Chris and I leave tomorrow and next week we’ll be in Brazil! I can’t wait to go back. Glory glory glory. We’ll be in Georgia/Florida for some work and play stuff for the next week, and then… BRASIL. I loved my time there and can’t wait to reconnect with the people and gain more and more appreciation for the land and culture, and to share that all with Chris.    
    
   

Being an aunty is the greatest. Playing mom for a few days is harder. :) I guess there are bigger ups and downs, greater struggles, greater rewards. 

This morning was more difficult. There was some crying, fighting, frustration, I yelled, I apologized, and in the end the girls both told me they loved me when they got out of the car. <3 Natalie actually didn’t say “I love you” but she sent kissy lips my direction. I love my nieces so much and I’ll be so happy to give them cousins someday. 

So last night when I went into the bedroom, I found Edelweiss already warming up the bed for me. :)

The girls are going to stay with us for a couple days methinks. Tonight we got their room set up (aka I cleaned out all the junk that’s been collecting in there, stashed some of it in the crawl space and garage and put a bunch in a pile to get rid of) and they put glow in the dark stars all over. It’s wonderful. Christopher and I need to put some more in our room too.

The girls were kind of disappointed that they didn’t get good, fun, Chelsea hangout time tonight. I’m not sure what they were expecting, but there just wasn’t a lot of time tonight. It’s a school night so we can’t exactly stay up till 3 am like last time. :)

I’m excited to have the girls with us though and I love them so much. They help me be a better person and aunty and future mother. In this picture they’re fake sleeping, but right now they’re real sleeping, which is important. Glad they’re here!  
Chris and I are having a sleepover tonight too. :) He’s texting his brother right now and I’m blog journaling as you can see. We just had a big talk about our pets growing up and it was funny and good. He told me about raising rabbits, and having a pen full of baby bunnies. They stopped raising rabbits when they found out people were getting them for snake food. He said they always had plenty of cats too. I told Chris about all the dogs we’ve had through the years. I remembered Bosco, Buffy, Jazzi, Pickard, Peanut, Maggie, Peanut, Schnapps, Sammy, Buddy, Emma, Isabella, Daisy, and a few cats here and there. And also there were the chinchillas, iguana, african gray parrot, ducks, chickens, birds, bunnies… Yay animals. They’re so nice to have.

What a delightful saturday. My dear mother picked me up this morning, just after 8, so I could go to my sister’s house for a little bit and watch her girls. I look young in this picture, like 12, maybe because I just woke up. At least I’m wearing my favorite blog reader‘s Brooklyn sweater!  

I had a great morning with the girls. I love being with them. Sometimes I get frustrated, but usually it’s just fun and I learn lots from them. Today, Natalie (8) and I were staring at each other and she told me I have hair on the end of my nose. Funny girl. Then she said we have hair all over our faces so pretty much everyone has a mustache.

I cleaned a house on the bluff this afternoon and the view was spectacular. It’s sometimes such a joy to clean up on the hill, because it’s so beautiful from there.

This afternoon I cleaned out my ol’ trusty (and rusty) Penelope Q. Subaru. The dust was caking on her (and all the little plastic toys glued to the dash) and it was overdue for a cleaning! It feels much lovelier and less embarrassing in there now.

Man, I ate a load of chocolate tonight. I feel kinda sick. And dinner was so delicious and nutritious, so I don’t know why I felt the need to wash it down with chocolate haha.

Today I got the GREATEST MAIL ever! It brought me so much joy to hear from Ezio and Jeane, and to see a picture of their sealing two years ago at the temple. Those two… Oh how I love them!!! They’re some of my very very most favorite peeps from my mission and people I think about most days.  

When Chris and I are home together in the evenings, we watch movies usually. He continues working and I do random stuff. Today I colored.

Beautiful beautiful harbor views!! 
I’m sleepy. Time to cuddle with my bestest boy Christopher! Hope you enjoyed these photos and random words and thoughts that might not string together very well. :) Peace out girl  scout.

My dad went back to work yesterday. For a month instead of two weeks. He just sent this picture, said it’s snowing, and that he just saw a polar bear. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, and it turns out he wasn’t. He said, “it wasn’t a very big one though.” And  he also texted two emojis of a panda bear. :)

Also my kitties joined Edelweiss and I on a walk this morning and it was funny. Cats. Hahaha
 I just went to saveumore (Homer’s mini Costco like store) to get some cardboard boxes from their recycle bins. There was a nice and funny older man there getting newspaper. He told me that newspaper is like fine linen or something haha. And that he’s using it for cleaning up from canning. When I left I said, “have a good day!” And he said, “Week… A day isn’t long enough.” :)
Been praying and fasting a lot lately and that is good and true and powerful.

