Fun Monday -- My Favorite Walk

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by Angela at The Lurchers.

She said she was going to make it easy and this is her callenge "All I want you to do is take me on your favourite walk. In words or pictures. Or both of course! Tell me why it's your favourite and point out things of interest on the way." This is definetly an easy one for me. Since we moved here to Ketchikan I have found many places that are beautiful places to walk but there is definetly a firm favorite here and we go there quite regularly.

My favorite place for a walk is at a place called Ward Lake. Most people who read my blog normally have seen pictures of this place before but I have a few new ones to share.

This is the view you have when you walk out of the parking lot to the lake.



Another view you will see shortly is all the ducks there right now. My puppy loves the ducks by the way and always wants to jump in the water.



This is that silly puppy who doesn't believe in walking trails but walking up logs on the way.



On this walk we see a lot of these. I am usually able to get pretty good pictures of them because they are eating like this one or yelling at us from the tree because the puppy barked at them.



This trail has a lot of bridges to cross.



and lots of signs of the beavers working on different trees for dams.



Most of all it's a beautiful walk and nothing every looks exactly the same way each time. It's always quiet and peaceful.

Busy Saturday as usual....

Do the days ever get slow around here? No not really.....
Saturdays almost seem like the worst with all the kids home it seems they all have things they need to go to for one reason or another like this Saturday started with Izzak having a boy scout expo thing at the local "mall" to show what they do during meetings and such. It was to be a kind of recruitment thing I guess. He had fun though. He had to be there at 11 till 2.

Joshua needed to be at baseball for their first practice game today at 12 till 3

And the girls had a birthday party from 1 till 2:30. Anyone note the fact that they all had to be somewhere in the same time span?.......Yeah makes for an interesting day when Kelly also had to work so I was running around all day from one place to the next to be at each event and getting them there.

Here are pictures from Izzaks event.



Izzak is the rope tying man... he likes to do them and he is pretty good. He learned a lot from his dad before boyscouts so a lot of the nots they teach he already knew. He likes being the one a little ahead of the game..

Here are pics from Joshuas game...





Yes they play on gravel. Everything here is played on gravel fields....baseball, soccer and football. With the amount of rain we get all year there is no way to keep up a grass field it would just be mud and the grass around here doesn't really grow well too wet, can you believe it? Fake turf is too expensive and wouldn't really work well either with the amount of rain according to what I've heard. This was a practice game though so they don't have their full uniforms yet. They get the shirts and hats just before their first real game which is next week.

I didn't get pics of the girls party they went to because that was the only thing I didn't really stay for. I really wanted to see some of Joshua playing and had to fit that into the little bits between running the other kids back and forth. It does make the day go by faster though....... That and I was up late last night with Izzak in the ER for a UTI poor kid....had to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes which is hard to do with 7 people in the house! I have to schedule an appointment with his pediatrician this week since he has some history with a problem he was born with that could mean something else is wrong.......I'm praying it is a random thing otherwise we have to figure out how to get him to Portland also since regular urologists wont see him only Peds ones and the one who has followed him since he was a baby is in Portland.

I've had a couple of questions about how I'm doing and the fact I haven't been posting as much as usual. I'm doing fine. Still haven't gotten rid of the tooth infection thing completely though but I have problems fighting things like that and always takes a little longer but my face isn't swollen or painful anymore at least and I'm feeling a lot better. My sis in law who was diagnosed with breast cancer is working on getting her treatment she was having a hard time in the smaller town she lived where the doctor was actually making comments about how she was going to pay for it. He asked her if she had a family member or someone she knew who might die soon and leave her a bunch of money! Can you believe that? She has moved back home to Portland and is being seen at the office I talked her into going to that I know is a really great place. She has kind of a bad prognosis though. If the cancer doesn't go into remission they are giving her 3-4 months which is kind of freaking Kelly out. He really wants to go back to Portland to see her since he is afraid she might not make it and they haven't been on the best of terms in awhile while they were once really close. Josh my bil who lives with us will be going to Portland around the same time as Maddie and I to see the neurologist about his MS.

I haven't been blogging much lately cause life has been sooo busy here. Homeschooling 2 and having 2 in school is a lot of extra work running to different activities and making sure I get the 2 picked up sometimes turns into a challenge! That and they are all in scouts and Joshua has baseball 4-5 nights a week right now. Also my own computer is down so I am down to using Izzak or Kellys laptops for posting.

I will be posting again monday at least for Fun Monday and hope to get a little more in next week.

The boys and Boy Scouts

I had said that the boys and Kelly went to a boy scout camporee this weekend and hoped Kelly would take some pictures. Well surprisingly he did. What is it about men and not thinking to take pictures? I constantly take them! But he did get a few which I appreciated.

