Sunday, June 28, 2009

we're doing good

Just wanted to share a quick video to show how good the girls and I are doing. Here I am thowing a pillow up in the air and letting it land on them. They thought it was hilarious.

Clearly, everbody is fully recovered from yesterday.

Friday, June 26, 2009

everybody is okay

Some of you may have seen my update on Facebook but I wanted to follow up with a post here. Lisa left yesterday to go to Indiana to spend some time with her grandfather who isn't doing so good. I'm here by myself with the girls until Tuesday evening. No big deal, right?

Well, today started out great. The girls and I went to the zoo this morning. Although it didn't go perfectly, it was still fun. We got home and here's when the fun started. I had a doctor's appointment but the plan was to get the girls down early so our next door neightbors could hang out over here while I was gone. As I was corralling the girls to get them ready for their nap, I was holding Alyssa's hand as we were walking toward the room and she tripped. No big deal, it's happened a hundred times, right? Not this time.

She didn't immediately cry out but a few seconds later, she was holding her arm and screaming in pain. It was heart breaking to see her like that. I picked her up and checked out her arm from her shoulder to her fingertips and nothing felt wrong...but she wouldn't move it and everytime she tried, she would cry out.

We got some ice and she calmed down while she actually started to fall asleep on my chest. When I tried to lay her down in the crib, she REALLY cried out again. I knew I had to take her to the doctor. Instead of going to the ER, I called and made an appointment with the girls' doctor an hour from then. I called Lisa back to tell her what happened while Alyssa was crying out. I asked if she wanted to talk to Mommy and of course she said "yyyeessss". Surprisingly, she grabbed the phone and held it in the arm that was hurting! Slowly she pulled it up to her ear and listened to Lisa talk to her. This was the first time she even attempted to move her arm and she wasn't crying!

After that, she was acting fine. No more crying and no more holding her arm. I thought about not going but as Lisa said, it would give us peace of mind. So I went to see our doctor even though Alyssa was acting fine now. I explained the whole ordeal to the doctor and she explained to me what is called Nurse Maid's Elbow. Apparently, toddlers are very susceptible to their elbow coming out of socket. Actually, it's one of the bones in her forearm that is held in at the elbow by a ligament. Evidently this bone can slip out of the grasp of the ligament and is pretty painful. It can be put back in if you bend the arm. Evidently, we or she managed to put it back in place. I'm thinking it was when she picked up the phone to talk to Lisa.

Anyway, she's fine now. Actually she was fine about 20 minutes after it happened so she's definitely fine now. Doc said she would may be sore for a couple days but she showed no sign tonight that it hurt. Actually, at one point she bonked her head and she said "hurt" which evidently reminded her that her arm hurt so she grabbed the wrong arm and started fake crying. It didn't take much to distract her and help her forget that anything happened.

They both went down to bed pretty easy tonight. I'm so glad it wasn't worse. It's hard to believe that this actually happened today. But now they are sleeping and I'm sipping ona cold one while I'm eating popcorn and watching Die Hard...so I guess everything is okay now.

Let's see what tomorrow brings us.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

a couple videos

Grilling fun. I grilled Lisa's salmon using a salmon rub, onions, lemons, and wrapping it in tin foil for about 15 minutes. MMMM-mmmm good! The other meat on there is an awesome pork chop for my dinner and some chicken for grilled chicken salad the next night.

This is just some good ole fashion topless 2 year old shenanigans.

Friday, June 19, 2009

FISH ON!!!

I had quite the adventure yesterday. I took a half day off at work to go down to the world famous Russian River and try my luck at catching a red salmon. I've heard for years that red salmon on the Russian is something you just have to experience. Nate and some friends from North Carolina have been down there a couple days fine tuning the technique. Sam and I arrived at noon after an hour and a half drive...one of the most beautiful drives by the way.

First problem...finding a place to park. The wait to get into the grounds and park was hours long. We had no desire to sit in line and waste time when we could be fishing so we found a spot along the side of the road about a mile and a half away.

