Adventures of The Sweeties

A Little Less Redneck

2008-06-05T11:53:00.003-08:00

One way to judge how much of a redneck you are is by counting the number of junk cars in your yard. Well, I am very happy to say one of ours is gone!! Yes, there is one more but it is way back in the woods and no one can see it. So it doesn't really count, right? :)

We got some help from Liz (who is working for Jeff and staying in our guest cabin this summer) and her boyfriend and managed to drag the beast out of the woods and onto the trailer. I had my doubts and it definately took some ingenuity but it worked!

They used the winch on the four wheeler to pull it up onto the trailer- notice how far off the ground the front tires of the 4-wheeler are.
The registration on the plates expired in '84.

Yippeee!!!! It's gone!!!

Oh, if your wondering where it went, Jeff's buddy John has a big gravel pit on his property that he is trying to fill, so they dumped it in a big hole and it will be buried.

* Note: You might also be a redneck if you ask your friends to bring over their junk cars so you can bury them in your yard :)

No Room at the Inn

2008-06-05T11:49:00.009-08:00

The pigs are here!! And yes they are cute :( Which is bad becuase they are destined for the freezer. I can't help it...I am out there hand feeding them and petting them and yes they have names, Tocino and Scrapple. They are pretty entertaining- they make funny pig noise all the time, chase each other around the pen and rassle. It will be a sad day when they go- I won't be around, that's Jeff's job. But I do really like bacon so I guess I will have to get over it. At least I know that will have had good lives before they end up on our table.

So, if you have lost track the Mason homestead now hosts 2 sweeties, 1 sweet pea, 3 dogs, 3 goats, 14 laying hens, 12 meat chickens, 2 turkeys, 2 pigs and a couple buzzzillion honey bees. Needless to say that I am keeping very busy feeding all those little mouths. Plus there are a lot of little plants that need to be tended to. The new greenhouse is now up and running and our first radishes and greens are popping up in the garden. We can't hardly wait for that first garden salad!!

Wyatt likes to smell the flowers...and rip them out and dig in the flower pots. Such a good helper! Actually he has been helping get the eggs, he gets all excited and runs out to the coop saying "eggy, eggy, eggy- get it!" He will reach in the box and grab them out one by one and put them in the basket, we have only lost a couple so far :) He also really likes to throw grain out for the chickens to eat all the while saying "chicken eat eat eat". Wyatt has been stringing a lot more words together now. I was very proud when he pointed at himself and said "Wyatt, name" then pointed at me and said "Mama, name". Lately he has been really into holding things. He goes around pointing at things and saying "hold it". He carried a dandelion the entire way on a 30 minute walk and then we spent another 15 minutes sitting in the woods so he could rip up bits of moss and have Mama hold it.

The kids are getting a long well, Nugget really cracks Wyatt up. He has gotten butted a few times which is pretty cute right now because Nugget is too little to do much harm but it will have to stop in a month or so.

I guess we should have gotten the double wide!

Just a couple random shots of one of our finger painting adventures..or should I say belly painting?

That is all paint- no bruises!

We Did It!!

2008-05-22T11:29:00.006-08:00

We successfully completed the 2008 Gold Nugget Triathlon!! It was a 500 meter swim, 10 mile bike and 4.1 mile run. I went down to Anchorage with Rachelle and Ellen but there were 9 women from Delta that particpated and 1400 women total!! We had a great time and were all pretty happy with our times but of course we are all talking about the ways we could have shaved off time. This is a great race for beginners, there are all ages from 6-80 and every shape and size of woman you can imagine. Some ladies are very competive then there are others just out for fun and excercise. Everyone is super supportive, racers cheering each other on along the course and there are tons of spectators also cheering.

Pre-race photo, we caught up with Sam at the bike drop-off.

1400 bikes!! The race officials did a fantastic job, everything was extremely clear and ran very smoothly.

The first ladies were in the pool at 9am the last in around 3:30, thats a long day for the volunteers.
We did it!!

Delta's triathetes!! (Lynetta and Sam were missing from the photo). A special congrats goes to Cindy- she finished 51st, just 15 minutes behind the winner!! If she would have traded in her Huffy for a real bike she would have been right in there!!

