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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

WE MADE IT

THE SWALLOWS RETURNED TODAY. WE ACTUALLY MADE IT THROUGH ANOTHER WINTER.

Volcano #2

Mt. Illiamna - the one directly across the street from us - the one Alicia took the sunset pictures of below - has come to life. It usually will steam a little in the spring, but the last couple days it has gone bananas. The usual vent on the north side is about 10 times larger than normal. The vent on the front that we only see every couple years has been venting non-stop and then today, she started venting right out of the top, just like a real volcano. We checked the censor report on the internet and they don't have her listed as active yet, but the censors are off the chart for activity levels. We'll keep you posted !!! Pretty exciting for us.

Brian is doing well in Nikiski. It is crazy up there - one of those stand around and hurry up and do nothing companies, but the pay is good, so we can't complain. It should only be another week or so there, then they should go to another town and do the same thing. We don't know for sure. Love to all, Charlotte

Sunset in Anchor Point

Spring is full of birds!

I'm so happy to be able to say that the spring birds showed up last night! I was passing through the kitchen last evening, and looked out on the pond and there was a pair of wild ducks there. Of course, there was only about an inch of thawed water, but still that's neat. Then a little while later we heard the sand hill cranes passing over, so went out to see them. It was a huge bunch, they had lost the air current and were circling trying to find it. Then today when we got home from church and got out of the car, we heard another group of cranes go over. We ate lunch, and went out on the deck, and another set of cranes went over. So we've probably seen at least 200 cranes in just the last 24 hours. The last batch to go over were so low and right over our heads that we could even make out the darker wing patches on them and stuff. Its so cool! The swallows should be showing up soon too. They usually are here by my birthday, which is in about 2 weeks, so anytime they should be here. It is still a little cold for them I think, not many bugs have thawed out yet, but we love when they come.

My bulb garden has mostly thawed. I went out yesterday, and about a third of it was snow-free, and I saw one little plant starting to come up (I think it was a daffodil), then today a lot more snow is gone, but no more plants yet. Still its exciting.

That's pretty much all my news. The cat is worried about dad being gone. Also, the cat is having some troubles because usually at night he throws a big fit and wants to go outside just as you turn off the lights to go to bed. So, when dad is home, we usually spend a little more time trying to entertain the cat, or staying up so that he can go out one last time before bed, because he gets really LOUD when he wants out, and he just walks around crying and yowling. But when dad isn't here we just ignore him and go to bed, because dad goes to bed earlier, and he will wake dad up, but mom and I just tune him out. So the cat was a little upset because not only is his dad gone, but his usual tricks aren't working. :)

Well we love you all. Sorry I've been too lazy to put some pictures up lately. Now that it is spring, I hope to have more pictures to put up. Even is they are just of little plants trying desperately to grow. :) Hope you have a wonderful Sunday and week ahead of you. Love you. Alicia

ps: Brian's trailer

I forgot to tell you about poor Brian's trailer. It is about 60 years old or more and smells really really really bad which is kind of weird because it is so rotted your can see through all the walls and around all the doors and window so he can't see how any smell can stay in. It is really tiny. He took up a TV - they provide the Anchorage channels and the utilities and he took up a twin mattress and a sleeping bag for a bed. He didn't think a queen mattress would fit in the room. then he bought a cheap microwave and he's all set.

Brian is off

Brian is in Nikisiki for his new job at the refinery. He called them this morning about something and they said, Oh Yeah, you start in the morning, so we all jumped out of bed and ran around, HEAd less chicken style, and packed up all the stuff for his trailer and he drove off like a maniac and went shopping for all the cleaning supplies and groceries he needed and got settled in and they called and said he needed to come over and take another class tonight and he did and then they said he is going to be working nights instead of days, so he could have spent another night at home with us, but he's already up there, so it is too late.

He ran into a couple kids from Anchor Point he knows and a kid from Wallowa county that he worked with on the ice hockey rink last year so that will be good he knows some people already, so even though he knows absolutely nothing about his job, at least he knows some of the people.

