We made it!  After driving about eight days straight for a ridiculous amount of hours, we finally pulled into the driveway in Anchorage around the first of July.  We are halfway unpacked and I am gearing up and getting super excited about wedding season!  

We flew from Alabama to Idaho and so we didn’t technically start driving until we already hit the northwest.  We hooked a left into Washington and drove up through Rossland, BC to visit some friends.  What a great start to the trip!  We slept inside instead of in the tent, saw beautiful gardens, climbed a crazy steep hill and got a glimpse of a Raccoon.  After that we headed to Banff and experienced non-stop wildlife viewings.  Banff was stunning and from there things begin to blur together.  

We drove the Cassiar highway which was in wonderful shape.  We were the only ones on the road and it was smooth and fast.  The highlight of the Cassiar was our night camping at the Deese River Crossing.  Beautiful location, incredible hosts and sparklingly clean facilities! 

After a bumpy ride on the AlCan, we hit Whitehorse in the Yukon and enjoyed a great evening at the Takhini Hotsprings. The water was perfect for little boys and swimming!  The next day we stopped into Muktuk Adventures to see the sled dogs and the boys were hooked.  Solomon even started crying when we left.  It turns out that Dave had already met some of these dogs four years earlier during the Yukon Quest when a blizzard prompted the race directors to call in the helicopters.  Gorgeous dogs, great hosts and another wonderful day.

Now we are just looking for the next family adventure.

With the threat from my dad that he was going to whack down all of those yellow weeds in the pasture, I knew I had to rally the boys and try to get a last ditch effort of a portrait in the bag!  The plan was a bit over ambitious.   Since the yellow flowers (ie, weeds) were in the horses pasture,I decided that Roger and T2 – the horses –  would make a good backdrop off in the distance.  Since the flowers were on the ground, I figured the lazy old dog, Sam, would make a good pal for Solomon to lean on.

We loaded up the gator with horse feed, two boys, lots of gear, and the grandparents.  We headed out with happy dogs trailing close behind.  Unfortunately the pony stood guard over the top of the pasture and the dogs would venture no further.  My mom is convinced her pack of not so wild dogs are afraid of the teeny tiny little angry pony.  So, scratch the idea of Sam the dog in the photo.

Step two, the horses are cooperating nicely.  We have a very short timeframe before they gobble up their feed and then head off to who knows where.  

Step three, Sid is yelling and crying and refusing to step foot outside of the gator.  Sol is cooperating but not so happy about it.  I am rolling around on the ground in between horse droppings and giant Alabama ant hills.  This is going well!

I give up on Sid and get barely a frame or two fired off before the horses start heading our way.  Sol is screaming and giggling or scriggling and trying to run from Roger, the oldest of the mangey beasties!  My mom, with that knack of hers for animal behavior, knows just what to do to send T2, the sexiest of the wild beasts, off into a gallop.  I click off a few good shots of T2 and then head back for the family portraits underway.  Grandma carried Sid out into the middle of the flowers and then walked away.  Sid stormed off swinging his fists and crying the whole way back to his beloved Grandpa Mark and the safety of the gator.  Sol was gracious enough to oblige his photo happy mother and did a few more jaunts out into the flowers for me.  

What an adventure.  Can’t wait to see what is in bloom on our next trip to the farm!
 

Jacket on, Jacket off.  Spring in Alabama is fairly wacked out.  After hovering around 70 degrees for weeks, we just dropped back to around 40!  Regardless of the temps, the boys and I needed some fresh air and a little sunshine.  We headed out to a vacant lot near the old homestead for a few laughs and a little lens flare.

It’s Christmas Card season again so I’ve been forcing the boys to sit through their annual holiday photo sessions.  I stepped back from this one and thought surely I had stumbled onto something that had already been done before… but what was it?

What do you think?  Is there a slight resemblance?

This weekend we high tailed it out of Dodge and headed up to the north Alabama mountains.  I spent many summers on Lookout Mountain near Mentone, AL as a kid and I couldn’t wait to get back.  We rented a cabin at Desoto State Park and loaded the car full of jackets and long pants.  For a weekend filled with beautiful weather, great experiences, and awesome food, our only mistake was those jackets and pants!  The weather was clear and sunny and rarely below 70 degrees except for the beautiful, crisp, cool mornings.  