We made it to the grounds only to find that half of Alaska and all of the tourists were already there. As I looked upstream and downstream, I came to the conclusion that this is Alaska's version of a theme park...like King's Island or Six Flags. We have a state fair but that's just lame compared to what was going on at the Russian this week.

So the reds were running! Thousands and thousands of them were moving up the Kenai River toward the Russian River and eventually the Upper and Lower Russian Lakes where they will spawn and die. But before they get there, they have to make it past the army of fishermen and their hooks.

Within the first 10 minutes, Nate had hooked his first fish. The fight was ON!! I have no way of describing what a fight these 8 to 12 pound fish give.


I bought a new rod and reel the day before because so many people told me my other gear wouldn't even be close to being able to land them. Even with all new gear, I COULD NOT LAND A FISH!! They fought and fought like you wouldn't believe.

Nate landed his first fish after not too long but the next couple hours was spent hooking, fighting, and ultimately losing a lot of fish. I'm guessing Nate landed 1 out of every 3 or 4 that he hooked. Sam and I were not so successful.

One of the more exciting moments was a grizzly bear that made several appearances a couple hundred yards downstream. Even that close, I was not very comfortable fishing with the bear that close. There was probably 30 people between us and the bear...most of which were probably packing heat or at least bear spray. Even so, it was not very comforting.

Sam bravely posing in front of the bear.

Here are a few pics of Sam working the salmon in front of the crowds.


After a couple hours, Nate had reached his daily limit of 6. While Sam and I had briefly fought a couple, neither one of us had actually landed one. Nate and his buddies headed back to their campsite while Sam and I stayed...determined to land at least one between the two of us. Several times we would have a fish up to within a few feet of the shore but it would take off and snap the line or unhook itself. SO frustrating to be that close to landing one and have a line break or a hook come off.


The fights were incredible though. I bloodied up my finger one time trying to slow down the reel as the fish was flying downstream. At one point, I think the fish ran 50 yards in a matter of seconds...just amazing.

Finally..FINALLY Sam was able to get one onshore...but not before slipping and falling down. Luckily the water was only shin deep so he didn't get too wet. A little later, I was feeling much more confident...it was just a matter of working the fish over. When I finally convinced myself it was okay to leave without a fish, I hooked one. This one didn't quite have the fight as the others as if she knew how much I wanted to land her. She put up a moderate fight compared to the other ones and came onshore...a mere 6 hours after I had started fishing! What a relief!!!




We immediately packed up and started the long walk back to the car. That was definitely the hardest part of the day. We were EXHAUSTED by the time we made it back. We stopped by Nate's campsite to show off our catches. They were already cooking up their's for dinner on the campfire.

The long trip home was spectacular but...we had to deal with construction. 45 minutes of sitting around waiting for the one lane to open up. By the time I got to Sam's place and then drove home it was 11:00. An incredibly long day considering I had to get up at 5am to go to work but it was AMAZING! We may head back to Ship Creek to get another king salmon...then we wait for the silvers to make their way up the inlet next month!! Lisa's gonna have fish to eat all winter!!!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

a rushed post

The girls are about to go to bed and I will be following shortly. Getting up at 5am is tough!! Here are some pictures from later in the day...blowing bubbles on the driveway and then trying on our new big girl hats.
















Sunday, June 14, 2009

a couple late week adventures

We've been having an adventure every day but just haven't been taking along the camera. There's a bike ride or trip to the park or something every day...just no pictures. Well we finally took the camera with us on our first trip to Potter's Marsh, a neat little sanctuary about 10 minutes from the house. It's hard to believe in the 4 years we've been here, we've never stopped by to take a look around. We thought the mosquitoes would be too bad but they weren't at all. It was really nice.

















One of our favorite things to do is having a picnic in the back of the car. While this wasn't a real picnic, we did need to change the girls before moving on to the 2nd half of the boardwalk. More picnic pictures in the next installment.




The girls LOVED being able to run without us chasing them down. It was nice to just let them go wild.



A cute young family of geese.



We took almost 200 pictures these last 3 days. I'll try to make some more time this week to share them.