Bella's Puppies

We are experiencing breeding for the first time. Bella, our female Maltese, gave birth to two girl puppies today (Nov. 7, 2009). One was born at 10:00 am and the other at 10:30. Unfortunately only one of the two survived. This is the one that survived. The children call her squeaks because of the little squeaky noises that she makes. It was a neat experience for the whole family to witness.
She is a tiny, little thing that can fit in the palm of your hand. I would say about 5 in. long and maybe a half a pound. Not quite a "pound puppy". Ha Ha!

Cake Decorating

My friend Melissa teaches the Wilton Cake Decorating Course. She just finished teaching a group of us. I learned a lot but learned that I am not skilled enough for serious cake decorating. This was our last cake. I conquered the rose. So now all our kids will get roses on their birthday cakes whether they want them or not!

Happy Halloween/Birthday!

Happy Birthday to our little princess. She turned 3 yesterday. It is hard to believe. She had a Barbie cake. She LOVED it....she is 100 percent girl even with all these boys around.

Nick as Lord Voldemort. He was scary(to Megan at least!). Jake was Harry Potter. They were fighting continually. Next year we will avoid the whole arch enemy thing.

We were all dressed up for the church Halloween party. The kids were able to trick or treat indoors considering that it was about 5 degrees last night!

Jake's Swim Meet

Jake is on the swim team. On Friday they had a meet. Jake did well in his age group. He came in 2nd for back stroke, and 3rd on butterfly. His relay team came in 1st. They have 2 more meets of the season and are hoping to improve their times.

Anchorage

Last weekend we went down to Anchorage. Unfortunately we didn't get a lot of pictures. I would like to say that this is a special mountain like Mt McKinley(Denali) but it's not! We went past Denali but didn't stop, we will this summer.
Curtis eating reindeer. Yummy! We told the kids that it was Rudolph. They didn't believe us.
We went to the Zoo. They didn't have many of the traditional animals because of the weather, but lots of Alaska animals. It was fun but cold.

We were able to do lots of other things in the big city(do we sound like country folk?) too. We went to the temple, to Chuck E. Cheese, the mall, Target(!!!), and an indoor water park. We had a great time. We are already looking forward to our next trip.

Firefighter's Ball

On Saturday we went the the annual Firefighter's Ball. It was a great time. The food was good and we got to boogie it some out on the dance floor.

Some of Curtis' firefighter buddies.

The YMCA

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken this fall...and I think they turned out fabulous. (Thanks Karla!)

SNOW

Well, yesterday it was officially the first day of fall....for the rest of you! Here in Alaska it was the first day it snowed. The boys jumped on the trampoline, dancing in the snow, way too excited than anybody should be for snow. I didn't expect it to still be here this morning, but still it is snowing. It is supposed to warm up into the mid 40s for the rest of the week, so I don't think it will last. But it is a good reminder for me to dig out coats and boots and gloves. So, I hope the rest of you are enjoying the beautiful crisp fall weather!!

Close...Yet So Far Away

This is as close as Curtis could get to getting a moose this hunting season. But he was at work with no bow. The irony of it all! Well, there is always next year!

The Little Hunt

Curtis decided to take a day of his 3 day break to go hunt for some moose. The area he went was about 20 miles away but still on base. He saw about 7 moose but they were all not huntable(if that is even correct terminology?!) But he got some great pictures. Better luck next week!

Mountains in the morning view

Sunset

Bear prints