his new job. He will be working monday through friday 4pm-12 am. It'll be hard to have him on the night shift (and weird too) but i think he'll be glad to have a steady job. I don't think this truck driving thing would be good for him full time. I guess they had some nasty snow storms on the way down there, and he swore after we got up here (13 years ago - half my life, can you believe that??) that he would never drive the Al-Can again, but you do what you have to. So anyway, long story short here's dad without a beard. :) Love you all. Alicia
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Prayers are answered
As you know, Brian got his CDL license last week. On Saturday, last, he helped drive a semi-truck of food storage down from Soldotna to the church house. The friend who owns the truck liked the way he drove and he asked if he would like to drive a haul to Seattle this week... so Monday night, they took off at midnight for Seattle. It is 6:00 pm on Wednesday, and he just called. They are in Houston, British Columbia. They have been in -15 to -30 degree weather with ice and snow for most of the way, but it is going okay. He doesn't know how much turn around time they will have in Seattle, but we hope he will be able to at least talk to Blake on the phone... He would like to see him if it will be possible, but they just don't know what their schedule will be so they can't make any plans yet. It depends on when they can drop the load they have and pick up the load that is coming back up.
He was going to drive to Utah next week and I was excited about him getting to see my folks, but that isn't going to happen because he just called me and said that the school district called him and he got the custodian job in Homer. he will be the custodian at the high school and middle school. It is less money than he usually makes, but it is steady and indoors and at home. It means he won't have to go to work on the Slope, so he will be home every day. We don't know yet how many hours a week it is or what benefits come with it, but we think it is full-time with school district benefits. he will start as soon as he gets home. he said they wanted him yesterday, but he of course was in Canada, driving truck.
so all our prayers are answered. We really didn't want him to work away from home. This way he can still be around to take care of the Elders' Quorum and here to see us and help around the house, and still have the time to build up his welding business in his free time and in the summers. We had been praying and paying our tithing and doing everything that we could think of to earn this blessing. the final answer came on Monday morning and we had a family conference and decided that while we were waiting for a job to come, we needed to dedicate more of our lives to helping other people. so Brian cut wood for one of his home teaching families and I was crocheting a baby blanket for the pregnancy center and Alicia was quilting a quilt for Humanitarian services, and the phone rang...... it was the final key we needed to add to our prayers. We are very blessed..
Not gonna talk about the elections - some folks are happier and some aren't. We got the governor we wanted, so we are happy. Love you all and thank you for all your prayers. Charlotte and Brian and Alicia
He was going to drive to Utah next week and I was excited about him getting to see my folks, but that isn't going to happen because he just called me and said that the school district called him and he got the custodian job in Homer. he will be the custodian at the high school and middle school. It is less money than he usually makes, but it is steady and indoors and at home. It means he won't have to go to work on the Slope, so he will be home every day. We don't know yet how many hours a week it is or what benefits come with it, but we think it is full-time with school district benefits. he will start as soon as he gets home. he said they wanted him yesterday, but he of course was in Canada, driving truck.
so all our prayers are answered. We really didn't want him to work away from home. This way he can still be around to take care of the Elders' Quorum and here to see us and help around the house, and still have the time to build up his welding business in his free time and in the summers. We had been praying and paying our tithing and doing everything that we could think of to earn this blessing. the final answer came on Monday morning and we had a family conference and decided that while we were waiting for a job to come, we needed to dedicate more of our lives to helping other people. so Brian cut wood for one of his home teaching families and I was crocheting a baby blanket for the pregnancy center and Alicia was quilting a quilt for Humanitarian services, and the phone rang...... it was the final key we needed to add to our prayers. We are very blessed..
Not gonna talk about the elections - some folks are happier and some aren't. We got the governor we wanted, so we are happy. Love you all and thank you for all your prayers. Charlotte and Brian and Alicia
Sunday, November 05, 2006
The Great Bean-capades
Ok, so here's the rundown. A friend was telling me about how fun it is to have canned beans around the house, and how you just take dried beans, soak them, and then a couple steps later you have quarts of cooked beans. Well, there was a little more to it that than, but it was still fun.
I looked it up in my cookbook and had a recipe for what was supposed to be 7 quarts (just enough to fit in my new canner), and it took 5 pounds of dried beans, which sounded fine to me. So, I weighed the beans, and then had to figure out how many cups of beans that was. 5 pounds of beans = 15 cups of beans. Then I needed to wash and rinse all the beans, and then cook them a couple of times (to do the quick rehydrate instead of the overnight soak). To do that you need 3 cups of water for every 1 cup of beans. Let me sum that up - 15 cups of beans, and 45 cups of water. It took 3 big pots to soak them and cook them.
After all the cooking, soaking, and waiting, it was time to put the beans in jars. I don't know where they got their measurements in my cookbook, but 5 pounds of beans, is enough for 14 quarts, not 7. So then I had to bust out the other canner, and run 2 canners of beans. (pictured below)
And here is the finished product - 13 quarts of pinto beans. Now we can just pop them open and use them to make bean soup and stuff anytime. Long messy process, but fun!
Well, I hope you enjoyed this little episode of the great bean-capades! :) Alicia
I looked it up in my cookbook and had a recipe for what was supposed to be 7 quarts (just enough to fit in my new canner), and it took 5 pounds of dried beans, which sounded fine to me. So, I weighed the beans, and then had to figure out how many cups of beans that was. 5 pounds of beans = 15 cups of beans. Then I needed to wash and rinse all the beans, and then cook them a couple of times (to do the quick rehydrate instead of the overnight soak). To do that you need 3 cups of water for every 1 cup of beans. Let me sum that up - 15 cups of beans, and 45 cups of water. It took 3 big pots to soak them and cook them.
