Playing with Dom & Jacob

Tommy has not gotten to see Dom in a really long time. They have been in class together every school year except for this one. He was super bummed about it. So Eric invited Dom and his brother Jacob over to play in the yard. They had a water balloon fight in the back yard.

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First Day of Summer School

The boys have not been to school at Chautauqua since March 11, 2020. If my math is right that is 502 days. Since we heard that there will not be a remote school option in the fall we knew the boys would be heading back to school. What we didn't know was that they would be offering 4 weeks of free summer school to kids who wanted to participate. Tommy has done 1 hour reading classes at the school in past years as he gets extra supports. But this was different. This was open to all kids and there was more of a variety of classes. Tommy's reading and math teachers requested his presence in their classes. So that is what I signed him up for. Jake I did sign him up for a week of baking and math and then also a variety of a couple other classes.

We are a little nervous about this. Not only has the Delta variant begun to appear on Vashon, but is also effecting kids more. So we keep telling them they need to keep their mask on and are hoping for the best. Since there will be no online option we knew we were going to have to chance it at some point. We are also little nervous about how their behavior will be at school after being at home for so long. And behaviors at home have not been top notch. I guess better to test it out with a small group before the whole school gets in there.

And they are sending the bus to pick the kids up. An added bonus. Unfortunately the bus did not show up on day 1. Apparently it went to the next street over for some reason and I had to scramble and drive them up there. But it did drop them off and we straightened it out. Jake was so excited when he came home and brought home a biscuit for each of us that he had made in class.

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Mariners Game With All The Boys

Took all the boys to the Mariners game today. Even though Eric did it under protest. Although I did think he enjoyed himself once we got there. We did get a seat in the shade so that helped. We didn't even bother going to the seats we paid for since it was hot again. And boy was Tommy going for the mega fan of the game. He kept doing cheers like "We need a pitcher not a belly itcher." Or just screaming. And then Eric made the mistake of buying a giant thing of cotton candy and he kicked it into another gear. He began doing a turbo dance. Not sure who taught him those dance moves. Jake upheld the family tradition of that one weird guy in the family who can read a book in the middle of a sporting event. I won't name any names. You know who you are.

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Strawberry Festival...Sort Of

We tried to do Strawberry Festival this year. Of course with a pandemic it was not like the usual Strawberry Festival. I know how hard it can be to plan for things in an ever changing environment. We are doing that at work. It seems like they just waited to the last minute for planning. So there wasn't much to do.

We went uptown on Friday to see if we could figure things out as there was not a whole lot put out there about what to do. So we drove around to see where we could find dinner. We found plenty of seats outside over at Casa Bonita so that is where we went. After that we walked over to Island Queen for some ice cream. We ran into Susan and Lena. Turns out that they were planning for Saturday to help do some kids activities to give kids something to do. Then we went down to Vashon Brewing. I had heard they were having music there. Music was the main thing happening this festival. Most of it was in parking lots though and more geared toward adults. There was no music at Ober Park this year. So when I heard Vashon Brewing was having music I thought that was a good idea as it is in grass. So we hung out there for a while and listened to music. Thankfully someone was nice enough to bring hula hoops and cornhole so the kids entertained themselves for the most part.

On Saturday we tried finding the parade. We weren't really sure where to go to see it best. They closed the street in town but did not plan to have the parade run through town. So we were driving to town to try and find a place to watch it. Well, we ended up driving past it. It was a fairly short one this year. We got up town and walked around a bit. The Saturday market was open so we walked through that, although it was mostly fresh produce. Then we walked through town. There were a couple random booths but not really much of anything else to do. So we headed over to Island Queen to see how that was going. There were kids kind of playing around with the activities so we did that for a while and waited for our lunch. We did see the Thriftway Drill Team while we were waiting. We also saw Tommy's reading teacher Ms. Salisbury and her new reading mobile. After eating lunch we walked down to Ober Park to see what was happening there. But other than a few kids playing on the play ground there was not much going on. So we called it a day. 

On Sunday the street was also closed. Not sure why because there wasn't really anything happening there other than just a typical Sunday. They did have the car show but it was at the VAC. Jake and I went to go check it out really quick. Eric didn't want to go and Tommy was not having the best behavior. So Jake and I took a quick walk through. We did drive past town just to see what was happening. But other than some music at Snapdragon the street was basically empty. So that was the end of this years Strawberry Festival. Not really the same. But oh well.

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Giant Chain

Oh no. Tom saw these kids on tv at the home run derby. Now he is asking for a giant chain.

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My Kitty

The boys hanging out with their kitty. Jessi wouldn't miss a chance for pets.