I saw this guy near the finish line with a bouquet of flowers for his racer...aww, isn't he sweet!

Not much left.. man it would be a bummer to have been the last person out of the pool!!

Well, there is another tri at Chena lakes in late July, we are thinking about doing it. It is about the same distance but it is a mass start and an open water swim- definately more intimidating. We need some motivation to keep up the training.

All you ladies reading this should put next years Gold Nugget on your calendar!!

The New Arrivals

2008-05-22T11:22:00.003-08:00

Big excitement on the old homestead...the baby chicks arrived- 4 layers, 2 turkeys and 15 meat birds.

But even more exciting was the arrival of Cali's beautiful baby boy!!! I was laying in bed saturday morning and heard Cali making noise so we got up and ran out just in time to see the little one being delivered. Here is he is within an hour of being born, so CUTE!!!

He was up and on his feet within 30-45 minutes and was trying to nurse but not quite getting it. I had to help get him looking in the right spot and help get Cali to stand still for him. I named him Nugget because I was supposed to be leaving for the Gold Nugget Triathlon, our departure was delayed until he was all settled in.

Wyatt has a new buddy :)

Cali has been a great mom, she is very protective of little Nugget especially when the dogs are around. She won't let him get more than three steps away from her. In these pictures he is about 4 days old.

Did I mention how dang cute he is?

Nice Day for a Picnic

2008-05-22T11:08:00.004-08:00

Sara invited us over for a pizza picnic in the woods. It was a great day and the boys had a blast eating pizza, climbing hills, picking grass and of course playing on anything with wheels. The Moms enjoyed just sitting back and watching the boys play.

Torsten is getting so big now!

The Brewmaster

2008-05-15T13:11:00.001-08:00

After about a 10 year break, Jeff has taken up brewing again. His first batch, a Nut Brown Ale, was a huge success. He just got done bottling his second, an IPA, and we can't wait to try it out. Stop by for a beer sometime, we have plenty!

The 12th was also Jeff's Birthday. His buddy John got him this sporty little helicopter. Sounds like John and his co-workers spend most of their time at work flying one just like it around his office, no wonder why so much of our state burns every summer (John works for Forestry).

Boys will be boys!!

The Simple Pleasures

2008-05-15T13:02:00.006-08:00

We are all so happy to be outside again!!

Sometimes its hard to get pictures of Wyatt becuase he usually comes running for the camera as soon as he sees it. I just barely got this one :)

I couldn't help but take about a million pictures of Wyatt last week as he was playing in the puddles and picking up rocks, ah...to be a kid again. I had a blast just standing by and watching him explore.

We really do have to watch this kid now, he can certainly cover some ground and doesn't seem concerned at all about being too far from Mama and Papa. Jeff and I watched him take off down the trail behind our house, we kinda let him go to see how far he would actually go. We finally went to catch him and I got around the corner all that I saw was his little hat laying in the trail...he was still cruising off on some sort of a mission. Scary!!

Clearwater Float

2008-05-15T12:52:00.005-08:00

May 3rd was the 10th (?) Annual Clearwater Float. As always a good time was had by all and not as always, the weather was wonderful!

Jeff hiked in from our house with Wyatt, so I had the pleasure of paddling with the lovely Lauren. She also makes super yummy cookies, a very good quality in a paddle partner!

Greg and Rachelle breaking in their brand new boat, it floats.

The floatilla.
Dan, Adrian and Inai loading up.

The Sweeties relaxing at camp.

Enjoying the view from the top of the bluff.

The mosquitos love that soft, sweet baby skin :(

The Pax flowers were in full bloom :)

Halla and Wyatt became fast friends.
When we got into camp Jeff and Dan put out a couple Burbot sets and had this one on the line the next morning.

Wyatt actually made quite a few friends this weekend, he seems to be getting a little bit better about his separation anxiety. He also did pretty well in the tent but he was up WAY past his bedtime.