My oldest sister, her husband, and my darling nieces have pretty much always loved here in Homer. It is soooo nice having them here. That family had filled my life with fun, adventure, and good food.

They’ve been in Minnesota (where my brother in law is from) for the past week and a half, and today my sister and her girls get home. I’ll be so very glad to have them home.

Here’s  some pictures of what’s gone on this September month so far. As per usual, boat cleaning. It’s getting darker so much earlier now. I really shouldn’t be cleaning past 9 pm, but sometimes I do. Thanks to the harbor lights, it makes it sort of okay, and I can still clean fine. Chris has helped me clean more boats lately which is always so awesome because it goes 2-3x faster. 

Here’s our lawn. :) It’s about 7 feet tall or so. Hahaha. We never mowed it. Chris bought the house 3.5 years ago and it wasn’t landscaped. It still isn’t. Obviously. It bothers me what our neighbors might think, but I know we’re good people, even though we haven’t made a lawn. :) And it mostly just bothers me what one of our neighbors thinks about us, because we’ve already got some conflicts with our dog and her dogs. I hate tension in relationships and I don’t really know what to do about that. Honor my senses I suppose.

The past few days have been sad and emotional with a family crisis, but this flower made me happier. I usually pick them a lot throughout the summer and use them as natural air fresheners in my car. They’re SO fragrant. They’re like Alaskan roses or something. I don’t know. But I love them. I pick them from the high school or by the bowling alley/flashing stop light.

My mom bought this dollhouse kit ten years ago, and I’ve been working on it the last six months. I won’t tell you how many hours I’ve put into it haha. It’s been a lot of work and some fun too. Mostly I look forward to putting in all the cute little furniture and having my nieces play with it at grandma’s house.

  
Edelweiss gets her walk every morning. Chris usually takes care of this and I clean up the house from the night before, and often I make a fruit and veggie smoothie for us. As soon as Chris gets back from the walk or run with Edelweiss he heads to the office. And he’s been spending most of his time there lately being pretty busy with a big project he and his team are working on. Some days I stay home (which is my favorite), some days I clean guest houses, and some days I substitute teach. The past few days I’ve been watching a friend’s baby too. I want a babies. Soonish.

I love to be home. Cleaning never seems to end, and I know it’ll only get more as we have kids. It’s just me and Chris and our animals now! But there’s an unending list of house stuff, and I love having and making a home.

I love going to church. I love the feeling when I follow the spirit.  I love personal progress. I love the young women here. I love that I had no boats to clean tonight. I love my home. I loved when my nieces and I built a fort in it last week and we stayed up till 3 am and I made brazilian rice and beans and rice krispies and we watched Egyptian cartoons and documentaries. I love my nieces. And I love their parents. My sister and her husband are a blessing to my family. I love them and they love each other.

I love my dad. It’s his birthday today. he is one of the coolest beans I know. My family, each of them help me a lot, and I love being with them. I love God and that he has given me such good, good people. 

I accidentally ate a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s today. Oops. That is bad. I really prefer the talenti double chocolate chip gelato, but safeway (formerly Eagle) isn’t selling it anymore! So what does one do?

On the plus side, I’ve been doing great at reading my scriptures everyday for almost a month!

School has been back in session for a full week. I’ve been at Paul Banks elementary everyday a subbing in special needs, and it’s been pretty great. It’s been pretty tiring going from a full day at school to a night in the harbor, but it’s only temporary. I’ve definitely complained though! And I feel like I haven’t been able to spend hardly any time with Chris or my family. I’ve just been kind of drained and I’m ready for a true day of rest! Fortunately I had a day of rest, without any boats even, on the day before school started! Ah… Such a great day it was. I love to be home and free. School is a great place to be too. 

My first day of school I was kind of nervous and I didn’t know what to wear. :) But once I got to school, the teacher I was working with had an R2D2 shirt on, and I felt mo betta. 

Well I just fell asleep typing so I better slumber! Chris flew a float plane the other day and he loves to fly!  

