Snow, swimming, and camping out!!

February was teasing us with spring like conditions...it was pleasantly warm and the snow had mostly melted away...the kids could play outside and not get freezing cold.  But we knew it was too good to be true!  March has come in roaring like a lion...we got a foot to two feet of snow yesterday(depending on where you live), then it warmed up to 40 and started raining.  This morning it was a bone chilling 13 degrees at our place and windy and it was snowing more!  I'm not sure how much we've gotten today...at least 6 inches?!  Where did our spring weather disappear to??  With the windy gusts we are experiencing tonight we could have some amazing snow drifts in the morning!

Tyler, Kailee, Alyssum, and Adams had a great two weeks of swimming!  They learned so much and became much more confident swimmers.  Tyler's teacher all but got on her knees and begged him to be on the swim team.  She said he has the Engebretsen swim genes (my sister is a great swimmer and swam on the swim team with the same coach).  He loves to swim and enjoyed his time in the water, but said he really didn't want to be at the pool that much!  His first love is spending time outdoors, building and creating!

This week we went to Anchorage on Tuesday to pick up our friends, the Germains, at the airport.  We drove to Nikiski to get their bus(as it was being repaired by a friend there) and took it to Anchorage to get them.  Sounds easy enough?  Well....we left our house at 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon, drove the 100 miles to Nikiski to get the bus, the bus had a couple flat tires so Steve spent about an hour getting them pumped up and hooking up the trailer that we were towing.  We drove to Soldotna, stopped at Fred Meyers and found that the bus had a good flowing anti-freeze leak.  Steve attempted to tighten a hose, bought several gallons of anti-freeze, and we were on our way by 7pm!  Not quite driving in the light like we had hoped especially in a bus that has balled tires and towing a trailer. 

We stopped every hour to fill up the bus with anti-freeze, it was guzzling a gallon an hour!  We wondered if we were going to make it all the way to Anchorage.  In the pass we were met with several inches of new snow on the roads and it was snowing and blowing, and VERY dark.  We couldn't see more than the road in front of us!  Definitely makes for a long night of driving!  Steve drove the bus slowly through the pass, not wanting to get stuck or slide into anyone...we made it safely through.

We had made arrangements to stay with my sister in Palmer, but because of arriving in Anchorage so late we made the decision to "camp out" in the Fred Meyers parking lot.  Ever done that with 6 kids in the winter?  Guess there's always a first time for everything!!  Thankfully it didn't get below 29 degrees and we had winter gear and sleeping bags.  We slept fitfully, but we were warm enough with four people to a vehicle.  We woke at 7am and went to the airport to pick up our friends.  Everyone was a little on the tired side, but oh, what a fun story to tell!

The rest of the week was rather uneventful by comparison!  We spent that day with the Germains, unloading their belongings and letting the kids get reacquainted.  Then we got to spend the evening with my sister and brother-in-law...and we were never quite so happy to see a bed!  We all crashed for the night.  Our drive home was in the daylight and we got home in time for Ethan to go to Youth Group.

On Friday the kids had some school to make up and they did a great job of getting their heads into it and making up for the days we had missed!  Now I know what they can do!

And the weeks pass by...

Wow! Where does the time go? Even my kids comment on how fast time flies in the winter when we are busy with our noses in the books and then thankfully summer goes by much slower! We have had a winter without a lot of snow and recently with all the snow the rest of the United States has been getting, Alaska has been warm and lacking in snow. The other day we had a whopping 43 degrees at our place...felt like a heatwave! The kids said they didn't need to wear hats and gloves outside...it was too warm! Alaskan kids for sure!

Ethan has continued with snaring rabbits and has managed to catch a couple more. I fixed rabbit stew for dinner and most of the kids thought it was okay. It was a little rubbery, but not bad for wild game.

Last week Steve gathered the four oldest kids and taught a small engine class. They took apart a Honda single cylinder engine, found the problem, and put it all back together. It was a pressure sprayer that hadn't worked for over 5 years...when they got finished with it and pull started the engine, it roared to life! Needless to say they were all amazed! So now Ethan and Tyler think they can fix anything if they just take it apart! Today they pushed their old snowmachine in the shop to see if they could take it apart and get it running. I think they just loved getting covered from head to toe in grease! They got it all put back together, and it started, but is still running rough. Guess they gotta figure out something else!

Ann Marie and Kailee are working on a quilting project for school. Each Friday they spend the afternoon with my mom, each making their own quilt. Ann Marie is making a twin size quilt for her bed. It is bright and beautiful, made out of batiks! Kailee is making a lap quilt with browns and blue greens. My mom got a couple inexpensive sewing machines for the girls to use, sewing boxes with supplies, and they picked out fabric. Their sewing ability has improved greatly and they are loving the project! Thanks Grandma! (I'll post pictures when they are finished.)

Well, the next two weeks should be even busier than usual...Tyler, Kailee, Alyssum, and Adams all have swim lessons everyday. They are so excited to get to go swimming everyday! It will wear them out, that's for sure!