After all the cooking, soaking, and waiting, it was time to put the beans in jars. I don't know where they got their measurements in my cookbook, but 5 pounds of beans, is enough for 14 quarts, not 7. So then I had to bust out the other canner, and run 2 canners of beans. (pictured below)
And here is the finished product - 13 quarts of pinto beans. Now we can just pop them open and use them to make bean soup and stuff anytime. Long messy process, but fun!
Well, I hope you enjoyed this little episode of the great bean-capades! :) Alicia
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Brian's Birthday
It is late Thursday night - minutes away from Brian's birthday. We have a surprise place we are taking him for dinner but other than that, it is pretty low-key this year.
I talked to Blake on Saturday when the Beavers were knocking USC into 9th place in the Bowl Standings and he didn't know that his email was on the fritz again. He was still getting spam and unimportant mail and he thought we had all just collectively stopped writing to him and he wondered why we were all mad at him. So he is going to look into getting it to be a more stable server. He said he would send out an email letting everyone know - but he hasn't yet - or he sent it and it didn't get out of his server.
anyway - they are fine and he isn't being anti-social, he really thought his email was working and we were the ones being anti-social. So don't count him out of the holidays - he wants to take part.
Quiet Halloween - we had 2 trick or treaters. Margaret's kids came over. Joshie doesn't like chocolate, so we always make sure to have skittles for him, and we give him extra because you know when he gets home his older siblings sort out everything that is chocolate, or nuts, or spicy. He told his mom that he thinks Alicia knows he only likes vanilla things because she didn't give him chocolate and she gave him THREE packages. We just laughed. He is the cutest kid. Anything that is not chocolate or nuts or cinnamon is vanilla to him. I like to practice speaking German with him - he is the only one in their family who isn't fluid in German and so we are trying to help her get him used to hearing German. He is 6 - he got to go to Germany this summer for the first time since he was 2, so he is picking up a little of the language, but needs to hear it more often.
We spent today working on scrap book projects. Brian went up toward Cooper Landing for his big fishing trip of the year - he went with a guy from Church. they had a good time. they were out in a boat on a lake, so didn't see any bear prints to report. I forgot to ask what fish they found. I'll have to report later.
That's all for now, I guess. Oh, he got his CDL license on Tuesday, so all he has to do now is get fingerprinted - new homeland security rules.....truckdrivers have to be cleared thru TSA and be fingerprinted and background checked. So getting his license is a good step toward future employment. Have to resend all the applications .
Thinking of you all ---- Charlotte
I talked to Blake on Saturday when the Beavers were knocking USC into 9th place in the Bowl Standings and he didn't know that his email was on the fritz again. He was still getting spam and unimportant mail and he thought we had all just collectively stopped writing to him and he wondered why we were all mad at him. So he is going to look into getting it to be a more stable server. He said he would send out an email letting everyone know - but he hasn't yet - or he sent it and it didn't get out of his server.
anyway - they are fine and he isn't being anti-social, he really thought his email was working and we were the ones being anti-social. So don't count him out of the holidays - he wants to take part.
Quiet Halloween - we had 2 trick or treaters. Margaret's kids came over. Joshie doesn't like chocolate, so we always make sure to have skittles for him, and we give him extra because you know when he gets home his older siblings sort out everything that is chocolate, or nuts, or spicy. He told his mom that he thinks Alicia knows he only likes vanilla things because she didn't give him chocolate and she gave him THREE packages. We just laughed. He is the cutest kid. Anything that is not chocolate or nuts or cinnamon is vanilla to him. I like to practice speaking German with him - he is the only one in their family who isn't fluid in German and so we are trying to help her get him used to hearing German. He is 6 - he got to go to Germany this summer for the first time since he was 2, so he is picking up a little of the language, but needs to hear it more often.
We spent today working on scrap book projects. Brian went up toward Cooper Landing for his big fishing trip of the year - he went with a guy from Church. they had a good time. they were out in a boat on a lake, so didn't see any bear prints to report. I forgot to ask what fish they found. I'll have to report later.
That's all for now, I guess. Oh, he got his CDL license on Tuesday, so all he has to do now is get fingerprinted - new homeland security rules.....truckdrivers have to be cleared thru TSA and be fingerprinted and background checked. So getting his license is a good step toward future employment. Have to resend all the applications .
Thinking of you all ---- Charlotte
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Another week goes by
Brian has been in Palmer all week at CDL school. He drove for a while today and has at least another day of driving before he can pass the test, but they are booked up there, so he will come home in the morning and practice his driving and take his test down here. His instructor actually lives just a couple miles from us, so they will schedule that when Jo is down here and can work with him. He likes it so far and has passed all his written tests.
Alicia and I have been busy all week. Monday we cleaned all day - you know how it is when your schedule gets all out of whack because an extra person is home - well our house looked like a bomb had gone off in the living room, so we worked and got lots cleaned up and put away. then Tuesday, we spent in town for payday and Family History. We are getting more patrons from the community to come in and that is always exciting and fun. then yesterday, we went to Soldotna to get our oil changed and our tires swapped - sigh- necessary pre-winter chores. Brian had his tires swapped in Palmer one night after class, so we are all set.
They have predicted that because of El Nino - we will either have warm rain or tons of snow. Not really an exact science, I guess. We haven't had snow yet down low - the mountain tops all got dumped on for a couple weeks. It's pretty up there. I don't mind if that is where it stays.....
