A Day at the Lake

We decided to spend a day at one of the lakes in the area. So we loaded the vans, the truck, the people and left.

The vans with the kayak and the canoe on top of them ready to be loaded with people (actually most of the people are in the vehicles, I think I am the only one out of the vans).

The pavilion where we parked our gear.

The children playing.

Uncle Huck

Aunt Heather

Autumn

Abby

April

North

Amber

J

A

S

D

He had a fish in the bottle, and the fins made it so that it wouldn't come out. He would walk into the lake, fill up the bottle, then he would take it to a hole where the children were digging and dump the water in the hole. He checked to see that the fish stayed in the bottle each time. Here he is saying, "FISH."

Brett

Dawn

Caleb

Eli

Emily

Claire

After we played in the water, we decided to take a walk around the lake. It was about a two mile trail. Huck and Autumn stayed behind, and the rest of us took off on the hike. I got to walk with the children who wanted to GO. They would run ahead a little ways then wait until they could see me. I would wave to them, and they would take off again. It was a good way to end the day at Ward Lake because everyone was dry when we got in the cars to go home.

Loading the vans to go home.

Brett and I were able to go with Huck to the store to buy a couple of oars and a shrimp pot. We had to replace one oar that was broken, and we donated a shrimp pot to the bottom of the ocean. Since we owed them money, we paid for the oars and the shrimp pot. I don't know that Brett and I will every purchase another shrimp pot, so it was an experience for us.

Tuesday Evening

Q: What do you do when you are the only adult with ten children in a city where you know one main area of town?

A: Take them on a mile hike downhill to the city park and let them play in the water.

Yes, I was left to watch the troops on the home front while the therapy tour was taking place, and I was glad to do it. It started with a movie on the large screen, and then I was going to do another movie, but I had tired children, and it was about 6:00 p.m. I decided that instead of letting them take a chance of falling asleep, I would wear them out. We put on swimming suits and headed for the park.

Ketchikan is all hills, so I made all the children get a buddy and off we went. It was a mile (I just now checked the distance) to City Park. Since I had several older children, I let them play in more than one pool, they just had to stay with their buddy. I learned, once again, that there were several ways to count to ten, and if there were more than five in a group, I couldn't just look at it and know how many there were.

While we were there, J, caught a fish. Everyone was fascinated by it, and most held it while I took a picture.

It started to get cold while we were there, so we packed up after about an hour and headed back. We went the back way to go home, and I just looked it up, if we would have finished the trek up hill, it would have been 1.7 miles. Luckily for most, the therapy tour had ended, and Heather and Amber brought the vans and rescued the walkers. Little Abby had cut her foot open and had several small rocks in it, and she had just noticed, so she was in pain and glad to be rescued.

Eli wanted to finish the walk, so I finished it with him. The only down side, was that I didn't do dinner with the troops, so we had to fix dinner when we got home. It was a good thing Heather had two huge cases of corn dogs, because we had corn dogs for the third time.

I did manage to wear the children out. A couple of them didn't make it through scriptures, and the rest of them went right to sleep.

GOAL ACCOMPLISHED!

Day 5 of 7 - the Therapy Trip

The Tuesday Evening Therapy Trip!

Uncle Mike left on Monday. Dad, Pat, Joy, and Joslyn left on Tuesday. Emotions started to run a little high, so Huck took the troops out on a "therapy" trip. Amber had not yet been on the boat, and Heather had stayed home watching children on several occasions. So, they each grabbed one of their children, North and S, and went out with Huck. Brett had done children duty Monday night, and he didn't want to do it again, so he left, too. They went out for a little bit of sight seeing, fishing, crabbing, and of course THERAPY.

North and S driving the boat with uncle Huck.

One of the boats on the show "The Deadliest Catch"

Eagle watching.

Amber and her little S

Heather and North.

Uncle Huck.

Brett thinking about being away from all of the other children.

North and S

North after a long evening on the boat.

They did pull crab pots and ended up giving all of the crabs to another group of fishers who had been on the water all week and not caught much.

Birthday Boy (take 2)

My dad's birthday was at the end of the week, and he left on Tuesday after the lumberjack show. We had a little birthday party for him, too.

Surprise?

His cake, and no he isn't 81, those were the only candles we had.

He refused to get out of the chair, so Heather brought the cake to him while everyone was "singing."

And of course, blowing out the candles.

Happy Birthday, dad. I should get off the computer and actually give you a call and wish you a happy birthday.

Put a Cork in it Lady!

We got to go to a lumberjack show. There were two teams competing, and the audience was divided into teams to support the lumberjacks. We had twenty-one people in our party, and many other visitors on our team. Here is some of our group before the competitions.

My dad enjoying the moment.

Autumn, Emily, and the FAVORITE aunt Joy!

Joslyn, Abby, Eli, & Caleb

North blocking his ears from the hooting and hollering (it was quite noisy)

This was our camp. We were on the Canadian side, and we were supposed to cheer for our lumberjacks and heckle the other team.

These were our lumberjacks. They did a good job. (And yes, one of them has a unibrow, but it is drawn on there.)

Our group was pretty loud both cheering and heckling, and after one of the competitions that the other team had won the lumberjack was giving away a little chair he had made with a chainsaw to a girl on his team. The guy asked who her favorite lumberjack was, and I yelled out, "Dawson Creek!" The guy looked up toward the stands and yelled back, "Put a cork in it, lady!" Brett was ready to go and defend my honor, but I had to remind him that the guy had a chainsaw.

A group picture with the lumberjacks. One of the guys in the blue shirt recognized that we were some of his hecklers, so he stepped out, turned around, and bent over to give us the picture he thought we deserved.

It was all in fun, and there were many of us who had sore throats after that.

North

My little nephew, North, got two new puzzles. He will do them several times a day. He would pour both of them out on the table and keep them separate, do one of them, and then the other. They are made my the same company, so the pieces are interchangeable. He was away from the puzzles for a little while, so we mixed them up. When he came back, he was quite distraught.

North trying to figure out the what is wrong.

Examining the puzzles - a little confused.

Telling us his puzzles were not supposed to be like this.

After this incident, we did help him put them back the right way.

The Huckster!

Huck's truck with his license plate.

Huck and Elmer.