Ice road, volleyball and beautiful sunrises

Will ya look at that! Not only did I slide under the every-other-week-wire, but I actually have REAL stuff to blog about this week too! :) The ice road officially opened this year on Wednesday, November 17. We've had some lovely cold nights since it was plowed so it should be good and solid by now! We still haven't driven it with our truck yet because the driveway still needs to be plowed. Rodney has been coming over with the camp truck which has chains, but the truck he has been using to plow doesn't have skids on the plow? so he hasn't really been able to plow our driveway well yet. Well, technically he could, but we still want to be able to use it for snow machining too and his truck will dig down too deep and hit dirt. We already have that problem a bit on the other side. He may borrow Ryan's plow truck and do the driveway tomorrow. Ideally you want a nice layer of packed snow on the ground before you plow, but we can't drive until it is plowed. So basically we need to ease our way out of our little Catch-22.

The Nikolaevsk volleyball team was here last weekend for a small tournament. Part of the Northern Lights team came up from Palmer/Wasilla and played on Friday night so that there was a little more competition. Our Glacier View team worked hard to win every match (best of 5 sets). I was able to spend a fair amount of time talking to one of the Nikolaevsk moms getting to know her a bit. I'm fairly certain that I had as much fun as the kids did that weekend. Our kids are currently in Ouzinkie at the regional meet. There are seven teams vying for one or two? spots in the state championships. In addition to Glacier View and Nikolaevsk there are teams representing Manokotak, Old Harbor, Kokhanok, Ouzinkie, and Paklook (which is an acronym for several communities that make up one team). I JUST got word that they won the final match (and a nail biting one at that) tonight against Nikolaevsk!!! I'm glad Nikolaevsk played so well! I have no doubt they can all feel good about their efforts! Many thanks to all who sponsored Andrei in the Serve-a-Thon last year to raise funds to make this trip! They have had such a blast so far this year, and now we know it isn't over yet! They'll go on to the state championships in a few weeks. I'll let you know details later.

Rodney has been incredibly busy with boilers this week. He had gotten the three waste oil boilers working early in the week, then they all died yesterday, along with another regular furnace. One of them even blew up in Rodney's face, fortunately with the door shut enough to contain most of the blast so that he was not injured. Rod was standing right behind him so Dianne and I are BOTH thankful that the blast was mostly contained. That boiler will need more repairs now though and the other there (in Miracle) is still not working either. He was able to get the ones in the auto shop and the lower shop (electrical, plumbing, welding, etc shop) going again, but who knows for how long. He and Ryan are looking at getting some training on boiler systems, but camp could really use a full time, trained boiler person. He did finally decide that the Miracle boilers could wait until Monday. :) That is a big step in the right direction! Rodney seems to think that he MUST fix EVERYTHING right now! Miracle is warm, even if it is costing camp a bit more with the diesel boiler. Time to take a little breather for the weekend! God rested on the Sabbath to give us a pattern to follow. When we don't follow the pattern we burn out. ;)

In other news, Ellie has not been feeling well again. She was in at the vet again this week for more blood work and an exam, but we don't have results back and I'm sort of loosing hope that they'll figure it out. Nothing is consistent with that naughty little monkey. First it was liver, then her thyroid was high, then it was low. We'll see what it says this time around IF they even got enough blood to run the test. For a sick little doggy she fought like a prize-fighter! Dara Ruisch came over yesterday and helped me paint a few walls as well as the room we added to the back of the house. We were debating whether to paint the floor or put down linoleum or something like that, but I find linoleum slippery AND since we had more paint AND since the room was empty, we decided to go ahead and paint (beautiful example of a run-on sentence). Oksana did that for me today while I worked on the pictures and blog post. If it wasn't for her help, there wouldn't be a post today! It is a bit odd though. It is so bright in primer white that I keep thinking someone left a light on back there. Before the floor was done:

Dufus thinks mom is nuts to be freezing outside when she should be getting his dinner. Meanwhile there are good smells to be followed under the snow. He doesn't have a clue that there are pretty things going on in the sky.


Her Naughtiness still has enough energy to attack him from time to time. She's quite the killer.


