Climb to Kaiser

Today was the Fresno Cycling Club's 31st annual Climb to Kaiser. 155 miles. Nearly 14,000 feet of elevation gain, with a beginning altitude of 320 feet and final altitude of 9200 feet at the halfway point. There was a record 330 riders for the event this year. Cool temperatures in the mountains made for some fast course times. (It was in the mid-70s above 4000' for most of the day.) The first two finishers were only 15 minutes off the course record, and they said if they had known they were that close, they would have tried to beat it. As it was, they weren't trying at all; they were just out for a ride.

It was a good day for me. I helped organize the support vehicles - aka SAG vehicles - for the ride. This was my tenth year working the SAG crew. (After competing in the ride in 1996 & 1997, and earning my Finisher's Jersey, I started doing SAG for the Climb to Kaiser in 1998.) Paula Landis, 2006 Fresno Cycling Club President, and the current Fresno BMW Motorcycle Riders Club President stepped up to help with the SAG. She enlisted (for the second year now) the help of the BMW Club. Most of the aid needed by the bicycle riders is simply water and the occasional flat tire. Motorcycles can quickly move over the course and get alongside and around the bicycle riders much easier than a car or van. Cars, trucks and vans are used to move riders down the mountains if the bicycle riders have mechanical problems or if they get to sick or exhausted to continue. I first used a motorcycle in 2000 (I was the only one) and we've used more each year. We've had about 12-14 motorcycle to compliment the 10 other SAG vehicles for the past two years. This year I drove a van and really missed my motorcycle.

From a SAG perspective, the ride was fairly uneventful, which is a good thing. We've had, in years past, forest fires, rain, hail, and lightning strikes. We've had a few broken bones, a lot of road rash, and many, many broken spirits. We've even had a few concussions and, sadly, one fatality in 2003. This year, the worst I'd heard was a few unconfirmed reports of dog bites from a loose Doberman in Burroughs Valley, south of Tollhouse, and a wedding which was scheduled just across the parking lot from our main rest stop in Shaver Lake. There were relatively few riders that needed to be SAGged during the ride or at the end of the day. There were a few, but not as many as in past years. As a matter of fact, this is the first time in my ten years that there were no bicycle riders to be taken down the hill at 7:00 pm from the Shaver rest stop when it closed down. All of the large SAG vehicles headed down the hill unloaded, and all of the last riders made it to the end on their own.

Congrats to all of them.

See all the pics here.

S'mores!

Last night Amanda, Rebecca and Isabel slept out in the tent with Uncle Jordan. We were really expecting some, if not all of them, to make their way inside sometime during the night, but they all made it out there!

They had so much fun that we decided to do it again, although this time it is Aunt Sioux-z's turn out in the tent.

The kids spent the day alternating between playing indoors and out, depending on if it was sprinkling at the time. They blew bubbles and played on the swings and slide and colored and watched movies. After dinner we had s'mores and that was an ooey gooey good time!

See all the pics here.

Sleep-over!

Tonight we are over at Jordan and Sioux-z's house and the kids are sleeping out in a tent in the backyard. They were so excited to get to sleep over!

Today we went back to the library to another lapsit and to check out more books!

I spent most of the rest of the day finishing up the sorting of photos. I took a lot of photos of photos today so that I would have "copies" of some of these pictures I found! (See the 'copies' here.)

This evening we came over to Jordan and Sioux-z's for dinner and a sleep-over. The girls are having a lot of fun playing with their cousins, and I am sure Gma and Gpa are enjoying the silence at their house for a few hours.

See all the pics here.

Lots and lots of photos

I spent a great deal of the day sorting through lots and lots of photos for my mom. This has been quite the undertaking, but we are making headway.

In the late morning we started trying to plan out some of the things that we can go see and do for the rest of the time that we are here visiting. We checked the weather report and saw that it is supposed to be nice for the rest of this week, but raining all next week, so we quick jumped in the car on this beautiful day and went to the The Alaska Zoo. We had a great time and got to see many of the animals, as it was cool enough that they were out and visible. The girls loved seeing the polar bear (I need to show them the 24 hour polar bear webcam on the Alaska Zoo website), and the bears and the musk oxen. It was a gorgeous day and we took lots and lots of photos!

We came back home and spent the next half an hour trying to get Katie to go down for a nap. I am nearly at my wits end with her. Every day naptime and bedtime is a long, drawnout affair of her crying and screaming. Arg! I am willing to bet that the very last day we are here she is going to go to bed peacefully, but in the meantime. . .

