Vacation - Alaska Day 1

Hello!  Whoever said summer was relaxing and full of long, lazy days with spur of the moment exciting adventures - did not live in my house!  We are finally done with Swim Team (hear the sigh of relief mixed with slight sadness because they did have fun) and are cramming our days with other activities before school begins again.

But we have enjoyed planned adventures.  The biggest so far being our long awaited trip to Alaska/Yukon Territory - via RV and Cruise ship.  Whoo Hoo!  We went with another family dear to our heart - it's because of this couple that Bart and I met so we love them for that.  Two separate RV's.  We love them but an RV for just one family is enough cuddly closeness if you know what I mean. 

We flew together into Anchorage where the Polar bears await:

OK - I had a little frustration on this trip.  Due to camera issues.  Now, I went and bought myself a new camera.  A little upgrade from my last and I was very excited to use it.  One thing I forgot with the new "fancy schmancy" camera is that the file size is about twice that of my old and so my impatient self is very impatient with certain programs downloading (Shutterfly wanted 24 hrs to download 300 original files and I said " I don't think so, we'll take the "photobook" acceptable size instead).  So I am learning that only if I truly want enlarged original prints do I need to transfer original files to outside resources.

I digress.  The real source of my frustration and most of you who take pic's will understand:  my favorite, everyday, I-use-all-the-time lens pooped out on me.  In the RV.  The first night.  "Error 99" and "cannot communicate with lens-check and clean lens contacts."  The lens has it's own electronic parts and has already been sent to Canon for a fix.  Now, I had brought my wide angle (10-20mm) and my small telephoto (80-200mm) as well but that regular, nice lens (17-85mm) did not work.  The lens I use for approx. 97% of all pictures I take - I had nothing between 20 - 80mm range - Aaack!  Yeah, don't ask why I bother with other lenses in the first place.  But I was really glad to have them in their limited nature for this trip!  And the new camera made my old telephoto lens seem like new.

So the H's were in front of us most of the trip - made for some fun pictures.  One of the things I was looking forward to was the light.  We arrived in AK on June 24th - just 2 days after the summer solstice and until we traveled further south later in the week, we never saw the light disappear, the sun just rolled around the horizon.  It was fantastic.  Albeit a bit hard for sleeping - Rachel wore eye shades all week and I slept with a pillow over my head.  Kendra is in the bunk of the RV with curtains and Bart - he just seems to sleep if he needs to sleep, light or no.  We flew into Anchorage around 5pm and by time we picked up the RV's, got groceries and headed out for Denali - our evening destination, it was 7pm - ish.  And Denali was a good 4 -5 hr drive away (yes, a long first day!).  Here we are at 11:34pm (check clock on dash!) as we were getting close to the park - the light was incredible.

Here we are! Our first 'real' day after a night of sleep and headed into Denali National Park.

I can't quite describe the width and breadth of the country we saw. It was like so many of the beautiful, natural places I've been but on a bigger scale and definitely less inhabited and wild. Breathtaking and beautiful.

We saw Caribou!!!!:

And a big Moose!!!!:

And here are the caribou and the moose together - dark specs in the river bed! Look at the backdrop - that is Alaska big! You know how Texas brag's about being big - and it is. Alaska is almost 2 1/2 times the size of Texas - Alaska is bigger.

What a beautiful place and I hope you will be more impressed by the slight distortion that comes with a wide angle lens vs distracted by it. :) At least I got a lot of scenery into the pic's. And with the telephoto was able to get "close" to the caribou and moose.

Day 1 is not over but I just didn't have patience for the rest of the pictures! :) Until next post...

Eventful times

Does anyone else find that mid-May into June passes in a blur? Our school district gets out on the later end of the school year and the girls last day was June 14th. Therefore Summer has just begun but I feel like we're behind somehow.  Maybe because the schedule is still full?

It has been so dry that the jack rabbits have very little cover to hide behind.  They're fun to watch jumping around on the hills.  So far - they are not a garden nemesis.  The moles?  We're still at war.  Exterminator didn't help and so I'm putting sulphur gas 'bombs' in the tunnels at odd intervals to see if that stops them.  The garden center said I may want to try Wrigley's spearmint gum in the tunnels - apparently the moles don't like minty fresh breath.  The deer also came one night an had a smorgasbord consisting of Daylily buds, geranium blossoms and roses.  I actually don't mind that so much as the moles.....

Here's Eiger with his Moose antler treat.  It's only about 4 inches long now.  Time for a new one I think.

Memorial Day weekend was spent up at the family cabin for a work weekend.  We had a great time - the 20+ of us: deep cleaning the indoors, washing windows, cutting up some felled trees, chopping wood, raking brush/debris and keeping the burn pile going for two days straight.  It was a lot of work but a great time with everyone.  Looked really good when we left and can't wait to go back just to have fun.