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Mariners Game in Our Seats

I took the boys to the Mariners game today. This was the first game that we got to sit in our regular seats. The stadium is now at regular capacity with no restrictions. My seats only have 5 people in the row so it is fairly distanced anyway. It was nice to be in our own seats although it was pretty hot. We did discover that our odd neighbor is still around. We were wondering. No win today, but the boys enjoyed the ice cream. And the boys ended the day with a mini dance session.

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Alaska

The Youngblood family had asked Eric if he wanted to come up to Alaska again for their family reunion. So we started to come up wit a plan to see if we could go. With COVID still happening we didn't really want to take the kids with and have to worry about all of that. So we asked my parents if they would like to take the boys. They had not had the boys over to their house for an overnight in about a year and a half so they were pretty excited. But this was 7 nights. I have never been away from the boys for more than one nights. So this was a pretty big deal. We were able to make it work. I really appreciate my parents doing that for us.

So while the heat wave was raging we began preparing for our trip. I bought a new cat door. I knew the cats would have no problem with food as they have a cat feeder that lasts for a while. But when we went camping for the weekend the cats busted out of the house even though we put the cat door down so they couldn't go out the cat flap. Not sure how they did it, but we didn't want them to bust out and not be able to get back in. So I bought one of the cat doors that reads their microchip and will only let the 2 of them in since we have other animals in the area. It has a curfew you can set to lock it and keep them from going out at night. And the nice thing is that it pings my phone when they go in an out the door. We installed it a few days before we left. I kept trying to get them to go through the door and they were acting crazy about it. So I was a little nervous about it. But we watched it while we were gone and after one long day of being stuck outside they figured it out. We also set up an automatic water timer on our garden so it would survive the heat. It grew so much by the time we came back.

Then we started to pack. You would think that would be no big deal. I took a suitcase. Of course Eric did not start packing until 10 PM on Tuesday and we needed to leave on the 4 AM boat on Wednesday June 30th. He packed 2 gun cases to deliver to guns to friends in Alaska that had been in his gun safe. And he also wanted to pack his cooler. He really wanted to take a big thing of New York steaks with us and have it in case we took any fish home with us. So he starts packing up his cooler and here I find him packing potatoes. Yes you heard me right. He packed with him 10 pounds or more of potatoes that we had laying around the house. I asked him why he thought he really needed them as if they don't have potatoes in Alaska. He wouldn't budge. So Eric paid an extra $50 to ship his potatoes to Alaska because it was 50 pounds. Whatever. So I was a bit nervous about heading to the airport. I also hadn't flown in over 10 years so I wasn't exactly sure everything they do these days. But our flight went well. We checked all of Eric's crap fine, with an extra fee :)

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We came into Anchorage at about 10 AM and went to Allyson's house to relax for a bit. She was so nice to organize cars for everyone. There were no rental cars in Alaska. People were literally renting U-Halls. They even bought a cheap car from their neighbor to use for the week. They let us drive their 1969 MGB. So we drove that around town for a while. We met them up for lunch at Simon & Seaforts for lunch and an amazing crab sandwich. We drove around a bit more and checked into our hotel. We stayed for one night at the Inlet Tower. After checking in we drove down to the Potter Marsh wildlife viewing boardwalk just south of Anchorage. It was a very easy walk from up on a boardwalk looking down onto the marsh. There were plenty of birds to see. It said to look out for moose and other critters as well but did not see any. My favorite was watching the swallows pop in and out of their bird house that was right next to the boardwalk. They were a popular attraction. They even had a white board that they wrote down the days bird siting's so you didn't have to guess what you were seeing.

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Then we headed back to Allyson's house to visit with people who had all pretty much made it to town at that point. We also got to meet some of her neighbors. Being a pilot she lives less than 5 minutes from the airport. And in her cult-a-sack there are a lot of pilots. So sitting on her back porch I was pretty much surrounded by pilots. Pretty cool. There is also a small airport right off her back porch that you can watch the small planes and seaplanes taking off. After visiting we decided to venture out for some food. I had done a fair amount of looking around before our trip to see what kind of things there were to do around Anchorage. So I knew which restaurant looked the best to me. So we went to the 49th State Brewing. I knew they had outdoor seating. I didn't realize it was rooftop seating. So when we got there we thought we would see if we could find a seat. And we lucked out. Here we are at 11 PM sitting on the roof overlooking the inlet at "sunset". We kept waiting for it to go down and finally at about 11:36 it did go behind the mountains. It was a long first day, but I am glad we got to experience it before we went back to our hotel to crash.

