Settling In

Welcome to our island home. While the town of Kodiak is turning greener everyday the mountains surrounding the town are still very white with snow. Barometer mountain is almost halfway green so we should have almost 4more months of summer before it starts snowing, at least that's what I've been told.

So catching up from crab fest which was a lot of fun and had very large delicious crabs.

We haven't had very many sunny days since then maybe one or two a week. At crab fest we met some very nice missionaries, that we actually spent most of the weekend with. It was a little different being on the receiving end of a mission trip. Although, it was a little funny when the first guy approached us and started his "do remember the day you excepted Jesus Christ into your lives," we cut him a little short when we both answered yes. He moved on to the next group of people however one of his team members continued to talk with us. She had kids back home that she was missing so she enjoyed the girls for a few minutes. We were then invited to their host church for Sunday service and a cook out followed by a "no talent talent show". We've been enjoying the church ever since. So on to family life. . .

We have all continued to adjust to the area and changes in settings. S has enjoyed the chances to fish since being on nights. He even caught his first salmon. A red that was delicious!! A couple of days after catching it however they closed his favorite fishing river so that the salmon in that river could repopulate this year. So he hasn't really been able to fish since then so he has been practicing his guitar instead. He's hoping to start the drums as well. The church is in need of some instrument players as their worship band has all recently been transferred.

I can't believe how much the girls have changed in just the month and a half they have been here. A is moving into 3T (some 4t) clothes and B is almost in 18mo clothes. A has also become little miss independent. She wants to do it herself for everything, to include potting, getting her own snack and drinks, or coloring. You name it she wants to do it herself!

She discovered that frozen blueberries make a wonderful snack. It started with a "boo-boo" that needed ice, as ALL boo-boo's do now. Only instead of getting ice she grabbed a bag of frozen blueberries. While putting them back a few fell out and all of sudden she has a new favorite snack. For several days I couldn't keep her out of them. It only took once for her to see me put some in a bowl for her and from then on she would help herself to a bowl of blueberries at snack time. She is even nice enough to share these wonderful snacks with her sister, who then leaves blue hand prints everywhere.
She's turning into such a little "mommy". From taking care of her baby dolls to caring for B and now that S is on nights she makes sure to tuck him in when he gets in in the mornings to include hugs and kisses on the head so he can go "night night". She insists on helping me sweep and unload the dish washer. Shes even pretty good at it. She takes things out of the dishwasher hands them to me and I put them way. It works pretty well most days. At meals and snack she insists on setting the table and getting baby's food. In this instance she got baby's food before it was ready. B didn't mind getting all the cookies instead of just a few.

B has also become more independent now that she is walking much better. I think the only reason she decided to start walking was because crawling was hurting her knees. She and A were playing chase in the house earlier and after crawling on the linoleum in the entryway she came walking back to me crying.

The two of them are also playing together much better and will even sit and played NICELY for 15-30mins some days. They really enjoy B's basketball and A's doll house.

The two of them have also finally settled into their new home and surroundings. When we first got here A was a nightmare come nap time and bedtime, she refused to stay in bed. She didn't want to go to sleep unless one of us was in the room with her. If we left the room she would get in bed with B and snuggle in. It would take us 2-3 hours to get her settled down enough to go to sleep. The past almost 2 weeks have been much better. She is finally staying in bed even if she doesn't go to sleep she lays there nicely or plays quietly with stormy.

I'm also settling in as well. I'm hoping to start an in-home child care center that will provide a little more income and help me to become more structured. So this weekend we have the summer solstice, which will be the longest day on the island. The recreation department is having a family day tomorrow to celebrate. Currently the sun isn't really setting it simply dips below the horizon travels back to the east then rises again. So we should have a very fun weekend that will hopefully also be beautiful.

Late update and New CARPET!!!

