17 gallons of paint on the wall..

Here's what we've been up to the last while:

• Painted every wall and ceiling in our new house (yes, 17 gallons, pictures later). John and his Dad did a bunch of projects (redoing dryer duct, fixing some plumbing, etc)
• Moved and got almost done unpacking
• Flew to Washington, drove to Utah for Christmas with my family
• I got sick (following some of my siblings)
• Drove to Mesa, Arizona for Dustin (John's bro) and Cortney's wedding *wonderful* cutest couple ever!
• Lexi, Kaytlin, and John got sick the night before and I spent the night up with the bucket catching all the puke - I got really good at that! We were staying at my sweet cousin Melissa's house and she helped me clean up and do laundry and was so nice about it all.
• Had to miss the reception since Kaytlin was too sick (John and Lexi went) and we stayed in Tucson for the night (thanks to John's parents for the hotel room)
• Everyone felt better so we went to Olive Garden and ran into my Aunt Jeanine and my cousin Bryson who ate with us.
• Took the girls to the Phoenix Zoo (we got there an hour before they closed - oops - but had great fun anyway)
• Spent some time with my cousin and her family then drove back to Utah through the night
• Now a week with my family! Hope you all have a Happy New Year! :)

A home!!!

As of today we are homeowners! Woohoo! For a town like this, we got a good deal and a great house! We are so excited to have a permanent address and a place to make home.

Today we started painting. We picked a subtle yellow to bring some sunshine to this rainy Alaskan town. We have a couple of little projects to do but nothing too difficult. We're hoping to move in next week, thanks in advance to John's family for helping paint and with other projects, and everyone who's helping to watch our kids while we work on it! Yay!

Childhood Comforts

I was tucking Kaytlin in bed tonight and it made me thing about the odd things she sleeps with. Her favorite baby doll and a flowered jacket. She loves this jacket of hers. Lexi has to sleep with her baby doll and at least 3 books. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even open them but just feels better about going to sleep with them.
I remember a glow-worm thing I used to sleep with when I was really young. My dad would tuck us all in bed every night (even as teenagers) and do a bedbug/Japanese chant with us. What things helped you/your kids sleep?

Costumes and updates

We are living in our employee housing while we are getting ready to buy a house. The goal is to close before December so we can get that tax credit! We'll see what happens.

Last week we got rid of Kaytlin's binkies; she helped us cut them and throw them away. The picture is so sad, she would hold the cut-off binkie and look so confused/gypped. Now every time she wants one she'll remember they're gone and ask for chapstick instead.

Here are some pictures from tonight. Lexi's been dying to go to a Halloween party so she could "be a cheerleader like Jenny and Amanda." I dressed the girls up earlier so they could just have fun in the costumes. Kaytlin liked putting her headband on and off while Lexi ran around the apartment cheering, "Go! Go! Go Halloween!" and tried doing toe-touches. She was super excited that I let her wear some makeup to the party tonight. What a girl!
PS- Kaytlin is a butterfly princess (or something like that)

PFD Sale

Alaska Airline tickets are on sale until the end of this month. Best prices you'll find all year.

Visitors

We've been lucky and have been able to family here. Marisha was here for a week and then TC's family came up for a week too. We went fishing, hiking, toured totem parks, creek street, out to eat, watched movies (and the office), and of course played lots of games. We were so glad they could stay with us!

Fishing can be messing. And I'm not sure what the story is of this totem pole...

Lexi and Savanna found a special place to play (behind a recliner with a bunch of blankets and bean bags. It was pretty cute to see them play together.

Savanna, TC, and Ashley at Totem Bight

We love family!

Another whale picture

I found this on the newspaper website, photo by Tom Miller. By the way this stuff all happened near our friends' resort, Clover Pass.

Bubble feeding whales

This has been a crazy last few days. Marisha has been with us and we've done some fun things (I'll post more of that later). While watching Conference at John's parents' house we noticed whales in the ocean. It's not uncommon to see humpbacks or orcas going by but when we watched them they were feeding, which is rare to see. Apparently they fill up before heading over to Hawaii. The last 4 days we've been watching them bubble feed, going back and forth right in the Youngberg's view. Mike was so nice and took us out to watch them up close and personal. Thank you again!