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Then we began our trend of the land that doesn't sleep. We woke up at 5 AM to go for a float plane ride. I had to drag my but out of bed to get there. But it was a beautiful morning. I had never been in a small plane before. The smallest one I had been on was about a 20 passenger commercial flight to Sun Valley Idaho. This was a 2 seater float plane. Eric went first. Apparently he even flew the plane for a little bit. Then it was my turn. The cockpit was so small that I was nervous I was going to bump into something with my knee. It was pretty cool. We just took a quick little flight around Anchorage because Allyson needed to head out to the lodge. I really appreciate that she took the time to do that with us.

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After our flight we checked out of our hotel and helped pack up for the trip up to Talkeetna where the lodge is. We stopped by Palmer to see Nancy's house on our way out of town. It was nice to see her dad Jim and where they live. Then we headed north to Talkeetna. When we got there we saw an amazing view of Denali and looking over Fish Lake. Such an amazing view that you could just sit there and look at it all day. But there were other fun things to do. We went down to the lake to go kayaking and paddle boarding. I picked a kayak because that is what I am used to. We had fun paddling around the lake. Allyson and Beth own this lodge along with a number of pilots. Of course this likes has a number of float planes coming in and out all the time. It is fun to watch the planes fly right by you. We also got to watch the loons floating around. Apparently they had a baby with them but I didn't see it. I don't really have any pictures from down at the lake. Why you ask. Well it was recommended not to take your phone with you. And after Eric dropped his in the lake I didn't take my phone down there. A few of us tried to jump in and find it knowing that it was somewhat waterproof. I was able to touch the bottom just barely, so I search around with my feet. I thought I found it at one point because I ran into something hard. I picked it up with my toes only to find out it was lake clams. They looked like kind of large muscles. I guess no one knew they had those till I picked them up with my toes. We gave up after a while of not finding anything. Eric and I tried going back down after dinner to look for it again buy laying face down on the big paddle board. We could see the bottom but never spotted it. It was hard to remember exactly where it fell. And after trying for quite a while I said I was done. 

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That night we stayed in our little cabin which is just off the main cabin. It is very cute. There is also an outhouse in the middle of all of the little cabins. It almost reminds me of summer camp I went to when I was in junior high. Of course the next day Eric wanted to go out and search for his phone again. The group wanted to head out for fun so I had to do a sprint out there to retrieve him. I regretted that later after my knee started hurting. It is a pretty steep climb up and down the hill to the lake. But I relaxed my sore knee at the Denali Brewing Company. I think one blueberry mojito did the job. Those things are strong, They also had good ciders, pizza and salads. It was a good time.

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Then we headed to the town of Talkeetna for the Live at Five in the park. It is very similar to music in the park on Vashon. They had a fun blue grass and classic rock type band. We walked around the shops a bit to look for souvenirs for the boys. Then I bought an ice cream from little quick stop Nagley's. I didn't realize my 2 scoop ice cream would be at least pint of ice cream. Then we sat in the park and listened to the music. We headed back to the house and Mr. Eric Bingham had to lose to me in both cornhole and cribbage.

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The next morning Eric and I headed out on our own adventure separate from the group. A few weeks before we flew out to Alaska Eric told me he wanted to go fishing. He is not much of a planner so I had to do all the research. We did not really have anyone in our group who wanted to go fishing or knew that much about it. The best advice we got was from Beth to go to Sportsman's Wearhouse and check what the board said. There are a lot of places to fish in Alaska. I checked the maps quite a bit, I checked the regulations to see what was open. Of course Eric said he wanted to go after Kings which is even more limited in where you can catch it. So we checked the board. Of course the places closest to us were not catching salmon, only trout. We went back to the fishing section and bought some cheap poles and lures. I just said pick us out some that people use to fish rivers in this area. They did not seem super confident that we would have a chance to catch a fish. They said, "Do you have a guide?" Well, no. These are the same fish we catch back home, we just needed to know where best to go catch them. So I compared the board to the maps and the regulations and thought I found us a creek that may work out. There was a place that the creek passes under the main road headed up to Talkeetna so we though that looked like a good place to try. So we headed out at 5 AM and drove an hour and a half to this place. There was no one there other than us which is never a good sign. We tried fishing for a little bit and we saw nothing. So Eric said he wanted to try somewhere else. Of course tensions were high because we didn't know where along this long creek to go. So I googled best fishing spots in Alaska and was able to find the Little Susitna Boat Launch and Recreation area. It was another hour of so from where we were. We were not even sure what we would find when we got there, but we headed out. It was so far out that my phone started roaming as if we were traveling internationally. But when we got there we started to see people with fishing gear. So at least that was a good sign. We had to pay $7 to enter. When we told them we were fishing for king they told us good luck as if we had no chance in hell. It was a nice little boat launch. It even had a fish cleaning table. When we got there there was a guy with 2 fish on the table. So there had to be some fish in this part of the creek. There was a little path you could walk along to find a spot to fish along the creek so we started looking for a spot. We managed to find a sand little stretch of the bank. Thanks goodness. Eric managed to borrow boots from one of Allyson's friends up at the lodge but I was just in hiking boots. So we started fishing and we seeing nothing. We don't fish rivers and creeks much. We usually fish the sound where you can see the bait fish and the salmon are jumping. But it was all calm. But about 20 minutes in Eric said he had a fish on. We didn't even have a net, but after about 7 minutes or so and a couple jumps out of the water Eric managed to drag him up on the bank. He caught a 31 inch king. Lucky guy. Their regulations say that after you catch one over 20 inches you are done for the done. No other fishing of any kind. So I made Eric give me the boots. I tried for a while longer. I did see one jump out in front of me but had no bites. Eric started complaining after a while since he had to sit and watch so we left. On our way out we talked to a group of locals who saw the fish. They said we really lucked out. The Little Susitna in years passed had only had 60 fish come through that area that they monitored. This year they had 600. Eric got one of those 600. Then they showed me a pic of their 42 pound king they had caught in a catch and release creek. It was huge and of course fish and wildlife was there watching them bring it in. Pretty cool. So we went to the fish cleaning table. It was a 14 pounder and although it was a little pink we were close enough to the mouth of the creek that it was in pretty good shape and had not fully spawned. So we headed back to the lodge with Eric feeling pretty excited. Like I said we were in a roaming area so my phone wouldn't give me the directions, so we took the long way back, but it was all worth it to get to take the fish back with us and get to eat it for dinner.

