We try to spend as much time in Nature as we can during the nice summer months in Alaska.  I try to go hiking or to the park at least once a week.  This particular time I went hiking with The Nicesongers.  We hiked up to The Eagle River.  It is a short little hike about an hour long.  We hiked in a picnic and sat on the various logs as the kids ran around and played in the water.  The dog has a lot of fun too. She ran around like she was a pup.  I have no clue how she found that much energy.  She kept running in and out of the water.

 These 3 kids always have fun together.  They keep each other super busy.

 Erin and I enjoying the sunshine outside.  It ended up being a beautiful summer here in Alaska.

 The younger kids are showing me just how muddy they are getting.

 There was a puddle that the rainfall had made that pretzel would run in and out of.  She didn't like running into the river.  That was probably good since it was a faster currant.

 The older boys were playing prisoner with the younger kids on this old tree pile.

 The view was gorgeous.  Usually it is much snowier then this but it was a warm summer so a lot of the snow had melted from the mountains.

 The boys with their "weapons"  They said that they looked like a spear and an axe.  I'm not going to lie they really did.

The following week I came up here again with a different set of women.  Where all of the trees had been pushed into a pile by the river was completely covered up by water.  There had been that much snow that had melted from the mountains.

Mud Flats

One evening The Murphy family invited my family to go with them and their extended family out to the mud flats to play around and enjoy a BBQ.  It was a beautiful evening to do it too.  It was nice and warm and only a little breezy outside.

Tyler and Ella played in the mud on land while Natalie, Nichole and their friend went out onto the ocean mud flats to play.  I was very leery about letting them do this since people have gotten stuck out there and died.  But luck was on our side that day and no one got hurt.

 Ella of course made instant friends with Marissa's niece.  The two of them plus Ruby would run up and down this road and splash mud everywhere.

 Even the older girls joined in on the fun of the road.

 In a previous post I showed you a mama bear footprint here is a picture of the cub print.  Now these were taken on the same day but since I already posted the mama bear print I decided that I was just going to leave that one there where it was and just add in this one to this post.

 Tyler brought his knife and just whittled away at a stick.

My little friend Ruby and her Daddy David.  With a very elegant picture of Marissa rear behind them.  Oh you're welcome Marissa.  

 Little Ryker was completely content in his stroller for almost the whole evening.  He would just smile at anyone who would pay any attention to him at all.

 Tyler got his little buddy out to play with for a little while.  I don't know if many people know this but Tyler is an outstanding babysitter.  Little kids and babies are just so happy to have him around.

 The girls got a little messy at the mudflats.  Shortly after this picture was taken I had to load these guys up in my car.  Needless to say my car was a giant muddy mess by the time we got home. But it was well worth it and nothing that couldn't be vacuumed out.

Fun with The Fisher's

At the end of May my friend went on a mini vacation to the lower 48 and her four wonderful kids stayed at my house for the weekend.  Things ran really smoothly while they were here which I was pleasantly surprised about.  With 4 extra kids in tow and Nate working and the twins off to youth conference I was regardless to say a little worried that things would get a little overwhelming for me. But the 4 additional kids were a breeze especially with Tyler there who did way more actual entertaining of the kids then I did.

The first day they were here I let them have pizza and a movie night.  Tyler built this hut for the kids to play in.  Ella and Paige watched almost the whole movie in the hut.  We watched Mulan.  Paige said to me, "I no like this movie". I replied, "Really Paige because I really love this movie". To which she responded, "I Lub this movie".
The next day was spent at the park.  We had a picnic there.  The weather was perfect for a picnic and park playing.  My friend Marissa met us there with her 2 kids.  Marissa's youngest and Paige are the same age and the best of friends so they played really well together.  After the park we went over to Marissa's house.  We ate lunch there and the kids did some more playing outside.  While we were all out there Katie (the oldest Fisher) came up to me and with a worried look on her face e had me look over at Ruby and Paige.  Ruby was standing in her outside water toy buck naked flashing all her 2 year old goodies for the world to see and Paige was in the process of taking off her clothes so that she too could be free of all that was keeping her down.  Silly girls.  We all had a good laugh at that.

Later that night all the kids and I let the girls paint each others toe nails.  Then we headed outside to play for a little while.  I bought bubbles and sidewalk chalk for the kids to play with.  The kids went to town playing outside with the toys I bought.  They also played on their scooters too.

The next day was a lot more dreary outside.  It rained almost the whole day.  I did let the kids go outside and play whenever the rain let up.  Ella and Katie spent a lot of the time breaking rocks into little pieces.  Tyler and Enoch spent a lot of time riding around on scooters and bikes.  Emma just played with both of the sets of kids while Paige hung out inside with me.  

I also had the girls that wanted to help me make cookies.  They had a great time sampling the cookie batter over and over again.

 The big eyed beauty was such a good little girl and spent a lot of time cuddling with me.  For a 2 year old she was super easy to put to sleep.  All I had to do was put her in the pack and play, cover her with her 2 blankets, and sing to her a song.  Then she would fall asleep.  Easy Peasy.  When she would wake up in the mornings she would play in her pack and play until I came into get her.

