Backwards Posting.. Pictures of Kara's Birthday Party

I am so scrambled brain these days. I thought I had put up some pics from Kara's birthday party and pics of her Kamdon cake but I realized I hadn't. I know some of you probably have ulcers from wondering where these photos are, and considering I don't like to disappoint, I'm posting them a month late :)

The theme for this year's birthday was "Art"... Kara loves art and wanted an art party. This is a cake she co-designed with Miss Kamdon. The little paintings were painted by she and Ainsley on fondant canvases.

pre-party irritation (already)

Clay's last day of pre-school was on Kara's birthday.. excellent timing because her party was for "girls only". I'm still not even sure he realizes he missed the whole thing!!

Party table.

Instead of games, the girls painted these little wooden dog houses from Michael's. They were a huge hit and they turned out really cute.

The cake was tye-dyed!! How cool is that?!

It was a good day.. fun celebration of Kara and her 7th birthday. We sure love that girl.

Since We Last Met....

Greetings from mid-June. This summer is FLYING by, folks.. Lots to report since the last update. I know everyone is just waiting with bated breath.

I'll get straight to the point and use the bullet system for this post. Since you last heard from the Johnsons, the following has happened:

* Clay turned 5! Seriously, where has the time gone??? I feel like he should still be 3.. which he occasionally acts like. We aren't partying big until TJ gets here but we did go to Chuck E Cheese with the Sutterfields the night of his birthday for a mini celebration. He thoroughly enjoyed the attention. We're saving the awesome cake for the TJ party to follow.

* Summer 2010 visitor round 3 has come and gone. Our sweet friend Jenn from Fort Worth came up for 2 weeks. We had lots of fun trekking around, showing off Alaska. The weather her first week was awesome. It was pretty dreary the second week. Add the exhaustion from the first week and some summer colds (UGH!), the second week was probably a little anticlimactic. Oh well, it was great to see her. It had been 3 years since we'd seen her with our eyes.. she's been to Africa and back in that time.. and we've moved to AK (obviously). We're thankful for good friends, old ones and new ones.

* Clayton and I celebrated our 13th anniversary. Sometimes it seems like we've been married for 13 months and sometimes it seems like we've been married for 31 years. We got to go out to dinner in Anchorage while Miss Jenn hung out with the kids. AND, we got a new camera!! Hallelujah!!!

Here are some pics to keep you entertained and to prove that the sporadic blogging isn't merely a result of my laziness :)

Fishing at Lake Hillberg on base... the kids and Jenn caught some little fishies. They threw them all back.

Trooper is back with us for a week or so... We love him!!

Happy Birthday to Clay... LOVE HIM!

The family that hikes together.....

Miss Jenn and her fan club at Alyeska.

Clay and Chase eating smores.

Summer 2010 Visitors: Rounds 1 and 2

We're only about 10 days into our summer vacation but I can already tell it's going to FLY by this year. We've already logged 2 visitors so far this year and it's only June 2. I think that's not too shabby. The first round was my mom and dad and grandma Jeanette. My dad actually had meetings in Anchorage so they all trekked up here and made a trip of it. We had so much fun dragging Jeanette all across "south central Alaska". The kids thoroughly enjoyed having 2 grandmothers and a granddad in town, to cater to their every whim (what a shock this week will be when it's just me..not catering to their every whim). The grandparents stayed until early Saturday morning and their replacement, Karen, arrived late Friday night. She stayed through a lovely Memorial Day weekend and left us Monday night. Good times. Lots of ground covered. Yesterday it was back to business as usual. I spent the entire day with my new best friend, the rug doctor, cleaning our foul carpet. I nearly tore off my pinky finger in the process but I have clean carpets... just in time for our next visitor, Miss Jenn from Fort Worth!

Kara's birthday celebration (round 2) with the grandparents.

Chocolate chip cookie dough cake from Cold Stone... yum.

The whole fam damily at the Anchorage Saturday Market.. lots of "bargains".

The grandparents took the kiddos to the animal preserve that wasn't that cool after all.. no bears but lots of moose. At least we can check it off the list of things to do in Anchorage.

Eklutna Lake picnic with the Sutterfields, Fillemans and Ryan. Beautiful day, beautiful lake.

Portage Glacier cruise... it was really warm but there is still an off-glacier breeze on the top of the boat so we gave in to the windbreakers.

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Miss Karen, our frequent Alaska visitor, offered to pierce Kara's ears last Christmas. Kara thought about it, Daddy agreed so it happened last weekend. Kara was pretty brave though I know the "deadening" part hurt.

I think this picture is SO FUNNY with the needle hanging out of her ear. Kara does not share in that humor. At all.

