Fluffy+a new business+Dylan+bike+spring=our weekend!

What a weekend!! It started out so calm with not much planned and I was so excited to not have much to do! All we were going to do was the Community Cleanup around town on Saturday morning and nothing else! Well, after the cleanup, I ran into the Pet Store to grab crickets for our pet frogs and got talking with the owner and come to find out she was closing the business and moving to Pullalup, Washington with her children. Well, she was concerned as well as I was getting about where everyone in Kodiak was going to get there crickets and mealworms for reptiles and amphibians. I got talking with her and long story short- My kids are now the proud business owners of Woody Farms! They are selling the crickets and mealworms! The lady at the pet store just gave them her whole setup and crickets and worms and the list of people to call to let them know where to get there supplies. I am so excited because they can start saving for college and missions with there own business. It is VERY LOW overhead and they can make quite a bit of money each month for not much.

In the process of switching over this business, somehow we ended up bringing home a pet tarantula! This is Fluffy the newest member of our family. The kids are loving him, he has been so fun!! I never thought I would enjoy a spider-who knew!?!


And I must have had a brain fart when I decided to let Dylan learn how to ride his bike! What was I thinking?!? He now has wheels and can go anywhere he wants! AAAHHHH!!!!! But I am so proud of him. He decided on Saturday that he wanted to learn how to ride his bike and so he kept trying and trying and never gave up and all of a sudden he just got it and took off and hasn't stopped! We have had many talks today and yesterday about how we ride on the sidewalk and NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!!!

I am also sooo excited that we are having such beautiful days here in Kodiak. The sun has been shining and everything is starting to bloom. I love it!!!

So all in all it ended up being a CRAZY weekend, but a lot of FUN and EXCITING things happened that I am SO GLAD ABOUT!!!

LIFE IS GOOD!!

(Subliminal) Come to Kodiak!!

Okay, we were just on Alaska Airlines and they have drastically dropped there prices! It is $289 one way from Seattle to Kodiak. REALLY GOOD PRICE!!!! Half price, if not more! It is running from now until June 9th. So if anyone is looking to come up to check out Kodiak, let us know. The fish will be here and it will be soooo green and beautiful! We would love to see you and share this wonderful island!

Crazy hair day!

Today at the Elementary school was Crazy Hair day!! So we decided to go all out and let the kids be CRAZY!! Cole has a mohawk, Dylan decided to shave just half of his head, Myah pulled all her hair to one side, and Quincy had pony's all over her head! (Quincy didn't go to the Elementary school today, but wanted to take part in the festivities!)

Don't worry, we will finish shaving the boys' hair tonight and give them their summer haircuts early! But hey, it's only hair, and crazy hair day only happens once a year! :)

The "S" word!!

Yes, I feel it coming!! The mighty "S" word!!! That is a word that is not spoken much around here, because when you do, a blizzard blows in right behind it! But it has been so warm the last few days and I am starting to see the grass in my yard again! We are hearing reports that the bears are waking up and the whales are swimming into Kodiak! I love this time of year when everything comes back to life and we start getting our LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG sunny days. I love it when I can read my book by the sunlight coming in through the window at midnight!! We are getting there! The fish will be swimming soon and we will be out there with poles ready, yum!! Have I said lately how much I LOVE it here?!? What an amazing place!!!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!!

We woke up to freshly fallen snow that covered EVERYTHING in this gorgeous blanket of pure white. So perfect for an Easter morning!

The kids looked so cute in their Easter outfits!
They just had to give eachother "bunny ears" for Easter!
We hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!
WE LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU!

The day after.....

You know that there has been enough snow for one day when Quincy can walk onto the top of the Suburban with no help.

Here is the house buried in snow. Notice the upper windows are almost covered in snow and the front porch is the same level as the snow. Not going to need the stairs to get off the porch.
Neighbor kids dug out around the porch and slid down under for a fort.

All the neighborhood kids hanging out at our house. Yeah, we are the stompin' grounds for them all. Now if only they would come with shovels! :)

This has been the largest amount of snowfall for Kodiak in one day! It is INSANE!! I have discovered that I really don't like shoveling snow. It was even too deep for the snowblower, so we had to shovel before we could use the snowblower. I think we may retire in Hawaii, it seems to not do this there! LOL!!

BLIZZARD!!

