Fun Sledding

A few days after walking across the lake we got a bunch of snow.  The older kids decided to take snow machines up the mountain for some fun in the new snow.  The younger kids felt left out since there wasn't room for them so Dayton and I promised to take them sledding a couple days later.  

So a few days later we headed up the trail with the toboggan and sleds hooked up to the back of the snow machine to find a good sledding hill.  

There were quite a few crashes.

And quite a bit of this.

Staggering the sleds might work a bit better next time.

But it wouldn't be nearly as fun. :)

Once we found a good hill everyone had fun sledding and snowboarding.

Joshua just got a real snowboard for his birthday so all the boys are on a snowboarding kick.  They had to practice.

                                              Benjamin                                                 David

                                                Caleb                                                   Joshua

We built a jump at the bottom of the hill.

That was a lot of fun but also meant a lot of this.

Benjamin had his own problematic spot.  

This particular spot tends to send you up on the edge of the track a bit and Benjamin never could get past it.

Sarah had fun going down the hill in the sled.

Benjamin's facial expressions while going down the hill were pretty good.

The jump was pretty fun in the sled too.

Sorry for the photo overload but it was a pretty fun trip. :)

We're heading out on our grand adventure down the Alcan today.  Half the family is already on their way to Anchorage and the rest of us are waiting for the second flight.
It should be fun!!

Walk Across the Lake

A few days after we flew in it was such nice weather we decided to go for a walk across the lake.

Despite the lack of snow and beautiful weather, there have been some cold snaps so the ice was plenty thick.  It's pretty cool walking across the lake when the ice is clear.

It had been so warm Sarah was building sandcastles.  Normally the sand is covered in snow.

We walked up to Tazimina River and decided to build a fire to heat up some water for hot chocolate.  

Dad chopped a hole in the ice with the ax to get the water.

Josh A built a fire while the other boys collected wood.

While the water heated up, Sarah and the younger boys had fun sliding down a dip in the ice.

Unfortunately, David took a rather nasty spill and split his eyebrow open.

Everyone had to inspect it and tell him how terrible it looked...

Despite the trauma, he had to make sure to get his hot chocolate before dad took him to the clinic to get three stitches.

Before the rest of us left, everyone had to try their hand at curling after just watching it during the Olympics.

After deciding we were going to be the next big thing at the Olympics we headed back to check out David's stitches.

All in all, it was a very fun day, despite the stitches.

Trip to Alaska

Mom and Dad weren't sure if they would be able to take a trip down to the states to visit this spring so they flew Dayton and I up to Alaska.

It ended up being a very long trip.  Our plane flew out around six in the morning but we had a midwife appointment the night before.  We decided to just go to the airport after the midwife appointment so we wouldn't have to drive down to Denver twice in one night.  

Floors in airports aren't very comfortable.

After finally getting on the plane we ended up sitting on the ramp for two hours before flying to Phoenix (from Denver to Phoenix while trying to get to Alaska???).  

In Phoenix it was another nine hour layover before finally getting on a plane for Anchorage.  

It wasn't all bad though, I did get to see the Grand Canyon. :)

Dad, Deborah and Sarah came into Anchorage to pick us up.  After doing some shopping and spending the night in Anchorage we flew out to Nondalton.

The weather in Alaska has been crazy.  End of February and absolutely no snow on the ground.  There was green grass growing in the yard for awhile.

We've been having fun while we've been here.
Dayton's been helping out the boys with some remodeling they've been doing.

Sarah has been saving all the baby cloths she finds for us to bring back for the baby so we've been sorting them out.  If we have a girl we'll be all set. :)

Everyone had fun showing Dayton the shocking game.  Everyone holds on to one of the handles then when the light goes off the last person to push the button on their handle gets shocked.  I do not play this game. :)

We've played quite a bit of Settlers of Catan also.

A few nights ago they had Family Fun Night at the school.  This time we played Jeopardy.  David's team pretty much cleaned up and won the whole thing.

Can't forget about bible study. (And some coloring being as how on this particular night it took us a good half an hour to get through the first verse.)

We've also been having fun walking across the lake and driving up the mountain on 4-wheelers.  We finally got some snow a couple days ago so we've been towing behind the snow machines and driving them up the mountain also.  I'll post some pictures from those expeditions later.

We've been in Alaska for about three weeks now.  We'll be here for another week then we're driving back down to the states with the whole family.  Looking forward to the trip down the Alcan with the family!