We are bummed that Jeffrey won Project Runway instead of Michael, but what are you going to do???? Hate to admit in public that we watch reality TV, but we do !! Project runway and Top chef are our favs in reality TV. We don't watch survivor or fear factor or the bachelor shows. We have been watching lots of shows about flipping run down houses - at first it seems like a good idea, but they have been showing more honest examples lately, about people who miss out on the market or who end up with surprise bad news when they tear into the house. Our housing market here is too unpredictable for it to be a good business for us. Plus with the intense moisture you get in a coastal area, you never know how much mold and water damaged wood you will find - not to mention all the amatuer done electric and plumbing you will run into up here. Ahhh, no zoning or permits required..
We are fighting a real estate developer who wants to vacate the pretend street that fronts between our house and the little white house on the highway. We were all for the vacating until he presented it to the borough - showing that he gets all 70 feet of the vacation. So we stopped him this month and have another hearing to go to in November. He can vacate his half of the street and keep it, but he wanted to keep our half, too, without paying us a reasonable price for it. Obviously, he never tried to take land from a Carper before. the land is in our blood. at the hearing the other day, they read in our letter and said they couldn't vacate unless we agreed to it, so that felt better. No worries.
Well, take care and keep us in your prayers to find work soon. Love, Charlotte
Alicia and I have been busy all week. Monday we cleaned all day - you know how it is when your schedule gets all out of whack because an extra person is home - well our house looked like a bomb had gone off in the living room, so we worked and got lots cleaned up and put away. then Tuesday, we spent in town for payday and Family History. We are getting more patrons from the community to come in and that is always exciting and fun. then yesterday, we went to Soldotna to get our oil changed and our tires swapped - sigh- necessary pre-winter chores. Brian had his tires swapped in Palmer one night after class, so we are all set.
They have predicted that because of El Nino - we will either have warm rain or tons of snow. Not really an exact science, I guess. We haven't had snow yet down low - the mountain tops all got dumped on for a couple weeks. It's pretty up there. I don't mind if that is where it stays.....
We are bummed that Jeffrey won Project Runway instead of Michael, but what are you going to do???? Hate to admit in public that we watch reality TV, but we do !! Project runway and Top chef are our favs in reality TV. We don't watch survivor or fear factor or the bachelor shows. We have been watching lots of shows about flipping run down houses - at first it seems like a good idea, but they have been showing more honest examples lately, about people who miss out on the market or who end up with surprise bad news when they tear into the house. Our housing market here is too unpredictable for it to be a good business for us. Plus with the intense moisture you get in a coastal area, you never know how much mold and water damaged wood you will find - not to mention all the amatuer done electric and plumbing you will run into up here. Ahhh, no zoning or permits required..
We are fighting a real estate developer who wants to vacate the pretend street that fronts between our house and the little white house on the highway. We were all for the vacating until he presented it to the borough - showing that he gets all 70 feet of the vacation. So we stopped him this month and have another hearing to go to in November. He can vacate his half of the street and keep it, but he wanted to keep our half, too, without paying us a reasonable price for it. Obviously, he never tried to take land from a Carper before. the land is in our blood. at the hearing the other day, they read in our letter and said they couldn't vacate unless we agreed to it, so that felt better. No worries.
Well, take care and keep us in your prayers to find work soon. Love, Charlotte
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
More Rain and wind
We are in the middle of a tropical storm. We have had typhoon after typhoon, but this one is the worst. Winds up to 75 mph and Seward got 9 inches of rain yesterday. We don't know exactly how much we got, but it filled the pond overnight, so it was quite a bit. Seward is all flooded out, but we aren't. That's why we live on this side of the mountain!!!
Alicia got a new calling in church on Sunday. She has 6 callings now, but I think she will have to give up some of them because the new job is first counselor in Young Women's. It is a very time and energy consuming calling. The girls she will be the leader of are 14 and 15 years old - the same girls she had 2 years ago, when they were 12 and 13. The girls are really excited to have her back. The other 2 women are my age so she is the only young blood in the presidency.
Brian has signed up for CDL school (truck driving school). He always swore he would not do that, but all the companies on the North Slope are requiring their crews to have CDL's, so he had to change his mind. He will be up in Palmer for all next week. We hope it will help our situation.
Nothing new in Charlotte's life - she started a new med to help her have more energy and it is working - first 2 days, I was up for 22 hours out of every 24. I finally slept a few last night. It is helping a lot with the depression and malaise.
The wind was really blowing the other night and Alicia went out to see if the cat wanted to come in for bed and all she could see was his little paws hanging on to the rail of the deck - he had been sitting on the deck rail and the wind blew him off and he was barely hanging on. Needless to say, between the wind and the rain, he is quite disgruntled and having a hard time with life. We are getting used to loud, odd crashes in the middle of the night - when he gets bored or tries some new exciting move to get from point A to point B.
Hope you are staying dry and not getting blown off your deck - Love, Charlotte
Alicia got a new calling in church on Sunday. She has 6 callings now, but I think she will have to give up some of them because the new job is first counselor in Young Women's. It is a very time and energy consuming calling. The girls she will be the leader of are 14 and 15 years old - the same girls she had 2 years ago, when they were 12 and 13. The girls are really excited to have her back. The other 2 women are my age so she is the only young blood in the presidency.
Brian has signed up for CDL school (truck driving school). He always swore he would not do that, but all the companies on the North Slope are requiring their crews to have CDL's, so he had to change his mind. He will be up in Palmer for all next week. We hope it will help our situation.