Our cabin was a treat and was plenty of room for our smallish family.  There was a deck along the back that overlooked a bit of a ravine with a fork from one of the nearby creeks.  We took the kids on an easy hike right out behind the cabin where they had the opportunity to pose for photos in their first of many rock overhangs.

Later that day we headed over to Desoto Falls where there were very minimal rails to keep my kids from hurling themselves over the edge.  Dave and I each had a death grip on one of the kids so there are zero photos to commemorate this experience!  After Desoto we hit the town up Mentone high atop Lookout Mountain and enjoyed a tasty lunch at The Wildflower Cafe.  The tomato pie was my favorite!  

After lunch we fumbled around on the roads a bit to see if we could locate the old camp where I helped out with the horses on occasion as a kid.  It’s still there!  I loved that place.  Now it is called Lookout Mountain Camp for Boys and I’m thinking Sid and Sol will need to go there in a few years.

Our next stop was straight up to the southside of Chatanooga, Tennessee to a place actually in Georgia – See Rock City.  The highlight of our trip!  I had to devote an entirely seperate post to this wonderful off shoot.

On day three we took our time before check-out and spent a few minutes with the tripod and camera trying to capture an elusive family photo.  It’s always fun to see what we come up with in between self-timer clicks!  

We then headed on to our last set of falls over on Little River and then followed the road along the edge of Little River Canyon.  Dave took it upon himself to carry both boys over to a rock outcropping next to the falls for a little photo opp!  Now that he has seen the rock in the photos he’s questioning that decision!  A little more driving, a last minute decision to make a scenic detour and the next thing you know we are at Horse Pens 40 where a bouldering competition is going on.  Horse Pens 40 is a boulderer’s paradise.  Even Solomon loved clamboring up and down the easier rocks.  The place apparently got it’s name from the natural enclosure made by the boulders and rocks that allowed the native american’s of the area to enclose their horses.  I would love to go back and explore this place more.  It was a bit crowded on the day of our visit and there weren’t many toddler’s running or screaming around so we kept it short.

A little more driving, a last minute decision to make a scenic detour and the next thing you know we are at Horse Pens 40 where a bouldering competition is going on.  Horse Pens 40 is a boulderer’s paradise.  Even Solomon loved clamboring up and down the easier rocks.  The place apparently got it’s name from the natural enclosure made by the boulders and rocks that allowed the native american’s of the area to enclose their horses.  I would love to go back and explore this place more.  It was a bit crowded on the day of our visit and there weren’t many toddler’s running or screaming around so we kept it short.

At this point we really think we are heading home and then we see one more historic site sign and this one was hard to pass up.  John Looney’s Cabin in Ashville.  A carload full of Looney’s just can’t turn that one down.  Dave posed for a photo next to the historical marker and then we were finally off to the grandparent’s house for some R&R after our vacation.

Rock City was one of my favorite memories from when I was a little girl!  I totally remembered the swinging bridge  (I made my dad hold my hands to cross) and I remembered the “Fat Man Squeeze” (too narrow for one member of our family to make it!).  I’m guessing I was about 5 or 6 years old and I hadn’t been back since.  

This weekend we took the kids up to Mentone, AL and just had to take a day trip up to Rock City.  Needless to say I wasn’t disappointed and neither were the kids.  Within the first five minutes I was giggling just like a little kid!  The bridge still gave me the willies but Solomon seemed to love it.  Dave made it a point to make exagerated bounces just to heighten my experience.  We are already trying to plan another trip up to the area just so we can stop through again.

the famous birdhouses

the swinging bridge of doom

one of the bridges overhead

sunlight streaming through the trees —  you can just barely make out Dave on the trail.

my urchins on trail

an intersection

the fam

lo

lover’s leap

Our town of Prattville hosted a Halloween trick or treat event for the local toddlers.  It was a big hit because by the time we arrived we had to line up over a block and a half away!  The kids all handled the wait with tremendous patience and approximately an hour later we hit our first table for treats.  After growling ferociously at anyone who looked at him for the first 45 minutes, Sid decided he didn’t really want to wear that bothersome green dragon outfit anymore.  He shed the wings and dragon head before the first table but luckily the store owners were still generous with their candy and treats.  

