Bluebird day at Alyeska!

From the Tram, view of the hotel, park and ice sheet.

Top of tram about midway up the mountain. View of Turn Again Arm Bay.


Lisa's new bunny gear.

Sunny morning, it's about 12 degrees at 1pm. High would be about 22.

1,2,3,4 I declare a Monty Python and the Holy Grail War!

Give me your best shot, I know this movie better than anyone!
Here are a couple of my favorite quotes, slightly paraphrased.

The coconut's tropical, this is a temperate zone
It could be carried.
What, by a swallow?
It could grip it by the husk.
It's not a question of where he grips it, it's a simple question of weight ratios.
A one ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
Listen, in order to maintain air speed velocity a swallow would have to beat it's wings 53 times every second.

Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who, this is supposed to be a happy occasion.

I'm not dead!
What's that?
Nothing. here's you ninepence.
He's says he's not dead.
Well, he will be soon he's very old.
Oh, I can't take him like that.
Aw well do it as a favor.
I can't it's against regulation.
Well can you wait around a moment he won't be long....
I feel happy
Well isn't there something you can do.
I think I'll go for a walk
Thud,
Oh thanks very much,
no problem see you on thursday.

Who are you then?
I am your king
Oh yeah, well I didn't vote for you.

Cutting the midnight shag!

So, all was well here on a Thursday night. The girls were in bed, or so we imagined, and Lisa and I settled down to watch the tele before bed. For brevity, I'll skip the business in between going to bed and waking up the next morning. 8 a.m. rolls around and I go to retrieve our children from their beds. When I notice something strange stuck to my feet. It just so happens that what is sticking to my bare feet is a very large pile of human hair.
I look at my daughter Ainsley and notice that, compared to my memory of what her hair looked like 12 hours ago, she's bald! I turn to my daughter Alyvia and notice her bangs are, shall I say, deshevelled. As my eyes scan the room I spy a wadded up towel on the floor near her bed and pick it up. Long locks of blonde hair drizzle out and, with a thud, a pair of scissors hit the floor.
At this point I'm kinda speechless. I know what happened I just can't believe it! At first, Lisa and I thought it was sorta funny, Ainsley had a mullet and Alyvia just looks like she's been in a fight and had her hair pulled out. Then I start to think about Alyvia cutting sister's hair in the middle of the night, in the dark, with sharp scissors and then turning them on herself. I think of her trying to hide it all in the towel but giving up and falling to sleep before she could finish. At this point we both start to get angry. When my idea of shaving Ainsley's head for the sake of balance and Alyvia's head for punishment fails to garner any support amongst the family I decide to let Grandma take over. She does her best to make their hair at least even. What I know from many a childhood experience, that no one else knows, is that Grandma is notorious for turning even the most basic 'trim' into a Sinead O'Connor look alike contest. So, I kinda got my way without being the bad guy. The following pictures are the aftermath of this most heinous event. Enjoy!





Alyvia has since resigned to wear a hat and stay away from scissors. We told her that Traci had to go to school to be a hair stylist and that maybe she should just wait until she's older to experiment with her sister's hair. I got a haircut also just to commemorate the occasion but I opted to make an appointment with a licensed stylist rather than keep it in the family.



Before
After. Good choice, no?
Here's a shot of the day's weather up in Wasilly, it has been snowing all day, I'd say we have about a foot of new snow. Lisa and I are headed up to Alyeska in the morning to see if we can carve up some fresh powpow.

Ainsley Walks! An account of mixed feelings.

You always want your kids to do well in life but walking is really one of those 'baby steps' that end up being more of a problem than anything else. With walking comes freedom of movement (I know that sounds like a positive thing but anyone with kids will tell you it's not). With walking comes falling. With walking comes walking away. Kinda like talking brings NO! and WHY? Add that to the fact that it means your baby ain't a baby anymore and they will eventually grow old and hate you for raising them. At the end of the day what you've really got is the beginning of the end. Yes, it is a cynical view, but I've always thought of pessimism and reality as being synonomous. Anyways, the 'baby step' that truly is positive (without unforseen consequences) is using the toilet and not missing or forgetting that you learned. These last two caveats are the most important, so don't celebrate too soon or you'll feel stupid for throwing away all of your pull-ups in a frenzy of premature parental extolment. Soon I hope to be posting, Ainsley goes peepee in the toitee! Hooray!

