What's more ALaskan than...

..eating dip netted salmon and hand picked blueberry crisp for dinner/dessert? That would be attending Uncle Ted's funeral. On Tuesday night I happened to be driving home right around the same time they were driving Ted Steven's body to the Anchorage Baptist Church for the funeral service the following day. I was really amazed to see so many people lining the street with signs and flags and cameras waiting to see the hurse drive by. So, with Neil's prodding, Abe and I walked over to the service the following day. The church was equipped to hold up to 4,000 people, but only around 2,000 got to sit in the sanctuary, so we headed over early. I was hoping that Abe would nap during the service, but instead he napped on the way over, so he was ready to go by the time the service was about to start. So, I walked outside in the hall with him. He was being very good, but he was cooing a little, and apparently this guy could hear him over the bag pipe music, so we left. But, the coolest part about this whole experience was that while Abe and I were walking down the street, Joe Biden's car pulled up and he and his aide walked out and walked along the street next to me. I kept looking at him (trying to figure out if it actually was him) and he would give me this little smirk.

Even though Neil and I helped campaign with Steven's opponent, it was neat to be a part of the memorial. He did a lot for the state, and as my grandma reminded me, a lot for himself as well.


Here's the ABT by our house. I think it's funny that it says that it's "a caring community church", since it was their congregation that so vehemently opposed to adding gays and lesbians to the anti-discrimination laws in Anchorage.

News!

The picture says it all. We're moving--dood and all--back to Seattle! When we fly down at the end of August Abe, Banjo and I will be staying in Seattle. Neil's planning to fly back up for a few more weeks of work. Then he'll drive down the AlCan with his dad a few weeks later. I'll be entering the workforce once again at the VA, and Neil will be taking some classes at UW and working as a fulltime dad! We're sad to being leaving our Alaskan Adventure behind. We've had a lot of great friendships and adventures here, but we're excited for the *yet to be determined new blog name* chapter of our lives. Peace out yo!

Friday night bubbles

Abe with angst.

Abe with warm bubblies.

I'll eat you up!

We take our eating seriously.

Blueberries for Abe

Yesterday we went on a blueberry picking adventure. We got an early start on the day and met some friends up at glennalps. From there we biked down the powerline trail about 2.5 miles. (This was easier said than done. We were biking into an extremely strong wind, and the trail was pretty hilly. I was toeing Abe in the chariot, and I seriously thought I was going to faint.) Then we all locked our bikes and chariots together and hiked a ways to this lovely blueberry picking spot. Because it was a bit off the beaten path it hadn't been picked over. We hung out had some lunch and picked berries. Neil and I filled both of our tupperwares to the top. (Blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup (made from last years berries) for breakfast). The weather in the morning was actually pretty nice--reminded my why I love living in alaska. But, then the rain came in, and actually broke a record for the number of consecutive days of rain. So, we headed back. Going home was 10 times easier thanks to the wind, which was still blowing in the same direction. While we were standing on the path, our bikes literally rolled forward on their own, because of the wind.

Pretty cool scenery for picking.

Abe sampling our handy-work.
We left Banjo at home, because he likes to jump in front of bikes, and a few years ago when we took him blueberry picking he ate our friends berries. Sophie and Todd's dog Riley, was a nice substitute for Abe.
Check them berries out!

An apology to our 'Dood

Dear Banjo,

Ever since Abe and I returned home you've stunk. Your dad didn't think so, but to a more discerning nose, you were really quite foul. I tried bathing you, but it didn't seem to help. So, we did what we thought was for the best. For your own good, we decided to rid you of all that stinky hair. You were so trusting standing there in the bathroom, eating your peanut butter Kong while I chizzled away at your hair.

It turned out we stole your one true beauty. I'm sorry Banjo. The next time I come at you with those clippers run in the other direction!

Love, Your master

I guess he had it coming

When Abe was about 5 months I wrote about how this kid named Casey tried to throw a wooden instrument at Abe's face. Well, Abe is now having his go as the wild "bully". Yesterday I took him to Cuddlers and being the a.) big ham that he is and, b.) only kid who can move, Abe seized the moment and crawled back and forth in the circle screaming and throwing toys at all of the other little immobile babies. I think it's time for Cruisers.