Yesterday morning it started snowing and it just didn't stop!! We had a crazy blizzard.

This is around 6 pm and it was just coming down. Cole was out trying to clear the sidewalk and stairs so we could get out if needed. Ken is parked out in the street, because he was going to snowblow the driveway quick. Well, he never got his truck back in the driveway! He ran to the hospital to do a couple of things and by the time he got back he could not get the truck in. The snow was also too high for the snow blower and we had given up on shoveling the sidewalks! So Ken went and stayed the night at the hospital in case something was needed he would be able to be there and not stuck in our driveway.
This is what we found the next morning!! My Suburban is buried and I don't think I will be going anywhere today! They have canceled everything and everything is closed! Whoo Hoo SNOW DAY!!! Those never happen here.

Here is the snow in front of the garage. It is up past my waist (okay, not hard to do, but still LOTS OF SNOW for one day!!!)

Happy Birthday Miss Quincy Jean!!

Happy, Happy Birthday to our little miss Quincy Jean!! She is turning the big 4 today! Wow, I can't believe it! 4 years ago, I was pregnant and still had quite a ways to go, but I remember waking up on this morning and thinking it would be a cool day to have a birthday (it was 03/04/05), but not going to happen this early in the game. I started the day and just started feeling not too good. I went through the day and by the time Ken came home from work, it was worse. So we went to the walk in clinic and it ended up that I had gone toxic with the pregnancy and they rushed me to the hospital and she was born within the hour. Wow, it has gone by fast, but when I think back to that time with her in the NICU and all the problems that the doctors were telling us she had and issues that would come up later in life, and worse case scenarios, etc, etc, etc, and to look at her now, boy did she prove them WRONG!!! YOU GO GIRL!! We are soo blessed to have her in our family, she is such a sweet girl with such a special spirit. We LOVE you Quincy-Happy Birthday!!

Happy Anniversary!!

Wow!! 12 years!! That seems like such a long time, but when I think about it, it was just yesterday. (So where did these 4 kids come from?!?) Thank you for the greatest 12 years and I am excited to see what the next 12 have in store for us.

I LOVE YOU!!!!

Happy Valentines Day to my Monkeys!

I just had the kids sit for a minute so I could get recent pictures of them for Valentines Day. Some were up for it and others weren't.

Myah loves to have her picture taken for anything!
Cole's eyes are super sensitive to the flash on my camera or any bright lights so his pictures look really painful! But he tries. :)

Dylan was not up for a photo moment, but I decided to take it anyways. Silly goose!

Then there is Quincy and she also loves to get pictures done. But I just wanted to let my kiddos know that I love them very much and I am soooo lucky to be their Mom.

I love my MONKEYS!!!

Sledding

We decided on Saturday to take the family sledding. So we went up to the old ski resort with our friends and went sledding for the afternoon. Along the road on the way to the sledding hill is this beautiful pull out that overlooks the ocean. So we stopped and got a family picture on our way home. I have wanted to do this since we moved here and so we just stopped and did it!
It was cold and the wind was blowing just enough to make it really cold, but the kids were so excited and having so much fun sledding that they went for quite awhile. But it made for pained photos for Mom!

Quincy decided that she was old enough to go down the big sled hill by herself. Whew! She did great, in fact she went a couple of times and would hike back up the hill with her sled. My baby is growing up! Kind of a bitter sweet moment.

Another pained photo for Mom! (I would smile Mom, but my face is frozen this way! LOL!!!)

And yet another! :)

We had a lot of fun though!!!

Mt. Redoubt

Here is the volcano that is close to Anchorage that is about to blow its top! We have been told that it is ready to go at anytime. It was the activity of this volcano that gave me the experience of a 6.1 earthquake while I was in Anchorage. We were in the hotel for meetings and my seat just started going back and forth and the huge chandeliers above my head were going back and forth. Kind of a crazy feeling! But anyways, we are grateful that Ken has made it home from a week of training in Cleveland, Ohio. He got home yesterday, and I had been praying all week that the volcano would wait until he got home because he would have been stuck somewhere for quite awhile as all our flights are routed through Anchorage and no jets can fly with all the ash in the air. Now we are just preparing ourselves to be covered in ash if the winds decide to blow this direction when the volcano goes. Kind of cool I think! :) But we will see if I still think the same after it is all said and done.