So far, we have heard that the job will last 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 6 months, and 18 months. We figured out how much money 18 months would be and got all excited about getting out of debt, but Brian was gone about 2 hours and I was blubbering about being apart and thinking it wasn't worth any amount of money, boohoo boohoo, etc. Then tonight after we had family prayer via the telephone, I really started to cry and fall apart .... and of course, on the other hand, if it is only 3 weeks, we won't have enough money to pay any bills and we won't be able to be solvent, etc., etc., so I'm just a mess and don't know what to do.

I started a new medicine and it is really hard on my system. Another one of Dr. Burgess' plans for me to lose 100 pounds. And I am teaching a lesson in Relief Society tomorrow for a woman who is out of town for a couple months for a wedding.
Keep me in your prayers, please, I really need them right now.

I'm kind of embarrassed. I promised Alicia that I wouldn't fall apart this time - that I was beyond that and that we needed the work and I was way too mature to let a little separation get to me. hehehe, boy is my face red. Oh well, nothing wrong with loving your spouse.

We got our first spring birds today. A pair of ducks tried to stop at the pond, but there is just barely an inch of water around the edge thawed so they landed and then left. Then a flock of cranes circled for a while and then we heard spruce chickens calling. YAY. The shore birds should be here this week or next, but the water is just thawing, we really need it to thaw quicker, so they have something to come back for.

Love you all, Charlotte

The Carper Family

Happy Easter ! ! !
Tonight we went into town for a Tax Day Dinner at Church. We had never had one before, so didn't know what to expect. It was quite random what folks brought. We were going to take deviled eggs on my new sky blue deviled egg plate that I just got in Anchorage, but Alicia couldn't figure out a way for the eggs to get to town without me wearing them by the time we got there, so she suggested we save that treat for tomorrow's dinner. So we just took a chocolate dessert which was very popular and very needed, there weren't very many desserts this time.

Coming home, we got to see Mt. Augustine blowing - the clearest I think I have ever got to see it. It was pretty cool. Then just before we got home, we saw something in the highway, and Brian slowed down in time for us to see a mother moose cross the highway and there was a pair of yearlings on our side of the highway, so he stopped the car and sure enough, they sprinted across the road to join her. They would have smacked right into us if he hadn't stopped. The cool thing was that we are sure they were our moose from last spring. We had several moose run over in our neighborhood this winter and we thought it was them, so it was really good to see them alive and healthy.

Brian was planning to spend his last free week fishing, but they called him today and he has to start his HAZMAT safety training on Monday morning for three days. He doesn't get paid for that. As far as we know, he starts work next Sunday.

We plan a quiet day for Easter. Just a Ham and Deviled eggs and fruit salad. The 4th of July salad is an Easter tradition Alicia started when she lived in Hawaii. It is a nice touch of spring we will enjoy during our Easter blizzard. Sigh. Happy Egg Day to you All. Charlotte

Home again, home again jiggety jig

Well, mom and I got home safe and sound. We had a lot of fun while we were there, got to do some good shopping, went to the temple, and just enjoyed relaxing. We were sad to hear that Grandpa Ted is so sick.

Dad stayed busy working while we were gone, he had a couple projects to do. Then he did some work helping a boy from church with his eagle scout project.

We're pretty excited to have some bare ground in the driveway to come home to. Its getting thick and muddy, but that is good too because it means spring is coming. We read in the paper today that they are expecting another hot dry summer, so we are going to plan for a nice garden and get our seeds ordered soon. We bought a couple blueberry plants and a cranberry plant for the yard this weekend too.

Just wanted to say we were home. Love you all. Alicia

Amazing

This is just so cool. I love the steam rolling off the mountain, the flows coming down the mountain. So amazing. There is a new night time camera for Augustine, which I haven't tried yet, but that is supposed to show the heat and the hot flows coming off the mountain at night. If you click on the webcam picture, then it will offer the night camera there somewhere. Its dependent on weather of course, but I hope to get to see something. The link to the page is on the top of this post, if you click the "Amazing". Hope you're all well. Love ya. Alicia

More Volcano!

I love these two picures. They are from the 24th, and in them, pretty much right in the center you can see the flows that came down the mountain. That is just so cool to me!! We've gotten to see the mountain a few times over the last week or two, since the weather is a little better now that Spring is coming. Although, it did snow today, so spring is taking its sweet time to get here. :) Oh well, I'm sure it will be all the better for having to wait for it.

