Lachlan's Life Jacket

On Tuesday, August 11th, we were planning on taking Lachlan on his first float of the Kenai River. Well, we didn't have a life jacket for him so we purchased one the night before. We purchased it according to the weight specifications. When we got home and tried it on him...well, you can see the result.

It was sooo funny!! He couldn't move his head. So, Shayne would walk around the room trying to get him to move his head, but he couldn't...he could only move his eyes! We were laughing so hard. You can see from his cute little smile he thought it was pretty funny too. I think either his head was too big for the opening or his neck/torso were too short for the length of the jacket. Either way, it wasn't working' so well.

Needless to say, we didn't use this jacket. We brought it with us just in case, but Alaska has a cool program where they have free life vests for kids at all the boat launches to use while floating, then you leave them for the next kid. So, we found one that, technically, was too big, but fit way better than the one we bought. However, the pictures and the exercise from the laughing were worth the purchase of the jacket!

How can you not love that face?!

August 10th, 2009 - Quartz Creek

We went back to Quartz Creek about a week later, but we took Lachlan this time. It was a beautiful day! The fishing wasn't nearly as good. The above fish was the only fish caught. But, we absolutely enjoyed being outside. Lachlan as usual was a trooper. He loves hanging out in his backpack, especially when dad's fishing.

After fishing we brought lunch and ate on the bank of the creek. It was so nice.

The last pic is one of the many reason's I love Shayne. He's picking up garbage. Wherever we go, and whatever we are doing, whenever Shayne sees somebody's lack of respect for Mother Nature and litters, he picks it up. He usually comes home with some wrapper or something in his pocket or backpack he's picked up on a trail or river. So, this area where we were at is at times a popular campsite, so there was quite a bit of garbage lying around. After eating, Shayne took Lachlan and the bag we had our lunch in, and cleaned up the campsite. I'm so glad Lachlan has such a good example for a daddy!

One For the Journal

On Tuesday, August 4th, Shayne & I fished Quartz Creek. Kade & Ashley and guests had left about 1:30 am so Shayne and I decided to go fishing to celebrate the end of our "guest season". (Not that we don't enjoy guests, b/c we do...it's just nice when we get Alaska to ourselves.) We got a babysitter...thank you Karen...and headed to Quartz, just the two of us.

There are Dolly Varden in that creek that follow the Red and King Salmon upstream and eat their eggs as they are spawning. So...we fish with fake salmon eggs, or beads. There are a myriad of colors and sizes and you have to pick just the right one(s) in order to get the fish to bite.

Normally, I follow Shayne's suggestions b/c he is the "Master". :) But...on this day I borrowed the "Master" title...but only for the day. It was seriously an epic day for me. I picked all my own beads (Shayne ended up asking what I was fishing with and changed beads...he never changes to the same bead I have on...never) and I caught some very nice fish at each hole I fished at. Shayne would fish a particular spot in the creek, not catch anything, then I would come in behind him and fish it, and pull out a 20"-24" Dolly...almost every time.

You have to understand something...THIS NEVER HAPPENS TO ME!! So...I still revel in my success to this day...or night seeing how I'm posting at almost midnight. :) Shayne just smiles and is glad I had so much fun. It means he gets to take me out again, which is always his main goal. He wasn't smiling quite so much that day though...in fact, I think he was getting a little frustrated. :) Oh...you have no idea how nice it was for me to NOT be the frustrated one. Have I mentioned that THIS NEVER HAPPENS TO ME!!?

I did take a picture of his one notable fish of the day...the Rainbow Trout he caught in a deep hole. We took it b/c there are so few Trout in this creek...it's almost exclusively inhabited by these Dolly Varden which are a species of Char. (That's for all you fish bums who know what I'm talking about.)

It was such a fun day, and not just b/c of the fish I caught. It was so nice for Shayne & I to spend some time together. It's been awhile since we've gone and done something with just the two of us. He's my very best friend, so it's always a good thing when I get to hang out with him. So, it was a journal sort of day for more than just the fish...I got to spend time with my hubby, who just happens to be my bestest friend in the whole world!