Cool Kodiak photo's

Here is a beautiful photo where the sun is so shiny! When the sun shines here, it is amazing! Everything sparkles!

I thought this was a really cool photo from the plane coming into Kodiak. You can see all of the city of Kodiak. If you draw a line almost straight down from the arrow looking part of the plane, that is where we live. In that bunch of trees. Anyways, enjoy.

Too much fun for one person in one week!

Oh, my! We had soooo much fun in Anchorage! We had some fun trainings and classes and the shopping was FABULOUS!! Candice and I went shopping each night after the classes were over and OH MY!! I went to JC Penney's and spent $29.00, but saved $172!! I walked out of their with 2 huge bags of clothes. It was a good thing I had packed suitcases inside of suitcases! Because we had the same experience in Old Navy. Everything was 50% off and then 50% off of that. Whew! We shopped till we dropped. The conference was outstanding as well. It was like we were back in preschool ourselves with all the stickers, glue, markers, dancing, music, instruments, toys, etc. that we played with all day. Okay, we did have some trainings in discipline, and new approaches to teacher related things too, but it was interesting and fun as well. Some of the new techniques etc that I learned about I have already started to implement in our home with Dylan and the other kids and they are working soooo well! Who knew that a tennis ball with a face drawn on it and a slit cut in it for a mouth could get a kid to go get his pj's on or his church clothes on without any arguement?!? Dylan will do anything that Mr. Squishy askes him to do! Who knows how long it will last, but I will take any amount of time that it provides! I also learned about an amazing discipline program. It was taught to us by a lady named Becky Bailey. She is from Florida and came up to our conference as a keynote speaker and also did some training groups. Her approach is called Conscious Discipline. You can look it up on line at www. conscious discipline.com. I was having lightbulb moment after lightbulb moment in her trainings! Amazing woman!!! With many great insights! I would highly recommend checking her out when you get a chance. Well, needless to say I had an amazing time and am looking forward to next years conference!!!

I'm so EXCITED!!!!

Okay, for all of you who do this all the time and think it is not very exciting, just bear with me! I get to go on my first business trip tomorrow!!!!!! I am flying up to Anchorage for 4 days for a Preschool Teachers Convention/Conference. My school wants me to go and is paying for everything. I am so excited to go to all the different workshops and exhibits etc. Two of the other girls that I work with are also going, one has taught for many years and all her kids are grown and on their own, but myself and Candice have just entered the work force after spending the past 10-12 years at home raising kids and so we are just beside ourselves with excitment! So I will let you know how it all goes. WHOO HOO!!!

Relief!

I have just been released as Cub Master and Wolf, Bear, and Webelos leader! YEAH!!!! I have been the one and only cub scout leader for our ward for the last year. They had discontinued the scouting program years before we moved there and then when we showed up and they heard that I had been in scouting, they asked me if I could start it up again. So I did and only started with 5 boys and in the process we have moved up to 20+ boys after I went and did a little song and dance about cubs at my kids' elementary school back in September. Well, I could no longer do it myself so they have finally gotten some more leaders for the scouting program and I am so happy to just be over the Webelos group with Colton. What a relief!!! It was getting to be too much with that, ward organist, ward custodian, and primary pianist. You've got to love the tiny wards!

Mom is really OLD!!!

Oh, I am still giggling about this one!!! I have Dylan home from school today because he has the stomach flu again. So, I made him some noodle soup for lunch and crackers to settle his stomach. He was also drinking his Gatorade as well. We were talking and he asked me if my Mom made me noodle soup when I wasn't feeling well. I said yes. Then he asked me if my Mom gave me Gatorade to drink when I was sick. I had to tell him that when I was little they didn't have Gatorade yet and we drank Sprite and 7-UP when we were sick. He looked at me funny and said, "You mean back in the old west?"

Relief Society Retreat

We had a fun Relief Society retreat this past weekend. They rented a beach house for us to go spend the weekend at. We had many different activities going on. One that is pictured here is making candles. We melted bees wax and dipped our own candles. The Sister in the blue with the scarf is our wonderful Relief Society President, Sister RuthAnn Robert who organized this whole fabulous weekend. She also is a great friend! She comes over to our house quite often and just watches my kids, so Ken and I can go out or just hangs out with all of us. She is an amazing woman whom I just adore!