Solomon also had some hesitations about his costume, Scooby Doo.  As we were pulling his suit on in the car he expressed his concerns that, “I don’t really know about being a dog, mom.”  It didn’t take long, however, for him to hear the other kids yelling “Scooby Doo” as we filed past the masses to really get into the swing of things.  A few “Hey, there’s Scooby!” was all Sol needed to start enjoying being his favorite cartoon character.  

Life was too crazy during the event to snap photos but I did get a few when we made it to the end of the first block.  Notice Sid sans costume!

Mi amiga favorita reads to our boys.  

Sol finally turned Four!  He must have been looking forward to this day ever since Sid turned two on July 5th.  After that he had to endure Mark’s 70th birthday in August all the while wondering when he would have his day.

It finally came and he had a blast even though we had to cancel the party at the last minute due to some minor vomitting by his mother!  Anyway, he played hard and once again scored on all the presents.  Thank you to everyone who plied him with gifts and especially Clemente, Felix, and Alec who came out for moral support!  

We still managed to make it to the Old Baker Farm in Harpersville to pick pumpkins,  take a hay ride, and run through the corn maze.   Sol was a trooper, and we were actually able to salvage most of the fun for his big birthday.  The day was beautiful and the boys had a great time!  Picking our own pumpkins was the highlight of the day for me.  We now have four!!! Solomon’s highlight was, of course, being surrounded by other little boys to play with!  Happy Birthday, Sol!

Here are a few more shots from the field after the beautiful sunset light was gone.  I attempted to fake it with a flash.

Life in Afghanistan must be getting dreary because I awoke to the above plea in my email today.  Just for you, Dave, we loaded up the gator and endured bug bites o’ plenty for a few fun shots as the sun was setting.   The hay in this field is supposed to be baled any day now so it was a good impetus for us to get out there.  As usual, the boys didn’t feel like posing with each other.  Solomon felt a bit more photogenic than his brother today.  Sid was just paranoid that Grandma was going to take off in the gator without him.

I have found that recently I’ve been spending all my time updating our personal blog about Alabama. Because of this I realized that my photography blog was looking a little lean.  I thought I’d post and oldie but a goodie to beef things up!   

This was a group effort heading out in time for sunrise to catch Dave’s plane the day he pulled it off skis.  It was just a few days before our trip to Alabama.  Hopefully we’ll see that whacked out looking plane again in July when Dave returns from Afghanistan.  Can’t wait!

As I was looking for a certain file I came across one of the last set of photos I took before we left Alaska for our year long adventure.  These were taken mid-February and, yes, it was a bit chilly outside!

I couldn’t help but post just a couple from this day.  We actually had fun traipsing about on the lake just at sundown.  It is a good reminder for me to get out there and enjoy the neverending heat wave that the southlands have to offer.  As I am swating bugs, applying sunscreen, perpetually searching for shade and always glistening with sweat, I need to look over these photos and be thankful for our temporary “change” in lifestyle!

I desperately wanted to try to recreate the photos of Solomon and Sam the dog that I had taken a month earlier.  I took a light to the barn to hopefully capture the action without blur this time.  Sam decided he was way too lethargic to play that game so nothing went as planned.  Instead, Sid became bored and decided to put on a show.   He created his own entertainment by tossing hay around.  As you can see, he was quite please with himself.  His expressions constantly amaze me!

I took this photo the night before Dave left for Afghanistan.  We were visiting the relatives in Idaho half-way on our journey to Alabama.   Doug’s living room turned out to be a great backdrop. 

I almost forgot about these photos because it was several weeks before I had computer access again.  They were never uploaded.  Happy Father’s day to Dave, Doug, Cliff and to my dad, Mark, who is not pictured!

I showed this photo to Solomon and said, “Look at this!”  He promptly said, “Who are they?”  (Who are they!)

“You tell me.”

“Is that Uncle Doug?”

“No, but the other one is”

“Awwwww, that’s my dad!

Big grin.