Recent happenings

In the last month or so, in no particular order, we have:

Worked on a science fair project

Seen some beautiful BLUE eyes!

Helped Mama ice her knees

Enjoyed an afternoon at the beach with typical Kodiak weather
(chilly and rainy for those who aren't familiar)

Defeated the baby gate to get upstairs
(The Duchess's foot is barely seen next to the wall)

Gone shoe shopping for me
No.  The shoes didn't fit.

Hiked at Ft Abercrombie

Talked on the banana

Played doctor

Worked on Mama's computer
(it had been closed and hiding under the couch...)

Bundled up to go for a walk with the new jogging stroller

Played in the snow (in late April)

Tried to sneak a cookie
(the orange cookies are a hit around here)

Shared with sisters

The Duchess comforted her Miss E after Miss E got in trouble

Swept the front porch

More shoe shopping - still nothing

Beautiful sunrise at the Buskin again

Coming home after a hike

Enjoyed making faces in her open top cup at the galley

Time for a workout! Bear crawling through the kitchen!

A rare sunny Kodiak day

Where we found a fallen tree and had to figure out how to get around it

Watched Lady A's very last soccer game

And worked on Mama's computer again.
(the Duchess is the engineer of our family)

It has been so much fun hanging out with these girls.  Birthday updates shortly!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

I want to wish a very Happy Mother's Day to some very special women.

Women who have walked with me through both good times and bad.  Women who have supported, counseled, and lovingly smacked me upside the head.

To all of you, you are amazing.  You are a beautiful reflection of Christ in my life.  Thank you.

There is so much to say but so few words that will truly express what is in my heart. I am blessed to have you in my life.  I thank God for you and I pray that tomorrow is a special day for each of you.

April becomes May

It is May already.  It is hard to believe we are already into the fifth month of the year.

So many things are happening just this month.  There is the end of the school year. There will be parties and field trips and goodbyes. For our niece, the end of high school and her birthday.  For our "baby" girl, her second birthday.  For Michael, nights have become days again. And we can't forget that his birthday is coming quickly too. For friends, this is the beginning of transfer season.  Already we have seen the trucks in our neighborhood, estimating, packing, and loading.  Wednesday night is the last night for AWANA.  The girls have loved participating.  I have enjoyed having a semi regular date night with Michael and the Duchess.  And then of course, there is Mother's Day.  My girls keep asking about and reminding me that Mother's Day is coming soon.  Lady A and Miss E have both decided to make cards for me and that I need to have a scavenger hunt to find all of them.  Perhaps I will take a nap while they set it up... Michael works tomorrow so Princess N has offered to assist.  There is more, much more, going on, but what happened to April?

April was a blur.  It was a challenge.  When you have 6 people sharing germs, it generally takes 6 weeks for those germs to go away.  There was someone sick pretty much every week in April.  I'm not sure if it was all the same virus because we all had different symptoms and we were each out of commission for different lengths of time.  Princess N had fever for a day and was fine.  Miss E had fever for 5 days, but was back to normal otherwise after 3 days.  Michael was sick for three days while whatever got me knocked me out for almost two full weeks.  Lady A and the Duchess seemed to escape unscathed.

I am hoping May slows down a bit so we can enjoy it.

I abandoned you in Great Falls...

No, we didn't just spend the last several months in Great Falls.  We continued on into Canada.  And then back into the US.

About two months before we left Texas, we finally had ferry passage reserved.  Since we were not leaving from Bellingham, Washington as we'd originally planned to do, we needed to quickly get a passport for all four girls and me.  With Michael's travel schedule and the requirement that he either be present or sign a form giving permission for me to apply for the girl's passports, it quickly became apparent that we may or may not receive them before our planned travel dates.  We had a small cushion of time built into our travel plans in the event something came up along the way that delayed us, but waiting for more than a week after our planned departure date would mean missing the ferry if we had a major vehicle failure on the road.  Still, even though they could take 4-6 weeks to arrive, we needed passports.  By the time we applied, there were four weeks exactly before we were planning to leave town.  The week before the movers came, we visited with family and friends in Florida.  While we were there, our next door neighbor let us know that some of the passports had come in.  By the end of the last week of school, we had all five passports and were ready to go.

This was the first trip out of the country for our girls and I added a 4th country to my list.  (those would be Ecuador at ages 8, 17, and 18; England at age 12, and Canada at age 36, and of course, the US, where I've pretty much lived my whole life)  I'm not sure how many countries Michael has been in, but we all added some more states to our lists as well.  I'd never been to Montana, even when we lived in Wyoming, so it was neat to see the accuracy of their state nickname, Big Sky Country.

When we pulled out of Great Falls, we wandered along a river with some beautiful views until we reached the interstate.  Once on the road, it was a few short hours to the US/ Canadian border.  Before we crossed into Canada, we realized that we really needed to set up an international calling plan for our cell phones.  We had three hours to the border to figure it out.  I decided that even though we'd have the calling plan, I would leave my phone off unless for some reason Michael and  I went separate ways.  It was nice to be disconnected for a few days.