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We wanted to get back to the lodge as fast as possible because Allyson and Beth had set up a concert for that evening in the back yard at the lodge. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I have seen a lot of live music on Vashon of varying types. But this blew me away. Hobo Jim's songs and stories were amazing. It was the most authentic and heartfelt way to experience Alaska. I cried through most of it. Yeah I know I am a crier. His songs really evoked memories of people I knew and family members now gone. It was truly amazing.

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The next morning we woke up at 4 AM to go out fishing again. This time we struck out. I did see another one jump just out in front of me but had no luck. And we knew we had a limited time since we had places to be. It was a truly eye opening experience driving around that morning. After listening Hobo Jim's songs I felt like I knew so much more about Alaska. One of his songs talks about the man who started the Iditarod dog race who was a friend of his. The first day we went fishing we drove down this really long road that was flanked on either side by ATV trails. There are a lot of those roads out in that area. But at one point there is a sign that says dog sled crossing. I thought that was kind of funny the first time I saw it. But as we were driving there the second day I remembered that song he sang. The trail had a sign that said it was the Redington Memorial Trial. Of course that was the guy he was signing about that started the Iditarod. Part the story talks about how he tied up 100 dog to a bus and drove it down Knik road. Well here we are driving down that road with the trail beside us. It was amazing to have that context put to our trip.

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We raced back to Talkeetna for the Fourth of July parade. We had a number of cars from our group in the parade so we didn't want to miss it. It is not a very big town so the small parade went down the main road got to the end, turned around and went back down out the road. We then did some more souvenir shopping in town. We even saw a big bear skin on the ceiling of a bar.

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We then headed back to the lodge. I went paddle boarding with the group. Eric stayed back to cook his New York steaks he brought with him. Out on the lake we had a lot of fun. Nancy and Dakota had also joined us at the lodge the night before and were out there on the lake with us. I tried standing up on the paddle board. That didn't go well. I think I am better suited for sitting on floatation devices :) We also went on a little adventure up stream to see what Birch creek looked like. We only made it a little way. Trying to go up stream is not as easy as a relaxing float down stream. But it was a fun little adventure. When we got back for dinner we were sure glad there were yummy steaks waiting because we were starving. After dinner we headed over to Montana Creek. We may have gotten in a little trouble for being rowdy. Eric I totally blame that on you.

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After hanging out at the creek for a while we headed back to the lodge to watch the sun go down on Denali one last time. The lodge is a pretty amazing place. I feel fortunate to have stayed there. Allyson and Beth were amazing hosts and guides to Alaska. The next morning we packed up and headed back to Anchorage for our flight out.

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We flew out at 5:35 PM. Anchorage airport has so many less people and wait times compared to SeaTac. So we stopped for some food before our flight. As we came back over Washington it was about 9:00 PM and the sun was just dropping over the horizon. It was a beautiful welcome home. We barely slept the whole time we were in Alaska so we were pretty exhausted, but it was nice to be home. Our cats were happy to see us. And in the morning my mom dropped off the boys. Now for some rest. Thanks for the good times Alaska.

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