We went to the 7:00pm lapsit at the library for Katrina and this one was all about dogs. I wish we had a library as wonderful as the Loussac Library in Fresno/Kerman. They have the most wonderfully, engaging children's area I have ever seen at any library! I love it!

When we got home and Gma had read the girls a chapter or two of the newest book (they finished The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet and are now on to Betsy-Tacy), and we had the obligitory hour of Katrina's bedtime fussing, I started through the stack of photos from when I was a little kid. I went through lots and lots of photos from when we lived in Haines, most of which I had never even seen before, and my mom and I sat there for over an hour and reminisced about all the different things we remember from that time. I had some very specific memories, and then there were others that mom had to fill in the blanks, because I was too young to remember the specifics. It was a lovely time, but then it got very late (although it is still very light out), and I need to get to sleep!

See all the pics here.

Grandmas and Geocaching

Today we were invited to lunch at Isabel and Ivy's grandma's house (Sioux-z's mom, Joan Humphries). She lives in the foothills, so we got a lovely view of Anchorage and we could even see Mt. McKinley (very faintly). We had a lovely time.

When we got home to Gma and Gpa's, Katie refused to take a nap, so we went out Geocaching and found our first three caches in Alaska! Cool! They were all micros though, so we haven't been able to drop off any bugs yet.

Later this evening we went back downtown to let the girls pick out some souveniers and then we went back to see the salmon run. We saw a lot more of them today!

It was a gorgeous day today!

See all the pics here.

The itty-bitty, doll-sized day!

All the cousins got together today for a tea party at Gma's house. They had a wonderful time! They had mini croissants and cinnamon rolls and then made tissue paper flowers. For lunch the girls had mini cheese sandwiches and tiny tea cups of apple juice and the adults got mini hoagies, no bigger than your thumb. For desert they all got tiny "ice cream" cones (made from Bugles with strawberry and cinnamon swirl cream cheeses). It was a lot of fun!

For dinner, to continue with the theme, Gma made mini pizzas for dinner and little tiny dishes of peach sherbet and tiny doll spoons to eat it with. Amanda was excited because she can tell her friends that she has eaten three WHOLE pizzas at one sitting!

See all the pics here.

H2Oasis Water Park

On Monday we went to the H2Oasis, which is an indoor waterpark here in Anchorage. (The fifth largest in the nation, we are told!) It was really fun! (I didn't realize until today that I forgot to write about it yesterday!)

We, being Lora, Amanda, Rebecca, Katrina, Uncle Jordan, Isabel, Ivy, and Ramona (the aupair), all got there in the morning and we started out by floating around the "river" that surrounds the park. Then the kids played on the pirate ship and we all played in the wave pool.

Eventually Jordan and Lora went on the Master Blaster, which is the vary tall water slide that you go down in a double innertube. That was awesome! Amanda said that she wanted to go on it, and I was a bit aprehensive, as Amanda can be very timid about things and even when we climbed all the way to the top, I was afraid that she would chicken out, but she didn't, and down we went! When we splashed down at the end, Amanda come out of the water sputtering, let out a whoop and shouted, "Let's do that again!"

We also went down the smaller slide and then we all went to the Moose's Tooth for lunch. Yum! They have very good food there!

Later, while Katrina was taking her nap, Lora, Amanda and Rebecca went back to the waterpark for a little while longer! It was a lot of fun and the girls loved it!

See all the pics here.

The BIG Birthday Bash!

The rain has been falling steadily all day today. This is a good thing, as it will hopefully help put out the forest fires burning around the state.

Lora and the girls went to church this morning. Lora thought that the 9:00am sacrament meeting was supposed to be a Young Single Adult ward, but instead it was a Samoan ward. They had sacrament meeting all in Samoan which was pretty neat. Lora especially liked singing the hymns in Samoan.

In the afternoon everyone went over to Jordan and Sioux-z's house and had a big, huge birthday party for all the cousins, as there are two birthdays in June, one in July and two in August. There were twenty-five candles on the cake and each cousin got to blow out there own grouping. They had hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, and there was also grilled salmon that Jordan had caught last week, which was soooooo good! The kids got their faces painted, got to decorate horses and opened their presents. Everyone was VERY happy.

Since returning back to Gma and Gpa's house, Katrina has been going around singing, "Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you". Pretty impressive. I guess after you hear it five times in a row, it makes an impression.

Lora's back is doing much better, although now we are worried about Gma Kathryn's as she slipped on the tile in the entry way today and did the splits! Thankfully she stretches every day, so she is pretty limber, but that doesn't mean that it didn't smart!

See all the pics here.

Tomorrow it is on to "h2o Oasis", the local water park!