This is what had me so entertained. I kept snapping pictures and each one was prettier than the last. Every morning and evening this week have had spectacular shows! It was quite a job trying to pick just a few, so I didn't. Actually, the last two are sunrises. I just can't get over how that scene changes every time I look out there. And EVERY time, it is stunning. Well, actually, every time that I can SEE it, it is stunning. ;) Since we don't get sunrises and sunsets in the summer, I figure I'd better appreciate them while we have them.






These were taken in Palmer on the Old Glenn Highway while I was waiting for Oksana to have her violin lesson. I had scoped out the spot earlier in the fall and was just waiting for the right opportunity to get some good shots. It was a gorgeous clear day and with the sun setting, I suspected I might get some nice pictures.


This one was taken on the new Glenn Highway I think between Chickaloon and Sutton on the way in to Palmer. The drive that day was just mile after mile of absolutely breathtaking vistas! I was glad to actually get a shot that captured the beauty in a small way.

Here's my snow machine set up as the grocery getter.

This is more of what we've seen from Little Miss Naughty Pants lately. :( Such sadness!

And finally, I did snap a picture of the Christmas/Thanksgiving Cactus that I figured I might as well show off!

Winter(ish) has begun!

I know, it has been ages. I even had someone call today to make sure we are ok. Maybe I ought to not post more often! :) Not really. It wasn't intentional. There just hasn't been a lot going on, yet there's still been a lot going on if that makes any sense. Nothing noteworthy, just normal life stuff. Nate and Maggie did arrive in Kansas and are currently doing major renovations to their house. It is one of those things that started small until a few "while we're here" things expanded the scope of the projects immensely. We've lived in an old house. We understand. At any rate, we were able to talk to Nate on Skype for a good hour or more the other day. It was great to see his face and hear his voice! We sure do miss them!

The weather has been relatively mild, so while the lake is frozen over, we're still not able to do much on it. The kids went skating last week but now there's been more snow and overflow so it is really wet on top of the ice. Last year we started driving on it on Nov 12 but I'm pretty sure we won't be driving that early this year. It has been mild enough during the day that we're getting some melting. Definitely not ice making weather! We do have just enough snow to use the snow machines on the ATV trail which is a big help. Arvin brought chains up for my ATV so we were able to use that up until the bigger snow hit. Rodney put new skis on my snow machine so it handles a lot better now. It ought to have more floatation on powdery snow too.

Rodney bought two more snow machines yesterday and Ryan Cote (camp mechanic) is helping Sergei (and Rodney) work on them to get them running. Mike Roub has also offered to help Sergei work on them. They are Arctic Cats and on the way home it occurred to Rodney that as many Arctic Cats as there are on camp, only one of them was running. Not sure if that bodes well, but it should keep Sergei occupied! One is a 1993 Arctic Cat Jag Z 440. They were able to get that one up and running today with minor effort. The other is a 1994 Arctic Cat EXT 580 EFI Mountain Cat but that one will take a little more work to get running. The Cotes have a blog that I've listed up on the right side, but I'll post another link here too: http://cotesfamilyministry.blogspot.com/

I know that the most important part of any blog post is pictures so I think I'll be in good shape after this post. Moon shining off the ice before we had any snow:

Momma moose and her twins in the front yard. The other twin was out of the picture, but the picture with both of them in it wasn't very clear and had a beam in the middle.

Pretty morning after the first snowfall of the season.

Annie getting a skating lesson. You should have heard her chewing at the boys! Hilarious!

My new chains on my ATV. They do SUCH a nice job! :)

My pepper plants are still flowering and setting fruit. Not huge, but tasty peppers!

The orchids are almost in full bloom now. The purple is in full bloom, the purple and yellow is next and the yellow is just starting to take off. My Christmas cactus is blooming too. The plants all seem to be happy these days.

Silly dog - that does NOT look like a comfortable way to sleep. She's so low to the ground that she can just flop down from a sitting position and presto - sleep position!

Here is our ATV trail now, with the fresh snow on the trees. It is so cozy and still on the trail.

The Matanuska River is a beautiful glacier blue now, not like the grey it is in summer from the glacier silt. The other day when I went through here the mountains in the distance were orange from the setting sun. It was spectacular! I can't remember why I didn't get a picture that day but I was probably tired and hungry and wanting to be home.

