Day at Fossil Beach

After church today we decided it was way too nice of a day to stay home. So we loaded up the kids and some food for dinner, called a friend and all headed out to Fossil Beach. Kodiak has one road that runs from one end at Monashka Bay which is where Ken caught his king salmon the other day which is only about 10 miles from our home to Fossil Beach which is about 45 miles from our home. So we took the long and beautiful drive out. Along the way we saw silver foxes, a herd of buffalo, and our friend saw a bunch of whales in one of the bays we passed. It took about an hour and a half to get out to the beach because of all the windy mountain roads, but it was well worth the drive.

Fossil beach actually has fossils all over it. Ken and Cole had fun looking for fossils and the other kids had a blast in the sand and the surf! It was sooooo warm and sunny all day.
We went out with our friend Ashley and her 2 kids, Liam and Olive. Her husband Will is out to sea on one of the Coast Guard boats right now. This is Liam and Cole with Myah buried up to her neck in the sand! ;) She thought that was so funny!

Quincy didn't want to get left out of the action, so they buried her next.

Quincy and her buddy Liam went "fishing" on the surf with Liam's little princess fishing pole and only a lure on the end, no hook. They thought they were big stuff! It was so cute though! Liam was in my preschool class last year and he and Quincy got to be good buddies.

Ken getting the fire ready for the hotdogs and marshmallows. And Ashley with her daughter Olive and Colton getting ready for dinner. We also took out the salmon that Ken caught earlier this week, for those of us who don't care for hotdogs, to cook on the grill. There is nothing better than sitting on the beach with good friends eating dinner and watching the kids laugh and play in the surf and sand while the sun is shining down on us. This day has to rank right up there with some of the best days of my life.

Early morning fishing trips

Ken got up this morning at 3:15am to be out on the river at 4 am because we had heard from a good source (the local king fisherman guru himself aka: the toy store owner and good friend Mr. Ron) that the fishing was going to be good this morning for kings and you had to be on the river at 4 am. So Ken got up and headed out and within 15 minutes of being on the river caught himself this king salmon!

We have one small king salmon run here in Kodiak. Mr. Ron is out every chance he gets and has put in many many hours out on the river to get the kings and has only brought in 9 so far this year. So we are really happy to get one. Not to say that we won't try for more. :)

Colton's first halibut fishing trip

Colton went out on his first halibut fishing trip today and I think it is safe to say that he had a great time!! :)

Here he is with his "catch" of the day. Yes, it was bigger then him!

All the mighty fishermen of the day. Colton, Ken, Dave (a friend from the ward), and Steve (another good friend from the ward). Ken caught a 50 lb halibut.

And Colton's halibut weighed in at a whopping 120 lbs!! He was so excited. It is always a good day when you have to shoot the fish before you can bring it onto the boat. :)

Needless to say my freezer is filling up quickly with all these halibut fishing trips. YUMMY!!!!

Ken's fishing expedition

Ken had a great fishing expedition on Saturday. He went out fishing for halibut with Steve, a friend from church and Andy, a co-worker from the hospital.

They saw whales that kept breaching around them, sea lions, puffins, and sea otters out floating in the ocean.
They were not having much luck with catching halibut all morning, but pulling in lots of cod and rock fish. These are some cod that they reeled in.

This little fish is called an Irish Lord. Pretty weird looking thing, but this fish could be over 100 years old!! Crazy!!!

By the afternoon, they had found the halibut and were just pulling them in one after another. This is Ken's biggest one of the day.

Here is the mighty fishermen with their catch of the day! Steve, Andy, and then Ken (L-R) They had a lot of fun and are looking forward to doing it again soon!! (I am excited for them to do it again also and fill up our freezer with fish!!! Yummy!)

Dylan at Circus Camp!

We enrolled Dylan in Circus Camp this summer and he has had a blast!! They brought in a couple of people from New York who came and taught the kids all the different aspects of circus performing. It was pretty neat! By the end they had kids on unicycles, trapeze, hanging upside down from ropes, stilt walkers, kids walking around ontop of balls, all sorts of things you would see at the circus. Dylan was in the younger group and so they tried to keep them as close to the ground as they could! :)

Dylan was trying out anything that they would let him do! He loved the trapeze rope and swinging around on it. Something a "monkey" would love to do! :)
He got really good at juggling. This was one of the things he did at the performance.

Myah also got in on the action one morning while we were watching them practice. She got pretty good with the juggling as well.

Dylan also like learning how to use the "Devil Sticks". They were pretty cool, and he could get those things hopping around.

