Hope that you all had a delightful Christmas – full of family, fun, and food. (All things in moderation, of course)

We spent Christmas eve with youngest daughter and family. She is recovering from shoulder surgery and her adopted teen daughter made pizza for everyone – yummo! Thanks, Ms. F.

Hubbymoose had to work from 11 p.m. Christmas Eve until 10 a.m. Christmas Day, so he and I left the festivities a bit earlier than others so he could get in a few more hours of zzzzzs before heading in.

As you can imagine, he was beat when he got home Christmas mornings. After breakfast he headed off to bed while I puttered around quietly readying the evening meal for older daughter and her brood.

Presents were exchanged – and much love was put into the items given. We are blessed beyond words with our loved ones.

The highlight of Christmas each year is the requisite “Amazing Shrinking Gramma” pictures. All but the very youngest are not taller than I – or very close to being taller than I. Next year? I think all but the two youngest will be “towering” above me. Enjoy:

Click for larger view:

first of all – scuse the hat hair. I live in Alaska, you know.

Left to right in the first picture: D-Bug, me, TAT, with K-Bug and Bugget in front of us. Now, D-Bug LOOKS like he is taller than I am here – but he still has about 1/2 an inch – and, yes, I WILL take that half, thank you very much.

In the second picture – that humongo person next to me? My first-born grand”baby” boy, McDonster! And, yes, he IS that much taller than I. On the other side are his sisters, the Pup and Riah. Yes, Riah is taller also – with the Pup closely behind.

These two pictures just REALLY show how much shrinkage there is in me in Alaska’s cold. (Props if you know the show to which I am referring). McDonster palmed my head while his mama shot this one. He can hold his arm out straight and I just about fit under it – sigh.

Then he asked me to fake swing at him – that’s a swing and a miss, Gramma. LOL Funny man that one, funny man.

Posted: December 26th, 2010 under Alaska, Family, Moose Nuggets.
Comments: 1

How foggy was it at YOUR house this morning? The following pictures were taken after a lot of the fog had burned off in the early morning sun. Granddaughter and I were headed to early worship service when two joggers came out of the fog toward us.

Now? The fog is all gone . . . and so are the joggers. Happy trails.

Posted: September 12th, 2010 under Alaska, Moose Nuggets.
Comments: none

Slept in this morning . . . clear up to 8:30! That’s an extra three hours for me – felt good. Off to breakfast with hubbymoose . . . and then, of course, I had that burr under my saddle – time to go shooting.

Pictures, that is.

Today is the first day of dipnetting on the Kenai River – I knew we should be able to see some folks wading and plying their dipnets.

click for larger views

In the first shot you can see both banks of the river – and – around the riverbend to the commercial boats in front of a fish processor. Then, a closeup of the dippers who have waded out into the river. The last is of some of the tents that were erected overnight. These folks will be here until their quota is met – or until the end of the fishery.

Unseen in the pics are the parking areas (full) and the portapotties the city sets up for the fishery season. We have tried bank dipping in the past – it is not so easy to do. Our best successes came when we put the boat into the water and held the nets off the side as hubbymoose slowly motored downriver. I image there will be plenty of boats on the river in the days to come.

Hubbymoose does not eat fish (gasp!) so we don’t go out any longer. We used to fish when the girls were home. The three of us ate it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We then drove into Olde Towne to see how work was progressing on the Holy Assumption Orthodox Church (Russian Orthodox). It was built in the late 1800s and, while sided over the years, has had very little corrective work done on the structure. The church received a grant to make repairs . . .



The first picture is of the church – with part of the siding removed. The second is a close-up of some of the damaged – original – structure. There is moss chinking between the logs still. The third picture is of St. Nicholas Chapel which is the original structure and beneath which lies one of the founding priests.

The area is rich with history. Nearby is an old log structure that I try to shoot every year as it slowly falls inward on itself. This year the city has added new flowerboxes all around town and I love the old-new flavor of this building now.

The chinking on this structure looks to be muslin or some other sort of cloth strips. You can see someone has tried to pull some of it out.

I think this is my favorite picture of this morning:

Hope you all have a glorious day.

Posted: July 10th, 2010 under Alaska.
Comments: 1

If you have read here over the years you might remember that HubbyMoose and I take one (of the 7) grands on a weekly lunch/dinner date followed by shopping. We do our weekly grocery shopping and get to enjoy one of the (not so) “littles” alone for a few hours. We’ve done this for several years – and the kids all pretty much know when it is their turn. We go by age – youngest to oldest (although HE has been much too busy working and playing these last months and so has missed out).

It starts just as soon as we can take the little ones away from mama for a few hours – long enough so they don’t want to nurse – and when they can eat solid foods. ‘course . . . that is sort of a moot point now that the youngest is almost five years old! (ack! where DOES the time go?)

This week we got to take 12 year old D for his trip – it has had to be put off for a few weeks because either we were gone or he was gone/busy, etc. But THIS week it was his turn.

D had his birthday in November, so we were also going to let him pick out a book he wanted – then we found out he had all of his birthday money, too . . . so it was off to the independent book store we went.