Ready to head out the next morning. Everyone was waiting on Lauren and I :)

We spent most of the second day floating leisurely with the boats rafted up together, sharing snacks and enjoying each others company.

Just at the end of the trip it started to rain but just about when everyone got all thier rain gear on it let up.

Inai was the only dog on the trip, which is pretty strange for this group, there are usually more dogs than people. I guess we went for quality not quantity this time (no offense to Mancha, Nellie and Tecate) but Inai is awfully cute!

Didn't Someone Say Spring?

2008-04-30T11:55:00.004-08:00

This is what we woke up to on April 27th. This "spring" has been really frustrating!!

I was was too mad to make snowmen this time. Luckily it had pretty much all melted by the end of the day but still its just not right!!

Today is May 8th and I am happy to report that the next few posts, when I get around to downloading the pictures, will show a real spring- with glimpses of summer just around the corner!

Boys...

2008-04-30T11:52:00.001-08:00

Just a pics of my boys working in the yard.

Spring!

2008-04-30T11:39:00.006-08:00

The last batch of snow melted just in time for a float on the Clearwater on April 19th. Our Friends Maria and Steve have a cabin on the river. It was perfect for us, we floated in our raft about an hour downstream to the cabin then Steve shuttled us back to the boat launch on sunday.

Wyatt has pretty happy in the raft but I dont think going much further would have been fun for him.
Wyatt may have been the first one to crash for the night but Caroline wasn't too far behind him :)

Sunday was gorgeous!!! The first time our Alaskan skin has seen the sun for many months!!

We tried to get Wyatt to wear this hat to keep the sun off but he thought it made him look like a girl.

The shades were much cooler!

Mancha??? Nope look again! This is Nuch. If I hadn't picked Mancha up from Mexico myself we would have sworn they were twins.

The guys.

Wyatt doesn't really like his life jacket, poor kid :)

A super trip, Thanks Maria and Steve!!!!!

What Happened to Spring??

2008-04-30T11:33:00.002-08:00

These were taken in late April, 4 inches of snow fell after we thought it was really spring. Wyatt had been dying to get out on his new bike that I scored from a second hand store in Fairbanks.

We decided to put the bike away and try a snowman. The snow here is usually too dry to make anything...I guess that is one good thing about spring snow, its wet enough for snowmen.

This little guy didn't last very long.

Wyatt Update

2008-04-16T12:39:00.004-08:00

So here I am trying to catch up again. I can't believe I have not blogged about Wyatt officially walking, it's been well over a month now! I would have to go back to the baby book to get the date but by now it seems like he has always been able to walk. He is still talking up a storm, we have pretty much stopped counting over the last couple weeks but the word list was up to 75. He cracks us up with his imitating too, my favorite is when we call the dogs. He stands on the porch next to me with a serious look on his face, crinkles up his nose and yells, TA TA, TA TA!! (for tecate) He will also say "mon" for "come on" and clap his hands. The words are not perfect but he is also pretty good and imitating the inflection in your voice. Wyatt has also got a few family members names down, he can name 3 of his cousins, Lexi, Dru and baby Ana, from pictures and can get the grandparents most of the time- Pam, Gary, Bob, and Sherry. Bob is his favorite name to say he says it really fast and laughs afterwards. Gary is the toughest and Sherry comes out as Harry......I know Grandma Sherry will love being called Grandma Harry :)

Here is a little clip of Wyatt chasing the chickens. I think if you listen close you can hear him making his chickens nosies (bak, bak). He loves the goats and the chickens!!

I forgot there was an open box of baking soda in this cupboard...didn't take Wyatt too long to find it!

I took a bunch of photos during our false spring. It snowed 3-4inches not too long after this, which you will see when I get around to posting the next batch of pictures. Wyatt is definately starting to look more like a little boy than a baby these days.

Wyatt likes to give nellie hugs, Nellie tolerates it.

Baby's First Ice Cave

2008-04-16T12:14:00.007-08:00

We loaded up the fam on April 5th and headed and hour south to Castner Glacier. We have been there before but it was Wyatt's first trip. We thought this would be out last ski of the year but we were wrong :(
Here is the entrance to the ice cave.