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted. Things have been a little busy combined with more computer issues that we have hopefully gotten worked out!! So since Crab Fest the other week we have been having a blast. S was moved to nights, so he is now working from midnight to 8 in the morning. It is actually working out a lot better than I had originally thought. We get to have breakfast with him when he gets home and winds down from work then he heads to bed till around 4. Since this is the time that he would normally get home the girls and I haven't really seen a difference during the day. So we have normal after noons then sometimes he takes a nap with me when I head to bed or he takes a couple of hours to himself before work.
One of those nights when he just wasn't that tired he headed to the river for a little fishing. So we have our first catch of the season. A nice red salmon maybe somewhere between 5 and 8lbs, I'm not a good judge of fish, but he would definitely be a keeper from a Ga pond!! Although, any sized Alaskan salmon caught in Ga would probably be a keeper no matter the size.
Since moving into our new home we have been dealing with a few issues, most of which have been resolved this week. Since we are in base housing they have an office we report to with any house issues and I'm pretty sure they are tired of hearing from us. My theory is that the house was turned around and we moved in so quickly that not everything was finished as well as if they had a month to get the stuff done. Most of it has been minor issues such as the front door not wanting to stay shut and the back door not not wanting to open then not wanting to close when it is open. The biggest issue however has been the smell of the house.
We assumed when we moved in that it was because the house had been shut up for a couple of weeks and just needed to air out. I was under the impression that the houses received new carpet when the previous tenants moved out, that is incorrect!!! We also learned from our neighbor that the previous tenants had several more pets than what was reported to the housing office. So we decided to call and see what could be done. Originally it was decided to simply steam clean the carpet and see if that would get rid of the smell. However, before the work order could get drawn up S decided to take a closer look with a black light. It is amazing what a black light will show!!! However what is even more amazing to me is that people willingly live in that kind of filth and are then lazy enough to not even attempt to clean it for the next tenants! Needless to say we refused to place B on the carpet in the their room which became obvious was the dogs room before. Also, after speaking with the housing office again we received a call within 48hours that the carpet would be replaced the following day.
I felt so bad for the moving and carpet workers that came in. It is not common to change carpet after tenants have moved in so a separate work order had to be issued to provide movers to move our stuff around the carpet workers. They were all amazing and actually finished the entire house by the time the girls got up from their nap at the neighbors. We also got an even better idea of how filthy the carpet was when the entire crew came and asks to wash theirs after pulling the carpet in our bedroom. The boss then came to tell me that the carpet would have to wait in the closet until another worker could get to the house with a special paint to put on the wood flooring to kill anything left on the floor. This was a precaution to make sure the smell didn't come back and also because there was "black and green stuff" growing on the carpet pad! Even with the new carpet and the "kills paint" on the wood under it there is a slight odor in our closet that I'm hoping will go away as I wash all the clothes in there. If it doesn't go away the boss of the carpet crew doesn't have any other options for me other than to move houses.
While S and I have been having pet withdrawal here lately, me more so than him. This has definitely helped us put that behind us.
With that task behind us now we have moved on to potty training. A is doing an amazing job and while this is only day 2, she has only had 2 accidents today one of which was after she went to bed. I don't think bed wetting should count against her on her second day. I'm a little concerned on how training her to not wet the bed is going to go. So far we have continued to keep her big girl panties and see if she will just start waking up and learning to hold it when she wakes up until she gets to the bathroom. I'm going to try to give her a week to see improvements, as I really don't want to go down the pull ups route. Any ideas on potty training at night and naps, I'll take all the help I can get.

Crab Fest!!

So the biggest festival to come to the island is Finally HERE!!! Crab Fest began yesterday and it was a beautiful day to go to the fair. While it doesn't compare to the national fair in Ga it was still a lot of fun. The festival will continue for several days with different activities everyday. Saturday will have a parade and cook off with Sunday having the memorial for all the fishermen lost last year. There will also be races for kids, survivor suit swim across the bay and a Coast Guard search and rescue show. The next few days promise lots of activities, hopefully the weather will cooperate and be beautiful. However, I've been told it has rained the last 3years at the festival and that a rainy festival means it will be a pretty year so I think everyone else is hoping it rains. The first day of the festival however started out great with blue skies and almost 60 degrees. Around dinner time some clouds rolled in but it never rained. We took the opportunity to let A enjoy her first fair.

