Sunday, June 30, 2013

After 1 month...

Gage took a self portrait with his iPad.

Gage made friends with Brenna, a neighbor down the street.

We've been having gorgeous weather.  Hammer Slue at high tide.

Hammer Slue at high tide.

Hammer Slue at high tide.

A waterfront property for sale that we looked at on Fredrick Sound.

My Boys!

Gage taking his shovel for a walk :)  He is always busy.

Gage playing with the big boys on the trampoline.

Serious play.

All these toys he finds belong to various neighbors and he is sad when we go home.

10-noon Friday & Saturdays the Gymnasium hosts "Preschool Park".  It is fun to watch G play & meet local parents.

More "Preschool Park". 


Many beautiful sunny days here!

A house we are thinking about buying...

Monday, June 17, 2013

Week 2 in Petersburg

This is the first time I posted videos.  I posted 5 of them, I hope they worked out ok...

This first video is some of Gage's new vocabulary.  When he says his name its the same every time "Di Dih"  I have no idea what he means but here's the video...


Gage playing on a trampoline.

Rob found this in the woods.  It's an amphibious vehicle.

Helping daddy by carrying his saw while walking in the woods.

This video makes me laugh every time I see it...


Petersburg's Aquatic Center.  Gage & I are playing on the left.

Gage & me riding together!  The very first thing we do is ride thru a creek...



My 1 pound King Salmon.  (I threw it back). 

Me with my tackle box after fishing.

G outgrew his helmet so he was trying on my helmet.

Nap Time!

Gage's new helmet.  Notice his feet are up and he is balancing!

My boys!

Father's Day picnic in the woods.

G loves to ride!

Gage riding an Intermediate section with Rob, they cleaned it!



Our family riding together in the woods.


Monday, June 10, 2013

Our first week in Petersburg


Wednesday 6/5-
Drove out with Gary Albagh first thing in the morning and looked at a property that will be up for sale soon.  We went home & played with Gage until 11am when we went to tour an old house that was for sale.  We learned just how old & run down the older homes can be in Petersburg.  I spoke to Summer, our landlord, and we learned how to get wifi at our rental house.  After a trip to the local internet provider, GCI, we took our purchase home and after 30 minutes of troubleshooting, we had internet at he house!  That evening after dinner, Gary & Kim Albagh came over to play with Gage and catch up...

Thursday 6/6-
Another successful night of weening!  Again Gage only woke up once in the night.  After a lazy morning and a late breakfast, Gage napped and Rob and I spent time catching up with the internet.  We had Bob & Anne over for dinner.  Rob made quesadillas.  I had a huge allergy attack that night.  We realized I’m allergic to the house, specifically all the cat dander in the house.

Friday 6/7-
We went out to the local hardware store and rented a rug doctor so I could clean the carpets.  Somehow we locked ourselves out of the house.  The landlords mother, Dorothy, came over with what she thought was the key but it wouldn’t open the door.  Then our landlord’s brother, Bentley, was given permission to break the front doorknob to get us in.  After 30 minutes of being locked out Rob & Bentley had completely uninstalled the doorknob and we were back in the house.  For the next three hours I moved furniture while Rob vacuumed the house then Rob played with Gage while I shampooed all the rugs and the sofa.  That night Gage threw an enormous fit because he wanted to breast feed before bed and I didn’t give in.  Finally after an hour, I quit trying to contain him in his room and let him go sit with dad on the sofa.  Before he would go to dad, he wanted to snuggle with me to apologize for being so mad at me, then he climbed into Rob’s lap and fell right to sleep.

Saturday 6/8-
Gage woke once in the night and for 30 minutes pitched the same fit he had had the night before.  After 20 minutes I told him to get into bed or I would leave.  He refused so I left.  I sat outside his door and held it shut so he couldn’t go to the living room and play on his ipad.  What do you know?  He climbed into his bed and quieted down.  I went into his room, laid down beside him and rubbed his back.  He leaned over to my face and gave me an eskimo kiss by rubbing his nose with mine.  It was another apology for being mad at me.  He then rolled over to go to sleep.  
For 24 hours we had a hole in our front door where the knob use to be and we used the deadbolt to keep the door shut.  Bentley came by and installed a new knob and brought us two keys.  I spent most of the day taking the Petersburg Tax Roll Map and transferred it to a program where I knit many high resolution pictures together and printed a 3‘ x 3.5’ map and a second that is 4’ x 2’.  I took highlighters and pens and marked all the properties and their addresses onto the map.
Gage’s bedtime routine starts around 9 pm and now goes like this...  Snack, usually tuna, chicken or Greek yogurt.  Wash face & hands & brush teeth.  Clean diaper and pj’s.  Get into his bed and read a few stories.  Turn off the light and recite The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton from memory.  Tell Gage how proud of him I am and If wakes up during the night it’s ok to go back to sleep.  I kiss him, tell him that I love him and I leave.  He rolls over & goes to bed.  YAY!  He is weaned!

