One Week Later, I am Back!

Now I know that two Sunday night blog posts does not exactly make a tradition but it's a step in the right direction.  I am just back from Fairbanks where I spent a lovely Saturday evening having dinner with good friends and a very pleasant Sunday afternoon at Lauren's baby shower.  I did not take the camera (I need to work on that if I am going to keep up with my Sunday night blogging) but I am excited to share some pictures from this fall.
It has been brutally cold (-35 to -20) this last week so it is also good to think about warmer days and pictures like these are good reminders of why we put up with this kind of weather in November.

The first three pictures are from a hike/sheep scouting trip Jeff and the boys took just south of Delta.

These next pictures are from a family camping trip along the Denali Highway at Tangle lakes.

Our nature boy.

THIS is why we live here!!

This reflection on the lake was utterly amazing.

Sam was so beat from admiring all that spectacular scenery

 that not even a lollipop could keep him awake, now that is tired!

See you next Sunday?? 

Testing.....

I know it has been awhile (6 months I think) since the last posting but during my time away there have been some very positive changes in technology at the Mason residence.  First, I bought a new computer (an iMac, which I love) and second, we actually got wireless internet at home! It felt REALLY good to cancel the dial-up. So I am sitting in the comfort of my own home trying to blog.  It seems to be working so far. I will not make any promises but if it really does continue to work, you just might be seeing more action on the old blog.

So just to get back in to the swing of things I will post a few random pictures from this summer.

 Hiking at Gakona glacier.  We didn't make it past the scary bridge over the river. I was scared too!

Wyatt's first day of school picture. Needless to say, he was not happy about school starting.

We had some dirt work down on our driveway, now that was exciting for boys! What they don't know is that come spring their favorite driveway puddles will be gone, that will be sad for boys!

We have a new friend.  Wyatt named him "closey" because, well, he comes close :) He eats right out of the kids hands and even jumps up on their legs. The biologist in me knows I probably should not be feeding him but the mother in me delights in seeing how happy it makes the kids.

 Even the neighbor kids come to get in on the action.

Beware, our house is constantly under attack by pirates....

mean ones!!

Wyatt learned to ride a two wheeler this summer.  We were going over to the neighbors one day and discovered that one of his training wheels was broken and he said "Well, Mama I think I am ready to try riding without them".  So I took them off and gave Wyatt a little push and off he went!

The boys love to help Papa!!

 Okay, my first blog from home seems to be a success. Could this become a Sunday night ritual??

Memorial Day Weekend

We celebrated Memorial day weekend right this year and packed in as much as we could. We took off Thursday night and drove down to Coal Mine lakes Road where we had a public use cabin reseverd for two nights. We could not have ordered nicer weather and the cabin was in a beautiful spot. Wyatt loves to go fishing so as soon as we got to the cabin we geared up and headed out on the lake.

 We only caught a couple small Char the first night but it was a great evening on the lake. It was midnight by the time we got in had some dinner and got the boys in bed. I have not been up that late in a long time but it was nice to enjoy the sunset (yes, this was taken at midnight!). The low clouds were actually smoke from a forest fire burning in the distance. 

 This is the view from the front porch of the cabin first thing on Friday morning- Spectacular!!

First words out of Wyatt's mouth in the morning were "Can we go fishing now?"

 After fishing and breakafast we headed up to the old coal mine to do some exploring.

We went for a nice long hike up into the tundra above the mine.

View from the top of the hill we climbed.

Wyat was a great little hiker, I was surprised at how far we made it. Sam didn't hold up quite so well. He fell asleep up on Papa's shoulders.  I wish I could sleep like that.

Stopped to cool off by the creek.

Got a nice look at a herd of Caribou.

I rode my bike back down to our cabin, the boys took the 4-wheeler.

And of course as soon as we got back to the cabin we had to go fishing!

We did end up catching a couple keepers for dinner but most of the fish were pretty small.

On Saturday we headed back home to catch Friendly Frontier Days here in Delta. Two of our good friends got nominated to kiss a pig. Couldn't miss that! Plus there were hay rides, straw bale mazes, homemade ice cream and baby yaks to pet.

Here is Eileen, she opted to sit on the pig before smooching it.

She did a fine job and came out of the pen in pretty good shape.

Next up is Chuck, here he is practicing his pucker.

Now Chuck took a slightly different appraoch, he went for the full body slide tackle.

 He did finally land a smooch on the pig but came out of the pen in much worse shape than Eileen did.

The rest of the weekend we spent working in the garden and visiting with our good friends Dave and Shiway who came down for a quick float trip on the Clearwater. I wish every weekend could be just like this one was.