Visiting Friends and Blueberries

We had some good friends from Seattle come and visit in the middle of August and we were fortunate to have several breaks in the weather. We were also fortunate that they were enthusiastic picture takers. Here is the family on the cruise boat on Portage lake with the glacier in the back ground.

We took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez and were blessed with sunny skies, sea lions, humpback whales, and even Orcas that were surfing the wake of the ferry. Valdez didn't disappoint either with it's wall to wall pink salmon running in a local stream. Surprise, surprise we caught a few of these.

On the way over Thompson Pass we pulled off the side of the road and did some scenic blueberry picking. Here are Dunes and Ramona with their daughter doing some serious picking and eating.

The weather did not hold for the entire trip and our one night of actual tent camping ended up being pretty wet. Luckily there was a picnic shelter for some dry cooking and eating. Here are the 3 kiddos in their ducky out fits.

We also spent some time hanging out at the yurt. Here is Ramona engineering the baby train.

It's my second favorite time of year, berry picking season. (ski season being the first) Lots of locals have been complaining about the lack of blueberries around this year, but you just have to know where to go.

Dipnetting and Fairbanks

July in Alaska means fish. This Summer, we got our act together and were able to participate in an Alaska resident only fishery, dip netting. You basically stand in belly deep in a river emptying out into the sea with a really large net hoping fish will swim into. Here I am catching the best fish in the sea.


Literally thousands of Alaskans show up at the mouth of the Kenai river for the return of the salmon. We were lucky enough to be there during a 30 year record for the number of fish to return in one day, 230,000, and have excellent weather. If you click on this next photo you can see all the people lined up on the opposite shore. You are literally shoulder to shoulder with the other people fishing.

We caught 25 fish in 2 hours, but netting the fish is just the beginning of the work. Next you have to process them. Here are Nicki and Kaya at their first ever fish cleaning session.

Nicki has the month of August off and we have been taking advantage of it by getting out and traveling. Kaya is already brushing up on her backpacking skills.

We took a trip to Fairbanks to the Tananna Valley fair. Leo has really gotten into roller coaster rides, but we got him to tone it down a bit and ride the ponies.

The raspberries are ripe and abundant. Leo is showing Kaya the ropes on berry picking.

On the way back we were caught in a freak snow storm near Denali park. Leo was very excited to throw the first snow balls of the year.

hiking and dog houses

Now that most of the snow is out of the mountains the hiking season has begun. Leo has impressed us all with how much more motivated he is to go long distances than he was last year. Here Leo is at the highest point of his second annual father son Mt Baldy hike. Required brownie in hand.

Nicki's parents were in town for awhile and we hiked with them for a little ways on their traverse of crow pass. Here's Kaya enjoying lunch at the pass.

Leo doing the same.

After they finished their hike, Nicki's parents watched the kids and let Nicki and I do the same traverse. Here is Nicki on our first backpacking trip since moving to Alaska.

Here I am testing how cold the water is.

Leo found this eagle feather on a recent hike. Sweet find, but there were a few tears shed about not being able to take it home.

Ranger is slowly making his transition to being an outdoor dog. We made a dog house for him this past weekend and he seems to be taking to it. Good Boy.

Camping, Catan, and Siblings

More wildlife sightings. This time from the safety of the yurt. You can barely see Leo in the front doing a moose dance.

Nicki just went on a well deserved 4 day sea kayaking trip. Here she is, on the left, lounging by a block of ice with a couple of fellow paddlers (Barb and Jenny).

While she was out camping on her trip, I took the kids out on our first camping trip of the year with our good friends the Taygans. Here is Kaya hanging out by the fire with Will and Lucile.

A sunny May made for a good time on an Eagle River gravel bar.

As Kaya gets more mobile, (she is walking now) she and Leo are finding more and more things to do together. I don't usually know exactly what they are doing but here they are in Kaya's toy box.

Two other "stay at home" dads (Roger and Bill) and I hiked our first mountain of the year, Harp.

We recently made some improvements to the yurt puzzle by making the windows and skylight yellow for an illuminated look and trying out a sunset sky.

And finally, as a diversion from puzzle making, I made this wooden Settlers of Catan board. The border pieces snap together with magnets embedded into the wood.

Hopefully I'll get to use it in the next day or so.

Happy June everyone.

Wildlife at the Yurt

There has been a furry flurry of activity here at the yurt recently.
Example #1:

Example #2:

Oh, and there's a moose back there somewhere. We've seen about a moose a day from the yurt for the past week.
Example #3:





This guy was eating grass on the driveway for about 30 minutes.

Easter and Danger Boy

Happy Easter and May Day (past), Cinco de Mayo (present) and Mother's Day (future).
We had a fun Easter with multiple Easter egg hunts. Here is Nicki with our baby bunnies.

As Leo gets older it becomes more and more difficult to keep him occupied and out of mischief. Now that the weather is warmer getting him outside as much as possible is a necessity. Here are 2 of my most recent projects to burn off some of that kid's energy.

April Stuff

With the return of the sun comes the end of the snow. Except for a few patches, it has entirely left the property. We are still getting out to ski up high, but dog sledding is done for the year. Once the sunset clears the ridge on the other side of the valley, our daily direct sunlight dramatically increases. Right now it is at about 12 hours a day, 9 to 9. Here is a photo of the sunset just barely clearing that ridge.

Kaya has hair long enough to pull into pig tails. It doesn't look that good when I do it.

Leo is practicing being a stay at home dad.

And, is getting pretty good at riding a bike, the required stick still in tow.

Warmer weather means rainy hikes.

Some day I'll convince Leo that the 2 year old duck poncho is too small for him.