The Easter Bunny Must be a Snowshoe Hare

Easter Fun with egg-coloring

Saturday morning egg hunt in the snow.

Easter Sunday before dinner.

What We've Been Up To

Since I last got on here to make a post, we've done many, many things.  Here are a few to cover our bases.

Since August, we've had winter. . .

Birthdays. . .

Northern Lights. . .

Holidays. . .

And a baby.

Independence Day

We love our local little parade on the 4th of July!  We didn't have to get there too early and we ended up sitting by friends.  Also, there was plenty of candy, which the kids love.  One thing I do NOT like about the 4th of July up here is that it is not dark enough for fireworks.  Oh well, we still enjoy being together.

Some friends of ours getting excited for the parade to come.

Cute little Liberty in her 4th of July dress.

The roller derby girls rolled up to give Kim a sucker!

Twirly skirt!

We are lucky to live in this great country.  Even though Alaska is separated from most of the US by land and water, it is nice to know that people are celebrating in similar ways all over!

Easter 2012

We started out the holiday by dying Easter eggs. We got a monster set this year with sticker eyes and mouths. They turned out really cute!

The Easter Bunny came to our house on Friday since Dad had to work on Saturday. He never comes on Sunday since that is the day we want to remember that Jesus was resurrected, the true reason for the season. Libby loving her chocolate bunny.
Kim enjoying some Easter breakfast of apple butter on toast.

Glade was too excited to hold still for a picture.
The silly Easter Bunny always hides our dyed eggs outside for us to find. Here's Kim with a nice purple one, and yes, it is still snowy out.
Liberty finding an egg behind some grass.
Glade found a silly one with some monster hair on it on the grill of the old truck.

So far, it's been a fun holiday. Now for the more serious part. We hope our kids can learn about and appreciate the Savior's sacrifice for us.

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we had posole and red and green corn chips. Looks pretty festive, eh?

Then we did the nativity play with the kids (you can still see parts of their costumes in this picture). And the opened the traditional one gift on Christmas Eve. I don't know what that little spot on the lens was. Oops.

Here are the girls opening and enjoying their gifts. See, no spot. Who knows?

All Dressed Up

We spent Halloween this year Trick-or-Treating at the Hospital on-post. Who wants to trick-or-treat outside in sub-zero weather? Not I. Turns out there were a lot of stations for the kids to stop at and they made a big haul even though the hospital isn't that large.

The DENTAC's station. The kids got spider rings here.

One of the departments had Star Wars costumes. Love it!

Ready for a sugar high? They are! What a cute robot, ladybug, and scary witch! It was fun to have some friends with us too.

Pumpkins Galore!

We had a great time carving pumpkins this year with some new friends. Here's a crazy picture of the kids!

What the jack-o-lanterns looked like in the dark.
It was a great evening!

Awesomely Amazing Adventure with ALL Abbotts

On July 1st we left for our big adventure of the summer. We flew first to Bozeman where we spent a night before heading to the cabin in Island Park, ID. The cabin was built by Ryan Grandad. Grandad spent every summer there for a long time. Needless to say, it is a special place that is full of wonderful memories for Ryan and his family. We love it too. (We actually spent our honeymoon there in late December, can you say, SNOW!) Although short on sleeping quarters and space, we managed to all enjoy ourselves. We thought a lot of Grandad and Boppa while there and we loved spending the time with family.

We went to Yellowstone one day. We did a pretty good hike down a LOT of stairs to see a waterfall. Kim enjoyed climbing up by the path.

Glade enjoyed it too.

Unfortunately, we lost a car in our group and had to wait a bit. They never did find us though. At least we enjoyed being together! It was fun to see Reed and Katie's new little one, Grace.


Glade really enjoyed Addie. They played together a LOT on this trip.


We took family pictures at the cabin.


And pictures of everyone. Always tricky, but Katie did a great job! It was so fun to see everyone. All of the kids were so much bigger than the last time we got to spend time with them.


On the 4th of July, Aunt Natalie organized a parade that the kids really got into.

It rained in the evening and we were afraid the fireworks would get rained out. We haven't seen fireworks in a few years since it's not dark enough in the summer in Alaska. We didn't want to miss this chance! Ryan thought ahead enough to bring along a tarp, which came in handy as we hid from a little rainstorm using a tree to help support the tarp. It was an adventure!

The beautiful lake right before fireworks. They shot the fireworks off from the outcropping between the flag and the tall pole.


The fireworks were great! We were so close and the kids really enjoyed the experience. It was a little loud, but totally worth it!


Another fun thing we did is take out the boat, again Grandad's. I've been wanting to do this for a few years. The kids LOVED it!


When others were taking their turn, we swam in the lake. Uncle Rob even swam to the other side and back.
Ryan enjoying the water.


We went to Yellowstone a second time and Ryan and his brother Rob rode bicycles through the park.


We met them at spots and saw the geysers with them. We even saw a small grizzly bear running through the area. After a fun day at the park, we attended a play in West Yellowstone.


Ryan managed to go out fishing one day with his Dad. He was successful and ate this poor fish for lunch. Yum!


We did lots of ATV riding during the week. Everyone enjoyed it except for Liberty.


The girls picked lots of flower. Some even thought there would be none left by the end of the week. Smell it!


We had such a great time with the Abbott family, but it was time to travel down to see the Lunts for a week. Wish we could have stayed longer!