Underwear Helmets!

Ready, Set....


GO!!!!

It's the simple things in life that bring you the most joy!

It just keeps getting better!

As most of you know, Monday mornings are our fire station day (See here if you need a reminder.) We are official groupies and it can be somewhat embarrassing as we pull up once again to watch their weekly maintenance checks. Yet, somehow each week gets better and the amazing firefighters never seem to tire of seeing us (at least they're not showing it!)

Last week, Firefighter Cameron gave Firefighter Nigel the royal treatment!

He started by letting Dane pull out the aerial truck. If you look closely you can seeing Dane bending over to turn on the lights & siren.


Then he took him over to the pumper truck and let him turn on the hose to drain the excess water in the truck. It was pretty amazing.

Here's a video of what Dane did!



As we were leaving, Firefighter Cameron gave both the boys an OFFICIAL Juneau Fire/Rescue Badge. And we thought the stickers were cool.


To top off our extraordinary Monday we went to story time at the downtown library and MJ (the amazing story teller) had a book picked out especially for Dane. It was one that he's very familiar with and he loved the special reading at story time. Here's a picture I happened to take of him a few weeks ago with the very book MJ read.

A new park!

We took a drive to Douglas yesterday and wound up stumbling upon this great new park (well, new for us!)

It was the perfect place to play fire fighter (the little picnic table under the slides became our fire house), give horsey rides, and having running races (I came in last every time!) And Dane loved the robe climbing structure (I did too!)

Makes me wonder what other little gems are we missing out there.

Happy Birthday Auntie Kissy!

Happy Birthday to my amazing sister Kristen! I'm blessed to be able to call her not only my sister but my friend as well.

We've grown so much closer in recent years and I cherish the times we've had together and hold those memories close to my heart. Some of my favorite times have been just the simple times - hanging out on the bed until the wee hours of the night talking and giggling. She always lifts me up in my times of need.

I admire her so much.
She's strong, independent, caring, a damn good poker player, giving and always game for anything. She has a sharp sense of humor and is extremely intelligent to boot. Her laugh is contagious. Spend just a few minutes with KP and you're having the time of your life.

May your birthday bring you as much joy as you've brought to my life.

I love you Kissy Poo!

Preschool Birthday Celebration

Dane got to celebrate his summer birthday a bit early this year. His preschool makes sure to recognize those summer birthdays in the month of May. I love this idea, but I just wish I had known a few weeks in advance. I had this great sugar cookie recipe and I knew that's what I would want to make for his class. I pulled out all of our cookie cutters and asked Dane which shape he would like. I knew I was doomed the minute the cookie cutters came out of the bag. He barely even sifted through the helicopter, train, cars, and multitude of tools before exclaiming, "Fire Truck!" Of course Firefighter Nigel would want to make a fire truck cookie and of course Firefighter Beth (my new Firefighter name) would not have a fire truck cutter. :(

So I immediately got online to see if I could find one. Strike 1. (not enough time to get it to Alaska) I then asked a few friends that I knew loved to bake. Strike 2. I even posted a help note in our Juneau Parent Group and Freecycle (you'd be surprised at the things I've asked for that I've received!) Strike 3.

What's a Mommy to do? Try and make her own, of course!

I started doing a little research on line and came across several do-it-yourself ideas. See here and here. It looked pretty daunting, but I thought I'd give it a try. On the way to the hardware store for some aluminum flashing, I thought I'd go to Gourmet Alaska to see on the off chance they might have a fire truck cookie cutter. Of course, they didn't, but they did have a cookie cutter refill kit. Bingo!!! This was much easier than using aluminum flashing or aluminum oven liners. I still had to shape my own firetruck but the refill came with the perfect sized aluminum and tape needed to get the job done. It wasn't all that easy to form the fire truck from the picture I printed off the internet.


But after several tries, I came up with something passable. I put it on the counter the next morning so that Dane could see my handiwork. I asked him what he thought it was and his first response was "don't know." Great!!! I told him to look again and he said, "it's a fire truck!" Phew!

Here's Dane making the cookies.




Frosting these cookies was a whole other debacle. I made a million mistakes, but I think I may have actually learned from them for the next time I decide to decorate cookies. :)

And here's the final product.


And this is the reason I went to all that trouble.

He couldn't scare us away!

We saw this friendly black bear just as we were pulling into the parking lot of Brotherhood Trail. Thankfully, we were still in the car (which was why I was so brave as to video him!) Dane was a little hesitant about going on the hike at first, but after a few words of encouragement he jumped on his bike and did it. I'm so proud of this little guy - he rode his bike for 4 miles and didn't complain at all. What a champ.

Along the trail

Jaeger did great too.
He's usually not a big fan of the stroller.

What a view!

Nature calls.

A rare picture of Mommy & Daddy

A wonderful perk!

Look where we got to go the other night!

We haven't taken advantage of Daddy's flying perks in a long time so with all of this beautiful weather we decided to take the plane to have a picnic dinner at the Young Lake Cabin.

Here's Dane ready to go.
The boys LOVED flying with Daddy! They were both glued to the window. :)


South Young Cabin


Expert Rock Thrower


Checking for bears!


Helping Daddy start the fire. The highlight for Dane was, of course, putting out the fire. He ran to the little creek over and over again to fill his bucket and then dump it on the smoldering fire. (Sadly, I had already put my camera back in the plane. It was classic to watch Firefighter Nigel in action. Especially with Firefighter Binglebonnet chasing after him.)


Success.

Thanks to Daddy's labor we were able to indulge in this wonderful classic.


Jaeger wasn't so sure about the whole S'more thing. He dumped the graham cracker and marshmellow immediately and went straight for the good stuff!

And then wasn't so sure about his choice.


Another bite and he'd realized he'd hit the jackpot. :)

Alaska's beauty never ceases to amaze me.

I feel so blessed to be able to raise our boys here.