The Hills Are Alive, With the Sound of....

Whining kids.  What else?  Ha! (well, it would be funny if it weren't true)  We only have about a day and a half with Clayton before he goes to play war in Guam.  Obviously, we're thankful Iraq trips are a thing of the past (for now) but we hate to send Daddy off for 6 weeks :(   Clayton has been away from home a lot already this year so this is an especially dreaded TDY for me.  The kids and I will get to AZ late in July and some friends are coming to visit earlier in the month. SO, hopefully, the time will fly by.

Meanwhile, we try to do fun things before Clayton leaves.  Today, we went hiking on Mount Majestic.  It is only about a 15 minute drive to the trailhead from our house and it was awesome!! The uphill part is UPHILL, and the hike down is DOWNHILL.  But, Kara hiked the whole thing on her own.  Not surprisingly, Clay-Clay rode most of the way on Clayton's shoulders.  We didn't have our bear bell (really) today but Clay's whining was an even better substitute.  Honestly, we get going on these "hikes" and I'm ready to go wait in the car about 10 minutes in.   We just keep luring him up the hill with promises of "snacks".  Don't laugh, it works.  I'm going to have t-shirts made for my kids that say "Will hike for food".  

We've got a few more adventures lined up before Clayton leaves on Sunday.  I'll post pictures as they're available.  

The "false" summit.  It's as far as we made it today...the rain was on its way.

"Come on, Kara.  If you get up here, you can have a juice box"

The big white mountain behind Clayton is actually Eagle Glacier.  

Oh sure, it's all smiles now that you know we're not climbing any farther..

Getting out the snacks from Clay's lunch box... 

That Darn Yard

So, it's finished!  We have yards.  One in the front and one in the back!  And, if I do say so myself (which I can, because I had nothing to do with this whatsoever), they are the nicest on the street!! Big Thank-Yous go out to Timberline Landscaping and Excavation (Jim and Carol).  We love it!!!

The front yard and a mountain.

Everything is different in Alaska...it's good to remember that when you're reading about life up here.  Here's an example: we have lots of utility boxes and junk in our yards.  In fact, in the middle of this planting bed is a cover that the utility people actually climb into and work all day, basically in a hole in our front yard.

Our pretty river rocks... they are really beautiful when they're wet..

Alaska grown.  We buy local.

The bluff... down to the river (about 200 yards).  Moose, bears, lynx....

The patio... getting furniture sometime.  Maybe not until next summer...when you, dear readers, come visit ;)

Major Fokker

So Clayton pinned major about 3 weeks ago... and about a week ago, there was a pinning ceremony at the 302nd FS.  It is customary for the person promoting to provide the food/beer for the festivities. SO, last Thursday, for the 3rd week in a row, I made food for another party. Fortunately (for Kamdon, at least), the squadron took care of the cake.  I scrambled for the better part of 2 days getting food together and I think it turned out yummy.  The folks at the squadron ate most of it, so I was glad about that...  It was pretty cool that my friend Jackie's husband, Brian Silkey, emceed the pinning.  He was one of the IPs when Clayton did his F16 training at Luke.  He said some nice things about Clayton and he also passed on one of his major rank pins to Clayton which Clayton thought was really cool.  Obviously, when two separate friends offered to keep Kara and Clay for the occasion, I fully took advantage of their offers.  HOWEVER, when I showed up w/out my kids, Brian says "Well, who is going to pin Fokker's other shoulder?  We had Kara down for that."  I looked at him and said "I don't know?  You??"!!  SEE, this is why Clayton should always tell me exactly what/who to bring and how  much!!!!  Anyway, the whole thing went quickly and well.  I laugh when I think of Major Fokker... once, when Clayton found out he was going to pin, he was skyping w/Troy and I could hear Troy laughing going "You're going to be Major Fokker.  HA HA HA HA HAHA".  Funny ;)

Major Fokker and spouse (the PC Air Force term for little woman).

I hate this picture.. it is SO unflattering but it does show us doing our Johnson-ghetto style of pinning (actually untaping the old captain bars).

Congratulations to Clayton :)

In other news...