Crossing the border was a bit nerve-wracking at first.  When we pulled up to the checkpoint, we were told that the cargo rack was partially blocking our license plate.  The Customs official asked what the plate number was and both Michael and I stumbled over trying to remember the correct sequence of numbers and letters.  Then when he asked us to open the back window, I originally thought he meant the window on the tailgate, not the left passenger window.  Eventually, we got everything sorted out and the drive through Canada began.

When we lived in Cheyenne, there were three main colors.  Brown, white, and a combination of the two.  If we wanted to see something green, we drove to Denver.  The landscape across the border was beautiful.  Lush, green, rolling hills gleamed in the sunlight after a rain shower.  Familiar, yet foreign.  After the ruggedness of Wyoming and Montana, the green fields made me think of the Wizard of Oz.  There were no fences on the lands immediately across the border to keep livestock in and people out.  It seemed open and welcoming.

One of the first things we noticed was a U-Haul truck pulling a trailer that had been at the border.  When we pulled up to the border checkpoint, we saw that it had a flat tire.  Folks traveling in another vehicle seemed to be helping them change the tire.  Apparently, the tire didn't fit because when we passed them on the road, the U-Haul was sending sparks flying as the rim of the wheel dug a groove into the pavement.

Another thing we noticed almost immediately was the courtesy of the other drivers.  In Houston, we often said that using your turn signal meant that other drivers knew to speed up because you revealed your intentions.  In Canada, we saw very few drivers not use their turn signals.  In Houston, Michael claimed that "Driving Friendly" was just another Texas myth.  However, in the western part of Texas, we did encounter several folks who "Drove Friendly."  In Canada, we had many people pull over to the right, especially on the four lane highways, when a faster moving vehicle approached.  In fact, most people drove in the right lane except to pass.  Imagine that! :)

It was interesting to find places to eat and fill up the gas tank though.  In the US, highway signs indicate which direction you need to travel to find a restaurant or gas station.  In Canada, we pulled off the major roadway several times but were unable to figure out which direction we needed to go and how far we would need to go as well.

We hit Calgary at rush hour.  It wasn't too bad at first, but the far side of town was awful compared to what traffic we'd been in over the past couple of days.  Once we made it out of Calgary, and thankfully onto the correct road, the drive was quite pleasant.

Edmonton was another challenge though.  We had stopped for dinner earlier and decided to try to find a hotel on the route out of town.  After taking several exits and not finding hotels, we finally found one.  After the many hours of driving, we were quite relieved to find a place to rest.

Up next: Edmonton to Whitehorse

the last month

The last month has marked some interesting changes for me.  But first... the backstory.

In February of 1997, I had knee surgery.  The pain when I ran or danced or climbed stairs or walked for long distances was almost unbearable.  Nothing really changed after the surgery. I still had quite a lot of pain.

After Michael and I got married, we discovered that if I sat for an extended period of time, my knee would get so stiff that I could barely walk.  We joked about a knee replacement as he carried me out of movie theaters.  We considered the possibility of needing a wheelchair in the near future.  I looked into the requirements for a handicap parking permit.

As time passed and my level of activity decreased dramatically, I found a kind of happy medium between activity and pain.  I was able to work 8 hour shifts on my feet, but my time off was spent resting as much as I possibly could.  Each of my pregnancies, including the ones that ended in miscarriage, were hard. The pain was almost back to pre-surgery levels.  I usually ended up doing a month of physical therapy when I couldn't take the pain any longer.  Nothing seemed to help.

My weight had gone up as a result of my decreased activity, four full term pregnancies, and a few different medications I had taken for depression.  I am currently close to my highest weight in my pregnancy with the Duchess.  I have been holding steady around the same 5 pound range.

When we moved to Alaska, I was looking forward to getting outdoors.  The hiking here is absolutely beautiful and I wanted to enjoy it as much as I could before winter.  After a couple of months of hiking and climbing stairs left me almost in tears, I finally went to my doctor.  Typically, my right knee has been the issue.  This time it was my left knee.  I was referred to a local physical therapist.  The words "possible torn meniscus" and "surgery" were mentioned.  I wanted to avoid that at all costs! Surgery didn't seem to do much before and I didn't want to go through that again.

Two days later, one of Michael's co-workers called me as I was leaving the grocery store in town.  Michael was being taken to the ER because they thought he might be having a heart attack.  All of our focus the next 4 months was spent taking care of Michael.  His doctors told him to cut out anything that could possibly cause an elevated heart rate.  Coffee and exercise were out.  I stayed close by when Michael was at home because I never knew if I would need to take him back to the hospital.

Michael's surgery was at the end of January which coincided with some of our coldest weather here. (highs in the mid to low 30s) My knees started hurting again.  Not hiking had eased the pain a bit, but I was back to that happy medium between activity and pain.  After all, I still had to climb the stairs.