The cave wasn't quite as deep or quite as pretty as it was last time we came. We came late this year and it looked like things had started melting out already but it's still pretty amazing.

Tecate really doesn't like to walk on the ice, Wyatt wasn't that excited about it either.

Mama was trying to skate ski on the way out and crashed...nobody was hurt, the dogs thought it was a great opportunity for kisses :)

Our precious cargo.

Lisa Lake

2008-03-16T16:09:00.006-08:00

This weekend we decided to get out of town for a change of scenery. We drove about 45 minutes out the AK highway towards Tok. There is a small public use cabin about a mile ski off the the highway at Lisa Lake. We figured it was a great trip to do with Wyatt becuase it was pretty close to home and a quick trip in and out.

It was still a pretty big load of junk even though we were only going overnight.

I skied in wearing my pack and pulled Wyatt in the Chariot (we love that thing!) and Jeff snowshoed in wearing a pack and pulling the sled with a load of firewood.

The cabin- its really nice sitting right on the lake and has gorgeous views of the mountains.

WWe had pretty nice weather, about 18 degrees and a bit of wind but not too bad.

After we got to the cabin I hung out with Wyatt and got settled in while Jeff went out exploring to find the trail that went out the the Johnson river. Rob and Ellen Skijored in for a short visit in the evening. Ellen and I hooked up her dogs and went for a ski while the boys hung out at the cabin.

Wyatt had fun playing with this nice pink and purple lounge chair that was left at the cabin- Kim has ruined him, we are going to have to take a teepee with us everywhere we go!

Tecate REALLY needs to work on his lap dog manners!!

Mancha found a cozy spot to snuggle down.

Everyone sacked out. Where do Jeff and I get to sleep?
Wyatt did pretty well sleeping away from home. No problems going to sleep but there was an awful lot of squirming about during the night.

Packing up and heading for home the next morning. Jeff took the packs in the sled on the way back. I was happy to have a lighter load.

Super fun trip. We don't know why we haven't been out there before but we are already making plans to go back this summer and do some fishing.

Delta Dog Daze

2008-03-16T15:24:00.005-08:00

The annual Delta Dog Daze ski/dog race was held the first weekend in March this year. We hosted the race at our place and ran the trails out our back door. Ellen was the official race marshall and did most of the prep work on the trail and food for post race party. This was the last race of the season. Jeremy was the overall winner of the series this year. You can check out the website Rachel put together which has lots of photos- Race hard play hard, there is a link to it on my sidebar. We didn't get too many photos this year and seemed to have missed all the dogs..opps. If I remember right we had 2 mushers, 5 skijorers, 5 skiers, 2 beer guards, 1 babysitter and 1 timekeeper.

Ellen giving the pre-race briefing.

A few of the ladies gearing up.

Rob, one of the beer guards, heading out to the beer stop at the midpoint along the trail. You get time deducted from your race time for each drink you consume along the way.

Jeff stayed home with Wyatt so Mama could get out on the trail.

Rachel had her thinking hat on this year..which also doubled as a beer hat, allowing her hands free drinking on the trail. Too bad her tubes froze-up!

Rachelle is ready to go.

Gwen is almost ready to go.

Steve and Tamara are back home having a post race snuggle. So cute!!

Wyatt is having his one drink minimum to qualify for the race.

Wyatt Update

2008-03-10T14:10:00.000-08:00

Wyatt is now 14 months old!! He is not full-on walking but getting closer everyday. He is now walking about five feet between things and is standing unspported a lot more often and for longer periods of time. But boy can this kid talk, Jeff and I just made a list of all his words and we came up with 52!! Granted the majority of those words would required some parental interpretation and we did include all his animal sounds. But it has been really fun being able to communicate with him. Oh he is also still using his baby signs, I think he has about 15 that he uses on a regular basis.

Here is Wyatt enjoying his new favorite toy that Kim got for him in Seattle. He calls it his "tee tee".
The weather has been really nice lately so we have been trying to get out and enjoy it...who knows if it will really last.