Alaskan wilderness

The kids have been exploring the woods around our property and beyond recently. They discovered a lot of snowshoe hare tracks in the woods. Apparently the rabbit population increased dramatically this summer as the woods are teaming with wild rabbits. The kids found they could just walk through the woods and scare rabbits out of their holes as they walked. Alyssum started putting out lettuce and carrots down by the garden as the rabbits were eating stuff out of the compost. We watched with amusement one day as a rabbit and squirrel chased each other away from their new found treasure in the compost. The rabbit finally won as he chased the squirrel away and up a tree. The squirrel didn't give up too quickly, he noisely voiced his complaint from a few branches up! We laughed at their antics!!

So Ethan decided he needed to try his hand at snaring a few wild rabbits. Grandma and Grandpa let us borrow some snowshoes to make tramping through the woods a lot easier. And cousin Jason loaned Ethan some snares for rabbit hunting. Earlier in the week Ethan and Kailee snowshoed out beyond our property to a wooded area with lots of rabbit tracks and trails. And hopefully to a less populated area so he wouldn't snare someone's pet! They set four snares which took them several hours to set up.

Late Wednesdsay afternoon Ethan and Kailee returned to the snares to see if they had caught anything. They took headlamps since it was getting late and could be dark when they returned. About 5:30 they came bursting in the door of the house with a wild story..."We checked our first snare and were walking to the second one when 15 feet in front of us a large cat jumped out of the bushes. It was a couple feet tall, had a short stubb tail, and looked like a large cat. I turned to shine my headlamp on the animal and saw red eyes looking back at me. We turned slowly and walked out to the road to return home! It was scary mom!! We think it was a lynx. What do you think?" We are fairly certain it was a lynx, although rarely seen they are around and their main food source are snowshoe hares. The tracks in the snow are the right size for a lynx. It was scary for them, but how exciting to see!

Now today, Steve, Ethan, Tyler, and Kailee tromped back out into the woods to check on the traps. Out of the four they set, two traps had rabbits! Frozen solid since it was so cold out, they just looked like stuffed rabbits! And not a lynx in sight...just the tracks in the snow! Now Ethan has some work to do... Guess we will be having rabbit stew one of these days! Ethan is hoping to get enough rabbit pelts to make something...we'll see what he thinks after he cleans the first two! What a great learning experience for all the kids!!

Kailee is NINE!

Kailee had a fun birthday with her friend Emerald, cousins Katelyn and Bethany, and sister Alyssum and family. We celebrated her birthday at my mom and dad's house with everyone. She wanted Legos for her birthday so I made a Lego cake. She was pleased!

Hard to believe it's been almost nine years ago since we got that phone call telling us we had a referal of a baby girl...all the info we got info was her name and birthdate. I am so thankful for the journey God has taken us on to bring our family together.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

from our wintery Alaska home to yours!
Steven and Stacey
Tyler 11, Ann Marie 17, Ethan 14
Alyssum 7, Adams 7, Kailee 8
and the family dog, Ginger

School time...

...for our elementary class! Tyler is in 5th grade, Kailee is in 3rd, Alyssum is in 2nd, and Adams is in Kindergarten. There is never a dull moment around here, especially when it comes to hands on learning.

For Thanksgiving these four decided they wanted to put on a play for everyone...to entertain the guests! Steve and I challenged them to have a specific theme and write a script. Tyler really took the leadership role and organized everyone, although Kailee was in charge of writing the script. I heard comments later from the younger ones that they really like doing something with Tyler in charge because he does such a good job of getting it all organized and they have fun too!

So they performed a short play about the first Thanksgiving with Tyler and Kailee being Pilgrims and Adams and Alyssum were the Indians. They helped each other figure out the costumes with a few suggestions from mom when they were stumped. They even had tickets with tear-off stubs for those that were going to be watching! Such fun!

Science...Zoology II: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day (by Apologia). We were learning about sea turtles, so we made an outline of a leatherback turtle to give us an idea of how big they really are! This one might be slightly bigger that it should be, but not too far off from what a leatherback turtle can grow to be...quite an amazing gentle creature.


Lego Education: Simple and Powered Machines. "Enables children to work as young scientists, engineers, and designers providing them with settings, tools and tasks that promote design technology, science and mathematics."

These Lego science activity boxes have been a great hands-on tool for learning how machines and tools work. Here Tyler and Kailee worked together to make a fishing rod that uses mechanisms-pulleys and levers, and investigated a pawl and ratchet.

Adams and Alyssum have their own Lego Education box that teaches Early Simple Machines. Here they had to design a bridge that was 8 inches long or longer, at least 4 inches above the water, safe, and could withstand a fair amount of weight. They both had fun with the bridge project and learned a lot in the process! We all look forward to Fridays when we can dig into our Lego Education boxes!

God's Majesty displayed...

We have had the most amazing sunrises(top three photos) and sunsets(last two photos) recently, that I just had to share some of Gods amazing glory in creation with all of you! Steve took these amazing photos from our yard, and we never seem to get tired of exclaiming or viewing God's handiwork on display for all to see!