Nothing new in Charlotte's life - she started a new med to help her have more energy and it is working - first 2 days, I was up for 22 hours out of every 24. I finally slept a few last night. It is helping a lot with the depression and malaise.
The wind was really blowing the other night and Alicia went out to see if the cat wanted to come in for bed and all she could see was his little paws hanging on to the rail of the deck - he had been sitting on the deck rail and the wind blew him off and he was barely hanging on. Needless to say, between the wind and the rain, he is quite disgruntled and having a hard time with life. We are getting used to loud, odd crashes in the middle of the night - when he gets bored or tries some new exciting move to get from point A to point B.
Hope you are staying dry and not getting blown off your deck - Love, Charlotte
Sunday, October 01, 2006
October 1
I still don't have any photos to post, Brian didn't take his camera up moose hunting so I'll just have to tell you about it. He went moose hunting with a friend from here and with a childhood friend from Joseph - Larry Shirley.
They had great weather this year and all the burned areas are regrowing so there was plenty of vegetation. They shot 2 smaller bulls. They didn't see any bear. they were hoping to get a bear this year also, but that didn't happen. It was too warm for the caribou to be in that area, too. But the moose meat is really beautiful and tasty. They do such a good job of taking care of their meat.
We bought a home grinder this spring on e-bay and got to grind our own hamburger for the first time in 15 years. We used to have a friend in Joseph that had a grinder that we used there. It saved a ton of money to grind the burger ourselves, but he said it was a lot of work. Our burger that we paid to have ground last year was not as well done as this burger, so I'm very pleased. It is really well done. Good Job GUYS!!!
We sent out about 50 pounds to get made into pork sausage for pizzas and stuff and we made jerky, but it was SOOOOO good, I don't think there is any left. We made ourselves sick eating it the first couple days. We hadn't made jerky for years either, so it was a treat.
Brian is busy with his fall fishing - steelhead, dolly vardens, rainbow trout. Last year he was able to fish until November, and it looks like he might be able to do that again this year.
Alicia's first class at the scrap book store was a huge success. She made cards that look like purses. We had 9 people there -which was the biggest class they had ever had there. She has several classes planned for October. A card class and a crop for cancer and some other stuff.
I'm hanging in. The grey of the typhoon season is a little depressing, but I realized this morning, we only have 11 weeks until the sun comes back, so I think I'll make it.
Happy October to you all, Charlotte
They had great weather this year and all the burned areas are regrowing so there was plenty of vegetation. They shot 2 smaller bulls. They didn't see any bear. they were hoping to get a bear this year also, but that didn't happen. It was too warm for the caribou to be in that area, too. But the moose meat is really beautiful and tasty. They do such a good job of taking care of their meat.
We bought a home grinder this spring on e-bay and got to grind our own hamburger for the first time in 15 years. We used to have a friend in Joseph that had a grinder that we used there. It saved a ton of money to grind the burger ourselves, but he said it was a lot of work. Our burger that we paid to have ground last year was not as well done as this burger, so I'm very pleased. It is really well done. Good Job GUYS!!!
We sent out about 50 pounds to get made into pork sausage for pizzas and stuff and we made jerky, but it was SOOOOO good, I don't think there is any left. We made ourselves sick eating it the first couple days. We hadn't made jerky for years either, so it was a treat.
Brian is busy with his fall fishing - steelhead, dolly vardens, rainbow trout. Last year he was able to fish until November, and it looks like he might be able to do that again this year.
Alicia's first class at the scrap book store was a huge success. She made cards that look like purses. We had 9 people there -which was the biggest class they had ever had there. She has several classes planned for October. A card class and a crop for cancer and some other stuff.
I'm hanging in. The grey of the typhoon season is a little depressing, but I realized this morning, we only have 11 weeks until the sun comes back, so I think I'll make it.
Happy October to you all, Charlotte
Monday, September 11, 2006
Random life stuff
Here is the flower garden we planted for mom - the picture above is the original picture I took of the yard right after we planted it memorial day weekend. The picture below is how it looked today. I tried to get a good picture of how it has grown, but I'm not sure how much you can see of it. The grass is certainly greener, and the plants have at least doubled in size. They're huge now! You can definitely see how big the background plants and trees are. I couldn't even take the picture from the same place because the tree was in the way. Fun!
Here's a shot of the duck and goose being silly. I was up on the deck taking pictures of the garden, and Heathcliff was curious. They're funny. They've been molting lately, and feeling kind of puny, but they're still funny.
Ok, so we're not sure what happened, but somehow I've developed the brown thumb of gardening. Everything I plant dies. This first picture is of my vegetable garden, after we had to spray it with roundup after the weeds took over and all the plants except the peas died. The weeds killed everything else. I weeded, but it all died.
Here is my lettuce pot that I grew upstairs on the deck so that it would be warm enough and have the attention it needed - this is how tall it has grown in 3 months - this is just sad! Lettuce is supposed to be the quickest and easiest thing to grow, but here is my lettuce. I tossed the spinach over the deck before I took the pictures, it was about this tall, and already seeded and trying to bloom or whatever it is that spinach does if it grows properly.
Look, I can even kill plastic flowers! They tore apart in a big wind storm, and all they left behind was the sticks! Guess who planted them? ME! sigh.
We had a couple of big thunderstorms last week, and this is a picture of the rainbow from the first one. Thunder is really rare up here, something about there not being enough static electricity to create the lightening. Anyway, made for a good picture!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Monsoons are here
I keep thinking we will get some pictures to post, but we haven't yet, so I'll just fill you in by writing.