Here is some of the Sisters with their finished candles. We dipped the string in so that you had the two ends covered in wax and the middle of the string uncovered so you could hold onto it. Then we took the two waxed ends and twisted them together. It was to symbolize us and Christ becoming one and that together we were stronger and could accomplish so much more if we were as one.

We just had so much fun visiting, munching on various snacks, and making crafts all night long. And I'm serious about the ALL NIGHT LONG part! I didn't go to sleep that night. We were having too much fun.

This is Melanie, Crystal, and Terri making coasters for one of our crafts. We had such a fun time just getting to know each other better and laughing and having a good time. We have a great bunch of women here in our ward!!

CONGRATS TO THE "5"!!!

Oh, my the "5" have arrived! James, Madison, Quincy, Ian, and Caleb have graduated from Nursery and joined the ranks of Primary. YEAH!!! I also have to send out a big congrats to Pam and Sandy and myself as well because we have also now graduated from Nursery. WHOO HOO!!
(For all who don't know the history behind this- myself and 4 of my siblings all had babies in 2005 between the months of January through April. My parents were hopping all over the US for the blessings of these 5 babies and we will encounter the same when they turn 8 and are baptized. CRAZY!! But fun.)

Twilight Movie

The Twilight movie finally came to Kodiak last night and a bunch of us girls went to see it for our girls night out. It was so fun to crash the movie theater like that! Most of us had read the books and were very excited to see it. What a huge let down! I'm sorry for anyone who has not seen it to spoil it, but don't waste your money!! It was fun though because we were all there together and we could laugh and make fun of it throughout the movie!

Here is most of us after the movie.

We have rejoined the 21st Century!

Happy New Year to Everyone!!!

We had a great New Years Eve! We had a party at our house with some friends and all the kids! It started with the Kodiak Firework display that was supposed to happen on the 4th of July, but because of rain and wind it didn't happen then, and this was the 5th attempt to shoot them off since then. It was a lot of fun. A lot colder than it would have been in July, but fun none the less. Then we all came over to our home for movies, goodies, games, and visiting. It was great to be able to send the kids all up into the theater room and we had the whole downstairs to visit etc without the noise of so many kids! They all had to head home before midnight because they all have littles that were getting tired and cranky. But our kids stayed up til midnight for the first time and we shot off the confetti poppers and blew horns until our ears were ringing and then we tucked them all in bed. Whew!!

(This photo was taken Christmas morning about 10:30 am, and you can see that it is still dark outside. This crazy place we live, but we love it!)

Cole got a new scooter for Christmas that he has had fun riding around the neighborhood on. I just thought this was a good picture of him, which I don't get too many of because he either won't sit still long enough for his dear old Mom to take one of him or the flash is so bright that his eyes are closed (his eyes are very sensitive to lights).

Here are all the kids waiting to come down the stairs Christmas morning to open their presents! HEE HEE! Just wait a little longer, nope, a little longer, etc! As you can see, Quincy didn't want to wait for breakfast and so she requested that her toast be served to her on the stairs.


I got this cute picture of Quincy the Sunday before Christmas. She had worn this dress to church and I just thought she looked so cute that I just wanted to stop time for a little while. (Thank you Sandy for the dress!)

Anyways, we are back online and I am so forever in debt to our friend Chad for fixing our computer.

We also need to welcome Del and Shannon to Kodiak!! They finally ALL arrived on Monday, Dec. 29th. We are so excited to have them here and we have already bombarded the McDonalds here with all 10 of our kids. Which is a huge thing for the Kodiak McDonalds as they probably only have 10 booths in the whole building and a small little indoor playland. But it is better than nothing. :]

Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By!

Okay, our computer is down and I have not posted in awhile. So I am sneaking on at work and letting you all know that we have not forgetten about you and that we still love you all! Hopefully the Morrison Family Computer will get its health back soon and we can keep in touch again. We are so excited this week, Del, our friend from Moses Lake, flew in and starting working here in Kodiak and his family will be here 2 days after Christmas. Dylan had a fun birthday party with some of his friends from school and primary. And not much else has been happening, just school and work for all parties involved. (And enjoying the Christmas season here in Kodiak!)

We love you all!!!!

Hugs and Kisses from Kodiak!

Happy Birthday to my Dylan boy!!!