Sunday 6/9-
Gage Slept thru the night!  I didn’t.  I had to check on him at 3:30am to make sure he was alive.  He was of course.  I pulled up his blanket and went back to bed.  Now is as good of a time as any to mention that it doesn’t get really dark outside until midnight so going to bed at 10 or even 11 it is still light outside.  It then starts getting light outside at about 3am!  I guess June 21st is the longest day of the year and therefore the lightest day of the year.  After that hopefully we will get more than 3 hours of darkness.  I put a towel over one of the curtains in the bedroom to make it darker but I should do it to the rest of the windows in our room.  Thankfully the blinds in Gage’s room are darker.
  Laundry day.  My allergies are better but there is still something in the bedding in Gage’s room that is making me sneeze.  I washed our clothes, his bedding and our bedding.  The 4” memory foam pad that came with our bed was too much and after a week Rob & I decided to try something different.  I put the memory foam mat from our RV, a 1.5” pad, onto the bed.
We got 3 rock fish that Rob filleted.  I’m so proud of my husband’s survival & providing skills.  Rob then found a marinade recipe of honey, lemon, vinegar and ginger.  I made sautéed bell peppers, zucchini & sweet corn then mixed it with our leftover rice.  It was all delicious!

Monday 6/10-
Gage woke up sometime during the night & Rob was able to comfort him and put him back to sleep.  It was the most restful night of sleep I have had in months!  It probably also helped that we had a bed that felt like our bed at home.  While running errands we drove by Hungry Point rest area, a popular whale spotting area on Sandy Beach.  Sure enough there were several hump back whales feeding out in Fredrick Sound.  There were also a bunch of sea lions out on a channel marker making a lot of noise.  
       Rob made a plywood box to lift Gage’s carseat up off the floor of Big O’.  It took until 5pm but he got it finished!  After dinner we had an appointment to see a house for sale.  Gage loved being able to look out the windshield while we drove.  He pointed and gave us his commentary of everything he was seeing.  I had no Idea he was so deprived.  Way to go Rob!
View from the kitchen window of our rental house.

View from the road between the airport & the grocery store.  Sunday & Monday were warm & sunny!

Icebergs & a boat.  Mountain on the right is Devil's Thumb.

Yes, wake boarding in the ocean beside an iceberg.  The locals here are tough! (and hard up for entertainment)

The view from Hungry Point on a sunny day.

Gage's carseat on a box that Rob made.

Awesome job Rob!

View out the living room of our rental house.  The green roof is Gary & Kim's house.

Young bald eagle (brown with white spots on rock).

A ray of light over Petersburg.

Rob & Gary Albagh 1985 mountain goat hunting.

Kim Albagh reading to Gage.

Gage was too tired to stay awake...

Bob Volk reading to Gage.

Rob fixing a leaky skylight on the van.

My boys wearing their Extra-Tuff boots.
A red snapper also known as a rockfish.  

Awesome Rob filleting the rockfish.
The fillets from 3 Red Snappers.

Rob cooked Red Snapper with green onions, vinegar, honey, lemon juice and ground ginger.  I made rice with veggies.
Hungry Point rest area on Sandy Beach Road here in Petersburg.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Packing, Ferry Ride & Alaska!


June 4, 2013

Week 2(ish)!  

Tuesday 5/28-
We said our goodbyes to Steve & Monica and had lunch in Port Townsend where there was internet so I could blog.  From there we went to Kingston to the Firehouse Movie Theater.  A small, locally run, 2 screen theater.  As it’s name implies it was the old fire house.  We watched the new Star Trek movie.  Rob entertained Gage which included leaving in the middle of the movie to get G some popcorn.  I got to see the whole movie.  Thank you Rob!  The movie let out just as the ferry was finished loading so we just caught the ferry back to Edmunds.  We ate dinner and found Karl & Melinda’s house.  We spent the evening talking with them & spent the night parked in their driveway (Shoreline, Washington).

Wednesday 5/29-
After breakfast and a walk in a nearby park we spent a few more hours talking to Karl before we went to a local hot spot with a park overlooking the ocean where we had lunch and played in the park.  We did a little shopping in town and went to Costco to stock up on essentials that are hard to get in Alaska.  After that we headed up to Anacortes and spent the night near our storage unit.