I have been spending some time this week working on plans to open a catering business with a friend from church; Autumn and I went to high school together. So that has been keeping me busy. We've been looking around trying to find a good location. We have been to look at two places, both of which would take as much to fix for our needs as it would take to build a new setup just how we wanted it. We still have a couple of options left before we have to decide. We have a few "contracts" already, so that is great. Mostly this summer we will be starting with making baked goods to sell. Fun! We have some really good ideas for what we want to do.

Other than that, not much is going on around here. We've been having fun learning how to use Ebay. I've been looking for jewelry, and we've been buying/bidding on a set of books that dad has been wanting. They are about the man-eating leopards and tigers of India. So that has been fun for all of us to poke around and see what we could find on ebay. Wow - anything you could possibly ever think of needing is on ebay. Its amazing!

Oh, I should have explained in my earlier post what vintage meant to me. I would say it means pretty much anything before the 1960's or so (maybe early 70's, I'm not sure). Mostly I like stuff thats earlier than the 60's, from the 20's-50s-ish or before. Its not really a hard and fast rule, but that's kind of an approximate guess to me. I'm still just learning. :)

Well, we love you all and hope you're doing good! Alicia

My New Hobby

Ok, so I added a new hobby to my list. I am starting to collect costume jewelry (mostly what is termed "Vintage"). I've been spending time on ebay looking at all the cool stuff there is to get. People up here don't have that kind of stuff to sell at estate sales & auctions, so there isn't anywhere else to get it. I just have this fascination with it. SO - if you any of you have any that you ever want to get rid of, think of me please!! I promise I would give it a good home. :) Its so fun. Love it!

Still snowing here. snowing, and snowing, and snowing. SIGH. Other than that, not much new. Love you all! Alicia

Augustine, the dirty mountain

Sorry if you're getting tired of the augustine pictures. Its all still so cool for us. We can't see the mountain from our house, but we can see it on the way to town. So we rely on the "professional" pictures, mostly these on here are from the on-island webcam. I love the silouhette of the sunset picture.

Its a bona fide jimmycane

Wow - what a winter storm we are having today! Our driveway is completely drifted shut, chest deep. Our nice neighbor came this afternoon to plow part of it out, but within 2 hours it was completely closed again. Its nuts! Its been blowing so hard at times we haven't even been able to see the road, or the back yard. Its incredible. Sure glad we didn't have to go anywhere today. I wanted to put a picture of the drifts in, but its blowing so hard you wouldn't have been able to tell where the drifts even were, so I just ran back inside.

Other news this week: I got quoted in the Anchorage Daily News!! We had that shooting here in town a couple weeks ago. He was a drug dealer, wanted by the US Marshalls, and they cornered him at the airport, he pulled a gun and started shooting, and ended up killing himself after he had been shot by the cops several times. But, the local people went on a rant about how the cops should be fired and basically ran out of town on a rail for shooting this nice, drug dealing, wife beating loser. So I wrote a letter to the paper that said we needed to give our cops the benefit of the doubt and that it wasn't their fault that the criminal pulled a gun.

Well I sent that to the local paper, and the Anchorage Daily News picked it up and used it in their story about the shooting! Which I thought was pretty cool. The whole article in on the Anchorage Daily News website, from the March 17th Edition, in the Kenai section, if you wanted to track the whole thing down. But, here's the quote: "Letters to Homer's two weekly newspapers have been similarly divided. The first week's letters expressed outrage at the bust gone bad. The second wave of letters sprang to the defense of police.
"I trust that they did everything they could to keep as many people as possible safe," wrote Alicia Carper. "And, if you don't like that, then just remember this -- it is their right and their job to defend themselves and the community -- even if that means using deadly force."" The letter was longer, but that's the gist of it. I just thought it was cool!!

Then dad finished his project this week, so that is exciting. He has several other things on his plate too to keep him busy working for the next little bit.

Mom and I are going to be going to Anchorage the last week of the month. We're going to go and just enjoy some time in the big city. Should be a lot of fun.

Blake and Johanna took a quick trip to Las Vegas for a week. It was their 10 year anniversary, and the completion of a long project Blake has been working on at work. Glad they got to go and have a trip!

