Our Week

I didn't get a chance to write until now but last Saturday it was "take your wife to work day". Ok not really but I did go to work with Hans and had a great time. It was really cool to see him in action working on his boat and being the tough ol' captain. Well, he didn't have to be tough but I did get to see him pull up along side a huge cruise ship and have the pilot step off onto our boat as we were both going down the narrows. It was very cool to see and we got lots of photos taken of us by the passengers. I guess many a Alaskan cruise patron has my husband and/or his boat as part of their trip picture memories. We also got to go out a little early and fish a bit. The area we were waiting in wasn't too ideal for fishing but I did catch one...another ling cod (yes, that makes 2 of those in a weeks time) but it was still too small. So it went back. Hans caught a quail back- rock fish and we did keep that-- well you have to since the ascent kills them. It was good fish. It was really funny to see how it is on the boat and I can't quite get over the fact that they get to buy whatever groceries they want on the companies account at the store. Granted they have a very small fridge and only a hot plate, no micro at this time so the choices are limited. Lots of sandwich fixins and snacks but still... who knew? Hans tells me its all very much part of boat work. We did spend a lot of time waiting so I can see how Hans would get a little bored but it was a really nice day out and you can't beat the scenery. I had a really great time just relaxing out on the deck and enjoying the sunshine. We saw porpoises (not really sure how to spell that but they look similar to dolphins) seals of course and some eagles. I had an unfortunate event though since I brought along my camera and it is dead somehow. Switched out the batteries and everything just looks like it got dropped somehow but I don't remember doing that... it's too bad not only that I didn't get to capture that day but I liked my camera. We still have Hans' and I am sure we will get another smaller one sometime. For now you all will have to take my word for it that the day was quite an experience. Next time I go--the working camera will definitely be with me.

Butterflies & More

The Girlz

How I spend my days

Due to popular demand... I finally got my hands on some photos of the girls that I take care of. I could have had pictures sooner but I didn't think to ask their parents for copies (good thinking I know. Who ever heard of parents taking pics of their kids?) Anyway, I took some highlights of what Sarah and Jessie had and Hans and I got a few more of our own. They are way cute right?!? So in case you forgot or don't know Maya is going to be 3 in December so I guess if I did my math right she is almost 2 1/2. I know if I was a parent I guess I would know precisely how many weeks she is but that knowledge is lost on me at this time. Sophie is going to be the big numero uno in August so she is just over 9 months.
The butterfly pictures turned out pretty good. We watched them from caterpillar to butterfly and let them go "fly free" to be with the flowers in their new home. It was fascinating and I liked it so well I got another set to do with the Cub Scout boys. Well, truthfully the first set was supposed to be for them but it didn't work out so Maya got to watch these ones. PS... thanks Mom for sending it up!
I also found out that taking photos of kids is not all its cracked up to be. I find it amazing that parents get the pictures they do. I had a rough time getting many to turn out especially with both of them. Hats off to anyone who has fine-tuned this skill and I would love to get pointers since I have many years of picture taking ahead of me.
Maya is really into Cars (the movie and anything to do with it), her bears, coloring, watching her movies,reading stories (well having them read to her) but she memorizes like crazy and "reads" the books all the time. We try to hit story time every week at the library and get a new stack of books to read for the week-- I try to get ones that go with our learning poster theme but it is Ketchikan and not all books are available. I will say that they do have quite a good set up for the Children's library even though we are such a small island. The kids do enjoy going there and it is a good resource.
Maya of course loves to play kitchen, have picnics, go for walks and play group. She can talk a mile a minute and you can almost see her little brain taking in everything around her. It's fun to see her personality develop even more. She makes me laugh all day long with the things she comes up with. The cutest thing I can think of she did recently was one day when I had a killer migraine I was laying on the floor with a pillow just resting for a minute and she was coloring and just watching me and asked if I had an owie (how do you spell that?). I said yes, my head was hurting so she said she was going to "fix" me. She went looking for her doctor kit and couldn't find it but came back and kissed my eye since that where I was rubbing it and said, "Does that make it feel better?" I said almost and so she kissed it again and said, "Now is it better?" I didn't have the heart to tell her it still hurt so I said it felt much better. Kids with their innocence are so funny... she was helping me the way we help her, by kissing it better. So funny. Its funny to listen to her talk about what has happened in her life the last little while. All time is either yesterday or tomorrow no matter when it is. She is mastering the potty business (much to my happiness) and is becoming a big girl. As I always tell her when she tells me how big she is.. getting bigger all the time Maya.
Sophie is a character and is really starting to test everything out. She smiles every time she wakes up in her crib and many other times all day long. She puts her arms up in the air for some reason but recently we have been giving her high fives--which she finds super hilarious. She enjoys when we clap hands or have her do it but doesn't yet do it herself although she can clap her feet together.. no joke, which in my book ranks up there real high. She likes to hear her own voice ie she is really into screaming.. ha ha. no really. I am hoping we can find a remedy for that sooner than later. She is eating more and more foods all the time and is getting much better with her coordination with feeding herself Cheerios and such. She does this really funny clicking noise with her mouth and a noise that I can only describe as sounding along the lines of a dolphin. She likes to ride in the car, go for walks, read books, be sang to and generally get into anything Maya is doing (which really ticks Maya off most of the time) I say welcome to having a little sister Maya. They will work it out eventually I am sure, there is always a pecking order right? She does this army crawl scoot sort of thing right now but is working really hard at full out crawling. I had been waiting for her to start moving around and now I am not sure I like it. She is starting to find everything to get into and gets herself hurt by slamming her head into things like the table legs and cries. I guess we will all get the hang of it all.
My favorite is when she giggles when I tickle her or kiss on her neck or blow on her tummy. You can tell inside she wants to communicate with us more but her verbal skills are just not allowing for it... could account for most of the screaming.
Well, I guess that is it for now. I will keep you posted as we get more photos and tell you what is new with us since this is what I do now with the majority of my day.
So here you go folks. Enjoy the slide show. We have a lot of fun together and on the not-so-fun times we work through it and there is always tomorrow to try again. Plus, I am getting lots of practice for my own bunch when they get here.