Here is the flags for the flag ceremony.



They learned about throwing Tomahawks, I'm not sure why or for what purpose they need to learn that but oh well. They are boys and boys like throwing sharp things don't they?

Here is Izzak throwing his.



And Joshua of course....


A little scary to me! Seriously fokes the way this kid is I would not want to be around during this and would be VERY far away. The kid is dangerous with sharp things! He threw his and it went over the large log target and hit a log a ways behind it. No this is not one of those moments I would want to be around for the picture taking.

That is about all he remembered to take for pictures though.

One of the other things they were doing on this hike was to earn their polar bear badges. They were to wade out into the very cold water chest high and recite the boy scout pledge. Brrrr...
Izzak did it and I'm pretty proud to know he did it except suddenly he decided the water isn't so bad and wanted to go to the lake with the puppies today...uuuhmmm there is still a thin layer of ice on many parts of the lake!

I was at the same campground the afternoon before their campout with a bunch of the other homeschooling moms and kids having a picnik and so the kids could get together and play so I had taken some pictures of the area, mostly of the river they did the polar bear badges in.

It is a beautiful place just look.....









I have found very few places here that I don't like so far. It is a beautiful place and the sun has been out for the last several days which is soooo nice although it is still pretty cold but we did get up to 50 today it almost felt warm!

Busy Saturday

Kelly and the boys are camping with the boy scouts this weekend so I decided the girls and I would have a day to ourselves doing something fun. Hopefully Kelly will be taking pictures so I can share those this week!

First we took Uncle Josh to work and went to the bookstore which seems to be a favorite place for their girls lately. They each got to pick out a book and some other things. After that we went to the Discovery Center. They had an Owls, Hawks and Eagle show for younger children today and brought birds to show the kids. We learned a lot about the birds and they even had a young eagle which was fun to me. I love eagles! Here are some pictures

First was the screech owl. A very small owl but very cute.



They got to take pictures with it


And they were even able to pet it.



Then the barn owl



The red tail hawk



and the young eagle of course!


We learned they do not get their white tail feathers and heads until they are about 5years old. This one is only 4 years old.

They got to take pictures with this one also.

They are kind of leaning away because it had just spread its very large wings and flapped them both in the heads, they were giggling after that.

I talked to the people with the birds and they have a rescue center here in Ketchikan and they gave me their number so when my dad comes to visit this summer I can take him to visit it. He is an even bigger eagle fan then I am! I told him this today and we was pretty excited about this.

After the bird show we went to watch our friends son play soccer.

He has recently been excepted to the Alaskan Olympic Development team as a goalie!
We had fun watching but it was very cold and windy today!

After the game we went to dinner just us girls then walmart to pick up a couple of things.

After that it was time to go pick up Uncle Josh from work and we noticed that is was a beautiful moon outside so we pulled over to look at it and get some pictures.



The girls looking over the water at the moon.



And this was our day!
I hope to get back to posting a little more often soon. It has just been very busy lately!

Fun Monday "Five"

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by The Nekked Lizards

This week's Fun Monday is a really simple one:
FIVE PICTURES - FIVE WORDS PER PICTURE.
Any 5 (FIVE) pictures, any subject,
and any 5 (FIVE) words to describe and/or explain each picture.

I like the easy ones! Especially with everything else going on lately.

Izzak my oldest turned 13 last Monday and Sunday was his birthday party so I thought this Fun Monday would be a good way to show some of the pictures from the party. Makes it even easier for me since it gives me a theme along with the challenge. We had Izzaks birthday party at the local pool somehow I got lucky and got it just the week after his birthday. We only have one pool on the Island so it is usually booked out months in advance.


Yeah it's a cell phone!


Playing ball in the pool.


"Stop taking pictures", says Joshua!

Izzaks under water hand stand.


Silly looking goggle girls swimming.....

Yep that was my best effort! Seriously at the moment my brain is still on overdrive and all the stuff going on with our familys health in the last week is not helping my own health problems since I tend to get stressed out and that exacerbates my own symptoms.

Izzak had a really great party though and most of the boys from his youth group showed up which he was soo excited about. He is the youngest in the group with most of the others being 16 and over so he felt pretty cool to have the bigger boys thinking he was cool enough to come to his party. You should have seen the grin on his face! Not to mention he got several things he was really wanting from us like a new cd player and cell phone (he actually really needed it) plus lots of money from other kids. It looks like I get to take him into town tomorrow so he can pick out his new pair of heelys.

Tough couple weeks

So it's has been a tough couple of weeks in our family. I told you last week that Kelly's sister was diagnosed with breast cancer last week. Well we found out on Monday that it had not only metastisized to her liver but also her bones as well. She is doing okay but we are obviously worried at the moment and hoping to convince her to go to a bigger hospital then the small town she lives in at the moment.