I finally felt I could take advantage of the physical therapy referral without being concerned about leaving Michael.  My therapist is an amazing gal.  We'll call her Sarah.*  Sarah started with a completely different approach than any of my other therapists.  Instead of immediately having me do leg lifts or walk on a treadmill or use a stationary bicycle, she started with exercises to strengthen and stabilize my hips.  Then one day, she asked another therapist to consult because he had been using a different manipulation technique with good results.  For the next four or five visits, that was all Sarah did.  It felt as though she was trying to rip my kneecaps off, but what she was doing was working.  One day she asked me to do squats.  I have not been able to do squats without pain since before my surgery in 1997.  18 years.  I not only did pain free squats, I was able to do much deeper squats.

For the first time in 18 years, I can walk up stairs and it doesn't hurt.  For the first time in 18 years, I can do a workout that involves bending my knees repeatedly and I can still walk the next day.  Yes, the workouts hurt, but it is muscles that are protesting, not my joints.

Last week, I started a couch to 5k (c25k) program.  And yes, I am running without knee pain for the first time in 18 years!! It has been hard.  I'm extremely overweight.  I'm extremely out of shape.  But I am amazed at how God has orchestrated all of this.

You see, back in October, when I finally got the referral approved from my insurance company, Sarah was about to go on maternity leave.  She had been back at work perhaps a week when I finally got around to setting up the first appointment.  I believe that she is the therapist God had in mind and while I wish Michael had not experienced the heart issue, I am thankful that it caused me to wait until February before going to therapy.

Where do I go from here? Well, I have three more therapy appointments scheduled.  After consulting with Sarah, I will be doing the c25k program twice a week, a workout video that is squat intensive once a week, and walking the other four days a week.  In addition, I will continue the strengthening and stabilization exercises.  Sarah told me last week to be prepared.  She was going to come up with some tough new exercises for me to add in to my routine.  I am also working on better eating habits.  Sugar and cold seem to be the two major factors that currently contribute to my joint pain.  I can't change the cold.  I love being outside in the cool weather.  I can change the food.  I'm ignoring the call of the Congo Bars as I write...

I am hoping to be able to run consistently again.  I loved feeling the wind on my face and hearing the sounds of feet on the pavement.  Our goal for Michael's retirement is to hike the Appalachian Trail.  Whether it is a section hike or a thru hike, I need to be ready.  Running, and hiking, around here is like being in paradise.  The scenery changes from minute to minute and is breathtakingly beautiful.

The time outdoors doing the c25k has become a prayer time.  I may only run for 6 minutes out of 25, but I am running because of God's great provision.  And every time I run without knee pain, I am thankful.  I am thankful when my calves cramp on my 4th run instead of my 1st.  I am thankful when I see Miss E encouraging her sisters and hollering back to let them know when we are running and when we are walking.  I am thankful for the 25 mile an hour wind at my back to keep me going and I'm even thankful for it being in my face to cool me down during the last half of the workout.  It did catch Michael and his coworkers off guard though. They had been doing a gym workout that ended with a 15 minute run.  They decided to run outside just as I was finishing my run.  Yep, they didn't discover how strong the wind was until they were headed back to the gym.

I know this has been long, but I just wanted to share this with you.


*not her real name

More photos

Buskin at sunrise

Looking out at the snow

Snow Day! Too bad it was a Sunday :)

High Tide

Road to Anton Larson Bay

Boats on the water9

We've officially made it to the end
of the road in three directions

Sheltered harbor

Fishing boat returning to port

Sunrise

Our neighborhood during an evening walk with Michael

To compare

A few days ago, I posted some photos.  The very next day, I went out to the same location and took some more.  Do you notice the difference?

And now the following day:

the view upstream is mostly ice

Almost completely iced over

quite a bit more ice on the 2nd day

Sunrise on the Buskin

I went out to the Buskin River this morning because I was awake before sunrise today.  Being awake before sunrise isn't unusual when sunrise is at 9am.  Being awake before sunrise on a cloudless morning is unusual right now.  We have about 7-10 days of rain or cloudy weather and then one or two days of sunshine followed by 7-10 days of rain or cloudy weather.  While the sun was shining and the sky was cloudless, it was certainly not warm this morning.  The white patches in the photos are ice. 

the mouth of the Buskin before sunrise

the mouth of the Buskin just after sunrise

further upstream on the Buskin

some recent photos

I know the story of the Grand Adventure is stuck in Great Falls.  I promise to get back to it.  In the mean time, how about some recent photos? Recent meaning photos from the past few months...

Moonrise at Jewel Beach

Sunrise

All of us at Ft Abercrombie - it was a gray day, but we got a much
needed stroll and fresh air!
In front: Miss E and Lady A
In back: Mom, Princess N, Michael, the Duchess, and me

Pretty in Pigtails

I'm a bit late, but HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! (at Jewel Beach)

The mountains at night

Stranded Starfish

The Bering Beauty - Photowalk 2014

Me, Michael, and the Duchess on a hike at Ft Abercrombie