SNOW + no SCHOOL = great FUN! More pictures to come!

Five days later

OK So here are a few pictures for the curious. Hospital pictures and home pictures. My neck is much better now. All pink and only a small spot of rawness. I will get a few more recent pictures uploaded soon.

The first day of the year 2010 was spent meeting Ben and Jenny in Pueblo for lunch and mall strolling. Bella was quieter then her parents would have liked. She played the shy girl at first but warmed up to her cousins pretty quickly at the mall. She really enjoyed strolling around with her balloon and holding available hands. She is talking in complete sentences and is head over heels in love with "silly Daddy." Quite a nice little girl!

What do you get when you add 5 teen age boys and one pre-teen with Lance Lewis and fire works? An explosive disturbance that upsets the neighborhood cows and dogs! Lance literally spent 2 plus hours gluing fuses of various fireworks together in order to customize a fireworks show to bring in the new year. GrandBonnie called to the neighbors she thought would be the most concerned since fireworks are not normally heard around this part of Colorado except on the 4th of July. Fortunately they weren't home. Much laughing, shouting, and a few failed fuses later and the show was over. The D-boys were happy to share their love of pyrotechnics with Garry and Jimmy.

As you can see, the older D-boys and Lance enjoyed shot at prairie dogs on the plains of Colorado. Damon was involved at first until he decided it was just too cold. They swear the prairie dogs were "giving them the bird" as they dived back into their holes after each attempt! They had a good time trying out the new rifle they got for Christmas. (Thanks Garn!)

We did the urbanite thing and took the boys and Dillon's girl friend to ride the train into downtown Dallas. We toured the 6th Floor Museum (where Oswald shot Kennedy) and Dealy Plaza where the grassy knoll was. Then we ate at the Spagetti Warehouse and went ice skating in the Galleria Mall. The boys had a great time soaking up the city culture.

Damon has a love for soccer of all things. He finished the fall season as a strong goalie. No fear when it comes to fast soccer balls kicked at his face! This is a difficult sport to support after 6th grade (no local school teams) so I am encouraging him to work on basketball also. The two older boys have been working with trainers to improve their b-ball skills for a couple of years now. Seems like the older two have developed a passion for the game. Dillon is enjoying is freshman year in a bigger school (3A) and playing lots of b-ball on the starting five freshman team. His goal is to make varsity next year but the bigger school comes with more competition so he is working hard to improve. Devin is trying to get through his last year at the 1A school with a clueless coach. He is high scorer and playing hard but he is anxious to get to high school to enjoy the b-ball knowledge that Dillon is surrounded by.

We are up in the great white north of Colorado visiting family for the holidays. Mom, Paul and Gary have cut, split and sold 34 cords of wood this winter. Mom and Paul have twin teenage boys for the holidays, Gary aged 16, who has lived with them for 2 years and his brother, Jimmy, who is visiting for Christmas. Gary is a very hard worker. He is the one pictured splitting wood. His brother Jimmy was splitting too but I didn't get his picture. Jimmy is enrolled in the Job Corp. and needed a place to go for Christmas. As you can see, Mom is still the ultimate life-long environmentalist, hanging up clothes when there is snow on the ground! Mom's kitchen is "Crockpot Center" with tortilla soup, potato soup, turkey stew, and chili all bubbling hot and ready warm in cold boys. The D-boys are enjoying the high temp. of 40 degrees and white stuff on the ground. Stay tuned for more on the D-Boys.

Well, we are home from Alaska now and Damon and I have recovered from our jet lag. The trip was the "second best trip" Damon had ever taken, according to him. Disney World was the best he said. Hard to beat Disney World. But 19 moose, over 25 bald eagles, tons of bear tracks and one live bear, 2 river otters, and 21 salmon (that GrandPaul and I actually brought home) were the reason. He loved the camping, fishing, mountain climbing and outdoor life these Alaskans live in the summer. Even though the weather was unsually warm and pleasant, it did cool off at night. Damon commented about how chilling it was getting at about 11:00 pm as we were cruising along the Nushagak as the sun was nearing the horizon. He said, "You mean it gets colder then this?!" Jon thought that was hilarious since it was only in the 50's and it gets well below 0 in the winter. We did manage to help Jon get a few chores done during his short summer. We cut and split 4.5 cords of firewood, painted three rooms while GrandPaul installed a medicine cabinet, worked on the roof, painted on the outside of the house, built and painted window frames among other things. Jon, thank you so much for taking valuable time from your family and your summer to show Damon and I a good time. I really understand how valuable your time is and therefore I understand the sacrifice you made to taking us camping, fishing, and mountain climbing. I have helped create some life long memories for Damon and I. Love you.

Stephanie

"Red Fish, Blue Fish, Big Fish, Small fish!"

Wow! We have had an interesting introduction salmon fishing market here in Dillingham, Alaska! It started with a tour of the Peter Pan Cannery. Dillingham is basically the only place in the world where a sustainable wild salmon run still exist in conjunction with a fishing market. All other salmon runs have been damage by human contact (over fishing, habitat destruction.) Anyway, we got to see how the salmon is processed from wild fish to canned salmon. It was pretty amazing! Damon's face was pricless when he saw the beheading and gutting process. Pretty gruesome! Then we were finaaly able to experience fishing the native way (with a set net.) After two excursions yesterday, we ended up with 21 fish. Damon cleaned them while I filleted them all under the supervision of brother Jon. Then I vacuum packek everything and it is in the freezer ready to ship home! GrandPaul came with us on our first trip early in the morning but he stayed home on our second trip at 10:30 pm. We have to fish with the high tide so we can insure a better catch. A highlight for me was see baloga whales in the bay. They were everywhere! And of course watching Damon's face when we pulled in six fish at once. I am pretty tired today after getting back home at about 1:00 am. But it was worth it! Expecially sitting with Jon and Damon and eating steak and King Crab as a midnight snack when we returned. Where else can you do that!