Tiny ballerina

Kaylynn had her first dance recital on Saturday. It was one of the cutest things I think I have ever seen! Cory, Jenny and I all went to watch and we were all laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes! They did a great job. Here are a few pictures of her big day!

Paige, Mina and Kaylynn

We have really been enjoying our tulips out back. Every time Kaylynn is outside she has to pick me more - We had about 40 in the house in four vases on the counter!

Right after I took these pictures we went in to finish getting ready to head for church. I told Kaylynn to go put her shoes on and when I got to the door she had one white shoe and one black shoe on. I asked her if she thought she should have matching shoes on and her exact words were, "No, Mommy, let's shake things up"!!!



Kaylynn sleeping with Princess Sophia from her cousin Casey!

Finally, here is a follow-up on our robin in the tree out back. Her eggs have hatched! It looks like there are three baby birds in the nest. She is very protective of them. She dive-bombed Kaylynn and I the other day when we were out back playing!

Farewell to Alaska

Today was my last day up here, unfortunately. I could get used to Fairbanks. Easy to say now, when it's not -40 outside. This city has one of the largest temperature differences between its all time high and low of anywhere in the world. The record high is 99 and the record low is -66. Not on the same day, though that would be cool.

Last night I drove up and saw the trans Alaska pipeline. It's just north of town and they have a little pulloff area on the road so you can get out and look at it. I was on the phone with Pete when I got there so I was describing it to him. It's not much to look at, as you can see, but the engineering behind it is pretty impressive. It can transport 800,000 barrels of oil per day. On each of the support beams the pipeline is actually on rails so it can move back and forth during earthquakes or when it expands and contract due to the heat and cold. Those engineers think of everything. It survived a 7.9 magnitude earthquake up here back in 2002 so I guess they know what they're doing too.



After the conference ended today I drove out of town about 50 miles and did a hike that was recommended. Quick side note. Jamie was unimpressed that I was going hiking alone. She thought I should stay in the car and enjoy Alaska from there. She's convinced there's a bear around every tree. I reminded her that there are mountain lions in those trees too. That didn't help. Anyway, I'm alive and well. The only wildlife I met on the trail was a couple of Twins fans from Brooklyn Park. They're everywhere. The trail went up and around a formation known as Angel Rocks. They are these rock formations that pushed out of the ground as lava welled up to the surface a long time ago.



Here's the view from the top:


It was fairly steep and a nice workout. The long daylight hours allowed me to start this hike at 7, finish around 8:45, drive back to Fairbanks (with a few stops long the way for pictures), have dinner at 10, and get back to the hotel by 11:15 without using my headlights. Very strange. In fact, it's currently 11:45 and if I were out driving right now I probably still wouldn't need headlights.

I thought it would be hilarious if there was a bear behind me in this picture. Oh, if only I knew how to use Photoshop!!


One last shot of the spectacular Alaska Range, which is between here and Anchorage, being lit up by the sun. It's a little hard to see, but trust me, these mountains look very impressive from here, and they're about 150 to 200 miles away.


I leave Alaska tomorrow. It's been fun.

Alaska Musings

Cory here. Since I'm in Alaska right now for a conference I thought I better put up a quick post to show a few of the sights. I stopped in Ketchikan for a few days to visit the Schills. This was the last hurrah since they're moving back to the lower 48 in July. I'm glad I was able to make it up there one more time. They are great hosts and we had a lot of fun hiking, playing racquetball, eating wings and smoked salmon, and having a game night at their place. We played a board game called Blokus, which I highly recommend.

Now, I'm in Fairbanks, where the sun will set tonight at 11:00 and rise again at 4:00 in the morning. That will give me a chance to get out and do some evening sightseeing while I'm here.

Enjoy some of the pictures I've taken so far.

Mount Rainier was right out my window as I flew into Seattle.

The view from 1500 ft. as Schill and I hiked up Deer Mountain. We were turned back by too much snow on the trail shortly after this.

The view as we landed at Petersburg.

Mount McKinley (Denali)

Wildlife

Here is the exciting wildlife we see in our backyard:

We were planning on cutting this tree down this spring but now we have to wait until this robin's eggs hatch!

We have also been seeing a squirrel in our backyard this spring. This is not exciting to most, but it is to Kaylynn because we have never had a squirrel around here before!


And, of course, a few pictures of Kaylynn. She is very into baseball right now and, wow, can this girl hit!!

Owlets

The little owlets are not so little any more! In just 9 days they went from

to

And with Momma there the nest gets pretty small!!



I guess this is nature's way of pushing them out of the nest to fly, which should be happening in the next week or two.