I saw a little kid otter in the harbor the other day and hung out with it for 45 minutes! It was so cute. And I saw it poop twice, so that was cool.  

School starts tomorrow. And I’m going! I’ll be in special ed at the elementary for the first three days of school. I am so sleepy right meow. Falling asleep as I type. I had a super super last day of summer. I did some needed house cleaning and organizing and I love that. I also visited Chris at work for a while and helped him with some stuff.

AND I HAD NO BOATS TONIGHT! THAT IS SO RARE AND LIKE NEVER EVER HAPPENS. THANK YOU WIND!

I got our drawers nice and folded and organized. :) Wow I am sleepy. Time for sleeps. I read my scriptures and wrote to our favorite missionary and I made dinner with all local food and my school lunch for tomorrow. Our sheets are clean and we have charmin toilet paper, so life is really swell.

Here’s some of the many unfinished chores I needed to work on today. It was a beautiful day, but I was happy to inside lots. I’m sleep, must roll out. Okay bye.

I just ordered the Portuguese Liahona for myself. Yay! Alyssa, you should get it in Spanish. Thanks for reading my sleepy blog. <3

I picked a load of fresh raspberries recently, thanks to my sister and a wonderful family at church, and yesterday I just wanted to make waffles to eat the raspberries with. :) Buuuuut Chris and I were up until 3:30 am on Friday night, making some travel plans, and so we didn’t wake up till like 11 on Saturday morning. And we had to go to the church just before 1 for some special training that was really good. So I didn’t have much time for a fun waffle feast yesterday.

So TODAY, my sweet mother’s birthday, I wanted to have a waffle feast for breakfast and have my mama over. But Chris and I worked on travel plans till 2:30 am last night, so I was pretty sleepy this morning. And my mom happened to be pretty sleepy too. So we did no birthday breakfast of waffles. So when Chris and I got home from church, our hungry bellies naturally desired waffles.

But when Chris found out we only have a random heart shaped waffle maker, and no nice Belgian flipper one, we resorted to pancakes. Or rather, FLAPJACKS.

We don’t watch tv much (but we watch plenty of movies and netflix), but once we saw a shark tank episode with Kodiak Cakes of healthy looking flapjack mix, focused on the old frontiersman lifestyle, with hearty ingredients and not just bleached fluff! Then we saw the product at costco and got our very own flapjack and waffle mix! Today was the first time we used it and it was great. Delicious and nutritious.
Christopher and I don’t cook together too often, and it was so great doing it today. We put raspberries in the flapjack mix, and that kind of ruined them. Chris was flipping one, and it was cooking weirdly and flopped on top of itself and he said, “Well, now it’s a burrito.” The raspberries made it like too moist or something. Anyway, then Chris got out the griddle to cook them on, instead of the frying pan, and as soon he turned it on, it smelled like fish… and scentsy. Weird.

We mixed new flapjack mix, just put in a few raspberries, and a little coconut too actually, and Chris successfully cooked them on the griddle thing. He even made a mickey mouse one which was a funny happy moment. I cut up some fruit and we got out the maple syrup and strawberry spread, and we made real whipped cream too. I got some old school magic hand beaters at a garage sale for $1, and Chris whipped the cream with that. We were going to use the electric ones, but could only find one of the beater inserts. The other one may have gotten lost in the drawer full of random utensils that don’t get used much. Chris likes when the drawers/cupboards are full of random kitchen stuff that doesn’t get used. Haha just kidding. :)He doesn’t like it.  I don’t like it much either, but I know where I stash all the stuff in the kitchen so it’s no prob for me Bob.

Our flapjack feast turned out great. Delicious and nutritious (before we added the syrup and whipped cream, but at least it was good quality syrup and whipped cream). Our Edel pup even got to enjoy a flapjack. I like saying flapjack. Edel doesn’t eat very much human food at all, just plenty of veggies like the ends of carrots, pieces of lettuce, or any other veggie scraps that I create while making food. She eats our leftover salmon too. :) Oh! And popcorn. When we make a huge stainless steel bowlful of popcorn to go along with a movie, I love throwing kernels or handfuls of popcorn to her.

Oh! One of best parts of our feast was flapjack baseball. We had two left and I threw them at Chris while he was loading the dishwasher. Then he threw one at me, which Edel ate. And with the last one we decided to play baseball with. :) Sunday fun.

Now I just finished watching Up, and it was so good. It’s been a delightful afternoon.

