Teresa's Visit in Homer

Our friend from Whitman, Teresa came to visit last week. She gets the prize for being the first non-family visitor of ours in Alaska! That prize was a trip to Homer. We drove down to Homer (around a 4 hour drive) and hung out at our condo. The weather was great! We hung out on the beach, walked around the spit, tasted some mead, and played Settler's of Catan into the wee hours of the night.

We saw this street sign on our drive down to Homer, and said how we had to stop on the way back to get a picture. Amazingly, Neil remembered where it was!

Banjo and his new best friend.
Abe eating at the 2 sister's cafe. Yummy!Banjo loved the chuck-its on the beach, although he couldn't figure out why the water tasted so bad!



The view from our apartment. Pretty hard to beat that. Plus, Banjo loved the enormous backyard (which stretched onto the beach). As those of you who traveled to Homer with us a few years ago may remember the steep hill you had to climb to get up from the beach, it now has a nice stair case.

"I've had enough!"

"Oh...but if you take out the camera I'll crack a smile." (Banjo wanted in on the photo too.)
"I'll even put my foot into my mouth."

Nap time at the hote=blog catchup time

These last few weeks have been quite busy. Here are a few 9-month pictures for the Abe fan club. At 9 months Abe is still not crawling, but he is exploring the world through eating, making new (and loud) sounds, observing, jumping, and laughing. We took the 9-month Abe/Banjo picture a few days late down in Homer.

A Cuddlers Camping Trip

This weekend we went camping in Eagle River with some of our friends from Cuddlers. In all there were 5 families who went. We figured it'd be more fun figuring out the camping with a baby business with a bunch of people rather than just by ourselves, so we booked a group site. We had great weather (although it was a bit nippy this morning=37), but these babies are Alaskan, so they didn't mind the many layers or the crisp air. The trip was pretty relaxed. The camp ground was actually only 10 miles away from our house (but as I tried to explain to my mom, 10 miles in Alaska can place you into some serious wilderness). We went for a little walk, then made some dinner (Neil and I had tin foil dinners), and then we brought stuff to make a peach and raspberry dutch oven cobbler for the group to share. It was really tasty, although it took 2 hours to cook (recipe said it would only take 35 min). Then we spent the night, got up bight and early (because that's what babies do), and packed up and came home for a nap. Abe did really well. We zipped our sleeping bags together and he slept in between us.

It doesn't hurt (too much) to tri

Today was the Gold Nugget Triathlon. It was a lot of fun. Neil and Abe came to cheer me on. I swam 550 yards (the extra 50 was because the girl counting for me forgot to tell me I was done), biked 13 miles, and then ran 5 kilometers. This year, because I wasn't pregnant with Abe I was able to go a little faster, which made it more fun. The swim was a piece of cake. The only frustrating part was having to share a lane with people of different speeds.

I was still rather slow on the bike portion. All of these women on fancy road bikes kept passing me on my heavy ol' mountain bike, but I got to enjoy the scenery and peaking around on base (the bike was on Elmendorf Airforce Base).
And then the run was pretty good, although my legs literally felt like jello when I first started out. But then I got into a grove and was able to run right behind this girl, which was nice to keep pace with--until she decided to go faster. All in all it was a great event with lot's of encouraging ladies out having fun.
Tomorrow night we're going to an awards banquet for the race. It should be fun. When we signed up for the race there was an option to check if we wanted to be considered for most improved (they compare you time from the previous year to this year's race). Unfortunately I didn't check the box (because I didn't want to be a cheater), but now I kind of wish that I had, because I heard there are lot's of prizes. :)
My number one fan!

Monkey See Monkey Do

When Abe eats blueberries we strip him down so that they don't stain his clothes. He reminds me of Huck Fin.
There never can be too many pictures of the dood.
We got this outfit for Abe when we were in Hawaii a little over a year ago. It was 60 out yesterday so we figured we'd better put him in it while it was "warm" and while it still fit.

Summer has come, so the beard has to go

It finally had to go. I have twizzled my beard far too many times for Emily's liking, and I didn't want to annoy her any longer so I shaved my beard off last night at 11pm. Well, almost all of it. I guess it's fitting since I do work in a law enforcement related field.

I had a fun time feeding Abe his dinner tonight while Emily was out swimming. Abe was looking so cute and all, I figured it would be a good time to break in Emily's new camera that she received for Mother's Day.

Governor Parnell is coming by our lab tomorrow afternoon to ceremoniously sign a few bills. One of them related to retention of DNA evidence and handling of DNA samples, expungements, etc. He was there last Friday too for the Slain Officer Memorial.
Who is this funny looking guy and why is he so surprised?
"I want that camera!"
That's how a boy opens up for his dinner.
Someone sure does love his dinner-time.

When 493 = 548

The Social Security Administration released the list of the top 1000 boy's and girl's names last week. Jacob was still #1 for the boys (I think 10+ years running) while Isabella beat out Emma for top spot for the girls.

So where did our little Abram rank? Number 493 of course, right between Khalil (492) and Javon. And there were 548 Abrams born last year, compared to over 20,000 Jacobs. It should be no surprise that we were going for a sort of esoteric name with Abram, and now we know that our pick is validated.

The number 1 boy name when I was born was Michael. The funny thing there were over 60,000 Michaels, way more than the Jacobs of today. The number 1 girl name when Emily was born was Jennifer. I had 2 Jennifers in my class of 30 at Assumption!

Happy Mother's Day!

No one ever said that being a mother was easy (or pretty). But it's pretty darn awesome! This morning Abe decided to tell me how much he loved me by waking up at 4am. And because that just wasn't enough, he decided to make it absolutely clear how much he loved me by only wanting to see me. When I'd try to hand him off to Neil, he'd scream his little head off. Thanks Abe. I love you too. He finally went back to sleep around 7. Then I opened my present from him (and Banjo) around 9. They got me a new camera to replace the one that Neil broke.

Where it all began.


Abe opened up the present for me, and then started eating the wrapping paper. It made him gag.

Flattop

Last Monday we took a trip up to flattop. It was super nice out in town, so we wanted to go out and enjoy the sunshine. It was still quite snowy up there, but there were signs of it melting. Neil pushed the stroller the whole way, which proved to be really difficult, because of how slushy it was. It was a great day for an outing!




The Dood of course had a blast.

I tried to help with the stroller, but I was too weak and couldn't even make it up this little hill. When Neil had to push Abe up the giant hill I helped by pushing his butt like a little caboose.

Check me out

A few weeks ago we went to a "babes in the woods" class that talked all about taking your baby out camping and into the great outdoors. It was a really helpful class. We learned all about the right gear (including these cool shades), tips for packing the baby in, food, trails, and activities. Some of the other women who go to cuddlers were also there, and now we have a big camping trip planned for a week from now. It should be pretty fun.

A boy and his dog: best friends for life

There's a moose on the loose!

Just a little after dinner I spotted this guy walking into our yard. If I would have opened up our front door I would have been about 8 feet from him. A younger guy joined him a few minutes later.

Abe the racer

Check out Abe flying around in his racecar. Vrrooooommm!!!!!