Hey look I've finally decided to post! **warning it will be long**

I know I've been gone forever and I've gotten a few messages from people wondering if I quit blogging. I didn't really quit more like I took a break.

For awhile it was just that I didn't really have anything to blog about. Life was kind of boring I guess you could say and I felt like if I was blogging I would just be repeating the same things everyday. Also I was kind of in a funk I guess you could call it. I still am in a way. I'm working on it though. Life just gets to you sometimes, you know? Some of you have been around at other times when I've this kind of issue and know that I was on medication for depression, anxiety, etc. before we moved here to Alaska. Many of you know that I decided to go off of everything when we moved here and at the begining it was going really well and I wasn't having any issues with those problems or was able to deal with them well. I am still determined for now to stay off the meds but at times it has been a struggle. I just don't like the way some of the side effects of them make me feel. I am considering the anxiety meds though but I am still holding off for now though. One of the biggest issues right now is the anxiety which causes me to have difficulty sleeping and generally being around other people sometimes. I do force myself out though. I've been in that place before where I could barely leave the house and don't really want to get there again though. I'm doing better though like I said.

Anyway things did pick up around here after awhile though and the last few months have been hectic for us all.

In August it will be 2 years since we moved here, it seems like we've lived here longer then that though the kids have all changed so much.

Izzak is still growing like crazy. He's not even recognizable from the kid we moved here with. It's really weird to look back at pictures from just 2 years ago. Just look at the difference....

Here he is just about a month before we moved here at age 12.



And now at age 14 he is very different. Of course you can't see real well since he doesn't like me having my camera out much and he always has his sunglasses on. I really do need to get a better picture of him. Can you see the huge differences though? For one he doesn't shave his head anymore and now has that long hair style going. Also he's grown about 8 inches since we moved here and thinned out a lot.

He's doing well though with home schooling. He's reading a lot better then when we were down south and has had a lot more progress in the last 2 years then the 7 he was in school before. He has a lot less stress not having to deal with other students and getting into fights and everything that was going on his last year in school when we were in Portland. He's still a great kid with an awesome personality in my opinion. He listens well for the most part and doesn't give us any major issues. He hasn't done to much in the last 7 months since I last posted other then growing and going to camp. He went to boy scout camp at the begining of the summer and had fun although he tells me he got in trouble alot. I sometimes wonder if they single him out a bit though, he isn't the oldest in his troop but he is the biggest and I've noticed they seem to expect older behavior out of him sometimes as well as him getting in trouble along with Joshua when he is near him by association. I don't know how to talk to them about it though and he is getting frustrated enough he is about ready to quit. He also went to camp with our church youth group. Hopefully I'll get some pics from that one soon and I'll share those since I might get a better picture from that. He did well there and didn't have any problems. I can't believe he is going to be a high schooler this year! I don't feel old enough for that...

Joshua has grown like crazy since we moved here as well just look at the difference in his pictures! He still looks like a little boy here and again this was just before we moved.

and look how much he has changed....



He's doing well with homeschooling also although it was a little rough this year. He did like challenging me when it came to assignments alot but got most things done like he was supposed to. He also went to boy scout camp with Izzak this year which was probably the farthest away from home with us he has ever been. Camp was in Juneau so they had to take an 18 hour ferry ride there and back plus they were gone for a total of 10 days. He did well for the most part. We are still having a lot of issues with him and his behavior though. He is still taking meds for his ADHD although he is off of them for the summer. We changed his meds though this last fall from what he had been on for a few years and that seemed to help things a bit. He also went to childrens camp with the church but not youth camp. He did really well there and I got alot of compliments on how helpful he was. Joshua played baseball again this year and his team did really well. They were the number one team in the Ketchikan league having only lost 2 games this year but they didn't win in the tournament so they ended that in second place. It was really hard on the boys but they did a fantastic job this year regardless.


Next we have McKenzie here is the summer before we left again at age 8..


And now at age 10....


Another with her friend Clarrisa


She is still little but she doesn't look it besides her size. She is growing up and I think she is going to be breaking hearst someday. She already gets boys flirting with her.

She is doing great with home school as well and has had probably had the least momentus year of all the kids so far, which is great for her. One of the reasons I decided to home school her was because she missed so much school before because of getting sick all the time. She has gone the longest in her entire life this year without getting any more then a mild cold. It's been great. She has always spent all winter down with some kind of illness I was happy it was better without her in school. She participated in her first parage this year with the girl scouts but I couldn't get a picture of her because of where she was standing.

Lastly we have the baby of the family Madison at 6 toothless and huge grins. Honestly I miss her being so little....


Madison now at 8 with all her teeth. Isn't she pretty in this picture?


