Bazillions of photos!

I told you that I'd make up for the lack of photos in recent weeks. Ya'll may regret that after this post! They're sort of in reverse mixed up order because there are too many to go back and change them all and when you load them in, blogspot puts them in from the bottom to the top. There are a couple of blurry ones, but they showed the action so well that I couldn't resist posting them. First is the morning belly rub routine. It is a VERY high energy activity, with much wiggling and snarly teeth as this blurry shot shows!

The full moon reflecting off of Shallow Lake was just too pretty to ignore.

Denali! We didn't have time to go all the way but once we caught a glimpse of it from the other side of Hatcher's Pass, we couldn't resist trying to get a closer look.


Hatcher's Pass toward Wasilla.

The end result of the fish spawning.

Much of our potato harvest. Red, white and blue(ish)!


Sergei, Yegor, Andrei and Cody.

Trying to see who could skip rocks the farthest.

A cookout with Arvin and Kathy. Todd, Naomi, Arvin, Rodney, Maggie and Kathy behind at the table and Rachel in front. I can't tell if that is Bella or Natalie with the bike. Probably Natalie because Bella is younger and I'm not sure she's on a bike yet.

Arvin and Kathy with Oksana and Rodney.

Lots of peeps in this one! Not going to try to list them all! You can see all of the Cote family in this shot. Ryan (front right, back to us) is taking over the auto shop. He and his wife Rachel (talking to Dianne VanDaam on the bench on the left) have 4 kids, Naomi, Natalie, Isabella and Jeremiah (JJ). Naomi is wearing a striped sweater, Natalie and Isabella are on either side of the fire but I can't tell them apart in the pictures and JJ is in the orange striped shirt.

The usual clowning around.


Rodney's "new" work truck is finally ready!

Last night the sunset had turned the hill behind us bright orange. I wonder if it was a harbinger of the magnitude 5.4 earthquake that came at 4 am. I slept through it, but it woke up Rodney and Sergei.
My orchids are finally recovering from the trip up and are starting to bloom! This is the first of the three.
Just a pretty morning. Our day is now from about 7 am to 8:30 pm which is finally late enough for me to see the sunrises. ;) We have quite a bit of fall color now and all of a sudden the days have gotten quite cool. The early part of September was gorgeous with frosty nights and gloriously sunny days with highs around 70 every day. You couldn't ask for nicer weather than that! The overnight forecast was for snow, but we didn't get it. When Rodney read that last night, from 2 rooms away Oksana exclaimed, "Hallelujah!" Do you think we're Alaskans yet?


The boys hiked Anthracite again this fall with Yegor, Jennie Lee and Allie Ruisch. The last part was a bit steep.
The colors are really quite spectacular.

And quite the view from up there.

Another pretty evening.

And pretty morning.

Our wood shed is almost full.

Annie got a little dirty.

Kind of blurry, but this explains HOW Annie got so dirty.

And another pretty evening.

The princess got a bit dirty mudding it up on the 4-wheelers down by the river.

Nate's mud buggy down by the river with the last work team of the season.

Cody was here with the last work team. He and the boys had a blast together! Cody is considering coming up next summer to work in maintenance. We sure hope that works out because we'd be thrilled to have him!

Cody's mom Sandy helped put the roof on that wood shed along with her grunt work helpers. ;)

Tim and the kids swam across the lake. It's hard to say who had more fun.

Annie was the ring leader in the swimming plan. She's been wanting to do that for a long time. She was SO pleased with herself!
As were the others.


A few pictures from my flight.


This is just over the hill from us!

Victory from the air - two lakes, Victory Rd and Ranch camp in the foreground.

Valdez - this guy could fillet fish so fast and so well that he was a marvel to watch. We brought the Silvers here for him to clean . I practiced on the pinks.




NOTHING tastes better than fresh fish cooked over a fire!


Tom Cobb from Kingdom Air showed us the ropes.

The falls on the drive into Valdez. Truly breathtaking!


The Worthington Glacier near Valdez.

Mt Cook? It is in the Wrangell-St. Elias range outside of Copper River.

This sign says it all.



That black blob is a bear right behind our camper.

Fireweed.
Rodney with his first Silver this year.




This shot is a bit blurry, but it was so funny how this seagull would not leave the otter alone to enjoy his meal!
Seal with a fish.
Camping is not complete without cooking hot dogs over the fire.

These are the pink salmon that the bear was after.



More pinks running up the river to spawn.




Ellie cursing the moose for coming too close to "her" house. She thinks she's a killer.

A close up of "our" mountain just to show some of the color variation that doesn't quite come through in the "scenic" shots.



Three of the cutest cowboys you'll ever meet! From the left, Randall Thiessen, Zack Gerwig and Austin Thiessen.
Some bigger cowboys, still cute, but not quite as cute as when they were little. Yegor, Sergei, Andrea (Reno) and Andrei.

You need to get creative sometimes in order to carry everything.

S0 there is a small selection of pictures from the last few months. It was TOUGH to cut them down to this few! I hope this makes up for the picture-less posts!