back to the grind

Our friends headed home to Houston yesterday evening so it's back to the old routine for us. Bummer.

We were very fortunate to have them here for as long as we did and I think we made the most of their time here. We definitely had fun and I think they had some fun too.

I was going to clean these pictures up before posting them but who am I kidding? They're pretty good as is. This was a couple nights ago overlooking Anchorage at sunset. Not a bad view.

Hold me closer tiny dancers

Oh, how I wish I could have been there to see my tiny dancers! Lisa said she was nearly in tears, they were so cute. I can imagine. Just from the pictures, I am blown away.

Lisa took the girls to their first ballerina class yesterday morning. It was amazing! She said the girls paid close attention, followed directions, and participated. This was going to be an indoor activity during the winter but after realizing it was kinda expensive, we weren't sure if we would be able to do it. Looks like we're going to have to find a way cause the girls loved it!

I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.


















I am overwhelmed looking through these pictures. They are growing up so fast.

wow that was a messy post yesterday

I just read through what I wrote yesterday while under the influence of Ambien and .... WOW! That was brutal. I don't remember writing the last half of that.

So today I am tired but not drugged. Lisa got up early to go meet with...I don't know what they call it. It's like a breakfast thing for moms every Thursday. I am ambien free until she gets back so I have some time to post a few more pictures from our outing.

The next morning found us a bit tired from the previous night's shenanigans. The girls were extra sweet that next morning...probably because they were still tired but I like to think it's Gods reminder of why we love them so much.




In other news, the girls have been having a terrible time the last several weeks at night. They are getting their 2 year molars and it's been rough. It's usually Alyssa who gets up and she's up maybe 6 out of 7 nights, once a night, for 30 minutes or less. Lisa told me this morning before she left that they were both up multiple times last night. Otherwise they are pretty happy babies. They stay SO active and love their puzzles and books. They are still pretty shy around new people but warm up quickly. We get tons of people staring or asking if they're twins. The funniest, or at least the most memorable lately, was a guy that exclaimed as we were walking through the restaurant to get to our seats....

"Holy sh*t! TWINS!!"

What could we do but just nod and silently acknowledge his enthusiam for our babies.

Seward!

I just got off my first of 6 night shifts and am waiting for the ambien to kick in so I thought I would post real fast.

Lisa and I left at about 3:30 on Sunday to meet our friends who are visiting from Houston (Echo, Brian, and Randall) in Seward who took the train down earlier in the day. They also took a whale watching tour during the day so they were looking forward to connecting and finding our cabin. As you could tell from the previous post, the cabin was SPECTACULAR!! It had 2 bedrooms and could easily sleep 7 adults. At $250 a night split between the 2 groups, it was extremely affordable. Look up any hotel or cabin and you'll find that the minimum is $200 and it is never as cozy or picturesque as this place.


It was about 5 miles north of Seward tucked along side the road to Exit Glacier. As you can tell, the ceilings are all vaulted...even the bedrooms were like that. This is the sitting area with the kitchen to the right.

Here's the Browns room...the location of MUCH frustration for the night to come.

We thought it would be a great idea to let the girls sleep in their pack-and-plays and then we could sneak in to our bed well after they were already asleep. I was gonna say it almost worked but it wasn't even close. They put an end to any thoughts of a relaxing evening pretty fast. I stayed in the cabin with the girls while Lisa and everybody else enjoyed a fire outside with marshmellows and graham crackers. No resentment intended...I was happy to take it on. This did not go too well though. A series of events lead us down a path that would keep up all awake until past 1am. The girls would just not settle down and eventually ended up sleeping with us. It was all new and fun to them so they just wanted to make the very most of it.

I remember thinking how I couldn't recall being more frustrated with their shenanigans. We had tried everything we could think of including putting them in the car and driving around for 45 minutes. NOTHING was working. Making it worse was that I had been awake since 5am and was BEYOND ready to be asleep. It was certainly frustrating...and will seriously reconsider the next time we think about spending the night somewhere with the girls.

