Easter Sunday

Here's a picture of Candance with Luke and Aubrey opening up their Easter baskets.

Aubrey taking a moment to look at the camera with her Easter basket.

Luke and Aubrey on their Easter egg hunt in our house. It is still cold outside and have too much snow to put the Easter eggs out to find.

What Alaskan kids do for fun...

This is what happens when a little boy who loves the water and wants to be doing 'summer' things is trapped inside a winter place.

This is Luke trying to wakeboard in the puddle in the middle of our street in April in Alaska. (Unlike the rest of the world, we still have winter and lots of snow, although it's melting.)

Easter Train

Today we went on the Alaska Railroad Easter Train from Anchorage to Willow, it was less than six hours long, which is the perfect amount for kids, but they get to experience a real train ride and all that goes along with it. They kids got to color, make crafts, meet the Easter bunny, get candy, see a magician and lots of other stuff.

Here is a picture of Luke after winning the coloring contest for 1-4 year olds, he was happy that he won, but upset that he didn't win the grand prize--a AK Railroad train set, he won an AK Railroad stuffed bear which he gave to Aubrey, who absolutely loved it.

These pictures (above and below) are of Luke and Aubrey with the magician that came through the cars. Luke volunteered to 'hold' the bunnies, but the bunnies kept multiplying. The finale came when Aubrey was to 'hold' the bunnies and it came out to be a BIG bunny which squeaked. She thought it was so funny that it squeaked. Luke loved the magician and thought he was a delight.

Easter Bunny, Candance, Aubrey & Luke.

At first, Luke was hiding under our table and wouldn't come out to see the Easter bunny, but I coaxed him out long enough to get a picture, then when it gave him candy, he was cool with it. Aubrey was intrigued by it and wanted to see it, but when it got closer, she became shy, but after I gave the Easter bunny high fives, the kids relaxed and gave it high fives too.

Luke, Aubrey & Kyle

Easter Eggs

On Friday night, we dyed our Easter eggs. Luke and Aubrey had a wonderful time coloring the eggs. Luke really thought it was fun to use the wax crayon to write his name and then dye it, he got a kick out of his name being on the egg.

Here's our lot of Easter eggs.

Aubrey playing with the shrink wrap for the Easter eggs.

Luke getting set to dye the eggs. Kyle didn't want them to wear clothes in fear of messing them up, so the kids went close to naked. Needless to say, Luke and Aubrey didn't have a single mess of dye on them.

Last ski of the season at Hillberg

Last Friday was our last ski run at Hillberg. We're saddened because Luke has gotten so good over the last two months and we know that if we had another few months, he would be skiing like a champ. He's very adventurous and likes to take jumps and go over the hills, much more than us.

Here's Luke showing off his poles, he is very proud that he gets to use poles like us.

Luke and Candance getting ready to get on the lift.

Luke taking a picture of us.

Quite the photographer!

Justin who came with us, unfortunately, he did not have a good of time as we did, the last run he fall and took out a fence and pole, he was quite shaken up over the whole experience. Ski Patrol had to come and make sure he was all right and they had to call his Mom (Sorry Ginger), who I am sure was upset by it all, but he was fine and he was wearing a helmet!

On the last run before Justin's accident, Luke wanted to ski over the picnic table, he's been doing wonderful with this, but this time he wasn't so graceful. He managed to ski over it, but at the end he kind of fell on his butt and scraped his back a little, but managed to land on his skis.

Skiing at Alyeska

Last Monday, Kyle and I went to Alyeska Ski Resort for a FREE day of skiing, it was military appreciation day, so we skiied and ate for free that day! What fun. We left the kids with a friend and spent a couple of hours on the mountain, it was really relaxing, until Kyle took me on the last run of the day all the way to the top. I was so tired and it was a very challenging run (which I fell at least twice that I remember), but we has a blast.

Kyle at the middle of Alyeska

Candance at the middle of Alyeska

Ice flows on the drive to Alyeska. Very interesting, it's HUGE chunks of ice pushed against the land creating mountains of ice and in between is a river of melting ice.