Wyatt LOVES to go visit the goats and the chickens. He satnds on his chair in front of the window pointing at the barn, making goat noises and saying "me, me".

Seattle '08 Part 2

2008-03-09T12:57:00.001-08:00

We spent another day wandering around the streets and ended up in Chinatown. Kim found a neat little tea shop and signed us up for a tea tasting. It was really fun, we learned a lot about tea, the intricacies of serving tea and got a good caffeine buzz.

Kim showing proper pinkie posture.

Next we headed around theblock to a chinese "hot pot" resturant. They bring a burner and a big pot of soup to your table. Then they bring this huge plate of veggies and meat and and a bunch of little mixing bowls. We were a little confused and the lady's English wasn't the best but in the end we figured out that you just toss stuff in and cook it. And don't look too closely at what is coming out of the depths of the pot. I tried to convince myself that the pork balls she identified for me were just little balls of made of pork meat and not the other sort of balls :)

As you can tell by the look on my face we were amazed by the amount of food brought to the table.

Our friendly server kept a close watch on us and would come back everytime we made a comment to one another about something. I think she was worried about us and that we were not enjoying it, but it was fantastic!

We had planned on doing this underground tour of the old streets of Seattle but we missed the last tour of the day but we decided to walk down and find the office anyway. As we were walking toward the office the tour group was coming down the sidewalk towards us and we joked that we could probably just do an about face and join right in without anyone really noticing. Just then a guy in the group says, "Hey you laides should join us"....so we did. and long story short we got away with it but we couldn't enjoy the first 30 minutes or so becuase we were afraid we would get busted at any moment. We are SO bad :)

What Seattle used to look like. I won't give you the history lesson here, but it is really interesting. Call Kim she'll tell you about it.
The streets above the tour. The manhole cover you can see here is the one pictured below from underground.
As we neared the end of the tour and were just about to go underground for the last time, Kim and I decided to make a break for it just in case they planned on nabbing us at the end. So after most of the group went down the stairs we darted off down the block and out of sight :) I hope nobody thinks less of us for being such criminals.

That night we ended up at a Irish pub and this great group of muscians were having a jam session.
We befriended this young love sick little puppy. He had been coming to this bar every weekend for 3 weeks from Portland to be near his soul mate who was waitressing here. Only thing is that he doesn't really even know her and she has no idea how he feels....well she probably has an idea or thinks he is some freako stalker. Anyway he poured his heart out to Kim and I- pretty nice guy.

Hanging at the bar.On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a fancy club that was having Salsa band so we stopped in for a couple fancy drinks and a little dancing.
Being a tourist...Kim made me do it.

The space needle, pretty expensive just to get a nice view, but it was a very nice view. Again check out those blue skies!!

My favorite saying of the trip was- "I am not in Delta anymore".

We also went to the Experience Music Project museum that was really cool, and was pretty much our last stop of the trip.

We were too tired to even go clothes shopping on our last day, too many fancy drinks the night before I guess. We did have a nice dinner at the New Orleans resturant and enjoyed some mellow Blues and Jazz music.

Super fun trip and it was really nice to spend time with such a great friend. Thanks Kim, lets do it again soon!!!

Oh and I should note that Jeff and Wyatt did just fine without Mama. The house was even pretty clean and I couldn't detect any major injuries on Wyatt.

Seattle in February

2008-03-08T13:22:00.010-09:00

In mid February Kim and I spent a long weekend in Seattle- My first trip without Wyatt! We had orignally planned on going somewhere warm but time and money got in the way so we opted for Seattle, little did we know we would still get the warm weather. It was gorgeous the whole time, blue skies and temps in the 50's. We got hotel right downtown, it was so nice to walk everwhere and eat outside. We had a blast! The first night we went to a concert at the Showbox. The opening band was the Felice brothers and the main show was the Drive-by Truckers. We had never heard of either band and they were not really our kind of music but we had fun chatting with some friendly biker dudes and just people watching. We thought the Felice brothers were better, the only way we could describe the Truckers was head banger country. It was pretty hard and heavy music and difficult to understand any lyrics- maybe we are just getting a little older :)

We grabbed breakfast from a fancy little bakery and ate in this park down by the water. Check out the green grass!!

