Happy Birthday, Great Grandma Jeanette!

This is a happy birthday message to Great Grandma Jeanette (her birthday is May 1, tomorrow). We hope that your day is sunny and happy, spent with people who love you.  We miss you and will see you this summer :)

(If anyone wants to add a Happy Birthday message to GG Jeanette, even if you don't know her!!, I will pass them along.. this is my Grandmother who lost her husband of 40+ years just about 6 short weeks ago.  She could use any encouraging words you might have for her)

Today's Post Brought to you by the Number "2"

Greetings from Alaska in the springtime!    We've had a few really sunny days with highs in the 50's.  You could never have convinced me that this would be cause for breaking out the flip-flops and walks without jackets.  However, here I am, wearing a t-shirt, no shoes OR socks and capri sweats (always with the sweats, I know).  It's a funny thing how your perspective of warm weather changes after one simple winter in AK.

OK, so onto our sponsor, the number 2..  Why "2", you ask?  Well, here goes:

**Number of wheels on Kara and Clay-Clay's bikes.. they've both lost their training wheels (Kara by choice, Clay by force) and are enjoying riding bikes all afternoon, evening and into the night. We really have to watch the clocks because the sun is up until almost midnight and it's easy to lose track of time.

**Number of weeks Kara has left of kindergarten.  This one really blows me away!  She'll be a first grader!  Where did this year go??   I don't think she fully understands about summer vacation.  Despite her struggles with math and mean girls, she loves school and will miss it.

**Number of weeks before the four of us head to Hawaii for a little bit.  Clayton was offered a stint doing some kind of liaison position at Hickam Field for about 2.5 weeks.  We tossed around the idea of the kids and I going with, and Clayton bought tickets for us!!  Kara is missing the last week of school and we'll be in HI for her birthday, however, after being promised a "fancy" dinner of pink steak and sushi for her big day, she got over missing kindergarten graduation.  Clayton leaves on Mother's Day and I'll leave 5/14 until the 24th.. Clayton will come home the 28th (or so they say).

**Number of days before Aunt Jennie, Uncle Jake and Baby Hugh arrive for their Alaska vacay. Jenn has had these tickets forever so this trip has been a long time in the making. We're hoping this beautiful weather sticks around so we can be outside and doing fun stuff a lot of the time. Suffice it to say we're all really excited.

**Number of months until Clayton goes to Guam for 6-7 weeks.  Planned TDYs are the kind I can deal with.  And since this one is really more like a vacation (for him) than going to Iraq and being shot at night and day, I think it's not going to be so bad at all for any of us.

Our thanks to the number "2" for sponsoring today's blog update.  We'll see you all next time for a report on "Johnson-Saylor Alaska Adventures".  Thank you for tuning in, see you real soon.

This is our little girl riding her bike down a dirt hill.. she really has inherited Clayton's need for speed.. she also rides her bike on the little ramps a boy down the street has.  Clay.. not interested.

Beauty, Style and Wit

I've added another family blog to the list.. my super funny cousin Erin. Have a read. She is a hoot :)

Teachable Moment #4029b

Mommy:  Clay, close your eye.. you have something in there I want to get out.

Clay-Clay:  (closing his eye while I flick out the eye booger)  What was that?

Mommy:  An eye booger.

Clay-Clay:  Do you get those from eating your boogers?

Mommy:  (having only a split second to decide what to say.. goes with the obvious choice to try and curtail the nasty habit of.. well, you know)

Yes.  That's another reason you shouldn't eat your boogers.

Clay-Clay:  huh.

Easter 2009 in Eagle River

Our first Easter in Alaska was really laid-back, fun and snowy :)  We started opening Easter boxes from Arizona on Friday, dyed eggs on Saturday and went to church on Sunday morning. The church sponsored a huge egg hunt between services on Sunday (indoors) and the kids got to look for eggs with their friends.  We had a super yummy Easter dinner at the Sutterfields' on Sunday evening complete with an Italian Creme lamb cake, my fave!!  It was great fun....

Kara and Clay dying eggs on Saturday afternoon.. Kara had some dry heaves at the smell of the hard boiled eggs.  OK, so they're kind of smelly.. but honestly, where did she get that sensitive gag reflex (again, looking around, avoiding all eye contact).

Sunday morning before church... not eating candy but blueberry muffins.. we were really running like crazy with church meeting at 8:15.  We really needed those extra 45 minutes.  OH well.