Well, we're just busy trying to stay warm. Sorry I don't have more interesting pictures to post! I'll try and get a picture of the drift when it calms down a bit out there. Its pretty impressive. We love you all! Alicia

Finally, A direct View

Today we finally got a good personal view of Augustine. It has been too hazy since it started erupting for us to get a good view. It really stands out in the ocean because all the land and mountains around it are solid white, but it is brownish-black. The Indians used to call it the Brown Mountain because that's how it looks when covered in Ash.
So when we went to town, it was just the mountain and then when we came home, it was erupting, so we pulled over and watched it sending its plume of ash and steam up. It was REALLY cool to watch.

Surreal picture

I just thought that this image from the Augustin Island webcam was so surreal - the greys and mists. Very cool.

Not much going on today, just got back from church, and now mom and dad are watching the NCAA Basketball selection show. They love college basketball.

Funny furry guy

I love this picture of the cat snuggling up to mom. With this new chair that she has there is room for him to sit alongside her, and snuggle. He's pretty much a mama's boy. :)

Right after I took this he glared at me for bothering him while he was with mom. Funny guy!

One of the other funny things he does is snuggle as far into your face as he can get. He has nightmares (still) and when he wakes up he needs held (and I mean right now!) so that he can tell you all about it. Especially if you're laying down he'll creep up until next thing you know he's pressed up against your face. He's a real character. :)

I'm not sure which picture will be on top when I post. The one with mom in the purple dress is where he has just woken up and needs to chat and snuggle.

Polka, Polka, Polka

So we get this TV channel called Rural Free Delivery TV and they have all kinds of really odd shows on there and one that I like to watch is the Big Joe Polka Show. It is really funny and campy and drives Alicia and Brian nuts when I make them watch it. Anyway, last night (in the middle of the night, of course) I was watching it and the host, Big Joe, mentioned something about "Polka promoters" and my life flashed before me and I realized I had finally found my true calling in life. I think we could put in a wood floor in the barn and bring in Polka talent from the midwest and have Polka/ salmon bake nights to attract the tourists. There is some resistance from other family members, But all true artists face opposition, so I am willing to suffer for my craft. Just wanted to keep everyone up to date on our lives. Charlotte

Volcano magic

I think that this is the coolest picture of the volcano. It was taken today, during our big wind storm (still going on), and all the misty looking stuff is the ash blowing around from all the wind. The volcano has slowly started being active again, building on the lava dome, and starting to have activity again. It has been having a really low level eruption since saturday, but that hasn't meant anything for us. Even if there had been enough ash let off to reach us, the wind has been blowing out of the north, and would have blown the ash the other way from us. But so far, so good.

Dad has been busy busy working on his project. He had to get a new guy to help him today, his other help went back to his full time job (he works up on the north slope oil fields, two weeks there, two weeks home). Dad has another good helper now though, he was really really pleased with the work Dave does.

Other than that, we've just been doing our thing. Mom and I have been working on scrapbooking the pictures from my college graduation. To make a kind of difficult memory more fun to do, we've made it a challenge. We had double prints of all the pictures, so we divided them equally, then we bought a package of fun spring type papers (perfect for Hawaii stuff) and we're each working on our albums at the same time, using the same materials as our base, just to see what we can both come up with. Its been really fun so far, and we've only done a few pages. I'll try and post some, but they are 12x12 so kind of hard to post, but I'll try. :) Its kind of like an "Iron Chef" scrapbooking challenge. Fun! Most of you probably remember that we had some "issues" with our last Hawaii vacation, so we're trying to make the memories funner. So far, so good.

I guess that is my phrase for the day - so far so good. :) We're plugging along, and doing pretty good. We're so grateful to have this work project for dad.

I do have to say though that I am having a hard time shaking off this winter. I am SO READY for spring, but it keeps snowing, and blowing, and snowing more. Just when I think spring is here, it runs away again. So I'm struggling a bit with that. But I'm sure that spring will be here eventually. It has to be. Right?? RIGHT???? :) Someday the snow will leave and I can wear my flip flops again -they're calling to me.