He had an awesome make up job for the performance! He was a Marshmallion Alien from another gallexy. They had an alien themed Circus Performance. It was a lot of fun and he did a really good job!! We are very proud of all his hard work and all the things he accomplished these past 2 weeks!!

YEAH DYLAN!!!!

Beautiful Day at the Beach!

These are the days we live for here in Kodiak!! It was soooo beautiful today that we just couldn't help it and found ourselves at the beach! It was 70 degrees and sunny. We couldn't have asked for more. Dylan showed up in his swimming suit and the girls just pulled up their pant legs and didn't care about getting all wet. By the end Colton had rolled up his pant legs and joined in. Don't get me wrong, the water was still cold, but it didn't phase anyone! And we weren't the only family at the beach swimming today! :)

This is the girls before they decided to join Dylan in the ocean swim. You can see Dylan in the background. He climbed up and jumped in over his head the first jump! Talk about a shock to the system! Didn't phase him though!
Cole and Dylan playing in the water. When we first got to the beach, it was high tide and all the rocks that the boys are standing on were completely covered. As the tide went out, they started climbing on all the rocks looking for sea creatures and shells, etc.

I caught Ken and Cole off exploring up the beach and got this picture of them sitting by an old tree root. My good looking boys!

Colton was brave and climbed out on the rocks above the water in his clothes. I was just waiting for him to fall in and get all his clothes wet, but he did good and didn't fall in. But I got this fun picture of him on the rocks with the ocean in the background. I thought it turned out pretty cool!

We had sooo much fun today and are so excited for summer to be here and we can have more days with sun and beaches! It has been rainy and cloudy the past little while so we are just soaking in all the Vitamin D that we can. Oh, we love it here!!!

Youth Conference

Well, I would have never guessed in a million years that I would be going to Youth Conference at the age of 35!!! But after 7 attempts to get leaders or parents of the young women to go with them, I volunteered myself to go with Ken and the Youth, as he is the Young Mens President and would be going to chaperone the boys. So I divided up our 4 kids between two friends homes and took off for Anchorage with Ken and 5 young men and 7 young women. Little did I know what I was in for!!! I had always had a hard time with this age group and just didn't quite "get" them. I didn't even when I was that age! So I was already cringing when the plane took off! We started at the temple after the plane landed and did baptisms for the dead with our stake, which consisted of our 12 youth and 5 others from the rest of the stake. It was wonderful to be in the temple! Then we headed off to the Bi-Stake Youth Confernce with the Anchorage Stake and our tiny Soldotna Stake. We had some great speakers and some fun ice-breaker games. We had dinner and then off to the dance. Ken and I sat in the back of the gym and headed out to dance every now and then. (Ken was supposed to be on bed rest because he had a bad infection in his leg, but the doctor let him go if he promised to keep his leg up. So he was sitting most of the time with his leg propped up on a chair.) But it was so interesting as the dance went on, Ken and I were there and the kids just kept coming back and sitting with us for awhile and then would head back out to dance. We were like the "home base" where they felt like they could recoup before going back out again. It was great to get to know them better and to begin to understand them and what life is about at that age again. Ken and I stayed at a members home, but they were in Georgia, so we had the whole house to ourselves. And the kids were shipped out to different members homes.
We had a great time the next day at the service project, all but the mosquitos!!! They were out for BLOOD!!!!! Horrible! We don't have many of them in Kodiak and so none of us had thought to bring bug repellent or anything like that! We weeded and pruned a park in Anchorage. It was great to work side by side with the kids. Then we headed to dance #2. Another interesting night with the kids coming back to "check in". Ken and I went to the late movie after the dance and caught the new Star Trek movie. The theater had the most comfy recliner seats and I had myself a nice 2 1/2 hour nap that cost $10!!!! But Ken enjoyed the movie. And only in Alaska can you come out of the late show at 12:30 and it still be light! I love it!!!
Then the next day we had some great classes and devotional speakers and then testimony meeting to finish up the conference. I was having flash backs to when I went to Youth Conference many years ago at BYU and Pocatello the whole weekend!!!! CRAZY!!! I must admit that I am so glad to be past those akward teenage years. I could see myself in so many of the youth there and I just wanted to tell them not to take it all so seriously and not worry so much about what you think everyone else is thinking about you. Just be you and be proud to be you!!! Hhhmmm, I vaguely remember having lessons about that as a youth, but didn't listen or think it applied to me. And the cycle continues! But all things considered, it was a really great experience for me!! I got to know, love, and respect our youth, which I honestly couldn't say before this past weekend. So to all of the parents, leaders, etc. who for one reason or another couldn't and/or wouldn't go with the youth to conference- I THANK YOU!!