A quick picture w/mom and kids before the snow really picked up.

Fokker and the kids.....

Not 5 minutes later it was really coming down... nothing stuck (happy).  NO MORE SNOW!

Week In Review

Rather than bore you with a rambling narrative, I'll just post a few pictures taken over the last 10 days or so...

The last snowman of the season.. most of our snow is gone (finally!!!!).

Hiking Bald Mountain (or something like that) in Eagle River when Clayton was home for the weekend.  We got really warm and shucked the jackets about half way through.  We must be nearly Alaskan ;)

So Clay-Clay and I were coming home from dropping Kara at school and we saw a "moose on the loose" (you must shriek this loudly in a closed area to achieve the full effect) right across the street from our house.  Here is Clay posing with the moose.

The poor moose who didn't anticipate a shrieking 3 year old boy when she was just trying to have some breakfast...  now we wait for the bears to wake-up ;)

And so it goes.....

If you skim through the last 5-10 posts, you have a pretty good idea of what our roller coaster life has been like. Overall, we're surviving even if we're not always thriving. I'll just hit on some fo the "highlights", if you will....

*Mount Redoubt. It's erupting. All the time. We had a trace of ash in Eagle River about a week ago but, so far, that's it for us. Other's haven't been as lucky but, overall, I think it's not been horrible (except for the poor sugars in Homer, they got ashed on pretty good today). Redoubt and I continue to be at odds.. last weekend it kept Clayton away 2 extra days by farting ash all over Anchorage.

*Kara: School has been kind of rough for Kara lately. I think some of it may have to do with the amount Clayton has been gone (and he's leaving next week for Fairbanks, all week)... she doesn't like math (don't know where she got that..looking around, avoiding all eye contact)... and she's still dealing with the mean girls from the beginning of the year. She does, however, have some sweet friends and she loves AWANA and Good News Club so those are always bright spots.

*Clay-Clay: What can I say? He's his normal "high energy" (to borrow a term from Grandma) self. He has run-ins with "Mr Get Right", the paddle, often, but he's still pretty sweet (unless he's throwing his cookie from Miss Kamdon off his plate telling her how gross it is!! another proud, mom-of-the-year moment for me).

*The Cats: They're grouchy and old. Status quo.

*Clayton/Fokker: Still serving his country with a happy heart (well, that's stretching it). He's been gone more than he's been home (and by gone, I mean out of town/state). He is promoting to major next week so that's good. He's leaving again for a week on Monday, that's bad. He had a day off last week and he ran ragged trying to catch up on all the stuff around the house..oh, and taxes. I think he might actually get a break when he deploys to Guam this summer (yes, I know..at least it's not Iraq.. and speaking of Iraq our old compadres, the Spads (!!), are currently in Iraq in case you're running short on people to pray for). We actually had a date last night so that was a rare treat.

*The Mom (me): I'm surviving. I spent about 6 hours across 2 days at my lovely Dentist last week. I had this crown that was 21 years old (broke a tooth eating candy at a youth group all-nighter in high school) that gave up on me.. and when the dentist pried off the old crown, he found even more rotten tooth in my head. YAY! I think he patched me up pretty good (keeping fingers crossed). I just hope he remembers me when he's enjoying his all expense paid trip to Hawaii that I funded single-toothedly. On the upside, I have made some really awesome friends up here who are also in the same boat (MIA husbands, single-mom juggling when that happens). I thoroughly enjoy them and am SO THANKFUL for them.

So, as you can see, we're doing pretty good despite the best efforts of the air force and the volcano :) God is good.

Author's Note

** Just to clarify.. Kara is utterly SMITTEN with all of her boy cousins.  She's just extra excited about having a girl cousin now :)  

Welcome Evelyn Grace!!

Clayton's brother Troy and his wife Melissa welcomed a new baby girl into their family today. She was born this afternoon and joins three very excited big brothers.  My sister-in-law Michelle (Melissa's sister, is married to my brother Mark... you figure it out) took this picture and it is my favorite one so far.  

It was fun telling Kara about baby Evie after school. She jumped up and down and pumped her fists in the air saying:  "I got a girl cousin!"  She was mildly disappointed to hear that Evie won't be big enough to play American Girl dolls with her this summer :)  Obviously we're very excited to meet her.