Kendra and I took a walk to the swimming pond that the cabin has access to.  It wasn't cleaned up for the swim season yet and they've been "cleaning" things up there to.  We (I) was a bit disappointed that they cleaned up so much of the reeds that used to border that left side along the embankment.  There are always a ton of frogs/tadpoles to watch but we didn't hear one.  :(  Did see some small fish so at least not everything has been driven out.

The big and not so big cousins (Rachel & Kendra's) had a great time building a fort and lining it with ferns and moss.  Needless to say, there were a lot of moss stained clothes that came home to be washed.  Fortunately - no tic's came home with them!

Swim Meets started up as well before school dismissed.  Practices were every night (not compulsory) from 5:45 - 7:30 up until school ended.  Swim meets require our presence from 7am - 1/1:30pm on Saturdays and 3:30 - 9pm on Wednesday nights.  This has been quite an adjustment for the family who up until this point has not had kid activities which ruled the "free time" schedule.  But it's great exercise for them and while Rachel is not as "in love" with it, Kendra definitely enjoys it quite a bit so I have a feeling there will be a repeat season......... :)

We were also finishing up puppy school.  Whew!  I'm tired just revisiting all this - haha.

Eiger finished Puppy II training and did so well I feel I should take Puppy III in the Fall and perhaps the Good Citizenship Canine certification.  We'll see how motivated I am come Fall and the girls new schedule.  The picture is from a game of musical chairs with the dogs - we walk around the border with dogs in a heel and when the music stops, put them in a sit or down stay outside of the line and then we take a chair.  If the dog breaks the stay, you leave your chair to get them into command again and another person can steal your chair.  You can only sit if the dog is in their stay position.  I'm pleased to say that in two rounds, Eiger was one of the last two dogs - we got beat by a Pug named Rocky the first time as Rocky's dad stole my chair and the second was a draw with an Aussie sheperd.  Am I a crazy dog mom?  :)

This young lady is on her way to High School!  We had a hot, HOT, evening out on the sunny school fields for 8th grade celebration - 211 kids.  All I could think was "what am I going to do when she has High School graduation out on the football field for 600+/- graduates."  I actually think her Freshman class is supposed to be 700-ish students if I remember right from the orientation night.  I digress.....

We celebrated afterward with California Pizza Kitchen - her choice - and again when Bart got home later in the week with presents and an ice cream cake from Baskins Robbins.  I forgot how good an ice cream cake can be - delightful!  Once that was all over we shipped her off to High School church camp where they rock climbed, went river rafting, canyoning, etc... and slept under the stars - sleeping bags on a tarp under the open sky with mosquitoes and pincher bugs/earwigs for company.  I'm just thankful the rattle snakes didn't find themselves looking for a warm body to curl up next to.  She LOVED it.  We're so glad.  I have such good memories of summer camp and thankful she has the opportunity to try it before she gets "too old."  A pretty flower in my garden:

Last weekend was also Father's day and as it was too hot to sit outside, we broke in our new dining room table with my Dad and his siblings (we were just missing 1 of the 6).  I realized I miscounted people and we should have put in the last table leaf but it all worked out.  Dad and Bart held court as the "Fathers" at each head of the table.  Had a really nice time and I'm very thankful for my Dad.

Love You Dad!

A Rare Sight

If I don't start writing posts consistently soon, they'll be as rare as this solar eclipse:

Wow!  My aunts had come over in the afternoon and we were headed back from the pool down the street just before 6:30pm when we noticed the light changing.  It occurred to us that, Oh Yeah!  there's a solar eclipse tonight.  It was a partial, not a full.  You can see the form of the eclipse in the shadows cast by the leaves.  Everywhere we looked the leaf shadows were circular shadows.  The lighting was similar to that at sunrise but filtered - hard to describe and it shifted the perception of colors as well.  VERY COOL!

And then it was over.  I think the next one will be 2017?

I promise - promise - that I will post again before 2017.  Hah!

We still continue to adjust and reconnect with life here in CA.  Just tonight we were going through the drive-thru of In 'n Out for dinner after Swim team practice and after our total of $14.72 was announced (4 burgers, 2 fries, 1 drink), Kendra says "wow, I can't believe how cheap it is!"  Considering we paid approximately $36 for the same meal at McDonalds in Wadenswil for years, we are still adjusting to certain aspects.  What I appreciate is being able to wait for sales here instead of just buying what we need because there is no other opportunity as we did on trips home from Switzerland.  That said, we'd all love to hop on a flight for Switzerland right now.

Since I last posted, I keep meaning to post pics from Spring Break - Washington DC - but, but as soon as we returned, swim team practice started.  I'm still trying to get the girls schedule coordinated so I don't have to drive back and forth everyday to the pool but by time it really works, school will be out and practice will switch to 7:30am!  I don't see them going to practice 5 days a week.  Do You?