She is growing up so much it makes me a little sad. She still has all the spunk she ever has though. I hope she never grows out of that. She's had a more going on this last 7 months then anyone though. She had her tonsils and adnoids taken out in March. Since she is so stubborn and hates taking liquid medicine she refused to take any pain killers or pretty much anything after the first day. I really fought trying to get her to take them but she is very stubborn. We ended up having to take her to the emergency room for 3 days in row for iv fluids and pain meds. She said she prefered the iv, weird kid. She is also doing great with home school as well and really soaks everything up. She was in her second parade this year with the girl scouts and I was able to get a picture of her...


Like Madison would ever make it difficult to find her anywhere she could get attention....




Kelly is doing well although he may be getting laid off this week from his job here that we moved up with but we are not worried. He already has 4 job offers lined up so no fear there. The only thing is the one he most likely will take will be away from home for 10 days at a time with being home for 4. The choice for not being away would have him working 6 days a week with only one off so and we decided that 4 days straight would be better. We are not absolutely positive on the lay off though so we will have to wait and see how that pans out. I promise to not go so long without posting again and will be back soon.

A bunch of winter pictures

I know I disapeared for awhile. Just haven't had the motivation for blogging lately. Not sure why. Kids are doing great, most of the time.

We have had a lot of snow in the last couple of weeks and I thought I would share some pictures of the kids

Here are the boys shoveling snow. I guess I have proof now that they actually work sometimes.
Of course if little sister is standing near you while shoveling snow it is to much of a temptation apparently not to throw snow at her. Here is Madison after getting a face full of snow. Obviously it didn't bother her any....yeah she's weird.

She decided to try a little snow shoveling herself after that.


Kenzie tried her hand at it a little bit also.


More snow shoveling except at a friends house this time. The snow was high enough you couldn't really see where the porch ended and the yard started but they managed.

After that was time for a little sledding over at the school.

Here is my little purple marshmellow, otherwise known as Maddie....she won't keep a hat on.....



Neither will Kenzie for that matter...


I guess it's better then Joshua who manages to sneak out of the house without a proper jacket....He didn't seem to mind at all though. He did have several layers under his sweatshirt.



Izzak and Joshua with a friend getting ready to go down the hill on the snowboard.

I have more pictures and will try to post more soon. I have several videos I'd like to post also but I'm having trouble getting them to cooperate.

Halloween

Sorry I've been gone so long again. My days like I've said before seem to pass by in a flash lately. I've been reading a book series lately that has really had my attention when not dealing with the kids and the house.

Anyway not much really going on other then the regular daily grind around here.

Of course yesterday was Halloween. We went to trick or trunk at the elementary school near us again. It's the best for trick or treating since the houses are spread out around here and in the woods. The kids had a lot of fun with it though.

McKenzie was a fairy bride as she called it. She wore a bride dress and fairy wings anyway. Of course she was very cute as always. Maddie was a pirate in pink, very cute. The outfit was totally her! They went with a friend here who was also a fairy.


Joshua was a vampire a bit creepy in the night later as we were coming home don't you think?


Madison with her costume. She was loving it and playing it off well. She looks very happy with herself here. Doesn't she?


For anyone who doesn't know what trick or trunk is. Basically instead of going from house to house they go to a parking lot where people park their cars and sometimes decorate them. They hand out candy from their trunks while kids pass by. This year worked out nicely. It was still a little light out when we started because we hadn't set our clocks back yet. For one day at least the heavy winds we've been having all month died down and the temps were comfortable, in the mid 40's. Last year we were wet and in the 30's.

Here is Kenzie in her bride costume. You can't see her wings very well here though. They had balloons because one of the people was passing them out with candy.

Like I said though sorry I've been absent so much. Not really much going on to talk about. Kids are doing great for the most part. I'm having some issues with Joshua and his behavior lately. The kid has decided it's okay to yell at his mother, which is definetly NOT okay with me. We are working on it though.

Berry Picking

A couple of weeks ago we had some nice weather and decided it would be a good chance to go berry picking. We picked blueberries and huckleberries and got about 8 quarts between my friend and I.

Here are the girls picking up in the woods. We could have gone behind our house into the woods to pick berries but we've had a bear around there lately so we decided to leave those to him/her.


The girls did a great job picking as well as the boys although I think all of them ate at least as many as they picked.

Izzak was a little reluctant to picking berries. He thought that it wasn't something boys do. He changed his mind though and decided to help.

Joshua pretty quickly go into it although I think he ate more then he actually kept.

We have frozen them for now but will probably use them to make jelly and probably some blueberry and huckleberry muffins as well. mmmmmm. yummmy.

Also we have a new addition to our family. Meet Wicket Kenzie's new little kitten. He's doing pretty well with the puppies so far. They try to play with him a little but he usually runs from them. I don't think he likes them very much but they think he is a new friend.