All smiles and 2 pierced ears. I was hedging bets that Kara would only end up with one pierced ear.. I was wrong! She did great. Thanks go out to Miss Karen for all the pokes she gave out last weekend ;)

This One's a Doozie, Folks!

This is going to be a lot of pictures, this post.. We're in the middle of a BIG week around here. Lots of "lasts"... A first... Kara's turning 7... Grandparents and a Great Grandma are coming to visit. Daddy's TDY for a few days. DETAILS GALORE. We're at the half-way point. I think we're gonna make it :)

This is Jojo. He's our new cat (said very grudgingly by me). He was clearly abandoned in our neighborhood about a week before the first snow. What were we to do?? He's HUGE! I don't think you can really tell from this picture. I think he's part jackalope.

This Tuesday was the last "Trade-off Tuesday" of the season. This has been a winner of a deal for both the kids and the moms (I think). This day at our house, the sun was out and the kids were literally soaking it in.

Building a campfire in our backyard... fortunately, no matches were involved.

A true first!! April biking with a dog in a backpack (40+ miles in 2 days). Trooper seemed to enjoy himself. He got to stay with us again for a week. Good times, Troopie!

A last: Kara's last field trip as a firstgrader.. We went to the zoo. It was freezing. This was the middle of May in south Anchorage. Fleeces were not overkill this day, sadly enough.

Kara and Mommy.. there was a grizzly bear behind us in case you were wondering!

Clay's last Sunday as a Lutheran :) He's all done with preschool. I can't say enough good things about Little Lambs of Peace Preschool. He has loved going and has learned a lot from Mrs. Hackmann. We'll miss you guys!!!!

Clay's last field trip as a preschooler. We went to Matanuska Creamery in Wasilla. This is Clay milking a fake cow. No words.

Enjoying some very tasty ice cream at the creamery.

Clay and I cheesing it up after we ate cheese curds for the first time. They're not nearly as gross as they sound.

In my mind I am composing an awesome post for Kara's 7th birthday on Friday. I seriously doubt that I'll get it posted in a timely manner.. but it's going to be a good one, I just know it. In case you're wondering, we're having an art birthday party for 7 of her friends on Friday. Kamdon made the cake and it's awesome. I think it's going to be a good time. I'll probably get pictures of the party up on a relatively timely manner.

Aviation Trade Show May 2010

For anyone who might be interested, Clayton is at 1:40ish of this youtube video. Don't know who the people are in the video.. there were so many people filming that day, we knew we'd eventually stumble on a video to share with all our loved ones (cough, choke, gag).

Hellions Angels and a Rockstar

Hello from the most beautiful day on record so far this 2010. It is nearly 60 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. There is still snow on the tops of the mountains and the grass on the ground is starting to get green. You can literally SMELL spring today in Eagle River, Alaska. I NEVER paid attention to the weather coming from Arizona. It was either hot or warm. In Texas, the weather was schizophrenic but at least it was predictable in its unpredictability. Here in AK, it makes TX weather look down right boring. SO, when we get the rare day of warmth AND sun, people sit up and take notice. WHAT?! (insert screeching brake noise here) Am I 50 years old? Did I really just blog a whole paragraph about the weather?! I AM SO SORRY!!!

I wanted to post some pics from our epic weekend. It was pretty jam-packed with a sick kid (Clay) thrown in for good measure... Clayton worked this weekend and I had this thing called a "dining in". It's basically a big banquet for the AF spouses where you have to come up with a theme, a costume and a skit. Yes, there is much potential for lameness and humiliation.. Nevertheless, a few of us decided to fly our freak-flags and give it a whirl. Considering Clayton's squadron is called the Hellions (please keep all comments to yourself.. like we had any say in the name of a squadron), we decided to be original and be biker chicks and call ourselves the Hellions Angels. We made cool vests, came up with a skit and had some awesome table decorations. It was a lot of work over the last month but it was also pretty fun. That and we won "best costume".. Enjoy the pictures...

The Original Hellions Angels: April, Beth, Kamdon, Jen and Camille in front of the table extraordinaire.

Our awesomely gigantic centerpiece. It says 302 which is our squadron # (in case you're wondering).