She got in her first fishing trip and even caught 2 fish! and a prize!

A somewhat deformed ducky that she absolutely loved. She tried to trade with several other game operators but she couldn't get any takers. Next she got her first fair rides.


The train was the best starter ride. She was thrilled.




Then we went to the fun house with daddy. I wasn't sure we were going to get her out of there.

The rolling entrances was slow enough she actually was able to walk it.

At one point she reminded me of Papa in the gerbil wheel at Chuck-e-Cheese in Vegas.

This was her "I'm Innocent I tell ya" impersonation.

These three couldn't figure out that the spinning disk on the floor wouldn't hold all of them. So one or two of them would be spinning the third would get on, it would stop they would all get off, so it would start spinning and they would crack up!!

Then on to the shifting floor. They was too funny for words! She giggled all the way across it.

Finally she was ready for the really big swing!!

It took a minute to warm up to it but as long as daddy held on to she was having blast. By the end I wasn't sure she would get off.

So that was our first day at the fair. We are looking forward to Saturdays event as well hopefully we will have another beautiful day.

Computer Fix

Yay!! I have the desktop back. We still aren't sure what happened. Apparently we had a surge protector on the outlet that the computer was plugged into. So the guy that fixed it doesn't think it was the power outage that made it fritz. The only thing they could find wrong with it was the hard drive had lost its letter. So when the computer went to open the hard drive it didn't know where it was going. S described it as the Boot Manager went down the hall to get the files from the hard drive and couldn't find it. So it then freaked out and dumped everything. Thankfully, we were able to copy the pictures off the hard drive. However, it copied everything!! So we have about 60,000 pictures to sort through. Everything that was on the computer and that was ever emailed to us is on there. So all of those cute forwards with all the pretty scenery and animals that people send around we have to sort those out. As well as some websites that downloaded pictures . It's insane the things that got stored on there. But at least we have some wedding and baby pictures. We did lose the video however; S thinks the originals may still be on the camera and phones though so we will see. I wish I had the camera at the moment as A is has put my pants on and is trying to figure out how to button and tie them they are up to her arm pits and the legs are all bunched up so her toes stick out the end of them. Anyways, back to the computer. We are still trying to get it set up again but hopefully I will be back to blogging and posting pictures regularly. Now she has decided to wear "daddy's sock" and shoes. I really need the camera!!!

Happy Late Mother's Day

I hope all the wonderful mothers out there had a great day. We had a very relaxed one. After church S took me to the top of Pillar mountain where we had a picnic lunch overlooking the water. It was gorgeous. We had then planned to come home and get some things done around the house, however after putting the girls down I fell asleep as well. (Oops) Did I mention it was a relaxed day. While I was a sleep we apparently lost power for a little while and when it came back on it fried our computer. After fighting with it most of the afternoon we are thinking we may have to get a new one. I'm currently on our laptop. If anyone has any ideas on how to recover a fried computer I'll try them as all of our first three years are on it including all of A's and B's baby pictures and videos. The two errors we keep getting are that the "boot manager is missing" and the "kernal is corrupt or missing"?? Anyways hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's day.

Family Outing

Friday morning showed promise of a beautiful day. We woke up to a clear sky and almost 45deg. weather with little wind, so it was cool but comfortable. Since Thursday had started ugly and then turned clear and we had already seen how quickly the weather could change we decided to take the morning off from unpacking and go explore a local fort. Fort Abercrombie was an army based used during WWII. It is currently opened to the public to explore trails, camp and see old bunkers used during the war.

The trail was a little rugged however with B on daddy's back and puppy on A's, it's her new baby, we hit the trail. Those three were almost as much fun to watch as the scenery! The trail led us around Lake Gertrude to a small strip of land that separates the lake from the ocean.

We wandered through the woods, which are much different than back home. The trees were covered in moss (I think it was moss anyways), and aren't anything like Ga. pines. The limbs looked like ladders going all the way around and up the tree. They were too tempting not to climb on or at least over a fallen one.