Anyway...I'm sorry there are more than just 4 or 5 pics...but when you catch as many beautiful fish as I did on this day, you just have to post pics of them all! :)

p.s. We caught and released all the fish we caught...we don't keep them to eat, that's why we fish for Salmon.

Thank you!

I just read an article on Fox Sports page. All I have to say is AMEN!! And...Thank you.

You should and can read it here.

It's not a sports article, per se. It's an article for everyone. Read it.

I think I will bookmark it, and read it again tomorrow.

Thursday, July 30th...the Russian River

While Kade & Ashely and company were here we took them to the Russian River. Not everyone wanted to fish but all wanted to see the place, so we opted to do the 3 mile hike to the Russian River Falls. We would eat lunch at the falls on the platform/outlook over the falls, and then those who wanted to fish would continue to hike down river and those who wanted to leave could hike back. It's an easy hike and a lot of fun to take people on, b/c the Russian is such a beautiful river.

However, if you've at all read our blog in the past, you know it's FULL of bears. I'm not talking just a few...I'm talking A LOT!! And not little bears...big Brown bears and slightly smaller Black bears. Our group wanted to see bears, b/c that's what you expect coming to Alaska...well, they weren't disappointed. When we got to the platform at the falls, there was a large Brown bear just below us in the pool at the bottom of the falls "fishing". He hung out in the pool trying to get a Salmon for a bit, caught one, pulled him to the side and then munched him. It is an incredibly cool and terrifying feeling knowing you are only yards from a massive bear, but feel safe at the same time. We took plenty of pics to document it.

Shayne had The Bug on his back in the backpack for the whole bear incident and what do you think The Bug was doing? Yup...sleeping. I had to take a pic. Our company, and the other tourists at the platform thought it was pretty cool...and I have to admit...I never get tired of watching bears...from a safe distance. :)

After the bear left, he went up the hill on the other side of the river, we ate lunch took some more photos, and then continued down river to fish. If you've ever fished on the Russian River you know what I mean when I say, "I hate combat fishing!!" There are so many people on the River all trying to catch Salmon. Usually they are a bunch of redneck's just snaggin' and fishing illegally. Drives me crazy! So...I opted to not fish a whole lot that day...ok, I didn't fish at all. Instead, with Ashley's help we sat on the bank and fed The Bug lunch, played with/entertained him, and I was the one who usually beached and bonked the fish that were caught by our group.

You can see all the people in some of the pics. One of the pics shows perfectly the mayhem that can occur while fishing the Russian. One of the girls in our group, Janell, got into her first Salmon, and didn't quite know how to handle it on a fly rod. The fish took off down river, tangling in the gauntlet of lines already in the river. Most people are inconsiderate and refused to reel up and get their lines out of the way...so Janell had to work around them. Her husband, Aaron, had her climbing over and under lines to get untangled. There was an easier way to deal with the mess...but we won't go there.

While fishing, we saw yet another bear. This was a smaller Black bear that was across the river from us. He popped out of the bushes just below us (on the other side), and then came walking up river, towards us (on the other side) and just meandered up the river. Kade videoed it, but I didn't have a chance to take a pic. I had The Bug with me, and was watching to see how he responded to the bear. He just watched it...no other reaction. Like he would know how to react. Black bears are a lot less aggressive, and much more timid than the larger Brown bears. So...we never felt uncomfortable or threatened in any way. It was just cool to watch him checking us and the river out. Gotta love the Russian River! You're almost guaranteed to see a bear in June/July when you go there...almost.

The Bug is such a little trooper. He very seldom complains when we take him places. He loves to just watch what's going on around him...and sleep. :) There were quite a few people amazed that we had brought him with us...probably b/c of the bear infestations...but we like to think it's b/c we just love to take him with us. :)

Anyway...sorry for the bajillion pics again, but the pics of that Brown bear fishing were just too cool to not post. I'm just about caught up on our summer happenings. My goal is to be completely caught up before The Bug's B-day...which is at the end of the month.

