Alaska

I have been at our cabin in Alaska with my family for a week now, and it's a FULL house! We have two little cabins, and our big sheds that hold all of the tractors and fishing equiptment, and we have so many people up here that every inch of space is filled. My grandparents are here, my brothers Paul and Alan, (My other brother Mike comes up next week), my two sister-in-laws, Nina and Ali are here with their kids, Lauren, Sarah and Wesley, and then we have three guys who are working on the crew who are living in the bunk house in one of our sheds. They are really cool guys from Centerville and they fit in great with our family! When we sit down for meals we squeeze 10 to 13 of us around the table, and we have to cook ALOT of food for this hungry, hard working fishing crew!

We haven't been able to be very adventuresome up here because of all of the kids, but we did go to our favorite Lake to have a picnic and do some boating. It was kind of hard because it was past all of the babies bed times, but we still had fun, and Jack had his very first boat ride. We have taken the kids on the beach a few times and rode behind one of the tractors, which was one of my favorite things growing up.

My dad, the boys on the crew, and Alan and Nina all did the river rafting trip that Nathan and I did up here a couple years ago. It is one of the top 6 river rafting trips in the nation, it's a very technical creek of class 3, class 4 and class 5 rapids, and it's pretty intense!! You have to pass a test swim and you are geared up in dry suits and helmets, it's totally crazy! (It was the highlight of Nathan's Alaska trip!). Anyway, when Nathan and I went our raft flipped at the top of the class 5 rapids (If you wanna know more about it, Nathan loves to tell the story!), and I couldn't believe it when I found out that the raft my dad, Alan and Nina were on also flipped in the class 5 rapids. Everyone was so glad that my mom decided not to go at the last minute. Smart move mom!

We had an eventful day yesterday when we came home from church and found a grizzly bear in our yard. Crazy huh! We see lots of moose, but in 42 years there has never been a bear around here, (we are not in that rural of an area). It roamed around all day and ate some of the left over pieces of fish from the fish fileting the guys did earlier. We haven't seen it yet today, so hopefully it's gone. I wanted to get a picture, but I didn't. :(

I had to post this picture of Jack because it is hilarious! I can't believe how chubby he looks in this pic. Is he really mine? He looks like a sumo wrestler :) This one is for you Nathan. We miss you and love you much babe!!