I'm not to sure what he thinks of Kenzie dressing him up though.

I couldn't remember if I'd shown any recent pictures of the eagles around here. This set is a couple that live in the trees just over our house. The puppies like to watch them when they are outside.

Beach Explorations

Home schooling is in full swing in our house finally. At the moment for science the kids and I are working with a friend of mine and her daughter learning about the beaches and oceans. Including the animals. About a week ago we were having some nice low minus tides so we drug the kids out early in the morning to check out what we could see in the tide pools.

Here is a photo of all the kids looking down into a tide pool.

Here was a sea anenome. The kids think these are pretty cool. They like to when you touch the tentacles that they pull back towards the body. Sometimes they even spit water!

Here is Madison showing us one of the sea shells she found. We refer to it as a China cap but really it's a Limpet. She likes these little shells.

Here is one of the many purple sea stars we find on the beaches around here.


Here was an interesting crab in one of the lower tidal areas. We more often see smaller purplish crabs that run away. This one was a little bigger and was waving it's arms at us like he wanted to fight.

Kenzie holding one of the more common little crabs in our area.

Kenzie holding something, I can't remember what. She was asking my friend what it was.

Joshua walking on the rocks looking for something intresting.
Here are 3 tiny baby sea stars stuck on a piece of shale rock on the beach. There were tons of them underneath the rocks all over the beach.

I have tons more pictures but couldn't put them all up but we have had fun with this unit so far. The kids especially like the field trip part of it.

Joshua and Kenzie are doing well so far this year with their first year home schooling. Madison and Izzak are back into their mode of doing school every day although the other two kids being home is a little more of a distraction for her so we are working on that. Joshua is doing well at getting most of his daily work done. Getting anything done is better then last year in school when he didn't actually do any work the entire school year.

We are also studying Alaska state history till about the middle of November when we will turn to famous Americans for everyone except Joshua who is studying Ancient Egypt and Greece for a bit after the Alaska unit.

Family Camp

I know I've been even quieter this last week. The reason for that is we were away at Family Camp on the Naha River. Really it's a beautiful place! We had tons of fun and I took over 700 pictures! Of course people kept borrowing my camera as it was apparently designated as the camp camera. People really liked it.

The week started out rainy as we were leaving. Getting to Naha is a little complicated. You have to take a boat for about an hour and a half to get to the other side of the island as there are no roads leading to it. Then a 1/2 mile hike over what they call "the hump" which is a bit of the island that as you can guess is going a little up hill then back down again to get the river. When you get to the river you take a small skiff for about a 1/2 hour to the actual camp site. It rained the whole way there but when we got there the sun popped out and it was gorgeous the entire time.

Here are the kids on the boat ride over. They usually play card games in the galley area of the boat. I spent most of the boat ride on the deck outside. I love the smell of the ocean and being able to see everything as we are going.


We arrived earlier then the rest of the church with another family, my friend Johanna. Some work needed to be done around the place before the rest of the campers arrived and the kids were great at helping out.

Here are the girls behind the little trailer we were using to clear some brush.


Of course during some of the working the girls found some muskegg mud to play in and got covered in mud.

Joshua working. He actually was really good during the camping trip and worked hard.

My niece Aidan was up for 2 weeks while we came up as well so she came up with me Wednesday, her dad came up on Friday after he got off of work. She got her first experiences catching salmon and riding rapids on the Naha.

Here she is tubing with Madison.


A lovely expression from Maddie....

More tubing with Madison

Kenzie coming up to the mess hall. The girls all had their hair braided while we were their along with little braids on the side that I put a bell on the end of. We could here them all running together often with 4 little bells ringing. It was funny.

Kenzie and Clarissa sitting on the edge of one of the skiffs on the little dock at camp.

There were tons of dragonflies around catching the mosquitoes and such that were flying near the river. Kenzies friend Clarissa kept wanting one to land on her, although I think she was a little surprised when it landed on her face right over her eye! She wanted me to get a picture of it for her and was having a lot of fun showing people the pictures afterwards. Personally if it had been me I would have probably had a panic attack or something!!

Here is Madison relaxing in one of the innertubes.


My 8 year old niece Aidan, isn't she a cutie? She was awesome at camp and has been a lot of fun to have around but she has to fly back to Portland on Saturday.


I know certain people here will ask wether or not I jumped and went down the rapids myself and the answer is yes, I did. It was fun. I was actually in the water with the kids alot since it is a river and pretty high this year we had to be pretty close by. The kids always had life jackets on when anywhere near the water.

And of course Kelly working with the boys. They were moving wood and the boys hitched a ride on the back of the trailer to the woodshed.


I have tons more pictures to share and plan to show some more in the next couple of days so I will be back soon.