Fall Highlights

Happy Fall! Now that I'm working full-time it is much harder to find the time to sit down and add to our blog. In August, I was hired to teach full-time. Now, in addition to teaching music at our k-6, I also teach PE and 2nd grade science and health.

Pete, Karl and Kirsten have been full time into football. Pete is varsity offensive coach, Kirsten manages, and Karl is one of the captains. Homer High School Varisty football team just made history. We won our first round of championship playoffs. That has never been done before in the history of HHS. The team is very excited. This weekend, we go to Anchorage as one of the top 4 teams in our division. Keep us in your prayers for Saturday. Mostly for safety and that we would play our best. The team has really worked hard for this opportunity. And of course, wish us a WIN!

Kirsten has started her rehearsals for Nutcracker, Karl starts hockey in 2 weeks, and Claire is becoming one of the Bruins Basketball Team players. Karl has been filling out college apps as well as keeping good grades in 3 Advanced Placement classes. Life is very full. We are blessed. We will keep you posted on our football status.

Swanson family celebrating after our first Championship round win.

The 3 Swanson football fanantics.

BENTO!!!!!

Kirsten ran off the field from managing to join the Swing Choir in singing the National Anthem at the last home football game.

Pete is still trying to get the Brown Bear. He got drawn this fall for a local tag. He has been out several times now chasing them down. So far, no bear.

What we look at out our front windows in the evening. Alpineglow.

My deck box full of Livingston Daisies came out for a sunny day in late September. They only open when the sun shines directly on them.

Another view from our window in September. Everyday is a postcard in Alaska.

Dad and I spent 2 days fly fishing together. Probably one of the highlights of my life. I came back very muddy after getting stuck in a mud sinkhole. I wasn't about to lose my Keen sandals so I dug down until I found them. Still managed to keep the fish though. Not very impressive by Alaska standards, but nevertheless...lots of fun to catch.

One of the views along the trail in Idaho. You can even stop and use it if needed.

The night before Pete, Karl and Kirsten flew out of Portland, Summer and Spark hung out with us and went to the movies. Kirsten loves her cousin Summer. For those of you that don't know Summer, we wont tell you her age...BUT she does have 3 children...some people have all the luck.

Since there weren't enough 4-wheelers to go around, I decided to take on the dirt bike. After one nasty fall, I got the hang of it. Pete, Karl and Kirsten had to fly home from Portland and didn't get to go to ID for the annual Stonoff family trip. Claire and I had a great time though and want to go back again next year.

Auntie Spark and Cousin Summer along with Aiden and Bethany sell goat cheese at the Portland farmer's market.

Claire loved playing with all the baby goats at Auntie Spark's farm in WA. We went to OMSI in Portland with the whole gang of cousins. Dee Creek Farm is primarily goat cheese and poultry, so you can imagine there were many goats around. Here are all the cousins (acutually this is only my family with 1 of my 3 sisters families...) outside of OMSI in Portland.
We also visited my niece Elbereth and her family in Seattle. Claire had a great time playing with their kittens and the kids. Beth introduced us to Bento.....we have become FANS!

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa Swanson in CA

We visited the Redwoods National Park Sunday after church. Even though we have been there many times, the huge trees are always an amazing sight. Next we will head to Auntie Britt's and some friends from Alturas, then to visit two of my sisters and some Sitka friends. We will end up in Seattle at my niece's home. I'll send Pete, Karl and Kirsten back to AK and Claire and I will continue on to ID and then up the ALCAN highway. Tomorrow, while the kids and I head up the coast in CA and OR, Pete will be flying to D.C. for work. We all meet back for one short evening in Portland. We hope you are having a great adventure wherever you are as well.

The roots of these giants are huge. This tree fell and you are looking at the uprooted base.

Just a glimpse of how big these giants really are.

Grandma Swanson was getting pretty frustrated with the mystery in the garden. Something was eating all her vegetables and berries. Pete set a few traps (big and small) and came up with the mysterious thief. So far, he has caught 4 gophers and 1 unlucky mouse. Seems the mouse was hanging out with the wrong crowd yesterday.

Karl finally gets the hang of skim boarding. Here we are standing on the oldest suspension bridge in the United States. It is overlooking Lake Oroville.

This view is from the mid-mountain hillside on Grandpa and Grandpa's ranch.

Here Pete and Karl are visiting with Randy and Ann at the ForeBay at Lake Oroville.

Kirsten and Claire make a sandcastle at the lake. The sun was hot and the water was cold. Kate was happy to cool down in the lake.

Just like Havannah. Here we are getting ready to watch fireworks on the 4th of July at Greg and Sherry's porch.

Greg and Sherry have an amazing pool. We spent most of two days in the pool. This is actually the pool where Pete had his terrible accident 4 years ago. Thank God for his amazing recovery.

Karl is trying out a skim board at Del Mar Beach. It was much harder than it looks.

Pete and Karl on their way out to try some ocean tricks.

Kirsten poses by the car in Grandpa Stonoff's lot that she would like to own. And it still runs!