The garden has also required some work.  I've been planting some perennials and herbs in the regular beds and planting the garden boxes with tomatoes, green beans, squashes, melon, peppers, etc....  I didn't realize how easy my gardening had really been in Switzerland.  Besides slugs and some cool weather issues, there wasn't much I dealt with as far as challenges.  In Iowa it was the deer, rabbits and squinnies (like chipmunks) but here!  I'm going to look like Bill Murray in Caddyshack pretty soon.  There are moles, MOLES!, tunneling under my new plants in the flower beds - eating the strawberries! - and I didn't know we had moles in CA.  Gophers yes.  Moles?

There is also the issue of water.  CA garden watering is an art form.  I've been away for a while and I'm still trying to figure it out.  There hasn't been enough natural water this year so it's a bit of a guessing game as to what portions of the garden need what.  Oh, and there are more 'blights' and 'funguses' and diseases related to temperature!  What was I thinking?  So I am trying to take care of all of this without killing my family or dog with toxic potions.  A castor oil treatment is being used for the moles - non-toxic - and I hope they go back where they came from.

What else?  Oh.  Mr. Eiger.  Latest escapade involved my forgetting some boxes on the garage floor from a Costco run.  I had to run out for just over an hour and put him out, the boxes not in view of the door.  Sooooooooooo, he ate an entire bag (large!) of Cheezits and got into the Swiffer duster box destroying the duster refills and more worrying, I found only a part of the plastic handle that comes with this product.  Worrying because I knew there were two missing Gatorade caps from his interest in a flat of that beverage two days earlier.

So back to the Vet (prior week he was in due to Colitis) because I could not induce him to vomit at home.  Vet was reluctant to induce him at first until the xrays were viewed and we could see not only the plastic but a large amount of Cheezits that had not started digesting.  In the words of the staff "Eiger threw up an impressive amount of Cheezits.  We've never seen a dog throw up that much."  Gee.  My special dog.  Not to mention that he gained 6 lbs from his prior week weigh in - I did mention it was a large bag!  Fortunately, almost all the plastic came up too.  He's doing great now and we've finished the clean up/organizing of the garage not to mention we are working on crate training for daytime confinement - he's already crated at night.  We have to protect him from himself!  That said - he rocked at Puppy training class - having fun with his training.  He's quite smart outside of the ingestion of anything that fits in his mouth!

So that is all keeping me busy.  That has really filled up May.  We are looking forward to some fun things coming up and I'll be sure to share.  Until then, I wish you all a wonderful Memorial Day weekend if I don't get back here.  Remember those who have served for our freedoms!  Take time to thank the veterans and servicemen/women who are arround us now.  :)



It's changed!

Wow! Leave off posting for a month and come back to find Blogger has changed its publishing platform and I'm soooooo confused. I'll get there. I can learn something new. One example is that pictures load opposite of the prior version. So - I'm going to write my post backwards! It will work. I'm too lazy to take the time to delete and reload. I'm just glad to be sitting and writing!

I will start with the "little man" as he is often called. The girls really enjoy having Eiger around and he is still my shadow. He continues to behave like a toddler and eat and eliminate things he should not be! This makes life interesting and we are getting really good at keeping floors and the garage cleaned up.

Here he is in what was supposed to be in my little reading corner in the bedroom. A nice little bookcase, lamp and our oversized chair w/ ottoman. Now? He turns it into his own little party pad by dragging all his stuff onto the chair/ottoman. Since it's the ONLY piece of furniture he's allowed on, he's taken full claim to it:

I spend many a day taking Eiger out walking. He is like a naughty and smart toddler - best handled when tired out a bit. Daily exercise is important for him and turns out, for me too.   The view from up the road is really nice.  We are in a valley near the base of a local Mountain.  Not a Swiss mountain but it is a coastal mountain. 

One thing I always love in the foothills of CA is the lupine in Spring. It grows wild along with the poppies and is just naturally beautiful. I'm waiting for seed pods on these to mature so I can throw some into the field on the other side of our fence.

There are a lot of Heritage Oaks in the hills here.  Not much grows under them and they are a provider of shade to the cows, deer and turkeys as well as a roost for the hawks, jays, magpies and crows.  This one is pretty old and will soon look like........

this one.  The kids all call this the Spooky Tree.  It does look pretty cool though. Those hills should be green, green - it will be a dry summer.

My shadow.  Can you see the stick he's carrying?  Going straight out to the left.  He loves to pick up sticks to carry on our walks.  Or pinecones.  He has to play with the pinecones first.