To celebrate the day of my birth--

Yes... today is my birthday and we both had the day off. Hooray! Hans made me breakfast and I opened presents this morning and got my very own fishing pole. It was pretty amazing. I really wanted to go fishing and I was hoping that today would be a nice day and it turned from rain to sunshine! We even got a bit sunburned (it probably didn't help that we anchored in a cove and took a bit of a nap in the boat)
We had a great time! I caught a ling cod first that we put back since it was little and then I caught 3 rock fish (two of which we kept) Hans caught one as well... He wouldn't have been so behind but he was nice enough to drive the boat around so that my line would stay straight. So I am a legal beagle resident fisher. I bought it today and felt so proper. We saw a bunch of seals and some sea lions too. We didn't get anything this time in the crab pot but live and learn... we will get some one day. So much beautiful country to see and the water was nice and clear.. blue skies and not too many people out where we were. Just us and the Alaskan wilderness. We brought home the fish fillets to cook up for dinner but it is too late and Hans has to be up at 2am for work so we will keep them for tomorrow. I do get to have a requested dessert of warm cookie from the oven with ice cream on top.... YUM! Thanks to everyone who remembered my birthday and sent me gifts. I really appreciate it. It has been one great day!

Cub Scout Highlights

Passing the time

I was going to start on Alaska pictures and details...and I still intend to but first a little about what we do. We work of course which I have already covered and we try to find time to play since we have so many things to do here. We are both looking forward to doing more fishing, boating and maybe if we can squeeze it in somewhere this summer...camping?
A big part of our lives right now is Cub Scouts. I am a Den Leader and Hans is the Cub Master for our ward. It keeps me pretty busy and when we got called last summer to Cub Scouts I could not quite believe it. I did not know the first thing about it and Hans had long since forgotten what he had done there. We accepted and as I read more about the program and learned more about the requirements and got to know the boys it became easier and got really fun. We play games, decode secret messages, build toolboxes, learn knots, sing, do magic tricks and made a papier mache dragon in February for our Blue & Gold banquet. The boys danced thru the crowd with the dragon head and body (body was sewn by someone in our ward and it turned out great!) We had alot of fun... buffet-style Asian food, lanterns, party favors and a homemade dragon cake to top the night off. I think a good time was had by all.
Right now we are working on science experiments and observing insects. My Mom sent us up a butterfly pavilion and ant habitat so we could watch caterpillars change into butterflies and the ants make neat tunnels. We hope to have more fieldtrips coming up soon and we have lots more to learn.

Exciting news... ! We will be getting another Cub Scout in June when our nephew Hunter moves up with the rest of the family. We are very excited to have Yolaunda and the kids coming up to our neck of the woods. It will be a really different island with so much family around but it will be lots of fun.

Early Day

So we have both been pretty sick the last week and a half and just now are finally getting over it. Hans is doing much better but I am still coughing and losing my voice during the day. I was pretty lucky though, it never got too bad that I couldn't handle it...Good thing, since we don't have insurance for me right now until Hans' 90 days are up. We have been really blessed to have things fall into place for us up here. It seems like just when I don't know how we will make it over the next hill...boom! The answer just pops up and becomes clear. I am much happier since I quit my job in the office setting and tend kids instead. We have so much fun going to play groups, story time, play dates and learning, reading, coloring, doing puzzles, going for walks. All of you mothers (or fathers) out there don't need me to tell you what you do all day. I guess I am just ready to be with kids. We are looking forward to having a bunch of our own--hopefully soon... and no, I don't have anything to announce.
So back to my original title - Early Day, it is still before noon and I am off for the day! I was actually off before 10 this morning which means I only worked about an hour and a half. Lucky me. That is the good part of only being the daytime caregiver since I get to go home early... Mom's have the full-time around the clock job. The girls got sick and so did their mom, so she went into work just long enough to gather her stuff and reschedule some things. So that means I got to come home early and rest myself. I think it should help me kick the last of this cold or whatever it is. I thought I would write a bit in here first though.
I have a few more pictures to post of our beginning and then I will start with the Alaska pictures since everyone has questions on how it is up here. I will give you a little sneak peek