The owner loves it that we would rather shop for books with these kiddos than for toys – she loves it when we BUY books for Christmas instead of toys, too.

After many books were chosen and paid for . . . it was time for dinner. We decided on a Chinese restaurant nearby for something different – it is not something we can do every week – the tab was WAY more than we are used to spending for lunch/dinner with the grands . . . but this was a special treat for D.

Thus the challenge . . .

KunPao Chicken . . . complete with peppers. Paw-Paw said “be careful, the peppers are REALLY hot, so don’t bite into one.”

CHALLENGE!

You could just see the wheels turning in D’s head . . . (internal conversation) “Paw-Paw’s a wimp. I can eat ‘em. I’ll show him!”

He reached out, took a pepper and put the whole thing into his mouth and began to chew. “It’s not so hot!” he declared.

And, then we watched as he visibly grew taller in his seat . . . his face turned red the more he chewed . . . he began to rock in his seat . . . he took a drink of his root beer (he had told us before dinner that root beer cut the HOT of any pepper – heh) – rocked some more and then sat taller and taller and taller still. I watched as tears began to roll down his face – then he held his ears (later telling us that they hurt from the inside – until he put one of the peppered fingers into an ear to stop it hurting – and then it hurt from the outside, too!)

The waitress heard us chuckling, came over, took one look and left saying over her shoulder “I’ll get something to help.” She came back with orange slices telling D that chewing them would help cut the hot.

“I told you not to take one,” Paw-Paw said. “Did you think that I was just a wuss?”

D nodded his head and then asked to be excused to get tissues from the bathroom to blow his now running nose.

Poor kid!

He was warned.

He thought he could outsmart/out pepper his grandpa. LOL

Everytime we tell the story (to others and each other) we just start chuckling and then LAUGHING and soon the tears are rolling down OUR cheeks, too.

Grandkids . . . you gotta love ‘em. They are what makes having kids worth it all!

Posted: December 21st, 2008 under Alaska, Family.
Comments: 3

I really was headed off to bed – and I thought to check just one more email before I did. An acquaintance had emailed me yesterday asking my opinion of Sarah Palin – did I know her? What did I think? What did I know?

My reply was to the point, and honest. My main comment to my friend was the same you’ve seen here before and will see here again – I tell no one how to vote, I simply ask that you do vote and that you do it with wisdom and education.

When I checked that email address a few minutes ago, my friend had sent me a copy of the Kilkenny letter – something that a resident of Wasilla had sent to her family and friends while asking them not to forward it on to anyone.

What? She asked them not to forward it on.

Come on, people, you KNOW that is exactly the type email that will be forwarded – ad nauseum. The letter was written 8-29. It is at the top of the g****e searches for Kilkenny letter. It is expanding at a VIRAL rate.

So, why am I even mentioning it here? After all, we’ve already agreed that I am not going to tell you how to vote, right?

But, please, I have to repeat her fourth reason for having written the note: “Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996 . . .”

Can we say pettiness to the extreme?

I live in small town Alaska. My town is probably about the same size or a tad smaller than Wasilla. We, too, are becoming a big box store kinda town, and no, I don’t like that much. But, contrary to what some would say, Wasilla becoming that kinda town is no more Sarah Palin’s fault than Kenai becoming one is any one mayor’s fault.

It’s likely partly MY fault because I sat back and let it happen – or didn’t fight harder so it wouldn’t happen. You know what I’m saying?

Some of you don’t know this about me . . . in the 90s I was TOTALLY immersed in small town politics. I (like Kilkenny claims about herself and Wasilla) – I attended EVERY borough assembly meeting, MOST every school board meeting and MOST city council meetings. I attended planning sessions and committee meetings. I said my piece. I took down names. I counted the votes. I got involved.

I EVEN ran for office at the borough level (we don’t have counties, we have boroughs). I actually WON once – and then lost it in the run-off that was required because neither I nor my nearest opponent garnered 40% of the votes as the borough requred. I lost the run-off by 32 votes! Gosh, no, I’m not bitter – really. I’ve seen my former opponent. He is now a FAT cat in the most literal of senses.

Alaska, while the biggest land mass state in the union, is still small town. In addition to our city and borough reps, we know our state senators and representatives by their first names. We go to school functions with them (used to be our kids were in school together, now it’s our grandkids), we go to church with them, we eat in the same restaurants. We know which of them got picked up for one too many DUI charges (driving under the influence). We know when their kids are hurting.

Most of us let each other live their lives and either pray for them or lend helping hands when they have a need. Most of us mind our own business.

Some of us are like Kilkenny. THOSE are the ones who make the newspaper headlines.

And, that is a sad thing – for Alaska – and for the union.

Now, you all go on and do the right thing. If you’ve been thinking about forwarding that letter, think twice, remember small town pettiness, remember how you would feel to have some of those things said about you. And remember most of all . . . untruths are often have just enough truth in them to make them that much more believable.
I’m just sayin’

‘night everyone.

Posted: September 7th, 2008 under Alaska, politics, sad.
Comments: 1