Watch Out!!!! Thar she blows!!!

I've had a couple of people ask about the volcano that is supposed to erupt ANY MINUTE.... until the last few days, I thought Alaska was simply a beautiful state prone to below-zero weather, horrible driving conditions, $4/gallon gas (not anymore), EARTHQUAKES and good skiing. Apparently, it is also home to a number of active volcanoes as well. What a great state! The one that is about to erupt is not super far from here but far enough away that our only "danger" are clouds of ash. I have received a few emails telling me how to prepare for this.. I haven't done a single thing. I prefer the old "put your head in the sand" approach myself. We'll see how that goes for me :)


PS.. This will not surprise any of you with husbands who leave home for periods of time but, of course, Clayton is out of town for the next two weeks so I'd say chances are excellent we'll have some ash problems!!!!!!

Here's a link to an article in the LA Times for your reading pleasure.

"Mommy, I've got some bad news for you"

So says Clay-Clay to me a few minutes ago.. now, I have to say that there is really no way to predict what constitutes bad news to a 3 1/2 year old boy. It could mean anything from "I have a cough" to "The clothes dryer is on fire". Really.. those of you with little boys know this to be true. Considering Clay wasn't crying or bleeding, I knew it couldn't be that bad.. this is what he said:

C: "Mommy, I've got some bad news for you"

Me: "What?"

C: "I've got diarrhea."

Me: Laughing. "Did you wash your hands?"

C: "Not yet"

Me: "Go do that right now." :)

Pre-TDY Skiing

TDY is a temporary duty change or something else random (AF acronyms stink) that basically means Daddy is leaving for a while (for us this has meant anything from 2 days to 3 months). This particular TDY is to Las Vegas for Red Flag and it's supposed to be a 2 1/2 week thing. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who you ask) the tanker that was going to drag Clayton and his compadres down to Vegas broke down so Clayton is in town with us until Monday (versus leaving Friday morning early). I digress... This last week we were trying to do fun things with Daddy before his TDY. On Tuesday night, we decided it would be fun to go back to Alyeska for some mid-week skiing. We tried to talk Kara into going with us but she didn't want to miss school (some day she'll kick herself for this) so it was Mommy and 2 Claytons. We had a grand time skiing at Alyeska practically alone (no big surprise.. it was a SCHOOL DAY!). Clay-Clay is really doing well skiing and he only fell OFF the lift once (as compared to every single time per the ususal). The snow was kind of weird after that week of rain and warmer temps, it was like skiing on sno-cone ice, seriously! But we had lots of fun anyway. Unfortunately, our camera batteries don't like the cold and they play dead after being outside about 10 minutes. SO, no action shots of us skiing but here is the lone picture of Clay and his mother, the Michelin Tire Lady ;)

It's a Sun-shiny Day!!!

This particular post is a week late... I posted about our nasty below zero temperatures a while back. Well, a few days later, we had a warm snap (50s) and most of the snow melted (not the mountains) creating all kinds of messes. My poor daughter thought that since it was so warm, it was time to move the Barbies and all their gear to the deck to enjoy the fresh air. She put on her light sweater (after all, it was in the 40s that day) and went outside to play. It didn't last long because the warm air was being pushed out by more cold air but I managed to get a few pictures to show you our random spring-y days last week.

"Kara, Were You Shaking the Table?"

So, it's just a relatively peaceful Saturday morning at the Johnson's house (please take the term "relatively" very seriously). My kids are eating their super nutritious breakfast of Fruity Pebbles at the coffee table with only minor arguing (ah, bliss) when suddenly it feels as though there is a giant person standing alongside our house giving it gentle shoves, back and forth... our cat Abby jumped off the couch and looked around like she was about to be attacked and I said to myself "Hmmmm.. that must have been an earthquake". Clay-Clay asks in his very accusing voice "Kara, were you shaking the table" and I took that as confirmation. Weird.