Organizing

Today we got a lot of organizing done. Yesterday I pulled everything out of the "Christmas" closet and we sorted through things. We still have to get allof it back into the closet though. Today it was all of mom's jewelry and we got that all sorted and put away, so we are ahead of the game there. Next is all the photos.

We also went to the local nursery and I am inspired to create some hanging baskets when I get home. They are all over the place here and I love the way that they look! I will have to take some photos of them to bring home.

Katrina decided today that she wanted every hair clippy we brought with us in her hair today. It looked like she had on a little sparkly crown. It was cute.

It has been much chillier today than it was when we first got here. There was even a bit of rain today, but probably not enough to really help put out any of the forest fires that are still causing problems with the air quality. At least it wasn't as smokey today as it was yesterday.

Last night, really late, I put my bio on my reunion web page. I found out that one of my classmates lives only an hour and a half away from me in Modesto, CA, so I would like people to be able to get a hold of me if they would like to. Heck, with our SmugMug site and this blog, it's not like I'm hiding out or anything.

Tomorrow we are going to have the combined birthday party for the girls. We brought all the stuff from the My Little Pony party in Kerman and are going to do it here! Fun!

See all the pics here.

Could somebody hand me an ice pack. . .

Lora was moving a suitcase this morning and hurt her back. ARG!!!! Lots of ibuprofen, an ice pack and lots of prayers and she is cautiously optomistic. We will see how tonight goes.

We all went over to Jordan and Sioux-z's house today for lunch and all the cousins had a great time playing together. They played outside for a while, but the air quality is really bad right now from the fires that are burning to the north and south of Anchorage, so we also played inside.

Tonight Lora and Ellie (her best friend from high school) decided to skip out on their 20 year high school reunion and talked and laughed about the memories they have from high school. They decided that was more fun than watching a bunch of people that they barely remember from high school get drunk. Maybe their thirtieth.

See all the pics here.

Salmon, solstice and good friends

Today was a busy day. We had a lot of fun!

This morning we went downtown and walked around looking at the Wild Salmon on Parade. We really enjoyed all the different salmon! Some were gorgeous! Some were amazing! And some were hilarious!

We also got to go to an exhibit that is by the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts that has a large representation of the sun, and then throughout town and out the Coastal Trail for several miles are the markers that represent how far each of the planets would be from the sun. That was neat! Since today was the Solstice and we are the closest to the sun for the longest amount of time, Lora took a picture of the girls next to the sun on the exact moment of the Summer Solstice. That was fun!

We also went into a souvenir shop and the girls got to buy their postcards so that they can write to family and friends. We will get to go back later for other fun stuff, but for today we wanted to get the postcards.

We met Jordan and Isabel and Ivy downtown and we all had lunch together and then went to the salmon run. There is a part of the river that has walking bridges over them and you can see the salmon coming up the river from the inlet. There were fishermen lining the streams in droves, but they can't go any farther up than the falls. Beyond that, the salmon are "safe". We saw one big salmon in the river that looked like it was as big as Katrina!

After we came home we all took naps and when we got up the girls got to have a tea party under a net awning that Gma Kathryn and Gpa Herb had put up for the girls. They enjoyed that while Gma Kathryn read to them. She has been reading "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" by Eleanor Cameron. It was one of her favorite books as a child and the girls are really enjoying listening to it, asking her to read them three and four chapters at a sitting.

This evening Lora and the girls went to the home of the Vasiljevic family. Ellie Vasiljevic, now Martinez, and Lora were best friends in high school and have remained close over the years. It was great to see Ellie and her family! Ellie and Lora had a great time laughing and reminiscing about high school and reading the notes that they passed to each other in class, etc. It was a lovely evening. It's hard to believe that it has been twenty years since high school!

Katrina went down for her nap and for bed tonight without screaming, so we hope that we have overcome the problems of the last two days. Whew!

See all the pics here.

Books and swings

Happy Solstice! Today is the longest day of the year, and here that really, truly means something. When we got to bed last night at 11:00pm, the sun was still above the horizon!

Yesterday was a little bit more low key than the busy-ness of Tuesday. We got up at a liesurely pace, had breakfast, and the girls were delighted to play with some of Gma Kathryn's dolls.

We went to the main Anchorage library, and the girls got to check out books, and Katrina and Lora went to the Lapsit, which, incidently, was about Grandparents.

We also went to the playground at the local elementary school and played there for a while. Here in Alaska, the playground surface is rocks, to which the girls delighted, and they spent most of the time playing with the rocks. Needless to say that last night was bath night.

Katrina is having some issues adjusting, as she spends the first twenty minutes of naptime and bedtime screaming her head off, and yesterday actually got out of the crib by herself, but we are hoping that will calm down a bit soon.