All of the kids did really well.  It was a rather enjoyable weekend.

End of the school year

Toward the end of the school year we were super busy trying to get things done and get ready to graduate to the next level of school.  But of course we had to add some fun into that year.  What kind of parent would I be if we didn't add in some fun.

In Tyler's school the 6th graders walked down to Mirror Lake to have a BBQ lunch to celebrate the end of the year.  I went just to support him.  He did come over and say "Hi" to me and show me the girl he liked.  Other then that I just walked around talking to the parents looking like a complete fool because Tyler didn't really care that I was there.  In the picture from Left to Right Ben, Matthew, Tyler, and Kiapo.

 After school got out we had some fun things to do also. The kids in seminary tagged their teachers car. After school was over Natalie found the car in the Freddie's parking lot. She insisted on getting her picture taken in front of it.

This beautiful missionary friend of mine came to see me! She had been home from her mission a little under a year when she came to see us. We has a barbecue in her honor at my house. We always joked that we were going to have a sleepover now we finally got one!

Nate and I decided that we were going to do a kid/parent date. Ella was the first kid to go on a date with us. We went to h2oasis. Which is a indoor water park in Anchorage. H2oasis has several water slides to go on. Plus a wave pool and a lazy river. I liked the lazy river but Ella liked the slides the best. We also had pizza and dessert on out outing!

My friend invited my family and I on a hike and barbecue out at the mud flats. The mid flats are about 3miles from her house. They are very dangerous to play on and several people a year die in them if they aren't careful. Natalie, Nichole, and their friend played out on the mudflats with adult supervision of course. All of the kids ran around and got very, very muddy. We even saw this bear paw print out on the trail. To give you a better clue as to how big the paw is the guys foot it is next is a size 12! It was big. There were baby paw prints around there too.

I had to get a picture of my kids all dressed up during the week just because they are all do freaking cute!

Nichole made this platypus in her sculpting class. She named him Harry Patter. We are currently keeping our eyes open for Ronald Weasel and Hareminony Granger. So if you have a spare weasel or rabbit hanging around let me know.

I decided that if I wanted to have my kids play outside more then they needed to have some more outside toys. I bought the kids some rockets, a ball and catcher game, and some badminton rackets. The games kept my younger kids busy a whole 4 days until they were so over it.

Track awards

These are not great pictures at all.  They were taken on my cell phone and not done well might I add. Natalie had a family banquet to celebrate the end of the track season.  Everyone there got a certificate for participating.  The coach will talk a little about each person as they get their certificate.

Natalie's runs sprints and her coach is the guy in the white.  His name is Luke.  He really liked Natalie and thought of her as his up and coming star!  Natalie was on the Varsity track team and lettered in track this year!

This is the entire Track and Field Team for Chugiak High School!

Jump Rope for Heart and Field Day

Every year Ella's school puts on a jump rope for heart jump-a-thon.  All of the kids from the school get to participate and get their jump on.  Ella had the best time jumping around her school.  It was a little on the chili side that day and it even snowed a little while the kids were outside jumping.  I watched Ella jump for about an hour.  I got to see her interact with her friends.  The highlight of the day for me is when her teacher played a song that her class has been working on for the school to hear.  Ella danced her little heart out to it and even pointed out to me the part where she got to sing.  It was fun had by all that day.

The last part of the year is always a fun time for all to be had.  Ella had her field day event at the school.  She always enjoys that so much.  I got to go and watch her participate in the activities they had set up for the day. 

The school pretty much just lets the kids run around and do whatever activity that they want to do for 2 hours.  They blare music and just have lots of fun.  The number one event at field day for all of the kids has to be the bubble gum blowing contest.  I think that Ella went back to that one about 6 times.  The kids have to run over to a chair that has a piece of gum on it.  They can pick it up to put in their mouths but then they can't use their hands after that.  They have to unwrap it with their mouths.  The first one to blow a bubble wins.  Its crazy exciting for the kids.

She also did this partner ball toss with her friend.  It is a lot harder then it looks.  You really have to pull at the same speed and the same distance to make the ball pop up in the air where you want it to.

This activity was fun too.  The kids would pick up marbles with their toes and put it in a cup.  Now just imagine how warm that water is.  Especially since it was only about 35 degrees outside that day.

The potato sack race is always a fun one for the kids to participate in.  Ella was no exception to that.  She enjoyed hopping all over the place.

The sponge water race is always a hard concept for the kids to grasp.  The idea here is for the front kid to fill the sponge up with water while everyone passes it over their heads to the last kid in line.  They then have to run the sponge down the line and fill up a bucket that is placed on another line.  The hard part for the kids is that all of them want to squeeze the sponge on the tops of their heads instead of waiting for it to be wrung out into the bucket.

The last activity that Ella participated in was the 4 way tug of war.  The kids all really like this one too. if you look at the bottom right hand corner you will see the snow that was still on the ground toward the middle of may.  Ugh Alaska.  Making all activities not warm. 

All in all Ella had a really fun year this year in school and was sad to see it end. I on the other hand was not sad at all.