Apparently, there are earthquakes in AK ALL THE TIME. I felt one when we were in TLF but that's it to this point. Here is a link to a website that will show you all the earthquakes in and around Alaska in a given day. For your point of reference, we're in the "Cook Inlet Area" or "Eagle River".

Just some random info to get your weekend off on the right foot. Cheers!

UPDATE: Click here for the local write-up. The earthquake was 160 miles away from us and it was 100 miles UNDERGROUND. WHAT?!?!

Give me a "C-O-L-D".. what's that spell? FREEZING!

I would have updated this blog sooner but I would have only been able to whine about the cold.  I know, this seems so obvious: it's cold in Alaska.  Well, that's true.. but there was some weather phenomenon that kept us below zero for 2 weeks.  You can't do ANYTHING outside when it's colder than zero.  Trust me.  When it's that cold, your nose hairs freeze after about 2 minutes. Fingers and toes hurt.. your face hurts.  Let's face it, it's practically dangerous (well, it seems like it should be if it isn't).  The coldest temp we saw in our car was -37 F.  Considering it is about 65 in our house, that's 100 degree differential!  WHAT?!?! 

Fortunately, it warmed up on Saturday (warm being figurative, above zero is now WARM).  As of today, it's in the mid-30s which made for an ice storm.  I'd take the below zero temps because at least school wasn't canceled and we could drive somewhat safely.  Ah, the weather saga continues...

This last weekend we headed to Girdwood and Alyeska for some skiing.  We went with some friends for a surprise birthday weekend and had a lot of fun.  There hadn't been new snow in a while at the resort so  the runs were kind of icy which can turn a 40# kid into a missile if the stars are correctly aligned... Fortunately, we all survived the trip and are looking forward to a return trip this weekend for better skiing on lots of new snow.   I wanted to tell you that it's been so cold that our camera batteries die when we take it skiing... maybe with the "warmer" weather in the low 20s and 30s, we'll have some success taking pictures of the kids skiing.

I'll leave you with some Alaska shots we took on our drive down to Girdwood on Friday.

The moon high in the sky at 4:18pm.  Believe it or not, this is a vast improvement for us.  For a while, it was like this at 3:30 when Kara got out of school.

This is the Cook Inlet.. our body of water in the area.  It connects to the Pacific Ocean.  We saw whales here in the fall.  It looks prehistoric right now with all the ice in the water.

Beautiful Alaska.  Cold Alaska.

Christmas Flashback

I know, I know.. I should have posted Christmas pictures before New Year but my freaking tooth has been giving me fits... I will spare you the details but please believe me when I say my mouth has been causing me more pain than labor ever did.

We had a good Christmas week!  Clayton took most of the week off and we skied the two days before Christmas and again the day after.   The kids are really getting the hang of it.  We skied Alyeska and the kids were able to each have a one-on-one ski lesson which helped immensely.  I had a ski less at Hillberg and am feeling MUCH better about the sport afterwards :)

After Christmas Eve skiing, we rushed home to make our 6:00 Christmas Eve service where Kara's class sang 2 songs.  The picture isn't great but she's in there singing her heart out.  We had a late dinner and then the kids put out reindeer feed and cookies for Santa.  I had to put this picture on of the note Kara left.. too sweet :)  She wanted to leave our front door unlocked for Santa since our fireplace is gas...we locked the door.

The kids slept in on Christmas morning which is easy to do when the sun isn't rising until well after 9:00AM!  They had a great time unwrapping their gifts.  We had Christmas dinner with some old friends (the Hegtvedts) and some new friends (the Sutterfields).  It was a nice day but we certainly missed seeing our families!  This was the first Christmas we haven't spent with our families EVER.
Kara is very much into her American Girl dolls so she was thrilled to get a beauty chair in which to "style" their hair as well as a snowboard set-up for her doll.
This is Larry Boy.  He's a veggie tales super hero.  Clay LOVES Larry Boy and this was his favorite gift.