Kirsten and Claire join Jaime on the beach in Del Mar for a little sunbathing.

Kirsten and Grandma came along to cheer up the woodcutters.

This nifty 4-wheel drive rig is called a PUG. Karl drove it all over the ranch hauling loads of firewood to the shed.

Pete's sister Britt and her hubby Pat came over to Swansons ranch as well and we had group wood cutting. There were quite a few cords of wood left in the shed after the cutting was complete.

This was my creative shot of super fast motion. I had fun trying different setttings on my camera, and this was the end result.

Claire decided that she would try the sand burial after Kate did it first. She also got a little nervous when she realized she couldn't get out of the sand. She was a good sport though.

Kirsten, Karl and Claire buried Kate in the sand on the Eel River. She didn't mind, but got a little nervous when she realized she couldn't get out. She was a good sport though.

Claire and dad jumped into the Eel River, right along the avenue of the Giants (redwoods that is). We committed to swimming every day we were in Northern CA. So far, so good.

Claire and Kirsten loved the baby colt, "Sequoia" who was named after the huge redwoods on the property and in the area.

The owners of the Chapman ranch love animals and took Claire for a little bareback ride on "Charlie".

We had a great time at Salmon Creek. This swimming hole was on private property. The owners have a 2000 acre ranch and go to Grandpa and Grandma's church. We drove in as far as we could, then hiked in the rest of the way. Wow! What an amazing place this was.

Karl dove in from the rocks. We swam right up to the beautiful waterfall.

Grandpa and Grandma lounged around and threw the stick for the endless retrieving canine, Kate.
The girls enjoyed paddling around in the boat in the very cold water. Even cold for Alaskans.

Traveling through California

Karl had fun driving Dan Vandewarkers red convertible around the Escondido area.

We had a great week traveling from Phoneix to Northern California. We stopped along the way and visited many friends and family. We also had fun playing tourist. We drove across I-8 first to San Diego. Since Pete and I (Lenore) went to college in San Diego, we wanted to let our kids experience the area. Kirsten wanted to visit our Alma Mater Point Loma Nazarene University. We enjoyed visiting the campus and then headed to our old favorite Pizza place (dollar pizza). It was still there and the pizza was as good as we remembered. However, the slices were smaller, and they cost 2.99 instead of one dollar now. Sigh.

We stayed with friends from the Placerville area who have now moved to Escondido. Jaime cut Claire's hair and highlighted Kirsten's. She is in the process of finishing her certificate at the Paul Mitchell School. We went to the Del Mar beach with the Vanderwarkers and Pete's cousin Karen met us there for a brief beach catch up.

After that, we headed up to our old stompin' grounds in the foothills of the Sierra. We visited many friends there and went to church at our old church. After much too short of a visit, we traveled north to Oroville and spent a couple of days there with Randy and Ann Wise. Pete used to work with Randy in Alturas, and they were our next door neighbors when we lived in Alturas. We had twin log homes in Cal Pines. Randy is now an assistant Supt. of Butte County.

Our ventures brought us up to Grandpa and Grandma Swanson's next which I will write about next week. We miss all of you in Alaska and hope everyone is enjoying their summer as much as we are.

Kirsten and Claire take a dip in the pool at the Oroville suburban area where the Wise's live. They don't miss ANY opportunities to swim. It is a nice respite to swim in warmer water and actually be able to stay in the water for a couple of hours.

At Greg and Sherry's, we helped strip the apricot tree. We ate quite a few during the picking, then had apricot crisp, and dried several planks full.

At the Siemens, we played around with camera settings. We had a great time swimming and enjoyed dining outdoors with abalone appetizers. We miss hanging out with our old pals.

Magic Mountain was one of the highlights for Karl (and the rest of us). There are now 18 rollercoasters. It has changed a fair bit from college days. The very hot day was rewarded with multiple water rides where some of us were entirely soaked! We took our cousin Molly with us as well.

Some of the roller coasters were SCARY! Of course they couldn't get enough. The crowds were small and we were thankful.

Here is our gang about to go upside down (again!)

Lenore's first cousin Karen, and her family live in LaVern, a suburb of L.A. Their girls and our 3 kids really connected and hit it off. They had not seen each other in about 6 years. We are trying to talk the girls into coming to AK for Christmas break. (And the parents too!) Keith (dad) teachers Bible at Azusa, so we got the tour of Azusa as well.

All the cousins on the front porch. (The oldest Megan was in Africa leading a team from Azusa). Here is Karl, Kirsten, Melanie, Molly and Claire. The 5 kids stayed up until 4:00 a.m. playing games...Twister to card games...talk about a riot!

Azusa Pacific University tour!

A very scary Claire monkey at the San Diego Zoo.

We took the tram across the San Diego Zoo.

We spent a day at the San Diego Zoo. We had to pose next to the polar bears. We were a little amazed that the zoo was feeding them CARROTS! They were chewing them up and then spitting them out.

"You Tarzan, Me Jane". Kirsten blends in with the jungle them of the San Diego Zoo.

Claire couldn't decide which animals she liked the best. The Zebra was one of her favorites.