Birthdays

Alyvia and Colton with Jefferson's balloon hats

Emma and Ainsley

The party people

My big little 5 year old

Riding

We have had a busy week of birthdays and fun. Jefferson's birthday was the 9th and Alyvia turned 5 on the 10th. On Jefferson's birthday Mom (Jan) took the girls to Adrienne's to give us a night by ourselves. We went to eat for the first time at my work The Alpine Garden Grill. It was so good!!! I am glad the food was amazing, now I can be proud to work there. A few days later we went snowboarding. We wanted to go somewhere cheap so we drove to a ski area called hilltop. It was literally a hill, so we left. We then drove another hour to Alyeska. We should have just gone to that big, beautiful mountain first. I am pleasantly surprised at how light the snow is up here. We had so much fun and it snowed all day on us.
We had a party for Jefferson and Lyvi Monday night with Jefferson's family. We had soup night, opened presents and just had fun.
Lyvi has been so excited for her birthday. I wish we could have made her dreams come true and had all of the cousins here. She continually asked me when her Utah cousins would be flying up. We went to lunch with Grandma Jan to Subway. After we got home we played Barbie's for hours. We went to Bouncin' Bears (an indoor bounce house) and McDonald's. Yes it's true my daughter wanted McDonald's and I agreed to it. She had fun with her BF Colton and her cousin's Adelaide and Davis. I had a great time celebrating but had a tear in my eye all day thinking of how big my baby is.

Hawaii

Briggsy and I playing in the waves

Oh how I love Hawaiian flowers

Sunset from the balcony

Luau

Sushi

Sweet babies Elysee and Dean

Snorkeling in Napili

Dad's birthday at Hula Grill

Shave ice not shaved ice

Pool side

Condo view
Oh Hawaii, my favorite place to be. I had such a great time with my family last week in Maui! It was so awesome to meet my twin nephew and niece and to catch up with everyone. I got to do everything that was on my list: eat fish taco's at Hula Grill, sushi, coconut shave ice, smell a tuberose, visit my friend Dave, eat Macadamia nut pancakes at Gazebo, luau and laying out with Maui Babe until I can't stand another moment of sun. I feel so lucky to have had Jefferson and grandma Jan babysit the kids so that I could have Lisa time. Thank you Mom and Jefferson!! I don't remember the last time I had a week to myself. I think everyone should take a personal vacation, I feel so rested, at peace and genuinely happy! Thanks to my Briggs family for all the memories and fun times!!

A veritable litany of news and goings on...

With Lisa gone sunbathing in Maui, I've been able to catch up on some projects. It helps that the weather here has warmed nearly 70 degrees in the last week too, I actually felt like walking out the door. For the first time since Thanksgiving it's above zero, it's now 45, two weeks ago it was -30. But enough about the weather.

First, the bathroom used to be a neon, pea-green that usually invoked vomiting, so we changed it to a cool monochromatic blue so that we could all keep our food down.





Ainsley's newest favorite... Oreos.

My new least favorite thing, Ainsley's Oreos.

I finally broke down and got a haircut after the secretary at my school made a poignant, yet decidedly necessary, comment about the wily girth of my hairdo.

After watching too much of the Green channel I felt compelled to build a compost bin, so I scraped together a bunch of wood I had lying around the house and built a 3x3x3 ramshackle old bin for free! Thanks DIY network!


As for the final bit of news this week, I have just been accepted into the (get ready it's a mouthful) Masters of Education and Leadership Program at the University of Alaska Southeast, in Juneau. The program involves 2 summers in Juneau for coursework and a year in my district for an internship. I will be done in August of 2010 and after that I'll start combing Alaska for Principal positions. I bet none of you ever thought that I would be a principal, go on admit it. That's OK, I find great pleasure in doing things that no one expects. Here are a couple pics of the campus in Juneau.