Thursday 5/30-
We had a breakfast of yogurt and blueberries with granola then we began the monumental task of moving our entire storage locker into the back of Big O’.  We brought several empty duffel bags that we filled with our clothes that had previously been boxed.  These we manipulated to fill spaces around our motorcycles and bicycles.  We were able to re-pack boxes to hold more things and when we were done we had several extra empty boxes.  We were able to pack everything except one cooler into the back.  The cooler now lives on the floor behind Gage’s carseat (right in the middle of everything).  With no real plan we bypassed the bridge that recently collapsed on I-5 in Mt. Vernon and headed North.  We made it to Bellingham quicker than we realized and spent the afternoon on Skype auditioning for a reality TV show that documents famlies moving to Alaksa had dinner at a local Bellingham Brewery.  Upon entering the restaurant Rob finds a piece of metal art on the wall, for sale by Grahm Schodda, a local artist.  You can view more of his work at www.gschodda.com.  Rob likes it so much I ask him if I could buy it for him for his birthday.  Although the restaurant is willing to sell it to us right then we speak to Graham and he invites us to his studio after dinner.  What a treat for Rob to see Graham’s Studio!  It was like a kid at Christmas.  After Rob saw everything Graham had to offer, we decided that the piece at the restaurant was in fact the one Rob wanted.  We went back to the restaurant with Graham & bought Rob his metal art.  We spent that night parken randomly on a side road in Bellingham.

Friday 5/31-
We did laundry & grocery shopping.  We topped off Big O’ with Gas and got our boarding pass for the Ferry at exactly 3pm.  then we waited in line to board the ferry for 3 hours.  Once loaded onto the ferry we were first on the waiting list for a state room.  We had our choice so we chose a handicapped suite that happened to be next door to the padded children’s room.  

Saturday 6/1-

Our first night took a little getting use to the noises that the ship made.  During the night we passed thru open water and I woke up to our very large ship slowly swaying side to side in the swells.  We were woken up by the announcement that the car deck will be open for only 15 minutes to allow passengers to feed & walk their pets but also to get things out of their vehicles.  (We learned the volume dial for our intercom speaker in our quarters was broken and there was no way to turn down the volume.)

Sunday 6/2-

We awoke at 6:30 to an announcement that we would be arriving in Ketchikan within the half hour.  Ketchikan is larger than Wrangell or Petersburg.  We stopped there for 2 hours.  Passengers were encouraged to get off & patronize the town, but be sure you take your photo ID and your boarding ticket to get back on.  After we left the port Gage & I napped.  We arrived in Wrangell at 3pm and left again at 4pm.  Our next stop was Petersburg at 7pm!  I took a lot of photos between Wrangell & Petersburg.  Bob Volk (family friend) and Summer Baxter (our landlord) met us at the ferry terminal in Petersburg.  Summer was in line to board the ferry that we had just gotten off of but wanted to meet face to face and let us know that her mother, Dorothy, would take us to our rental house and give us keys and a tour.  Bob & Anne, his wife, followed us up to Summer's House.  After Dorothy's tour, Anne explored with Gage while Rob, Bob and I unpacked Big O' into the house.  After the work was done we sat in the living room and caught up with Bob & Anne.

Monday 6/3-

Our first full day in Petersburg.  We drove around Petersburg to see what was for sale.  We met with the local Real Estate agent, George Doyle, then drove around some more.   That night Bob & Anne had us over for dinner...

Tuesday 6/4-

First night of weening Gage.  He only woke up once in the night.  All things considered he and I both took it quite well and I didn't give in.  We spent the morning looking at properties then off to the grocery store to  We didn't have internet at the house so we went to the library to get online.  Gage didn't like waiting for us so he explored the library and everything else on the second floor of the community building.


Rob & Gage at the park by Karl & Melinda's.

Gage surfing the steering wheel.

Big O' filling up with everything from the storage unit.
Rob putting in the second bicycle.

The metal art that we bought from Graham Schodda.

Big O' in line at the ferry terminal.

What to do with Gage for 3 hours while waiting in line...


Us in Big O' waiting in line at the ferry terminal to load onto the Columbia.

Map of our ferry route...

Information I thought was useful.

Floor plan of the Columbia (the ferry we took from Bellingham to Petersburg).
Gage watching as we pulled out of Bellingham.
Gage exploring the ferry, 8th floor.  This is the top deck filled with people camping in tents.

More tent camping on the 6th floor.  (7th floor is all the windows of the dining room)
Rob & Gage playing on a slide.

Gage leaping off a cushion in the padded kids room.

This little girl was the youngest of 4 sisters.  G loved playing with other kids.

Bell at the bow of the ship.
The Stateroom we stayed in on the ship.  Room 207.


A pretty view from the ferry.



Waterfall...


Setting sun...

Bald eagle in the dead tree...


Eagles everywhere...


The ferry ride had beautiful views!
The view off the stern of the ferry.

The Columbia entering the Wrangell Narrows, (the last 19 miles into Petersburg).
The Wrangell Narrows.



Us driving off the ferry.  We made it to Petersburg!


Gage making himself at home while we unpack Big O'


Gage playing in the back yard of our rental house.

Anne Volk and Gage exploring the swing set in the back yard.


Bob Volk helping Gage talk on the phone.