I went to the ER on Saturday to find out why my face was swelling and they said I had an abcessed tooth. Of course as usual I got told by another doctor that I am not the typical 32 year old mother of 4 (oh really?). So I had to have several doses of IV antibiotics and now I am taking strong antibiotics. I saw a dentist on Monday and they said with my TMJ that they would have to refer me to an oral surgeon....of course they don't have those here in Ketchikan except for 2 days of the month and they were in last week. So I get to wait till the end of the month to have the tooth pulled.

Over the weekend Kelly's brother Josh who lives with us was having problems with double vision by Monday he was having difficulty walking a straight line at work and they took him to the ER where he had a CT and they found "something" in his brain and refered him to have an MRI the next day. Thursday he was able to get into a doctor and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He is having high dose steriods right now to help stop the flare he is having but I've spent the last 2 days fighting with drs offices in Portland to find someone down there to see him. He has no insurance and they were all wanting him to establish with a primary dr in Portland to have them refer him which would make it take a lot longer to get him in. I was able to get him in with someone finally who is willing to work with his doctor up here so now we just have to wait for the appointment and get him flown down there to figure out what type of treatment he will have and get the "official" neurologist diagnosis.

So it's been a difficult week here. In the grand scheme of things my tooth issue would be a pretty mild thing except with my health issues I don't react to meds as quickly sometimes and they affect me differently as well. I'm feeling a little better today but still pretty yucky although my face is almost down to normal.

Don't forget that Sunday May 13 is Livestrong Day and wear yellow in support of cancer research. I know my family will definetly be this year.

Happy Birthday Izzak!

How did this sweet little baby.......



Get so big????



Monday was Izzaks 13th birthday. I'm officially the mother of a teenager.....

Fun Monday ~First Celebrity Crush~

This weeks Fun Monday is being hosted by Jo at JoBeaufoix her challenge for this week is this:

“I want to know about your first ‘celebrity’ crush. You know, the one you fancied from that band, or that film, or who read the news, or who won Gold at the Olympics.
Did you have their pictures on your wall or in your locker?
Did you dress like them, style or colour your hair like them, follow them, meet them, marry them? (It could happen.)
Photos of THEM would be good, photos of YOU at the time you liked them would be even better.
Also, if you have time, I’d like to know whether they had any influence over your life, the person you became, or if they were just an embarrassing blip you would kind of rather forget about.”

If you've read her post we had a similar crush but my feelings about it are a little different. I learned about them first from a friend because before that I jumped around from one music style to another some pop, rock and a bit of christian mixed in but the year I started middle school I was also starting a new school again in a new state and all my new friends were talking about one band and only one band....who was it?






The New Kids on the Block of course! The first time I listened to them and their catchy tunes I was hooked the fact that most of them were pretty cute as well helped of course.

I owned everything New Kids and my walls were litterally plastered with their pictures and posters. I had sooo many t-shirts with their faces on them that I could go for 2 weeks wearing New Kids and still be wearing a different one everyday. I even had a nightgown with their picture and sheets on my bed......yeah I know pretty scary...

I watched everything that I could that came on television and had endless tapes with every clip I could get from those shows. Magazines galore, if they were mentioned in it I most likely had it. I felt that I knew everything about them...of course that was just what was in print and yes I had my name with a certain last name written on many of my books. Which one do you ask?

Well the youngest of course. Joey McIntyre was my first real celebrity crush. Of all the things I owned that were New Kids I had the most with his picture on them. The fact he was the youngest probably helped that a bit since he was only 3 years older then me I felt that he was, agewise, within my reach....I know silly girl.

I even had a birthday party one year where everything was New Kids and everyone wore their

shirts. Of course that was no problem since all my friends were die hard fans as well.

They were my first concert as well.

I kind of grew out of them when I was 16 though and was dating. Then when I was 17 I met Kelly and he introduced me to country music and I left most pop music behind although now I alternate between country and alternative......

Although they recently anounced that they were reuniting. I am curious to see what they will do now that they are all older and more grown up.

I'm sure that I will at least check out their new music when it comes and I just might check out their comeback performance on May 16th! Sometimes it's fun to look back on my teen years and they were definetly a big part of them.

Sorry about being so quiet right now. Alot going on.
Our 2 extras have gone home so we are back to our 4 kids again....YEAH!
I haven't felt well and half my face is swollen at the moment going to find out soon why.
Please keep Kellys sister in your prayers as she was diagnosed with breast cancer on Wednesday. It has already metastisized to her liver but will find out soon her prognosis and such. This is all very new and has a lot of the family upset at the moment.

I will post more soon, just not feeling good at the moment and not spending much time on the computer.