The biking saga continues.  After being scared off from a back-woods hike by signs warning of a "very aggressive momma grisly bear who is charging people on this trail", Clayton finally relented and bought a cheapo trailer for his bike.  Kara is a good little bike rider but she is not ready for 10 mile and longer rides... as for Clay-Clay, he is still pretty lazy so there is NO CHANCE of him biking even 3 miles ;)  Now, we can bike together as a family (cough, cough).  After much fanfare and unnecessary ado, we headed out on our first Griswold.. I mean Johnson...family bike ride on Saturday afternoon.  Clayton thought we should ride to Target from our house, a little longer ride than Kamdon and I did on Monday.  I wasn't sure that was a good idea but we headed out.  Clayton was riding his muy expensivo bike he bought on Ebay last summer for the first time.... when we were about 5 miles from home, his handle bars came loose.. too loose for him to continue riding.  What did that mean?!  It meant that mom, me, had to ride home the rest of the way, get some tools (not a good idea) and bring the Tahoe back to pick up Clark, Rusty and Audrey.  I rode as fast as my jello legs would go, but it wasn't fast enough for Clark... I mean Clayton.  Oh well, we'll try again another time.  I'll leave you with pics of my new bike and Clayton's new bike... for no particular reason except to give you visual proof that I actually am riding a bike now ;)

My new wheels

Clayton's Ebay deal

Our ghetto trailer that is nearly too small for both our kids.. their butts are almost dragging the bottom when we're riding!  And you parents out there can imagine the bickering that occurs in such a confined space.  JOY!! BLISS!!!

The Yard and a 20 mile bike ride

So, apart from birthday parties and trips to Hawaii, what have the Johnsons been up to??  Well, for starters.. we're having our yards (front and back) put in.  One of Anne's first cousins and her family live in Anchorage... interestingly enough, Jim has a side business doing landscaping.  That was good for us because we didn't have to get a bunch of bids, we just signed on with them basically when we moved here!  I think the yards are going to be awesome.  I'm particularly looking forward to a patio going in off the basement.  It goes all the way out to the bluff and we're going to put a fire pit out there (to lure the bears up.. NOT!) and some cool furniture.   (pictures to follow once it's all finished)

Additionally, I am now the proud owner of my friend Jen's old bike.  Everyone else in the fam has a bike that they ride.. I was left out!!  No longer.  I can't even remember the last time I rode a bike besides at the gym.  We went on a short ride Sunday to the park... that went well so my friend Kamdon and I decided we'd try a longer ride today since the kids (Kara, Clay and Ainsley) had VBS.  Here was the conversation between me and Kamdon...

Me:  Hey, we should go for a bike ride while the kids are at VBS.

K:  Sure!  Where should we go?

Me: (thinking).... we could ride on the bike paths towards the base?

K:  We could ride to Fort Rich (the Army base) and go to their Starbucks.

Me:  Sure!

Meanwhile, we get going on our ride and it seems really easy. So easy that we keep on trucking past Fort Rich, all the way to the new Target which is about 10 miles from Kamdon's house... we were feeling all smug about our apparent super-in-shapedness, talking about how "that wasn't so bad" over our iced teas.  When it was time to head back, had to be back to K's by 12:00 to drive to the church to get said kids, we were still kind of chuckling about our rock start status, first long bike ride.  WELL, all good things must come to an end, and our smugness came to a grinding halt when Kamdon says (about 10 minutes into the hour ride home... no one said we were fast) "Does this feel like it's all uphill?".   Sure enough... turns out "it wasn't so bad" because the majority of the ride to Target was DOWNHILL.  The ride home was not so easy and there was NO TRACE OF SMUG left by the time we made it back and got the kids home.   However, it was fun, great exercise and we encountered no errant rocks from cars, no moose and no bears!!  

Happy Birthday, Clay-Clay!!!

Clay-Clay turned 4 years old last Friday.. He was EAGERLY awaiting his birthday party after all the extended (it seemed to him) celebration of Kara's birthday (between Hawaii and her party).  I didn't really know what to do for his party so we ended up having a BBQ (rager) at our house. There are a lot of little boys on our street as well as a handful of little guys from Clayton's squadron.  Considering their young ages, we decided that it was easiest to invite the kids and their families!!  I think we had something like 17 kids and 15 adults.  It was a lot of fun!!  The weather was fabulous so the kids played inside and out (until Clayton got to paranoid about them "hiking" down the bluff.... we do have bears).  We had a pinata and lots of food, cake and gifts.  Clay was WORN OUT by the end of the night but I think everyone had a good time :)  It's weird, because we're in the constant daylight phase of life so when people started to leave, the sun was high in the sky but it was like 9:00PM!  SO FUN.  We missed having our families around but we have made some really great friends in AK and they were gracious to celebrate with us.

Blowing out the candles on the cake-extraordinaire!  

Cake by Kamdon.. I barely assisted on this one but it was a HUGE hit!!  Clay chose chocolate cake with oreo filling and it was delicious.  

It's hard to believe that Clay is 4.  He is already asking when he'll be 5.  I told him he had to be 4 or a year..that was bad news to him but I'm thinking that year is going to fly by!!  We sure love you, Clay-Clay.  You're a hoot!!!