So what they do is circle around in the water, making a circle of bubbles and disorienting the fish, which get trapped in the cirlce of bubbles, then they shoot up with their mouths wide open, eating the fish. Seagulls were hanging out and would swarm right above and before the whales came up.Here's some of what we saw:

Goodbye and hello

We made it back to Ketchikan! We travelled on the ferry (poor man's crusie) south to Ketchikan earlier this week and are now living in our employee apartment. Things are still a little crazy here, boxes and stuff everywhere, but we're glad to be back. We didn't really get to say goodbye to wonderful Skagway and friends, it was a great summer and we were so glad to spend it there. Goodluck and goodbye to everyone there! Marisha will be with us for almost a week and then my brother and his family will be here next week to visit and John will have the two weeks off, so I'll have some pictures later.

More Alaskan Adventures!

There were no ships in on Friday, which meant John got a 3-day weekend! Marisha and her roommate babysat for us while we rented a tandem bike for a few hours. We were lucky that the rain stopped and we had a delightful time! Thanks Marish!

John taking a spin by himself.

My view. (I just thought it was a cool picture)

Friday night Lexi had her first sleepover with her friend Ella. I think they're playing tag in this picture.

And then today we went on the dogsled tour. We've been wanting to do it all summer and finally made it work. Unfortunately, we didn't see John's cousin who works out there. We did have a great time though. These dogs are the real deal - this is how they train in the summer for their winter races. We rode in golf-cart things and enjoyed the ride. Kaytlin was giggling the whole time and yelling, "E-i! [Lexi] E-i! Doggies!" and watching their every move.

Then we got to hold the puppies in camp. This one is 5 weeks old. Lexi and John got to hold two of them and pet them. I even held one for a while, then it licked me and I was done. :o)Kaytlin freaked out and didn't want to touch them, but loved to watch them play. There were also some puppies born an hour before we got there that we got took look at.

Oh, and these are some random mushrooms near camp that are cool-looking but super poisonous. A girl licked one last year and had to be air-vac'ed to the hospital. They're called Alice in Wonderland mushrooms. Yay for 3-day weekends!

The Look

This is what Lexi calls the "Hilarious Grumpy" face. Kaytlin will scowl at us and then roll her eyes back in her head. We think it's pretty funny, even though it's freaky-looking! What's great is she has started doing it on command. Funny girl...

Fort Fun

It was our turn for the kid-swap this last weekend. John made them fort a (because he's still a kid) and they sure had fun with it. Can you find all 7 kids?

It's been so fun to see Lexi play with her friends this summer; we've been lucky to have met some great people up here!

For the grandparents

I don't think I've really given much of an update on the girls in a while. It seems like they've grown up so much this summer.

Lexi has been showing off her imagination more everyday. We have to watch out for tigers and bad frogs (?) at our house and at nights she likes to tell us stories about Princesses. Her all-time favorite thing though has got to be singing. She is constantly serenading us with songs she makes up. Lately she's been singing something like this:
"My only family loves you! My family loves you! My only family loves you as well!" She has this dress she loves to wear and she'll run around the house singing, "I am a Princess!" in a really high voice at the top of her lungs. She's been pretty cute with her sister and "reads" books to her. Kaytlin does a pretty good job at sticking around too.
Kaytlin sure has turned into a social girl. She will sometimes sing along with Lexi but mostly she just likes to say our names over and over and over again really loudly. The last few weeks she's picked up a lot of new words and signs. She continues to be easy-going and just a good kid well, unless you're feeding her - but I won't get into that. Kaytlin is our climber. I'll turn around for like a second and then she'll be standing on the table. One thing that surprises us is how many teeth she has. She's got 12 with 4 more on the way. She'll just look up at me and smile and you can see like all of her teeth - it's crazy. Oh, and Cherrios are her favorite thing, and she likes apples too, but only if they're whole.

Borrowed Glacier Pictures

I couldn't resist posting more glacier pictures. One of our employees gave me a copy of the pictures she took when she went on the tour. Some of the other pictures below are hers too (grizzlies and two view pictures). Enjoy!

Pair of Grizzlies

Dyea Flats

Looking South

This is one of the northern-est parts on the Inside Passage.

The Grizzly

We drove down to Dyea on Sunday to look for bears. The area is pretty flat and the rivers are shallow so it's a perfect combination to see them when the salmon are running. At first there was nothing, so we just watched the salmon (a ton of them) swimming upstream in the river. We thought it was too late and were about to leave when we heard the dogs going crazy. (We were just outside the camp where they keep the dogs for the dogsled tours.) A while later I spotted this yearling (not full-grown) grizzly coming out of the camp area and it just stopped and looked at us, then went to the river. We watched it splash around catching and eating the fish until it got to where we couldn't see it anymore. None of my pictures really turned out, but that's okay, I just wanted to see a grizzly before the summer was over. Check. Next on the list is tandem bike rental....