YES...even this cute baby is capable of shenanigans...

I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we had to settle down and then go out for dinner at one of Lisa's favorite places in Alaska...the Salmon Bake.

Lisa and Randall

Lisa and Echo

and Lisa and the girls in front of the moose. Oh man, how the girls loved those moose.

Off to the Salmon Bake... I don't remember the name of the dog hogging the entry way but he was sweet. He let the girls come up close and pet him.



Lisa had the Seafood Chowder and loved it. I went for a bbq chicken sammich but was too busy holding Alyssa's hand.


After a HUGE dinner, we went down to the bay and did some minor exploring before we went back to the cabin and kicked off of our shoes.

Brian and Randall soaking up the scenery.

So I have no idea how much if any has made sense but I'm going with it. I've nodded off 3 times while writing this up...so...time for bed!

weekend getaway

What a weekend!!!! Our friends from Texas are visiting this week. On Sunday, they took the train down to Seward so we drove down after I got off work at 2pm to meet them. We had an awesome dinner last night and then had a full day of exploring today...including Exit Glacier, fishing in Seward, Sealife Center, fishing on the Kenai River, and then dinner at Chair 5 in Girdwood.

It was a fun-filled two days with too many highlights to mention. The only "low-light" was the girls not going to sleep until after 1am last night. We thought it would be a great idea to sleep in the same room. I guess they were too excited about it and kept us up pretty late.

So here are a few pictures from the last 2 days to whet your appetite.

Our cabin in Seward. For sale for $215K. Anybody want to go in on it with us???

Amazing place!!!

The girls at the Exit Glacier visitor center about to tackle the mile long hike to the glacier.........on our shoulders!!

Girls at the end of the hike posing in front of the mountains.

So I had a revelation lately. Lisa and I were fortunate enough to have a date night on Saturday....how freaking fantastic was that!! We went and saw a movie. While it wasn't our first or second choice, it somehow spoke to me in a way that I wasn't expecting. We saw "Julie and Julia"...a movie about Julia Child and another woman who live parallel lives. The other woman, Julie (obviously), shares her story through a blog. It actually made me realize what a poor job of blogging I have been doing.

I won't lie and say that I look forward to sitting down and posting but I definitely used to. I think as time has gone on, I feel like people care less and less about me and Lisa and what we were going through and it all became about the girls. Pictures and videos...that's all I needed to do.

I actually enjoy the other part of it and I need to go back to why I started this in the first place...it's a journal. I'd like to try to go back and share more about our adventures and mis-adventures and maybe not focus so much on pictures and videos. It has been for the longest time a release for me. I started to lose interest when I let the focus go away from that.

Before you delete this blog from your favorites, don't worry...there will still be plenty of pictures and videos.

next generation

Alyssa and Katy are already learning how great Neil is...he's only the greatest singer/songwriter of this or any generation!

this might be my new favorite video

Instant classic...

You won't fully appreciate the ending unless you've seen Madagascar 1 or 2 but still priceless. They are imitating Alex the Lion saying "RRRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!" Right before that they say "Big Finish!"

Grils "reading"

More and more, we are catching the girls taking their books and reciting the stories that we read over and over. Today, they took turns reading "Hey Diddle Diddle" and "Humpty Dumpty" or as we know it "Humpy Dumpy" or even "Dumpy Dumpy".

Sorry the end of the story was cut off in this one. The camera battery died at the worse time possible.

this morning's festivities

This morning, a group that sings children's music was putting on a concert on the grass by the library. We had a good size group of friends and their kids show up...13 kids in all I think. Here are some pics of all the fun we had dancing around in the grass.

Oh...well this first one is me showing some of the other kids how to do the ski jump from the Wii. A few seconds earlier, my girls were doing the same thing but of course Lisa gets a picture of only me doing it...looking like an idiot in the process.










Showing the kids my dance moves.