That silly dog is positively SMILING! She LOVES Annie! Rough life she leads.

A GLORIOUS day! :) These kinds of days are my favorites!

Annie and I taking off on Rodney's snow machine. She'd never ridden a snow machine. I think she enjoyed it! She ought to get plenty of opportunities to ride this winter! Too bad the other picture was blurry. Ellie was biting Eider's leg - further proof of her naughtiness.

Here is the mixed 6 volleyball team this year during their trip to Nikolaevsk. They did very well at the tournament, losing only 1 game (not even a match) the entire weekend. They had a great time though, and not just because they did so well. The people there were absolutely wonderful. The town has a tremendous Russian heritage, if you can't tell by the name. Too bad Oksana didn't get to go on the trip. She'd have LOVED it! She is diligently studying her Russian and has a strong interest in all things Russian. Nikolaevsk will be here this coming weekend for another tournament so we are looking forward to meeting them! It sounds like Nikolaevsk is also high on our priority list of places to visit as a family. The weekend following the Nikolaevsk tournament our team will travel beyond Kodiak to Ouzinkie for the regional tournament. One of the teams they will meet there has won the state championship 5 times so they will face some tough competition. They will need to win that tournament in order to go to the state championships.

Back row standing: Derek Kolb, Trayton Cohen, Christopher Martin, Carlen Thiessen, Robert VanDaam and Andrei. Kneeling in front: Claudia Berkley (coach), Jenny Lee, Ali Ruisch, Miranda Roub and Lou Boyer (coach).

Annie is here! Marlin is almost here. The trailer is in Glennallen.

Another quick post. Annie made it safely tonight. We'll update her adventures later. She's beyond exhaustion so after a quick dinner, she tottered off to bed. The trailer had TWO flat tires (brand new tires), one outside of Tok I think, the other on the far side of Glennallen. The spare for the trailer was the wrong size so they had to stop. We told them to leave the trailer and finish the trip home and we'll retrieve the trailer tomorrow. They dropped the trailer somewhere? Not sure of details, but somewhere they felt it was safe (maybe someone they knew?) and came home for a good night's rest. We only gathered bits and pieces from Annie but it sounds like they pushed HARD so they are tired. They started out yesterday at 5 am and drove until midnight. Nate and Maggie are still in Washington (last we heard) visiting Gordon. Lots of quick updates. I'm tired too so I'll post more when I have a clue. ;)

Travelers and Volleyball

Just a quick update to say that we've gotten word that Nate and Maggie have passed through Canada and are in Washington (the State, not the District) visiting Nate's sister and Joyce from camp. Marlin, Ryan and Annie should be meeting up in Minneapolis tonight and driving on from there together. I'm not sure if they plan to be here ON the 20th or BY the 20th. At any rate, they'll be pushing pretty hard to get here.

Andrei had his first volleyball game of the season last night against the community team. The team has 6 guys and 3 girls. They MUST play 3 girls at all times so the girls never get a break from playing. That's how the guys team was last year so they certainly appreciate how that feels! The guys had enough players last night to field 2 guy teams, so Andrei, Robert and Carlen played the first, third and fifth games and the other guys played the second and fourth games. I don't think they'll play like that in their regular tournaments, but this was good practice for them playing as a team. They were pretty balanced teams and ended up in the first game playing to 30 in order to win by 2 points (a normal game is to 25). Their third game was similarly close, but they were able to get a significant lead on the last game. I think they wore down the community team by that point. The second guy's team wasn't quite as strong with one brand new player. He's not eligible to play this year (8th grade) but he's got a lot of potential so they're playing him when they can to give him experience. They had a great time though and have their first tournament down on the Kenai this coming weekend. Rodney is thinking of going down for that game since we have a rare weekend without a group in camp. Additionally, Earl and Elaine will be leaving in a few more weeks which will make it tough for Rodney to get away later.