We also went over brooks that flowed into the lake. I'm assuming they are formed by snow run off from the mountains. Wherever they come from they were cold but still wonderful to look at.

The trail had makeshift bridges built over them made from 2x4's it looked like, very high tech! The little bridges really added to the charm of the trial.

I was a little amazed at how well A did on this little hike. Some parts were quite steep however after daddy showed her how to run down them like they were a roller-coaster, with her hands up and squealing, she loved it!

The view from the tallest part was amazing it over looked both the lake and the ocean. With the day being so clear we were able to see more of Kodiak Island as well as some outlaying islands.

By the time we reached the ocean A was getting a little tired of walking so daddy turned into a pack horse and carried both his girls. We found a carrier over the weekend that we can put A in when we do more hiking. However, I don't think the carrier will compare to being on daddy's shoulders, the view is much better up there I'm sure. B also didn't seem to mind A being up which surprised me. I think she enjoyed the company.

We reached the beach around lunch time and took a small break before hiking the other half of the lake. A enjoyed playing on the beach and saving the shells that had washed up. We had made a short trip to the beach close the the house the day before. While we were there we found a hermit crab and a muscle of some sort that had been washed up during the tide. After examining them and saying "hi", A put them back in their home, the water. So she was very concerned to see all the sea life stuck to the rocks at the beach at Fort Abercrombie. After plucking a clam or something off the rock I convinced her that she didn't need to put them ALL back in the water they would be okay until the tide came back in.

Leaving the beach it was just a short walk to the WWII bunkers. While you can't go into most of them and some are collapsed, they were still very interesting. Some hiking trails still have trenches from the war as well, we didn't see any on this hike though.

After leaving the bunkers we came across a water fountain that you don't see very often. The camping at the fort is all primitive with only outhouses, no running water facilities. I wasn't expecting the water fountains to also be so primitive. S tried to get some water out of it but didn't have any luck, it was a little difficult to pump with the girls on his back and A trying to help from his shoulders. From the water on the ground we assumed that it did work we just could get the water up.

Finishing the hike back at the car we had a picknick of PB&J sandwiches then headed home for the girls naps and to finish up unpacking. It was a wonderful family outing and led into a beautiful weekend. The outing gave us the perfect break to keep us motivated to finish the house so we can go outside and play more. We should be coming into the prettiest part of the year for the island so we should be getting several more days like Friday to enjoy.

HOME!!!

This week started off with the idea that it would be somewhat relaxed while we looked for housing. As many of you know we were originally told by the Coast Guard housing department that there was a waiting list of 6months to a year for base housing. Due to the waiting list once we checked in to the base we would need to get approval to live on the economy which means to rent/buy a house in the community. Without the approval we would be put on the waiting list after arriving and would need to stay in a hotel or temporary rental until housing came available on base. With that in mind we figured on Monday we would call let housing know we were in town and get things started on the approval while we house hunted. This meant a semi-relaxed week of looking at houses while S used up the rest of his leave time. However, after talking with the housing department we were informed that several houses had come available on base and we could be in a house that very afternoon if we wanted one. They allowed us an "unofficial" look at the houses that were available so that we could decide before S reported in if we wanted one or not. We decided to go with the a house located on Lake Louise. This is the neighborhood S lived in the last time he was here he really like the area and I have been told that it is one of the best neighborhoods still. So after completing all the required paperwork we had a house by late Monday night. Because we got in a house so fast S was told he wouldn't be getting the normal 10days off to house hunt and set up house, he was only given this week. Tuesday morning was spent doing more paperwork and packing up the hotel room we had been in for the weekend then we hit the ground running to get the uhual unpacked. We were moving into a 3story duplex style home with an amazing view of the lake and mountains.

While I like the house I do have some issues with the layout, which I think would happen with any home that you don't personally design. We had several issues just trying to get the uhual unloaded on Tuesday, between the rain/snow, the girls wanting to play on the stairs and the 3sets of stairs we had to carry the furniture up. When it is only the 2 of you trying to carry bedroom sets up the stairs in the rain and keep the babies in the house, those 2 small sets of stairs count as 2 separate sets, they seemed a lot taller while we were moving things as well! Needless to say I was exhausted by the time we laid down Tuesday night. Our efforts did pay off however as we had the master bedroom and the girls rooms completely set up, so no one had to sleep on the floor.