The weather has been gorgeous!

See all the pics here.

I'm leaving on a jet plane. . .

9:15am The anxious Nehring children arrive (with mom and dad) at the Fresno Yosemite International airport. They have been telling EVERYONE they meet that they are going to Alaska.

10:30am Lora, Amanda, Rebecca and Katrina go through the security gate. This went MUCH smoother than we expected!

11:10am This is when our plane was supposed to take off. . .

12:10pm This is when our plane ACTUALLY took off! As you can imagine, by now the anxious Nehring children have been replaced by the whining, when-is-our-plane-going-to-leave children.

2:10pm We arrive at the Portland Airport. The girls had a great time going along the moving sidewalks and we found a Kid's Play Place!!! There were lego tables and bead tables and a screen with cartoons. It was nice for them to get to play around and we called daddy and let him know we were travelling along just fine.

5:10pm After playing and food at the Portland Airport, our Alaska Airlines flight takes off. Katrina FINALLY fell asleep as we were taxiing out onto the runway and slept through take off and the first 45 minutes of the flight. The girls had a great time coloring and playing cards and eating snacks, etc..

7:30pm (Alaska time) We land, in broad daylight, at the Anchorage airport. The brand new Alaska airport! Wow! Lora had no idea where she was at first! It is great! (By the way, the Fresno Airport was a new experience as well and it is very nice too!) The girls RAN to Gma and Gpa! They are so thrilled to be here!

10:00pm Still in broad daylight, we finally convince the girls that it is time to GO TO SLEEP! There is so much to do and explore at Gma Kathryn and Gpa Herb's house that it is difficult to get them to calm down and get ready for bed. They have two and a half weeks to explore, but how do you convince kids that they have time later to do things when there is time right now!

The flight experience, on the whole, was MUCH better than we were expecting! We have heard all the horror stories about air travel these days and so we were pleasantly surprised at how well things went. The girls were very well behaved (I got many very positive comments), and we are happy to be here and will have a lot more to talk about and to take pictures of!

See all the pics here.

Made it to Portland

Lora and the Girls made it to Portland after more than an hour delay in take-off from Fresno. Thankfully, their lay-over in Portland was to be nearly four hours, so they didn't miss their connection. Other passengers were not so lucky.

So far, the best part of the trip for the Girls has been the kids play area at the Portland International Airport. Rebecca told her Dad, "Yeah, the airplane ride was ok. But they've got Legos here and SpongeBob on a TV!"

North to Alaska...

Lora and the Girls are headed to Alaska for a few weeks to spend time with Family. After three days of packing, re-packing, nerves and anticipation, they're off the ground.

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is Rebecca's birthday. She had a few friends over on Saturday for a 'My Little Pony' party. There was pink everywhere. They got to get their faces painted, decorate their own cake, and watch a movie. Becca also got a few more ponies to add to her collection.

Tonight, she has requested a special birthday dinner: Denny's.

Bike Ride

After a long time of watching (her whole life really) Katrina decided she wanted to ride a bike just like her sisters do. With a few adjustments, and a little help from Daddy, she was off. When asked if she wanted her own bike, the reply was an ear-to-ear grin.

See all the pics here.

Safety First!

It has been brought to our attention, by more than one person, that the previous May 27th entry titled Sleepwalker contained disturbing images of a two-year old cuddled up to a hunting rifle. Well, no kidding. That's part of what was funny about the whole incident. So, in order to curtail any more emails pointing at our camo-wearing, 'redneck' parenting, an overdue disclaimer: No firearms were harmed in the capturing of this photo. The child's diapers were empty and the firing mechanism (including firing pin & trigger) were removed from the rifle. The biggest danger was the possibility of rust from a possible puddle of drool.

Neither the Child & Winchester were in any harm. Relax.

Caching & Cops

We had been caching on our way from Mesquite to Kerman. After visiting six caches that are out along the Old Salt Lake Highway, and as we were headed to another, we noticed a Highway Patrol plane flying overhead. As we drove south, the plane circled and passed over us four times, once flying VERY low.

It was no surprise to us then, that when we reached the road that leads back to the freeway underpass, that there was a Nevada State Trooper waiting for us. Amanda and Rebecca were worried that we were going to be arrested. The trooper was very nice and asked if we were lost. We told him we were just looking at the old road, and then he followed us out (as you can see in the rear-view mirror of the van) as we got back on the freeway. So, we missed out on one cache, but we appreciated all the others that were in this area, and we appreciated the NHP watching out for the travelers in Nevada. Caching is always an adventure!