Well I guess that's everything. Sorry I don't have more pictures. Its hard to think of pictures sometimes. I guess I could post more pictures of the cat or something. :) We love you all. Alicia

Drama, drama, drama

We had some huge drama here locally tonight. There was a fatal shooting at our airport!! A man that was wanted by the FBI for child kidnapping (that's what we've heard so far anyway) rented a car, and then it was discovered that he was wanted, so they lured him back to the airport, under the guise that they were going to upgrade his car, but when he got there, the cops went to talk to him, and he opened fire on them, and they returned the fire, and killed him. It's still a really new story, it happened about 6pm tonight. Our Bishop, and his wife, and friends witnessed the whole thing, they were standing out in front of the airport. So, it was pretty exciting. We're just glad more people weren't involved. The airport was full of local high school kids that were headed to Italy for a choir trip. I included the link, if you click the "drama, drama, drama" title it should take you to the local news station web page. If there isn't anything there, you can go to www.adn.com, but I'm not sure if you have to register for that or what. But anyway, that's our big excitement. It involved all the local law enforcement people, troopers, and some US Marshals. Big stuff!!

Then we also found out the Grandma Marilyn is in the hospital and not doing good at all. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her doctors as they try to get this figured out, and get her feeling better!

It looks like our volcano is getting active again. For the last few weeks it has been deflating after all the explosions, but today they said that it looks like it is starting to grow again and build pressure and it will probably start being active again soon.

It was a beautiful sunny day today, cold but beautiful and sunny. Dad is still working in Homer on the barge, but they're having some trouble working on it, because everytime the tide comes in the barge floods with at least a foot of water. Welding is done with really high levels of electricity, so its not really something you want to do standing in a foot of water! Today he got to come home earlier and watch Duke, so that is good, he loves to watch them play.

I think that's all that is new with us today. We still love you all! Alicia

My bench

Ok, here's my bench. Took a little bit to get it on here. Now I just need to get the volcano to post. Wish me luck! :)

Ok, it just won't go. so sorry, you'll have to go to the volcano website i guess, not sure what the deal is. Oh well. I tried! :) Alicia

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Augustine.php

Our Volcano

Well, it looks like our volcano is slowing down for real now. It is really pretty quiet now, still steaming a bit, but not building the pressure that it was. This picture is from the other day, we've finally gotten to see it a bit. It cleared off a little so we could enjoy seeing it a little more. Its very brown from all the ash, so that's kind of cool to see.

We are excited this week. After a long dry spell, we have some more work for our business. Dad has three work contracts now, so he'll be busy and have lots of work to do. We are very excited.

I'm excited too because we got a table saw today. I think that will be so fun to use and make stuff with. Maybe I'll include a picture of the bench I made last summer, it's nothing exciting, but it will be nice this summer to sit on. Its a pretty color. Right now its in mom and dad's bedroom, waiting for spring when I can put another coat of varnish on it. Fun stuff.

Well we love you all. Hope you have a good week! I'll try and find some more stuff to put on here, to keep this interesting. I'll have to work harder at it now that our volcano is quieting down. :)

Ok, never mind, the pictures won't load again, not sure what is going on. I will try it again tomorrow so you can see them. Love ya! :)

charity quilt to the left here




Above is the quilt I started when I was 16. The last picture is of the cat on the triangles quilt.

Our killer cat

Here's a picture of the weasel that our cat killed in the garage last week. The cat was out in the garage, and when he came in he smelled TERRIBLE, like the worst case of body odor that you've ever smelled. So, dad went outside to see what he could have gotten into, and found the weasel laying there. I ran down to take a picture of it, then I edited the picture and tried to take out the blood, so you could just see the weasel. So, if the picture looks funny that's why, its edited. It was about 8 inches long. I've seen weasel tracks around the house for a while now, but we'd never seen it. The goose had been fighting with something a lot lately, we'd heard him beating his wings and making a fuss, but didn't know what was bothering him.

Weasels are really brave. They only get about a foot long or so, but they will take on any size creature, they even charge at humans (one charged mom in the back yard a couple years ago, but she dispatched it). We get the short tailed weasels, also called ermine. I'm going to put some quotes on here from the Alaska fish and game site, about weasels, then I'll include the link so you can see more if you want. So, anyway, the cat smelled SO BAD that we had to give him a bath, which he didn't appreciate at all, in fact he ended up climbing up my back and putting a big whole in my shoulder, which is healing nicely. :) But it was kinf of fun. This is the third weasel we've had here that we've gotten rid of. It was a kind of fun thing, though not so much for the weasel I'm thinking.

