House full!

Thirteen kids plus four parents equals lots of fun!!  Our friends, Joe and Jennifer Germain and seven kids, came down to Homer last week.  Their oldest four and our oldest four had SBA testing with Connections for three days last week, so they came down to spend the week as the kids had a couple hours of testing each day.  While the older ones were testing, Alyssum and Adams had lots of fun with their youngest three!  They didn't have to do school so they thought it was a great break.

It had been almost two years since they had been back to Alaska so it was fun to see how much the kids had all changed.  Amazing how quickly the kids grow up!  The house feels a smaller now with that many big kids!  Legos, games, dolls, movies, outside time, lots of food, and plenty of laughter filled our week!

Joe and Jenn and kids spent almost three years in the Philippines and with that time comes lots of valuable experiences for us to learn from...gardening, raising rabbits, chickens, and goats, feeding their large family in a different country, learning a new language, setting up a house in a village setting, and many more.  Our kids were comparing Tagalog with the language the Germains learned, Cebuano...some similarities and many differences, but it's always fun to try a new language on someone else that may know a few words!

It was a fun week and we look forward to seeing them a little more often this summer!

Spring time in Alaska...

 The snow is melting and the snow is falling...all at the same time!  With the warm sunshine each day we decided to save a few dollars and hang out some laundry.  Not so sure that getting snowed on is going to save us much!  We love the warmer days and the lengthening daylight.  With the warmth you can almost watch the snow melt each day.  Ethan and Tyler have digging ditches jobs everyday as they try to make the melting snow head off into the ditch and not create huge puddles in the yard and driveway.

This morning, Easter Sunday, we woke to gently falling snow.  Hmmm, snowboots and Easter dresses just don't seem to be a great combination!  Oh well, I guess instead of spring bringing new life, spring in Alaska brings the cleanness of new fallen snow.

He is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed!

Happy Birthday Alyssum!

Alyssum had a fun birthday with family and friends!  She is a big eight year old now!  Cousin Katelyn and friend Amanda came over for a slumber party.  Alyssum has a new love...penguins!  So I made a fun penguin cake for her birthday...

  Since it was so close to Easter we colored eggs as birthday party fun!  It was fun and we have some beautiful colored eggs...but oh what a lot of eggs and dye.  Alyssum got some wonderful gifts from family and friends, including a few stuffed penguins, penguin stickers, Legos, art supplies, books, collector coins, and plenty of candy from her siblings!

She also got penguin fabric to make pajama shorts with Grandma.  And Grandma gave her a matching penguin lap quilt.  Alyssum was thrilled with her penguin stuff!  What a fun birthday for a sweet special little girl!!

Learning at its best!

Ethan and Ann Marie are doing a research paper for their writing class with Aunt Theresa.  Ethan chose NASA as his topic.  We found a great documentary by the Discovery Channel called "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions".  Everyone has learned so much about the history of NASA and space exploration!  I love it when the kids learn and they don't even know it!

Drawings of men on the moon, rockets, space shuttles, and the earth rising above the moon are appearing all over the house!  Paper tube rockets and space shuttles are decorating each shelf!  Kailee, Alyssum, and Adams were also very creative and found astronaut costumes...

Ethan rediscovered the rockets that were in his closet which sparked an interest in everyone to blast off rockets!  Ethan and Tyler cruised through the Estes rockets website to see what they could find.  We made a quick trip to Anchorage this week and while we were there made a stop at the hobby shop to load up on rockets and engines for everyone.  Friday night movie was ousted by building rockets...

Steve has had alot of fun helping the kids, big and little, with their rockets.  He takes a trip down memory lane as he tells them stories of his rockets!

Launch day was set for today, Saturday!  A snowy muskeg works great as a launch area...5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF!!

More of the white stuff!!

And the snow just keeps on coming!!  I think the weather man is making up for lost time in giving us the snow we were supposed to get earlier this year...and he is giving it all to us in a week.  We certainly didn't want to feel left out of winter by not getting the snow we most certainly needed!!  Well, something like that anyway!!

We all must admit it is absolutely beautiful outside as we watch the gently falling snow or even to watch a blizzard come up all of a sudden.  We are always so thankful for a warm house and heat when the weather turns cold and nasty!  We have had extreme temperature changes from 40 down to -14 and still the snow kept coming.  Even Ann Marie had to admit the deep snow was a lot of fun as the kids all went diving into the deep powder...

Happy Birthday Ann Marie!!

She's 18!!  Ann Marie's birthday was on Wednesday so we had a family birthday party that evening with ice cream and presents from us.  Then on Friday evening we had a birthday party with extended family and friends!  It was an evening of fun and laughter!!

Can't believe she's 18...seems like it hasn't been that long ago since I met Ann Marie for the first time in Sierra Leone when she had just turned 13!  Wow!!   We love you, Ann Marie...our beautiful African daughter!!

Snow, snow, snow!!

Winter wonderland has arrived for our kids!  They are having so much fun in the snow!  They are a little crazy though...they all seem to think that plowing the snow is THE MOST fun thing in the world to do!  So Ethan fixed up their four-wheeler so his younger siblings could all ride along as they plow the driveway.  I told them with this contraption they look a little like the Beverly Hillbillies!!