Monsoon season came a month early. It is so cold and rainy and wet - the whole state is going to need massive doses of anti-depressants by November because we didn't get to have any summer. We literally had 5 days of summer since June.
Our garden didn't grow again - the beets and carrots put on tops (that were bitter and funny tasting), but no bottoms. We still have our peas growing and hope to have some of them to eat, but we had to kill the rest of the garden because it became overrun with chickweed and pineapple weed. We decided to put plastic flowers on the deck because we just can't get anything to grow up here, but they actually all got ripped up by wind and blown throughout the neighborhood. We'll definitely get a picture of that posted soon.
Brian has done a lot of fishing in August. Welding jobs dried up and we had company, so he spent a lot of time chasing salmon and a couple halibut trips. The weather has been so foul that they only took the boat out twice. Tomorrow is the last day to use eggs for bait on the river, so he is going in the afternoon. He got a welding job for today and tomorrow. (YAY)
He goes hunting on the 8th of September - his usual spot -flying out of Tok. He is taking a friend from here and a friend from Joseph that he grew up with. I hope they all get one.
Alicia is going to teach classes at the scrapbook store. She can teach or have crops whenever she wants to schedule them. We hope they get a good turnout.
We gave a baby shower at our house last week. That was fun, we seldom have things like that out here because it is so far for everyone to come, but they carpooled and we all had a lovely time.
the next day, Alicia had to do her Master Canner duties and teach a couple hours of canning at church. She got a great response from all the ladies who went and they all learned new things. Either they were non-canners and learned the basics, or they were old-time canners that learned the new safety tips, so everyone came away feeling like they got something out of the class.
We judged at the state fair again, which we always enjoy. The fair was in the middle of a raging monsoon, but Alicia and I decided to go anyway, figuring there would be good parking and not too many crowds. We were drenched when we were done, but it was fun, and it wasn't crowded. the next day, the sun came out and it was a really beautiful summer day and they said the fair was really crowded, so we were glad we had braved the elements and had the fairgrounds to ourselves. We didn't enter anything this year....you know, some years are just like that.
Well, Happy Labor Day to everyone - have good trips all of you who are traveling and Joanna - take lots of pictures in South Africa.
Love, Charlotte
Monsoon season came a month early. It is so cold and rainy and wet - the whole state is going to need massive doses of anti-depressants by November because we didn't get to have any summer. We literally had 5 days of summer since June.
Our garden didn't grow again - the beets and carrots put on tops (that were bitter and funny tasting), but no bottoms. We still have our peas growing and hope to have some of them to eat, but we had to kill the rest of the garden because it became overrun with chickweed and pineapple weed. We decided to put plastic flowers on the deck because we just can't get anything to grow up here, but they actually all got ripped up by wind and blown throughout the neighborhood. We'll definitely get a picture of that posted soon.
Brian has done a lot of fishing in August. Welding jobs dried up and we had company, so he spent a lot of time chasing salmon and a couple halibut trips. The weather has been so foul that they only took the boat out twice. Tomorrow is the last day to use eggs for bait on the river, so he is going in the afternoon. He got a welding job for today and tomorrow. (YAY)
He goes hunting on the 8th of September - his usual spot -flying out of Tok. He is taking a friend from here and a friend from Joseph that he grew up with. I hope they all get one.
Alicia is going to teach classes at the scrapbook store. She can teach or have crops whenever she wants to schedule them. We hope they get a good turnout.
We gave a baby shower at our house last week. That was fun, we seldom have things like that out here because it is so far for everyone to come, but they carpooled and we all had a lovely time.
the next day, Alicia had to do her Master Canner duties and teach a couple hours of canning at church. She got a great response from all the ladies who went and they all learned new things. Either they were non-canners and learned the basics, or they were old-time canners that learned the new safety tips, so everyone came away feeling like they got something out of the class.
We judged at the state fair again, which we always enjoy. The fair was in the middle of a raging monsoon, but Alicia and I decided to go anyway, figuring there would be good parking and not too many crowds. We were drenched when we were done, but it was fun, and it wasn't crowded. the next day, the sun came out and it was a really beautiful summer day and they said the fair was really crowded, so we were glad we had braved the elements and had the fairgrounds to ourselves. We didn't enter anything this year....you know, some years are just like that.
Well, Happy Labor Day to everyone - have good trips all of you who are traveling and Joanna - take lots of pictures in South Africa.
Love, Charlotte
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Seldovia
Seldovia harbormasters office, from the boat harbor.
Here is a picture of the walkway down to the harbor, and of a few town buildings.
Seldovia Slough, low tide. They were trying to kayak down the slough, because it was too rough out in the bay, but the tide was too low so that didn't work too good.
this is just a picture from the boat ride over of the land across the bay.
My friend Carolee as an eskimo girl.
here's yours truly as an eskimo girl.These are just a few pictures from my trip last week to Seldovia. I went to help my friend Carolee with the traveling and teaching - we were teaching the girls camp girls to do a little mini scrapbook for their camp craft project. The project went very well - there were only 2 girls out of 14 that weren't interested, everyone else participated and did a really nice job on their books. Friday it was really nice water/weather on the way over, but that night a big storm blew in and the waves on the way home were anywhere from 5-10 feet. Good thing we were in a big boat (65ft.). They were huge rolling waves, so on the one hand it was kind of cool, but on the other an hour and fifteen minutes of that is a lot. After about 1/2 hour 45 minutes the novelty wore off. hehe. But it was still good. We got to see a few otters on the way over too, so that was fun.