Kade & Ashley

So, I'm going to upload a pile of photos and pretty much document the whole week Kade & Ashley were here in one post. I don't have time to do multiple posts. Seriously...they came up from July 27-August 4th...6 weeks ago!! So behind!! The story is below all the pics...sorry. Grab a drink some snacks and enjoy the gajillion pics!! :)






























Anyway...here's the story behind their week visit:

Kade(my brother) and his wife, Ashley, came up for the second time to visit us. They came up with 2 other couples; Aaron & Janell Bowman and Adam & Jacqui Johnson. The Bowman's are in Kade & Ashely's ward and they are good friends. The Johnson's are good friends with the Bowman's and they all wanted to experience Alaska. When Aaron (who is nearly as fanatical about fly-fishing as Shayne), heard Kade had a sister who lived in Alaska...and not just Alaska but Soldotna...he freaked out! He then informed Kade that if Kade provided the lodging and fishing hook-ups, he would cover the airfare (he had a lot of airline miles to use.) Kade was quick to agree...Hello?! His sister lives there, how hard was it to find lodging?! Yeah...they made these plans back in October of 2008. So...up they came the last week of July to fish and check out Alaska.

We got them into some good fishing, even though we had a glacier dam break and flood the Kenai River. They were able to fish the Russian, Kenai, and Kasilof for Red Salmon and then out of Deep Creek on the ocean for Halibut. One of the days they went out of Seward for the Kenai Fjords Tour...which they loved. They saw lots of bears during their week long stay...brown & black. The girls and I (with Lachlan) did a fun hike over looking Skilak Lake...the girls were able to pick Currants and Wild Raspberries to their hearts content.

The boys were able to rescue two scouts that had fallen in the water after their raft overturned while on a scouting activity floating the Kenai River. You do not want to fall into that water...it's glacially fed and is VERY cold. They had life jackets on, but still...you freeze to death pretty quickly. Anyway...our boys were floating the river, Shayne was rowing, when they saw the cata-raft overturn. Shayne managed to get the drift boat they were in to a back eddy and pick up two of the boys who hadn't been picked up by other boaters. They were cold, but very glad to be out of the water. The Emergency services were at the pull-out when they got there to make sure everything was ok. That was a pretty exciting day for our boys. :)

I'm going to post all of the pics, but w/o the explanations for each one of them. It would take WAY too long! I am going to do a separate post for the Russian River trip, b/c it was a pretty cool trip. You'll see why when I post those pics.

Lachlan, as usual, was such a good little boy. He was hauled around all over the place in his backpack and in the carseat. He usually fell asleep when you hiked for very long in his backpack. Was pretty funny. He's pretty much good to go where ever you take him. So nice!

This was a very fun group to have. They were all our age and fun to hang around with. I especially loved having Kade and Ashley here to visit. I don't get to see my family very often, so when I do I love it! It was so nice to be able to leave Lachlan with them for a bit while I went with Shayne and not feel at all like I was imposing on anyone. Ashley was a HUGE help with Lachlan, from feeding him to putting him to bed for me. It was so nice to have her here.

I enjoyed Kade too...but he knows all to well what things bug me. That's why I have the random pic of the foam letter flooring in the pics. He knows that if I can't have a pattern or symmetry in things then I need to have randomness...and since it's very hard to get any sort of symmetry or pattern in this foam flooring, I have it random. He thought it would be funny to mess up the letters and make same colors touch, turn the letters backwards and so one and so forth. He even thought he would put the finishing touch and spell his name on the side. Just so I would know who had done it...like I wouldn't know! I had to deal with this most of the week...thought I was going to go crazy. I had to fix the floor the day after he left. At least it made me pick up all those letters and clean the back of them and vacuum my floor! Thanks Kade! The only reason I would invite you back to visit is because I enjoyed having Ashley here so much! Good thing you're married to her! :)

Anyway...we loved having them. But...we were even more excited these were our last guests for the summer!! We now had the rest of the short summer and beautiful fall to ourselves!! Yeah for us!!!