My relationship with boat cleaning has some pretty big highs and lows. There’s lots of great things about my summer boat washing, but it gets old when I have a negative poo attitude. But the lovely beauty that surrounds me makes it much much better. What a privilege seeing the lovely sunsets in the harbor each night. And the best part of the day is coming home to my honey and doing whatever we want, and usually eating ice cream.

And I love getting home from boat washing before dark! So this picture has a lot that I love.

My sista Holly just surprised me with this cat watch! Turns out it doesn’t actually work. The second hand always gets stuck, so that’s lame.

While driving home from boat cleaning, just before our driveway we drove past a mama moose and her two big babies. So we reversed at top speed, I mean low speed, parked, turned off the car and watched them for a while, listened to them munch their greens, and it was great.

After that we came home and ate late dinner, watched part of a movie, and ate ice cream. I’ve been a little addicted to ice cream lately, oops.

This watch though, so funny. Cats are funny. Our little Piper kitten loves cuddling with our German shepherd, Edelweiss Edel cradle. It’s so cute.

I love making a home and I love taking care of our home with Chris. Many of my thoughts focus on our home – changes I want to make, stuff I want to get rid of, things to clean. Things like organize the food storage that has been out for over a week, go through the growing pile of mail that always seems to flood the counter, clean out the cluttered and dirty garage, do something to our 7 ft tall lawn, turn Chris’s old office into a creation room, paint our front door turquoise, replace the wonderful, old chairs I love, slightly smelly, orange, swivel rockers in the living room… the list goes on. 

I really love our home, and strive to create a home full of love, peace, and harmony. And guess what creates that best: family prayer. So I shall work to focus my thoughts less on the temporal things and more of family prayer. :)

Gordon B. Hinckley said, “I feel satisfied that there is no adequate substitute for the morning and evening practice of kneeling together – father, mother, and children. This, more than heavy carpets, more than lovely draperies, more than cleverly balanced color schemes, is the thing that will make for better and more beautiful homes.”

Yesterday was ward youth baptisms at the temple so we went up and back to Anchorage yesterday. We took a sweet older lady with us too and it was swell. The temple is always pure loveliness.

When we got back in the evening, I had seven boats to clean, so Christopher came and helped and we whipped them out and got some nice cash. :) It was beautiful in the harbor, even though I just wanted to be home.  

Today at church I taught mission prep on teaching with the spirit. I was going through my MTC journals and my mission blog posts and I always think about that glorious 18 months as a full time missionary. It was joy filled, and hard, and the best ever. I miss it, and the people, and the personal dedication to the gospel.
I always point out to Chris when we’re matching. He usually doesn’t see it but I pretend he sometimes likes to dress to match me haha. I like matching sometimes. Anyway, today our color schemes were nice and neutral and matchy so I insisted we take a picture after church. The picture didn’t turn out swell, but we’re in it and so is our house and my Subaru dream wagon, so it works great.

The fireweed surely is a blooming this time of year! Hills are getting nice and pink. And the weather for most of the summer has been stellar. But I’m tired and want to rest and sit at home and tidy. :) As beautiful and fun filled as summer has been, I’m looking forward to some winter hibernation.

I stopped at my dad’s house today and saw this gem of a picture. Cabin days. It’s a pretty good life.

I love my Edelweiss girl and try and take good good care of her. We went on a nice walk after church and saw a couple moose in the woods. Edel pooped in the very middle of the trail and that’s not awesome, but I’m not sure how to train her to poo in better places. Anyway, found some yummy raspberries and watermelon berries in the woods, and really enjoyed my bare feet in the grass.   
    
 

Now I’m making my first ever peanut butter cookies. They’re not turning out super great though, especially to me, since I don’t really care for cookies unless they’re loaded with chocolate. 

Gotta head to the harbor shortly and wash boats. I’d rather just stay home and keep making cookies and watching From the Earth to the Moon, but it’s summer time and that means boat cleaning every night. But some good news is that my honey will be home in the morning!

Boy oh boy, do I love summertime in Alaska land. It’s very busy with lots of work and lots of play and lots of visitors. I’ve got about a bajillion pictures and words to share of summer moments and memories, but I’ll just share this one from my phone. It’s a picture I took in Whittier while going to the bathroom, before going through the Whitter tunnel and after going on a 26 glacier cruise. Happy times and a beautiful world.