On the road again

If this post is a little disjointed, it may just go to show that one should NOT blog when one's brain is away on vacation. Hmmm... That seems like a common theme for me. It has been a LONG couple of weeks! I am home all day today after 10 days of running around. I normally have to run to town twice a week but last week I had two additional trips into Palmer/Wasilla, plus a couple more days out of the house, one helping Nate and Maggie pack and another having lunch with them before they left. We're still here but it isn't pretty. There are so many things I could be doing today, but I honestly don't feel like doing any of them! I wasn't going to blog today, but after I uploaded pictures, I couldn't resist. Besides, I did want to get a prayer request up on the blog before the weekend and I have some stuff to do tomorrow, so here we are.

Nate and Maggie did leave on Saturday so I'm sure they would appreciate prayer for their trip down to Kansas. They plan to take their time and stop and visit a bit on the way, so we don't know when they will arrive there. I'll try to keep you posted on that one. So far the camp is still standing but the entire camp staff is feeling the loss. We would all appreciate prayer, especially Rodney as he tries to keep up with everything that needs to be done even as he is still learning.

Andy and Barb Trautman brought our trailer from NY to Indiana (not Ohio as we first thought) and Paul Meeuwsen (I think) drove the van from Michigan to Indiana, so both the van and trailer are there (that I do know) and ready for Marlin and Ryan Beachy to make the trip up to Alaska. Getting it all together was not exactly a stress free endeavor. It turned out that no one was coordinating the van move but we didn't figure that out until very recently. We are so thankful that there were a lot of Victory supporters in the Hudsonville, Michigan area (and the Middlesex, NY area) willing to help out with that job! At any rate, Marlin and Ryan will meet up with Annie in Minneapolis on Saturday night and drive together from there. I know they would all appreciate prayer for their trip! The weather can be a little temperamental at this time of year through some of those passes and the vehicles are not four wheel drive.

Our weather continues to be lovely with mostly sunny days and relatively warm temperatures (40s & 50s). I talked with Harold and Carol Hackman in Alabama the other day and they said it was "warm" there (90s) so I suppose "warm" is a relative term. :) We have frost most nights which has helped Eider's allergies. He's mostly recovered from his little bout with trigeminal neuritis, but I doubt he'll ever be completely the same. There still seems to be some nerve damage and this far out, I doubt it will recover. I suppose like me, he's getting a bit older and you just don't recover from things like you used to. My ankle is still a bit bruised or something (some husbands seem to think it may have been broken, but others are too stubborn to admit such a thing) from my ATV rollover. It isn't that bad as long as I don't put pressure on it, but it does get sore easily if I over work it, like climbing stairs when we moved Nate and Maggie.

Naughty Ellie has been working overtime to find trouble lately. Rodney trapped those beaver that were stealing his firewood and had them tacked out on a board to dry. Ellie couldn't resist getting into them and chewing up part of the bigger of the two skins. She also took off with the castors and ate them. I can not imagine how those didn't maker her sick! A few nights later she decided to go kill a porcupine. You can just imagine how that turned out. Below are the quills that Rodney was able to remove on his own. She decided she'd had enough of that after these were removed and tried to bite him a few times so he decided that the vet would have to remove the rest of them. Ellie has a heart murmur, arrhythmia, SAD and some other odd health issues that come and go (liver, thyroid) so the vet warned us that putting her under could be dangerous. I pointed out that we didn't have much choice in the matter and he agreed. Fortunately the little debil survived and is back in fine moose and rabbit chasing form.

We've been seeing a LOT of wildlife lately. Momma moose with her twins has been all over the yard, sometimes so tenacious in her determination to remain where she is that I can't even get to my ATV. She has QUITE an attitude and I have no interest in challenging her! The other day I let Eider out and he promptly turned around and wanted to come back in. I looked out and there was Momma and the twins. Smart dog! The babies were eating the flowers off the front deck! They started off on their way by the time I got a picture of all three of them together.

Then there is this mom who decided that the graze IS greener on the other side of the fence. Rodney said something about this being war???? ;) I think the fence will be bigger and stronger next year. She got some of my kale that I had not gotten around to freezing yet. Sigh.

We've had a lot of swans and ducks on the lake as they head south for the winter.

It was neat that they felt comfortable enough to sleep with me so close.

And of course, the obligatory scenic pictures. I can't post pictures without one or two scenic ones!

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!