Not much else is new around here. We're wishing that we had gotten some of that hot summer that everyone in the lower 48 is enjoying. Its been really kind of chilly here, and the mosqitos have been horrible (its a combination of perfect mosquito weather, and our cat ate all the swallows that usually live here and eat the bugs). But oh well! My peas are blooming this week, so maybe I'll get a good crop of peas yet.
Work is pretty slow this week. Hasn't been much going on. Hope it picks up next week.
Oh, and I was going to say, 307 people live in Seldovia - its kind of a tiny strange town. Their only marketing scheme seemed to be that "at one point Seldovia was bigger and more important than Homer". Guess you have to market what you have huh? hehe. They do grow killer berries over there though! Alicia
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Alicia's raise
We got the official word today that Alicia got 6 hours more work per week from the state, so that will give her a nice pay raise. they also have changed the system so that these hours are set for a year instead of six months, so that gives her some job security and relief. We just have to say - paying tithing really works !!!
Charlotte
Charlotte
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Street Fair
Well the street fair has been and gone. We didn't sell as much as we had hoped, but we did pretty good. We sold 4 cranes and 2 fish. Plus we handed out all of our brochures and a ton of business cards, so it was GREAT advertising. We have a couple people that have projects they want us to make too, so it was a good experience. We were worried the weather wouldn't be good, it was supposed to be a huge storm, but we had great faith that the weather would clear up, and it did! It was a little gray in the morning, but it cleared up and was sunny and beautiful all afternoon. Mom and I got SO sunburned, I look like a tomato. :) But we are good.
We didn't get to go fishing, duty called, but we will this coming week instead. We've had a good week, and are glad the fair is over so that we can relax!! Anyway, just wanted to let you know how it went. :) Alicia
We didn't get to go fishing, duty called, but we will this coming week instead. We've had a good week, and are glad the fair is over so that we can relax!! Anyway, just wanted to let you know how it went. :) Alicia
Thursday, July 13, 2006
good news
Just a quick addition to what Alicia wrote last night. We got a call that my Medicaid Waiver was approved for another year. DOUBLE YAY!!! We haven't got the paperwork to verify how many hours Alicia gets to keep, but those can always be reworked and added to, if we need to. thanks for all your prayers. Charlotte
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Street Fair
Well the street fair is coming up this saturday and I'm getting kind of nervous. We have a bunch of different stuff to take to the fair, but its just so hard to know if we have taken enough, too much, not enough, the wrong stuff.. . . . You just never know until its time. Tomorrow should be a busy day, we've got to finish getting everything ready that we are going to take with us. We've got metal garden art, a fish cleaning table, 2 gates, rod holders, and some wooden garden people I made a couple of years ago. I hope it goes well, but its scary! :)
The picture here is our bear gate. I also made up a cool brochure to hand to people if they are interested and I printed up a bunch more business cards, so I think we pretty much have the bases covered. As well as we can anyway.
Tomorrow I've got to do a bunch of finishing touches, so that we are all ready by saturday morning, because friday we are going fishing. Our friends from Canada came up, and they are staying in Kenai/Soldotna for a couple of weeks, and while they are up there, they left us their boat! YAY! We're pretty excited. So dad and i are going to take it clamming across the bay, and salmon dipnetting, and halibut fishing. Should be really fun. Dad is going to spend some time working on it tomorrow to make sure all is well and its running good.
I'm hoping to plan a roommates reunion for this fall, for me, and my friends Stephanie and Molly. Steph and I were talking about it tonight. Haven't decided where really, but want it to be somewhere with great shopping that is reasonable to get to, with good places to stay. Any suggestions would be appreciated! We're thinking November, so hopefully somewhere warm. Any suggestions would be appreciated. We're kind of spread all over. Molly is in Maryland, Steph in Arizona, and me up here. Anyway, not sure what will come of that, but fun to think about and plan for.
Other than that, not much is new. We're just doing our thing, and worrying about the street fair! Hope you're all well. Alicia
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Still waiting
We are still waiting for the long hot summer all the experts promised us. It has rained every day but 2 in June. Today it is supposed to get up to 60, but we'll see. It is at least sunny. We don't have much planted in the garden, but what is there is very, very small.
Dixie has been sitting on her nest, but she has realized they aren't going to hatch, so she is getting restless and is spending more time on the pond or in the yard. We usually take the eggs away before now, to protect her health, but we had real hope this year that she would have some ducklings, but it doesn't look like that will happen.
Brian stays busy every day with one welding job after another. We have been very blessed. As soon as he is finishing up one job - someone will call him with another one. It is pretty cool. He is liking the variety and the flexibility of his schedul. He and Alicia are working on lots of lawn animals for us to sell at the Street Fair on the 15th of July.
We are having a block party at the neighbors for the 4th of July. On Sunday, they had their 50th wedding anniversary party and all their kids that can be here, are here. We were all thinking of Ron over in Iraq and missed having him here, but he is in all of our prayers all the time.
We still haven't heard if my medicaid is renewed and if Alicia still has a job. We are pretty sure it is renewed and the reviewer suggested more hours for Alicia, but the state has a mind of its own so we'll see how that turns out. I'm not too worried - more annoyed that it is taking them so long to let us know.
Alicia and I joined Joanna's getting healthy group and are working on improving our health and losing weight. Wish us luck.
King salmon fishing is over for now - waiting for the silvers to come in. We don't do the red salmon fishing anymore because Alicia is allergic and we really don't need to can up a bunch of fish that she can't eat.