Happy 6th Birthday Dylan!!!

He wanted a Moon in My Room and some glow in the dark planets. The Moon in My Room is really cool!!! (I want one for my room!) We also got him a rubber band gun and some Bakugans. I also got him some extra knights to go with the knights, horses, and dragons that he had already bought with his birthday money.

He loves to build castles and fortressess for his knights and dragons.

I can't believe he is 6 already!! Where has the time gone?!?
Happy Birthday Buddy Boy! We love you!!!!!!!!!!!

Cole's New Do

Cole has a new hairdo! He decided that he wanted to dye his hair red. So we shaved it pretty short and then dyed it red so that as it grows out he will have red tips on his hair. He was excited and it looks pretty cool too! If you look at him straight on it doesn't look like he has done anything and then as the light catches it, as he turns his head, you get this red shimmer coming from his head. I think it will be neat when it grows out a bit too!

It's Official!!

Woo Hoo!!!! We just got a call from our good friends Shannon and Del Green who were up here a week ago checking out Kodiak, and they have accepted the job here in Kodiak!! Del will be here this weekend to start working and Shannon and the kids will be here right after Christmas before the New Year. We are SOOOO excited to be able to share this great place with them and all the great people that live here. Welcome to Kodiak!!! You will love it!!!

Bringing home the tree

We went out today to find "the" Christmas tree. We figured being here in Alaska we would be able to find a great tree, and we weren't wrong!! We traveled about 8 miles out of town to a place called Anton Larson, which is where we went sledding last winter.

We looked around for a little while and couldn't decided on just one. In the mean time Dylan's boots kept coming off his feet and he had decided not to wear socks, so his feet were frozen! So I took him back to the truck to warm up his toes. Poor monkey!
Here is Cole attempting to cut down the tree, Ken let him try to do it this year. He got it cut through part way and then Ken finished it.

Here they are bringing it back to the truck.

And Cole hauled it all the way back! We got quite a bit of tree branches as well to make wreaths and garland etc. We will get it decorated tomorrow after church. The kids are excited and they have all decided that it is Quincy's year to put up the star. (Whew! No arguing over that one. That makes my job a little easier when they can all agree like that. ) We love going out and cutting our own tree each year, such a fun family tradition!

Happy Turkey Day!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!! We have had a great day. It is so beautiful here today, we have had a white fluffy snow all day falling. We have been playing games, sitting around the fireplace, and cooking a great Thanksgiving dinner. Ken decided to smoke the turkey this year in our fish smoker. It was soooo yummy! We also got to share our dinner with our Elders today. The kids love having the missionaries over, which happens every week here. So great for the kids to know and love the Elders.

Crazy kid photo!

We just wanted to let you all know that we love you and are so THANKFUL for ALL OF YOU!!!!

Hugs and Kisses from Kodiak! XOXO

Heading Back

We are so sad to be seeing Del and Shannon leave today to head home, but we are hopeful that all goes well with this job offer here in Kodiak and that they will be moving up here in a couple of weeks. I know that is a huge decision to move a family that far away as we just did that last year. We had so much fun with them this past weekend while they were here. They got to meet our ward and a lot of our friends and see the sights here in Kodiak. So we are not saying goodbye, we are saying see ya later! Love ya guys!!!!

They're here!

Del and Shannon made it in safely this morning on the 8 am flight! Yeah! We are so excited to see them and to have them here in Kodiak for a little while this time and hopefully soon they will be up here for good with all of their family.

We have had so much fun with them tonight. Here is Ken and Shannon cooking dinner. It was great to get caught up on each others lives after not seeing each other for a year. I didn't realize how much we had missed seeing our friends until Ken walked into my work this morning with them behind him and I saw them! What a fun morning.

Welcome to the most beautiful place on earth!

Kodiak Surprise!!

Okay, so we were supposed to have visitors fly in today, but this Kodiak weather had other ideas! This morning it looked like it was going to be a nice clear day with no snow and then this blizzard blew in and we have had horizontal snow all day! Winds that are 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. So needless to say planes are not flying into Kodiak today and our friends are stuck in Anchorage for the night and will try again in the morning! (This one is for you Brandi, I'll bet you don't miss this aspect of Kodiak :) )

We had grass this morning and clear dry roads with no snow in sight. Not anymore! :)