Sunday brought another work day, a recovering Clay and an aviation trade show. Turns out that Clayton was going to fly a jet from the trade show thing back to Elmendorf. With Clay feeling better, I decided to take the kids down and they could see Daddy take off in the jet a little more up close and personal than usual (which is NEVER that close at all). It was a lovely grey, cold and windy day out at Ted Steven's Airport. Did I take warm enough clothes for myself and my kids? NO WAY! Did we let that deter us? HECK NO! (Alaska has made us all so hardcore) So we traipsed out to this trade show thing that had all kinds of military and private airplanes out on static display. Clay was in hog heaven. The LAST thing he wanted to do was stand still and watch Clayton suit up and taxi the jet out and take-off. I thought that was kind of funny because literally the entire crowd watched this whole ordeal... Honestly, the son of the F22 pilot was more interested in the FedEX jet!! And he kept saying so.. LOUDLY! As an aside, I don't know if I've shared my loathing of air shows. I have a repeating nightmare of being at an air show and planes just falling out of the sky. Therefore, I despise them. Granted, this wasn't an airshow, it was a trade show so there weren't planes flying all the time and doing random tricks, etc.. HOWEVER, this involved a crowd of people watching my husband take off in the rad F22 (said somewhat tongue-in-cheek) so it technically qualified as somewhat of a living nightmare for me. I don't know what it is about that.. I've seen one too many shows on AIR SHOW DISASTERS on Discovery Channel, I guess. Suffice it to say, since I'm snarkily blogging about it, Clayton's plane didn't fall out of the sky (thank God.. again). And even though Clay-Clay was unmoved by his dad's rockstar status, it was not lost on Kara. She LOVED seeing all the little boys (and some big ones, too) go nuts over the F22 knowing Daddy was at the stick (or throttle or whatever it is they call it). She talked about it all evening. Unfortunately, my camera is a piece and the batteries died long before Clayton actually started moving so the pictures are kind of boring.

Clayton and the kids.

Putting on the gear.. it takes a long time..

Clayton climbing in. The kids think it is HILARIOUS that someone has to buckle him in "like he's in a car seat" (said in a wicked voice by Clay-Clay.. he loves to know that someone besides himself is tortured by a 5 point-harness)

It is really too bad that there is no sound in this picture. Perhaps then you would understand why my ears were literally dripping blood by the time Clayton got airborne. (And yes, I had earplugs but I gave them to my kids.. I'm just that good of a mom. I sacrificed my own hearing for that of my kids. Someday they'll thank me...when they're sneaking out and I can't hear them)

Oh Fokker, we give you a lot of grief but we are secretly both thrilled by and proud of you (there is NO DANGER of him ever reading this blog..that's how I can put that!).

Spring-y Time in AK

Hello faithful blog follower(s).. I know, I've been away awhile. No excuses from me, no judgement from you! Deal?!

OK. Good. Now for the fun stuff... what we've been up to? Well, first and foremost, the skis are officially retired for the season. Most of our snow is gone! FINALLY! There's still a patch here and there, but it's pretty much gone. What we're left with is a lot of dust (an improvement on the mud) and a million little rocks (leftover from sanding the roads during the winter). It is truly the ugliest season of the year.. BUT, we know that the grass will start growing and shortly thereafter, the flowers. Another hallmark of spring in Alaska is the ever-increasing daylight. Yes, kids, we're gaining about 6 minutes per day. That's 42 minutes per week. Sounds minor to you, does it? Well, it adds up. It's dark about 10:00pm and getting light by 5:30am. By the time June 21 rolls around, we'll have no significant darkness, just duskiness for a few hours. I digress... this post isn't about random Alaska irritations.. it's about the Johnsons (who are possibly considered random Alaska irritations by some!). So here we go..

Clayton: Working. Sitting alert. Building shelves in the garage (yay!). Buying April a new mountain bike (YAY!). Looking for a road bike for himself (huh?). Working. Sitting alert. Traveling. Working. Being a good dad and husband in between the above :)

Kara: Finishing up first grade. Completing AWANA book #2 in Sparkies. Winning art and "good example" awards in school. Riding 15+ miles out of 24 when we ride to Target as a family. Sadly saying good-bye to 3 fun friends from school this summer. Missing her family in Phoenix, Arizona. Reading, drawing, writing and playing lots. Making her mom and dad PROUD!

Clay-Clay: Random weirdness as usual :) Bike riding FOOL! Traded the painted-black-Kara's-old-Princess-bike for his new mountain bike. Possibly finishing his AWANA's Cubbie's book. Thoroughly enjoying neighbor Ryan at every possible moment. Wrapping up pre-school (learning LOTS!). Driving mommy nuts. Negotiating a Star Wars birthday party that will NOT take place until TJ is in Alaska (how sweet is that?!).

April: Making lame attempts at humor on the blog. Riding 20 miles to Target with girlfriends three days/wk (trying to fit as much in as possible before school gets out). Bible study. Breakfasting/lunching with friends. Loving her life these days for sure (SERIOUSLY!).

Cats: Hating the new kitty Jojo (Snackie and Abby, that is). Being cranky and old (Abby). Trying to act young by chasing new Jojo but really just wanting to eat, sleep and be fat (Snackie). Plotting his escape daily.. figuring that bears and moose are more desirable than two old fart cats (Jojo).

So as you can see, we're alive and thriving in the 49th state. Life is good. All that's missing is you.. Wish you were here :)