Don't have any pictures to post - the yard really hasn't changed any since the pictures Alicia posted. Maybe a little greener from all the rain. Love to all, Charlotte
Dixie has been sitting on her nest, but she has realized they aren't going to hatch, so she is getting restless and is spending more time on the pond or in the yard. We usually take the eggs away before now, to protect her health, but we had real hope this year that she would have some ducklings, but it doesn't look like that will happen.
Brian stays busy every day with one welding job after another. We have been very blessed. As soon as he is finishing up one job - someone will call him with another one. It is pretty cool. He is liking the variety and the flexibility of his schedul. He and Alicia are working on lots of lawn animals for us to sell at the Street Fair on the 15th of July.
We are having a block party at the neighbors for the 4th of July. On Sunday, they had their 50th wedding anniversary party and all their kids that can be here, are here. We were all thinking of Ron over in Iraq and missed having him here, but he is in all of our prayers all the time.
We still haven't heard if my medicaid is renewed and if Alicia still has a job. We are pretty sure it is renewed and the reviewer suggested more hours for Alicia, but the state has a mind of its own so we'll see how that turns out. I'm not too worried - more annoyed that it is taking them so long to let us know.
Alicia and I joined Joanna's getting healthy group and are working on improving our health and losing weight. Wish us luck.
King salmon fishing is over for now - waiting for the silvers to come in. We don't do the red salmon fishing anymore because Alicia is allergic and we really don't need to can up a bunch of fish that she can't eat.
Don't have any pictures to post - the yard really hasn't changed any since the pictures Alicia posted. Maybe a little greener from all the rain. Love to all, Charlotte
Thursday, June 15, 2006
I forgot
I also wanted to say that dad and I went fishing monday afternoon and caught a really pretty chrome king salmon out of the Anchor River. Beautiful fish. He hooked it but let me reel it in - it was a fun afternoon.
Garden Art
Here are a couple up close pictures of the garden art that dad and I have been working on. So far we make Sandhill cranes, bears, a bull moose, and fish (halibut and salmon). The patterns are ones that I have drawn based on pictures and animals that I have seen. The bear that we make is from a drawing I did of the bear that dad killed a few years ago (Booboo) out on Unimak Island. The moose is one I drew off the horns that dad brought back last year, the body I recreated off pictures of moose from our yard when we lived in Homer and made to scale with the horn drawing. The salmon was drawn by Kyle - our friend Margret's son. The halibut was just drawn off one of our many halibut pictures. Today dad and I spent the day working on in the shop cutting more of them out. We cut some out of aluminum, and some out of steel. The aluminum ones are polished up really pretty. Then the steel ones are more rusty looking, except one of the salmon, dad polished it up really nice and shiny, then he took his torch to it and "colored" the steel with the heat, so that it changes color like a real fish. Cool stuff. I have a new appreciation for how hard dad works - metal working is tough! Its hard on the back too!!
Other than that, not much new here. My peas are up in the garden, along with the radishes too. And the rhubarb of course - we've even made pie from it too. Yum, rhubarb strawberry pie.
The cat is having trouble with all the rain we've had lately. He's just sure that if its raining out on the deck, it won't be raining out on the front porch. So he just goes from door to door trying to find the magical door that doesn't have any rain. Poor guy. :)
We've been doing some work for a ward bake/rummage sale this weekend. I'm making 2 decorated cakes and mom and I made a big batch of million dollar fudge. The boy scouts need money to go to camp, so we're all banding together as a ward to help them get what they need. Oh, and they're having a car wash too I think. Should be an all day activity saturday.
Hope you are all well. We love you. Alicia
Monday, May 29, 2006
Our newest garden spot
Here are some pictures of the house and yard. We planted the plants mom got for her birthday today, so thought I'd post some pictures. The tree in the middle, is a weeping Caragana, then we have 2 lilacs, 5-6 roses, 2 blueberries, a low bush cranberry, and a mock orange. We're going to be getting some more landscaping stuff to fill in the gaps and keep the weeds down, but we'll have to wait until we get up to Home Depot or something. But we are really pleased with how it turned out so far. I don't know if you can see them well, but dad and I cut 2 sand hill cranes out of a piece of rusty steel, and welded them a "leg" so they can stand up in the garden. They look so cool! Really realistic. I drew the pattern, then dad cut them out, ground off the sharp edges, and welded the leg. They turned out super cool. We're going to do some more tomorrow. Then I think we're going to cut out some other shapes too, like fish, moose, etc. Fun! If all goes well we'll put them in the farmer's market over the summer.Happy Memorial Day Everyone! We love you all. Alicia
Oh, the gate up there is one that we made last year, me and dad together.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Here come the big fish
We'd like to welcome you to fishing season, with some cool shots of dad's first king salmon of the year. It was HUGE! He got it out in the ocean, trolling on a boat with a new friend of ours (Mark). Mark is friends with the neighbor, and now friends with us. Dad's been out fishing with him twice already. Mark is from Anchorage and comes down a lot in the summer with his boat to go fishing. They've been fishing in the ocean out in front of the house here, and that's where dad caught this fish today. They also got cod and halibut. So it was fun!
Then mom and I went to a special nursery today and picked out the plants for her birthday. We got several rogosa type roses, a weeping tree, and a couple other fun things. We'll have to put pictures up once we get them planted and landscaped. Fun!
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Summer Visitors Begin
The sweetest thing happened last night. We went out to watch the birds and Heathcliff and Dixie were just outside the gate and we thought Dixie had a duck following her up the path, but it turned out she had a male and female following her.