We spent a lot of time checking out all the great stuff at the public market.

We bought some yummy pasta.

We watched the dudes throwing fish at the Pike Place Fish Market

We braved the long line for the famous doughnuts that were also thrown for you. He hadn't missed one until I got the camera out :)

We drooled over all the incredible produce.

Kim solidified her fish purchase, she is buying a couple of these cool steel salmon for her house.
Lots of funny characters on every corner. I had to donate $$ for the 13 cats this guy is caring for after taking this picture.

We also stumbled upon these guys from Ecuador- reminding us of our first big adventure together. I think they were worried Kim was going to take off with their loot- pay backs :)

more green vegetation!

For all you Tecate fans

2008-03-07T14:42:00.002-09:00

I got a request from Charles (Hi Charles!) awhile back for some pictures of the small dog. I am sad to say that since Wyatt's arrival the dogs have not made it in too many photos. But here are a few that I dug up from the archives. Tecate is doing well although he is having some hip issues, the vet says he has the hips of a 10 year old dog. He gets pretty stiff once in a while but overall it certainly doesn't seem to slow him down any- just ask the neighborhood rabbits.

One of my favorite Tecate poses. He can be found like this pretty much whenever he is not parked under Wyatt's highchair :)

My second favorite Tecate pose- the head stand. He even taught John's puppy to do it.

He got stuck under the porch last spring. We coaxed and pulled and finally just had to get into the car, start it up and pretend we were leaving to get him to struggle his way out.

The pack.

Curled up in the sun last spring on our annual Clearwter float trip.

Oh and congrats to Charles and Erin on their up coming wedding!!

Can you say BRRRRRRR?

2008-02-09T13:49:00.000-09:00

We saw this almost every morning for a week. Today it warmed up to -20 (heat wave) but the wind is blowing so it feels almost colder than it did when it was -50. Gotta love AK. Oh but the good news is we have over 7 hours of daylight now :)

Independence Days

2008-02-09T13:34:00.000-09:00

Wyatt has decided that he can feed himself.....

He also wants to drink whatever your drinking and from a real cup. Sippy cups are for babies.

He also enjoys baking, he can get all the ingredients out of the cabinets without any help.
Good thing he is still cute :)

Cabin Fever

2008-02-09T13:20:00.000-09:00

The dark and the cold start getting to us about this time of year and in Delta you have to make your own fun, this is what we resorted to.

Greg and Rachelle are both nurses, so Jeff and I figured we didn't have a chance but it turns out that Jeff has a very steady hand and Greg and Rachelle should go back to school or at least lay off the anesthesia before operating :) Don't hesitate to call Jeff if you ever need your bread basket removed.

We would also like to thank Kurt and Corrine for providing us with this diversion. The game and the wine glasses were wedding gifts- they complimented each other well.

Old But Exciting News

2008-02-09T13:09:00.000-09:00

So this is old news by now, most of the news on my blog is old by the time I get around to posting it. But anyway...Max and Mette had a baby!!! Kieran was born on December 31st. We got to see him when he was a couple weeks old- very cute and little!

The happy family
Auntie Rachel
Jeff got to try out his old papa hold on the new baby.

Check out more pictures of the baby and their new house on Max and Mette's blog.

Afternoon Art

2008-01-31T17:32:00.001-09:00

Our good friend and neighbor, Sara, invited Wyatt and I over for and afternoon of art and music. What a riot, these three boys are going to have lots of fun growing up together, and these moms are going to have their work cut out for them!

Wyatt's first crayons. He was pretty excited, but ended up being more interested in ripping up the paper.

Owen making watercolor hand prints. Each of the boys got a couple nice prints in the end and it didn't even turn into that big of a mess.

On the the music. Sara has a entire house packed full of every imagineable instrument and Owen at 2 already knows how to play most of them. Here he gives Wyatt a Kazoo lesson.

On to the big fun- the drums!!

And of course Torsten had to get in on the action :)

The beginings of the neighborhood garage band....I guess we need to build a garage!

Cute!!