Here is a video of Abe practicing throwing his toys.

Eleven months

This month's Abe/Banjo picture proved a little more difficult, now that both boys are mobile.

Babes in the City

Here are a few more pics from Seattle that Elliot took with his camera.
Thank goodness I don't have twins!
Jude tackle!
Abe wasn't a fan.
Best Buds!
The boys with baby Porter (who made his grand entrance yesterday).

My first TV interview

Yesterday the local CBS affiliate came to the crime lab to interview someone from the DNA section. They were doing a story on Anthony Dillard, who had been indited the day before. DNA evidence had linked him to two cold-case sex assaults (2005 and 2007). Abi, our DNA tech manager came in the back office area to see if anyone wanted to be interviewed on camera. Since everyone had already gone home for the day and I was the only one back there, I got 'volunteered'. So I met the reporter and the camera lady, and the reporter asked me some basic, general questions about CODIS and the work we do in the DNA section while the TV camera was rolling. Abi was also asked a few questions as well.

So I was all excited to watch the 10pm news. But when they ran the segment on Mr. Dillard, they didn't air any part of either one of our interviews. An airplane at the air force base crashed that night, so I'm thinking that story took time away from the DNA story. That, or our interviews were really bad. All in all it was a good experience to talk to the media about my job, and good practice for when I'm in court.

Catching up--in no particular order

Here are a few pictures taken while Abe and I were in Seattle.

Abe(less) in Seattle

We are enjoying Emily & Abe's visit to Seattle this week. Today we had celebrated the summer birthdays of Ruth, Elaine, Calvin, Melissa, Melyssa and Melvin at Tea Gardern. Yesterday Abe went to the Bon Odori. When they arrived last week, we had a little barbecue.

NOW I'm a true Alaskan!!!

This weekend I had a true Alaskan experience - I went dip netting with my friend Mark. What's dip netting do you ask? It's when you 'dip' your 'net' into the water. Then the salmon swim into the net and you pull them out of the water. Simple as that! You can either do it on the shore of a river, or on a boat.

Mark just bought a 14-foot boat and was anxious to take it dip netting. He gave me a call at work on Thursday afternoon, wanted to know if I wanted to try it out as well, and I said sure. We left Friday afternoon for the Kenai river down on the Kenai Peninsula. It was about a 4 hour drive. We were in the river and fishing by about 6:30. I manned the net (which is 5 feet in diameter on a 15-foot pole) while Mark manned the motor. I'd catch the fish, move the next towards Mark who would pop the fish out in the boat. Then he would club it with his fish-club (think a tiny wooden bat - although we saw some people at there who actually used real bats) and rip it's gills out. Then he'd toss it in a cooler, or hand it to me to toss in a cooler.

Once we got going and I put my first net in the water, no joke we had a fish in the boat less than 2 minutes later. We made a killing. We filled up our first 2 giant coolers in about 2 hours. Then we went back to shore where Mark started cleaning our catch while I picked up 2 more coolers from the parent of our friends who lived in the nearby town. So we made it back on the water by 9:30, which left us an hour and half left to fish - you can't fish from 11pm - 6am. And in that last hour-30 we caught 17 more fish. Which brought our total to 52 fish. Not bad for a few hours of fishing, huh?

We decided to sleep in our cars that night at the boat launch. We didn't get out of the water until about 12:30am, so we were pretty tired. Banjo slept up front with me in the passenger seat. Banjo was a trooper the whole trip - I had to leave him in the back of the car the whole time we were out fishing b/c there was no room in the boat for him.

We got up at 5:30am the next day and went to Ames Bridge so we could finish gutting and cleaning the fish. Mark would gut them while I chopped the heads off. We were probably gutting and cleaning fish for about 2 hours. Then we were starved so went to this really good greasy spoon place in the city of Kenai. I had biscuits and gravy, hash browns, 2 poached eggs, and a sausage patty. I was so hungry, but I couldn't even finish it all b/c it was so much food. So Banjo got to finish the rest of my very-generously-sized sausage patty.