They were a pair of green winged teals and she had invited them up to the house for some dinner. They came into the yard and were looking around. She was very gently cooing - trying to coax them up to the house to eat corn, but they were a little shy about being inside the fence and then the cat saw them and decided they were small enough for him to tackle so we had to chase after him and they flew off. They are a beautiful bird.
We don't think they left permanent - when we got up this morning something had eaten more than half the duck feeder, so Dixie definitely had someone over for dinner last night.
They were a pair of green winged teals and she had invited them up to the house for some dinner. They came into the yard and were looking around. She was very gently cooing - trying to coax them up to the house to eat corn, but they were a little shy about being inside the fence and then the cat saw them and decided they were small enough for him to tackle so we had to chase after him and they flew off. They are a beautiful bird.
We don't think they left permanent - when we got up this morning something had eaten more than half the duck feeder, so Dixie definitely had someone over for dinner last night.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Our Busy Pond
Well, our pond has been the place to be this spring. If you're waterfowl that is. :) We've got at least one wild pair living on the pond for the season, and I think we've got a couple more too. The pair living on the pond is a pair of mallards. Then we also have had a pair of green winged teals (which are the smallest of the pond ducks) that have been around a bit too. Other than that we have a pair of wigeons that seem to be around a lot too. Altogether we have had mallards, american wigeons, a pair of Barrow's Goldeneyes, 3 full size sandhill cranes, yellow legs, plovers, and green winged teals. Plus the usual bunches of swallows. So that is fun. We've had a lot of sandhill cranes flying over, but the 3 are the only ones that have stopped to visit. They stayed in the yard for a couple days, and they fly over a lot, but haven't stopped again that we have noticed. So that is our fun with the wild birds.
We really don't have a lot of news other than that. Mom had to go to the hospital this week for chest pain. After they put her on oxygen for a couple of hours, she was feeling better, so we're pretty sure it was her usual pleurisy, just more intense than usual.
Today at midnight started the King salmon fishing season, so dad went out bright and way early this morning, but the water is running really deep, muddy, fast, and cold, so the fishing was bad. He said no one was cathing any. There's still lots of time to catch fish though. He was going to get to go halibut fishing this week with his friend Steve, but he had to work instead, which is good and bad. Good for the money, bad for not getting to go fishing.
As for me, I'm not really up to much. I cleaned my room today, that was pretty exciting let me tell you. :) But it looks nice.
Mom and I went to a scrapbooking crop at the local scrapbooking store for a few hours last night, and it was really nice. We got a lot done in just a few hours, and it was really peaceful and nice. There was supposed to be 3 other people there, but they didnt' come, so it was just mom, me and Tracy the woman that works there. At the store, when you pay to crop, you get to use all of their tools, and die cutting machine, so that was really fun. We dont' have a die cutting machine, so that was fun, we cut out all kinds of letters, shapes and such. It was just a nice fun time. We are working on an album, mom and I together, about our family vacation to Las Vegas/Capitol Reef/Bryce/etc. from 1992. Lots of fun.
I guess that is everything about us. I took some pictures of the cranes hanging out on the pond, but you'd need a magnifier to find them in the picture, so guess I won't post them. Oh, we also have wood frogs on the pond, and they croak and call all afternoon until late at night, so that is fun. They are really funny. Everytime the duck quacks, or the goose screams, the frogs answer back. Funny. Ok, well we love you all. Alicia
We really don't have a lot of news other than that. Mom had to go to the hospital this week for chest pain. After they put her on oxygen for a couple of hours, she was feeling better, so we're pretty sure it was her usual pleurisy, just more intense than usual.
Today at midnight started the King salmon fishing season, so dad went out bright and way early this morning, but the water is running really deep, muddy, fast, and cold, so the fishing was bad. He said no one was cathing any. There's still lots of time to catch fish though. He was going to get to go halibut fishing this week with his friend Steve, but he had to work instead, which is good and bad. Good for the money, bad for not getting to go fishing.
As for me, I'm not really up to much. I cleaned my room today, that was pretty exciting let me tell you. :) But it looks nice.
Mom and I went to a scrapbooking crop at the local scrapbooking store for a few hours last night, and it was really nice. We got a lot done in just a few hours, and it was really peaceful and nice. There was supposed to be 3 other people there, but they didnt' come, so it was just mom, me and Tracy the woman that works there. At the store, when you pay to crop, you get to use all of their tools, and die cutting machine, so that was really fun. We dont' have a die cutting machine, so that was fun, we cut out all kinds of letters, shapes and such. It was just a nice fun time. We are working on an album, mom and I together, about our family vacation to Las Vegas/Capitol Reef/Bryce/etc. from 1992. Lots of fun.
I guess that is everything about us. I took some pictures of the cranes hanging out on the pond, but you'd need a magnifier to find them in the picture, so guess I won't post them. Oh, we also have wood frogs on the pond, and they croak and call all afternoon until late at night, so that is fun. They are really funny. Everytime the duck quacks, or the goose screams, the frogs answer back. Funny. Ok, well we love you all. Alicia
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Juneau Pictures
I just had a few minutes tonight, and I've been thinking about my mission, since it was just a year ago, and I thought maybe I would start putting some pictures up for you to see. This picture is downtown Juneau, from Douglas Island. Behind the lower hill, just about the back row of houses is where the old gold mine is. My last monday in town, my companion and I did a quick hike up there, to the Silverbow basin - it was so BEAUTIFUL back there. I could have spent hours and hours back there just trying each of the trails and checking things out. I'll try and post more of those pictures later. But for tonight, i better get to bed, going to Anchorage tomorrow, just a quick trip up and back. Love you all lots. Alicia 
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