May has been a great month! First the long awaited visit from Kim! It was so much fun to be together again and have some real girl time. NO KIDS!! Thank you Nigel and Matt. Matt took time off work and we were able to spend the day down in Seward and see several different wildlifes. Kim even chased a porcupine in order to get the great picture. Two years and New York here we come! We went on a hike and posted in the snow up to our hips. Then Kim left and the sunshine came. AAAH summer is here. There is nothing like summer in AK. It's 11:00pm and looking outside you would think it was 7pm. Everything is greening up and the flowers are all out. I even got my seeds planted in the garden yesterday. The kids are getting that blond and brown skinned combo going. We even got long naps this afternoon after 2 days of being outside for more than 6 hours straight. Yesterday, the first official no more school, summer break is here day and we had a yard full of neighborhood kids and grandkids. It was so nice to have all these kids in our yard playing. This is what I long for the kids to experience during summer. The true playing to your body's content.
Our neighbor goes bear hunting every year and every year we've watched him sit on his porch and clean up the hides. This year the boys finally went over to get a closer look. Carsten loved it. He touched everything he could, while Benjamin watched from a respectful distance. Our neighbor even taught them how they could throw some of the fat and it would stick to the side of his house. I was just thrilled....The kids thought it was great and it made Matt dream even more pressing of having his own bear skin rug.
Keeping with the bear theme the next night we left on a camping trip rather late in the evening and a couple miles from where we were camping a grizzly was on the side of the road. He was about 15 feet from the car and I saw him rear up on his hind leggs. It was so cool to see a bear in the wild, from the car. The kids were especially excited. I don't ever want to run into one on my own but they are so amazing to see like that. Several cars were stopped so we weren't able to get a great picture. There was a stupid Bear hog car in front of us that was blocking any picture possibilities. This was the beginning of a great campout with some great friends that will be leaving us soon. It was also our first time tent camping in Alaska. We did a true car camping trip with the first night being spent in the car. It was 2 am when we got to the site and we didn't feel like setting up tent so we rearranged things in the car and the kids slept great! Thank goodness for a big car. Matt got a new tent to fit all 6 of us and it was huge. Matt could stand up in it. I froze but everybody else did great. It is practice for girls camp when we are all tent camping for a week. That will be the next blog, surving girls camp with 4 kids!