Our room has one of the best views in the house. The house is situated just right to look between the 2houses in front of us so we have a great view of Lake Louise. Rising behind the lake is Barometer Mountain. I have been told you can tell the seasons from the mountain. During the winter it should be completely white, as it is now it is almost summer by the end of summer it should be green all the way to the top, so we are half way there.

The girls room was a little smaller than we were expecting however, they are small so it won't really matter. Its kind of funny I think their room in the trailer was bigger than this room. This room does have a better view however. Their room overlooks the back yard with a small hill and woods. I've heard there is a bear trail that follows the top of the hill so they may be able to watch bear walk behind the house this summer. Don't worry they are on the third floor, they can see the bear but the bear can't see them.

We also have a nice sized fenced in back yard, which neither of us were expecting. The yard makes me want to have animals again. Everyone around us has a dog! I think a few are even community dogs. Saturday while I was working on unpacked some boxes in the girls room A starts getting excited and saying "doggy, mommy, doggy!!!!", I turned around and sure enough one of the neighbors dogs had wandered into the garage where S was working and come all the way up to the girls bedroom. He was a very sweet lab puppy that laid down in the doorway and looked at me like "I can't get out, I know I'm not suppose to be in here, but I just can't find the door." I found it quite funny, his owner seemed a little embarrassed when I returned him. But I digress. . .

Unloading Tuesday was a little stressful with the girls running loose. We finally got enough unloaded to build them a "play pen" in the living room. While I helped S and one of neighbors unload some heavy items. Fortunately, we also got to meet the couple that we share a wall with. They were very nice and offered to watch the girls for us on Wednesday so we could finish unloading. He is on a cutter and will most likely be gone quite a bit so she stays home with their twin girls. The girls are just a few months older than A so they played wonderfully together. We also found out that there aren't really anymore little girls on our side of the neighborhood. The only families she had met all had little boys or their girls were much older than our kids. So we are both a little excited to have such good playmates for the kids. With the girls playing next door we were able to get the rest of the uhual unloaded and get it returned which also saved us on daily rental. The rest of the week has been spent organizing and unpacking.

The girls have had a blast playing with broken down boxes and were even enjoying their time in their "play pen". Thursday and Friday were a little more relaxed as we unpacked and made time for a few outings whenever the sun would decide to come out. We also learned Thursday that we have been roaming since leaving Washington and had racked up quite a phone bill. S had contacted Verizon before leaving Fl to make sure that we would be covered since "all Verizon plans are nationwide and include Canada". However, the representative he spoke with did not realize that we are on an Alltel plan that was switched to Verizon when the company was bought, therefore nationwide and Canada are not included. Every time we call, text, check our messages, get online, anything we were being charged at least double. Therefore, we spent Thursday and Friday with no phone and no Internet. Friday afternoon we had our new house phone connected and by Saturday we were pretty much done unpacking. I still have a few boxes of books and scrap booking supplies, that I need a table and bookshelf for, however with moving yard sells coming up I'm sure to find something pretty soon. My goal was to have all the boxes unpacked and put away in less than 2weeks. Since I was only able to find bookshelves at the yard sell this Saturday I may have to push that goal back a little until I find a table to do scrap booking on. Today was going to be our first real family relaxed day since all the moving and unpacking began. However, this morning as I was putting my shoes on for church S walked in complaining of pain on his right side. Before I could turn around good the neighbors were watching the girls and we were headed to the hospital with concerns that he may have appendicitis. Come to find out it was a small kidney stone most likely due to mild dehydration and stress. We were back home before the girls got up from their nap and he is doing much better! We had thought he would get next week off to pass the stone however he feels like it has already passed so I would be surprised if they give him tomorrow off. Next week we should be back to ops-normal, well normal enough for our first real week in our new home!