"The least weasel well deserves its title of the smallest living carnivore. It reaches a maximum length of 10 inches (25 cm) and a weight of 3 ounces (85 g). The short-tailed weasel's tail is one-fourth to one-third of the total body length while the least weasel's tail length comprises only about 15 percent of total body length. During all seasons the tip of short-tailed weasel's tail is black. The tail of the least weasel contains only a few black hairs. Weasels must have almost daily access to rodents in order to survive. They prefer mice. When mice are not abundant, weasels will also take shrews, pikas, birds, fish, and insects. Short-tailed weasels can also kill young snowshoe hares. Weasels have few natural enemies of significance except possibly the horned owl and marten. Both species are apparently agile enough to occasionally catch weasels. Hawks, foxes, coyotes, and lynx also kill weasels, but such occurrences are rare. As a last resort, weasels can emit an odor which is as pungent as that of a striped skunk. Weasels are persistent and fearless hunters. They will boldly confront animals much larger than themselves. They've been known to attack humans who come between them and their food."

Quilt projects

Ok, I've tried 4 times to get all the photos to post, but they won't, so I guess just these two will have to. I'll try the others another day. :)

I just thought I would share some of my quilt projects that I've been working on lately. The first quilt is a "Bug Jar" quilt. You take fabrics that have all different kinds of bugs, and then piece them to look like jars sitting on a shelf. Its really fun to make. I'm planning one now that is food jars, so I'm gathering fabrics that have food on them so it will look like a pantry of "canned" food.

The next picture if just my cat sitting on a quilt that I was working on. It is a triangle quilt, called 1000 pyramids, or confetti.

The blue and grey quilt is one that I made for charity, to give to foster kids. I finished it up the other day at a church humanitarian work day.

The other quilt, on the bed is my quilt that I started when I was 16. Mom finished up the hand sewing work for me on the back side while I was on my mission last year. It's on my bed now.

I really enjoy making "scrappy" quilts, its fun to look through the fabric we have, or to pick up bits and pieces at the store and see what I can make with them. So you can see a little bit of what I've been quilting. The project I'm getting ready to finish is called "bits and pieces" and it has a black background with really bright fabrics with it. I've got the top of it done, all I need to do it get the batting and backing, and quilt it. What I'd dearly love to get is a long arm quilting machine, so that it would be a lot easier to do my quilting, but that is probably a long way in the future. It's in my plans though. :) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pictures! We love you. Alicia

Snow, snow, snow, snow

We had some big snow storms the last few weeks. the last one came with some big winds and lots of snow, so its really starting to add up around here. There are a couple pictures that are right straight out the downstairs door. You can see the snow there is piled up a few feet deep. Then I took a picture of the snow piles to the side of our driveway. If you look close, you can see the neighbors truck behind the big berms.

Also, as a frame of reference, I put a yardstick in the pictures, just so you'd have something to compare it too. We've had bigger snow piles, but I thought it would be fun to show off what we have now.

Today it is raining and raining, so our snow is now turning into giant piles of ice, which is my least favorite part of living in this area. It's less than fun to get big snow storms, followed by rain and freezing rain. But I guess nowhere is perfect. :)

Moose in the yard!

Dad looked out in the back yard today and there was a little moose, which is always fun. We watched him for a while, then his mom showed up, and they moved out of the yard. In the pictures you can see he was just outside of our fence on the back there, by the satellite dish. Fun stuff!

Mom's Scrapbooking

Well, I've been trying to get mom's layouts to post to the blog here, but they don't seem to want to work for me, not sure what is going on. So, to see mom's work, you'll have to go to http://twopeasinabucket.com and then click peanut gallery. From the peanut gallery you need "peanut search" and her nickname is "Charlotte in Alaska". Then you can see all the stuff of hers that is posted.

I hope you are all well. We had a big blizzard yesterday, gave us about 10 inches of snow or so. But today is sunny and beautiful. We love you all. Alicia