So how has he helped me?  A short and sweet on the "back" story which I've mentioned before.  Prior to leaving Switzerland and on our arrival, the pain in my mid-back became a constant companion.  I've done massage therapy for years as well as Chiropractic care when living in the States and kept things fairly reasonable.  I resumed seeing a Chiro in August and after several months with the muscles continuing to freeze up (along with nausea and hunching over) on recommendation via the Dr. during Physical.  Was prescribed muscle relaxers - didn't really do anything.  Had X-rays, MRI and then recommended to a Spinal Orthopedic.  I do have a healed vertebra compression fracture from a horse fall 25 yrs ago and they found a couple hemangiomas (enlarged blood vessel tissue but benign and commonly found) but none of these explained the pain and muscle seizures.

A non-narcotic pain medication and high dosage anti-inflammatory do help but due to long-term side effects, I use them as needed.  And then we got the dog.  And I went to see the physical therapist guru from Sweden.  He said the problem I've been having is caused by one of  two things:  direct muscle trauma or stress.  "So Mrs. Olson, what is going on with your life?"  Me? Stressed?  To which I had to confess my back tension had decreased dramatically since we got the puppy (who stresses me out but for different reasons).  He concurred and proceeded to observe that I held my breath when I was speaking and that I needed to take time to relax and get "present" with where I am and not where I was.  OH - and that if I believed so strongly in God that I needed to let Him take care of things and not worry about doing it all myself.  I'm also making sure I do regular deep breathing exercises.  I didn't tell him I felt like I was holding my breath most of the time.  It was hard at first to admit he was right!  I decided this Swede was as direct as a Swiss in their observation and approach - no punches held back. 

Sigh......  So the back is definitely improving as is my outlook.  Just last night I made "Spargelcreme Suppe" (asparagus creme soup) as part of dinner since we have wonderful fresh asparagus available and I know that it is on every Swiss 'Fruhling Menu' right now.  I remember my first Spring in Switzerland and looking at the wilty asparagus and seeing that it was from CA (early season before Euro stock was available)!  Well, it's not wilty when you get it fresh..... :)

This stand of olive trees at the entrance of our little part of the world reminds me of Italy or Southern Portugal.  Nice memories in a new place.

What was I thinking? March

I never claimed to be a good thinker. Maybe I wasn't thinking at all. Scheduling a kid for braces, another for oral surgery and the dog for neutering all in the same week. I was calling the Vet for doggy sedatives feeling like perhaps the one in need of a sedative was Mom.

March was expected to be a blur and all expectations have been met so far.

Bart has had a challenging busy season, travel and a scheduled minor surgery to complicate his 12th month back in the US. As of April 1 it will have been a full year for him. Hard to believe.

Rachel had some teeth pulled and a medieval device (chain & screw) implanted in order to straighten out her very exciting orthodontal issues. One worries when Dr. W says he's "looking forward to presenting her case at a Forum." Glad we could help Dr. W! She has done well post surgery too. Needless to say, she did NOT like going under general anesthesia and I'm sure to be on vacation if it happens again........ Seriously, I soaked in every minute of her crying and needing me - it doesn't happen very often anymore.

Kendra also got a portion of her mouth metal set. She will indeed have a mouthful of metal when all is done - pallette expander, bottom space bar AND braces - all at the same time. She's also been attending rehearsals for the musical Oklahoma! which they performed for the first time today. There are performances through this weekend and next. I'll be quite adept at getting that long, thick hair curled by March 31!

Eiger is doing well and recovering. He was not happy about his special head-gear (cone of shame, satellite dish, hood ornament - take your pick) and being a 5 month old Lab mix, did not understand the Dr.'s request to "keep calm" for two weeks and thus the need for a little sedative in his diet. His "crazy run" did not qualify as calm. His crazy attempt at playing in puppy class was not called for. Nor was scaling the indoor 3 ft fence the day after surgery. Yeah, we've chucked the fence as a prevention measure. It's merely a deterrent. Apparently his long back legs are for jumping. Who knew?

Me? I'm making sure everyone gets to their appointments and takes their! meds at the right times and has enough soft food to eat. Did not anticipate the culinary challenges that would accompany two kids with sore/pulled teeth. Who like variety in their diet. Sigh...... I'm finished with my appointments and still have an achy back but less achy than it was - more later.

I've really been trying to wrap my head around the fact that I permanently live here now. Where church bells don't ring. It is not easy for me to take pictures or look at pictures right now but I'm trying. Sounds crazy but it is a familiar pattern when I look at each move. I am trying to look at the positive things about where I am at this time - especially those I could not have if I were somewhere else.

I leave you today with this treasure (may seem trite but hey! I'm happy about it):

I was very, very happy to get cheap and tasty Mexican food for lunch - a carnitas burrito. That is something I could NOT get in Switzerland.