My share of our catch was 15 fish. Each 'head of household' is entitled to 25 fish per year, and you get 10 more per extra person in your house. Since Mark also has a wife and baby, that means we each can keep 45 fish. I kept 1 to eat that night, I'm shipping 4 down to Seattle, and the other 10 I took to Indian Meats to have filleted, vacuum packed and flash-frozen. Now I need to figure out where to put 53 pounds of fish????

All in all it was an awesome experience and I'm glad Mark invited me along. If the fish are running next weekend, I'm going to go down again and try dip netting from shore, which is about 10 times harder than on a boat. Hopefully dip netting from a boat hasn't spoiled me too much!

Fun in the park

Today we made the most of the great weather and went for a bike ride in Russian Jack park, which is pretty close to our house. The park is wooded, with a bunch of paved trails, which double as ski trails in the winter. We explored along the trails and made our way through a tunnel that takes you under the busy street to the other side of the park. We found a play ground over there, AND a dog park, which we'll have to take Banny to one of these days. We were planning on going for a hike this evening with one of my friends from swimming, but she is a doctor, and got called into the OR, so instead Neil and I enjoyed a nice game of Settler's of Catan--the card game. I won!

Which reminds me: On Friday we had Margaret and Ryan over to play Settler's. They were the ones who introduced us to the game. Since we told them how we had gotten into it, Ryan brought over 4 different expansion packs to go with the base game. We played with the Cities and Knights game (which is the same one I got Neil for his birthday). Ryan is funny, because he seems to have just about every expansion and version of the game that there is. He even has both the 3rd and 4th editions. I think they were excited to have more friends who like to play the game.



Abe tried to keep as much of his body off of the grass as possible.
Later on he got a little more into it.

Tired out after a fun morning.

Dj Hero

On Saturday we had Rachel and Kari and Jared over for dinner for a belated birthday celebration for Neil. We made really good burgers, and Jared and Kari brought guacamole (which were perfect on the burgers) and watermelon, and Rachel brought Rainier cherries. For dessert I made an ice cream cake (Neil's been eating up the leftovers for breakfast). We had a great time hanging out. It had been a while, because everyone gets so busy during the summers. Afterwards we played Neil's new DJ Hero game.


"1980 Player of the year, Neil Hoff, Happy 30th Birthday" Kari and Jared gave Neil a great present (great, because he's going to put it up at his office and not in our house). Abe does enjoy playing with it though.

Just for fun!

Hiking Winner Creek

On Monday we went on a hike in Girdwood with our friends Guang Ming and Joel and their kids Charlotte and Luke. Neil and I had been wanting to go on this hike ever since we'd moved to Alaska, because at the end there is a hand tram that you use to pull yourself over the river. We first tried to go on it when Neil came up to visit for our first year anniversary, but it was being worked on then.

The trail leading up to the tram is really nice--many board walks, and very well groomed. Because the trail head is basically in the Alyeska ski resort, there were a lot of people on the trail. This was okay with us, though, because along the way we got stopped by a hiker who warned us about a little bear in a tree along the trail. (Our first Alaskan bear sighting!) Needless to say, be made it out unscathed. The hike was a lot of fun, and afterwards we had a little impromptu bbq at Guang Ming and Joel's house.


The kids had a cozy ride.Charlotte (who just turned 2) hiked a little of the trail herself!
Here's use in the hand tram. Unfortunately you can't see how high off the river we were. It was pretty cool. Our friends (who are both lawyers from CA) said that something like this in California would never exist, because of the potential for lawsuits! Poor Banjo couldn't go with us on the tram, because he would have put us over the weight limit. He was quite distraught when we started pulling away from him.


Our little black bear. Just chillin'.
Towards the end of the hike, Abe had had enough. He kept trying to dive out of the ergo. (Note the hiking poles. We just started using them, and they work great with a baby in tow.)