In P-Town (Pun Intended)

Things keep moving along here in Portland. While I'll show you the cuter parts of the month, most of my life these days revolves around potty training (hence the pun. Oh man, I remember as a kid when Mom told me that she's "cheesy" and taught me what cheesy means. Not only did I fully catch on to her definition, but I think I've caught the cheesiness bug. I burst out laughing at all the cheesy/slap-stick humor on TV, just like Mom. A good dose of laugh goes a long way, people!).

Janson is working and on-call aaaallll summer long, so we're keeping busy in Portland.

The girls worked hard and earned a trip to see Toy Story 3. Here they are dressed up to go to the theater: Jessie the cowgirl on the left, Barbie on the right.

From Summer 2010

We've played at a lot of parks...

From Summer 2010

...and hiked up the butte by our house to watch the sunset.

From Summer 2010

From Summer 2010

Mt. Hood:

From Summer 2010

For patriotic festivities, the girls rode their bikes in a kiddie parade,

From July 4th 2010

From July 4th 2010

played with fire,

From July 4th 2010

...and ate yummy food. (Anyone else remember Mom making this cake?)

From July 4th 2010

The girls and I are spending more time at home while Mari figures out the whole potty thing, but as a family we'll probably be hitting up some of the city's free movies-in-the-park and concerts-in-the-park. Key words being free and park, and the parks sure are fun.

p.s. Our big family event this month: Janson officially finished his 1st year of residency and started his 2nd. During his "free" time he's responsible to train the 1st year residents. The program held a nice dinner, and it was probably our nicest date of the year (even with driving two cars and meeting at the hospital :)). He received a short little thank-you note from the hospital, and it made me burst out laughing. Reading it made me think he had graduated from 2nd grade, not given a year's worth of 100 hr weeks, getting called in during church or the middle of the night, and definitely not enough daddy-daughter time. Oh well, hopefully we're sacrificing now for better days ahead!

The Adventure Continues

So, we've started our trek home. and boy is it a trek!
instead of trying to post all the pictures to two places, check out my facebook album at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170052&id=193306065&l=470f59aca6

enjoy! :-)

This will probably be the last post from Fairbanks. Now that Sara has found some boyfriends (pictured at the left), I better get her out of town. One of our last sightseeing activities was to learn about some Alaskan animals--the Musk Ox and Caribou.

It's been a very enjoyable experience. As I collected the exams today on the last day of class, I once again found the reward that keeps me in the classroom. (I just wish I didn't have to grade them all now!) Tomorrow after Sara finishes her class we will head out of town on our 3400 mile journey back to Wisconsin. Here's a picture of the area on campus where I taught my classes.

Sara and Dad to Kenai

This is Dad. Thought I'd get a word in before Sara writes a more colorful post. We just got back from three days of travelling through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Friday, we drove for 6 1/2 hours to Anchorage. Saturday we caught the 6:45 am train to Seward on the Kenai Peninsula. That's a 4 hour train ride south of Anchorage. We then took a four hour boat ride around Resurrection Bay looking at the Fjords and marine wildlife. We then caught the 6:00 pm train back to Anchorage. Today we got up, caught churchand then headed back to Fairbanks, arriving here at 9pm.

Here are some things we took pictures of and would like to post, however, after taking about 300 pictures I somehow managed to "format" the SD card (I was trying to answer a request by a nosy guy asking me what resolution pictures I was taking and must have pushed a few buttons in the dark while going through a tunnel because the next time I looked down, we had enough memory for 387 pictures and only had 13 pictures on the disk.) If any of you know how to salvage pictures from an SD card (the way they do on CSI) please let us know because it was a terribly tragic event that almost ruined the whole trip. However, I quickly remembered, that those pictures are like many other things in life--not nearly as important as the memories we have of family and friends--at least I haven't lost those (yet!!!!)

Earthquake in Anchorage
Low tide at the Anchorage port
Fisherman in the mud
Sara by Captain Cook (monument)
Float planes landing in Lake Hood near Anchorage

Train loading
Bald eagle sitting on nest
Black bear crossing snow (great close-up)
Spencer glacier
Trail glacier
Grandview mountain pass and the train
Many other mountain views
Boarding the boat
Porpoises
Sea otter with a pup on its stomach
Pacific humpback whale
Stellar sea lions actively resting on the rocks
Two types of puffins
Mountain goats
A beautiful lake on Fox Island
The forest covered mountains lining the fjords.
Seward harbor
Dad's leg drenched by a wave
Sara wearing her new hat she bought for the cold, rainy day
Snow White Falls--seven tiered water fall
More snow covered mountains
Well you get the idea.  And here are some pictures we did get after the loss.

Pictures from our day trip to the Arctic Circle

The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline.

Crossing the Yukon River.

The Highlander, at our lunch stopThe Highlander at the Yukon River Crossing on the way home.
The Highlander, home again
Dad studying the signs at the Yukon Crossing Site. Learning all this crazy awesome information

Pretty wild Flowers


aaannnnddd... that's how much we paid for gas out on the road. crazy huh?