My sweet little Abby turned five on September 28. I don't know how it happened, because wasn't she just born yesterday? I kind of fought her birthday in my heart because I loved her so much as a four-year-old that I just couldn't handle the thought of her changing into a five-year-old. The good news is that not much has changed except for the amount of toys in her bedroom. She is just as sweet at five and two days as she was at four. Whew!
The day before her birthday she got to celebrate at preschool. The kids sang happy birthday to her while she had the honor of being the ONLY one jumping on the trampoline. She was thrilled.
I brought ice cream sandwiches for her treat and the kids made a cute little star while they ate.
On Friday I went against everything I stand for and actually had a friend party for her. The boys usually have parties, but that's because Jason does them. I don't know why I shut down mentally and physically at the thought of planning and executing a birthday party for five-year-olds, but I do. However, I bit the bullet and planned a Dora party and Abby was in heaven. Mission accomplished.
I took the kids on a little Dora adventure to find Boots, who got lost on his way to the party. I made a map and everything. I was so impressed with myself. Then Abby opened her presents. Luke was a lot of help for someone who hates Dora and all things girl.
Here is a fuzzy picture of the whole adorable group. I don't know why half my pictures are turning out fuzzy lately. Maybe I'm looking through the sight hole with the wrong eye. I can never remember which eye is my good one. Anyway, aren't they cute?
The kids decorated cupcakes and had a great time covering themselves with frosting and candy. Sounds good to me!
Jake made himself useful after the party and pushed crumbs around for a while with the broom. I was very proud of him for trying to help out. I was even tempted to forgive him for figuring out how to climb out of his crib.
I always try to take a family picture on my kids' birthdays. The pictures never turn out very well, but this is us in all our glory, on September 28, 2012. Although sometimes the days are long and it seems like I might never get a full night of sleep, this precious little family is growing up on me. The kids get a little bigger each time a birthday passes, we all get a little older and our adventures never seem to run out. There is a lump in my heart when I think of Abby not being a little girl anymore, but I love the person she is turning into. She seriously is the sweetest little friend I could ever ask for. I love my boys, but I'm so glad I got my girl! Happy Birthday, Abby, my little sweet sweet.
Jason and I recently took a little trip to Alaska. Jason has a goal to accomplish the "Super Slam," which is to take every North American big game animal (there are 29) with his bow. There are very few hunters who have accomplished it with a gun, and even fewer with a bow. We all know that Jason loves a good challenge, so it is not surprising that he is well on his way to, how do we put it delicately, harvesting all the required critters with his bow. Next on the list: Sitka blacktail deer, available only in Alaska and the west coast of British Columbia.
I love it when hunters say harvest. What, do they want us to think they planted the animal in the ground? Nice try.
When I heard about his plans to go to Alaska, fly to an island on a little float plane and camp for a few days, I thought, why do all Jason's little hunting buddies get to have all the fun? I like fun and I don't hate nature most of the time. So I signed up for the adventure. And what an adventure it was.
We flew into Ketchikan, Alaska on a Monday night, with plans to fly out to Prince of Wales Island the next morning. However, it was too windy that day to fly so we found ourselves with a day to explore the nice little town of Ketchikan. It was here that we saw our only bears of the trip. THANK HEAVENS.
The only thing I was really nervous about on the trip (besides having to eat Ramen noodles) was bears. Jason chose Prince of Wales Island because there are no grizzly bears there. Only regular bears and wolves. No biggie.
These bears were right by the side of the road, where a river emptied into the ocean. People were fishing about five feet away. I couldn't believe it! Here is a little video footage of the experience:
It was kind of bad, though, because then I had bears on the brain for the rest of the trip. I was certain we were going to come across one (or many) around every bend, under every tree, and especially during each night. Luckily, I was with Jason, who had a gun, and if that didn't work, he's bigger than me and the most logical choice for a bear's lunch. So I tried not to worry too much.
Well, I can't lie, I was also nervous about flying in a tiny plane. I watched the float planes take off and land on the water in Ketchikan and I thought, holy cow. That's gonna be me. And soon it was.
Yeah, it was a little scary stuffing myself in the back of the plane. The pilot wasn't very amused when Jason asked him how many times he had flown. I guess those kind of people don't like to be doubted. Here is some footage of me on the plane, trying to trust the little guy and not freak out:
But as soon as we were in the air I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the ocean and the mountains. It was seriously incredible. I LOVED the flight! It was cool landing on the water. The pilot found a log to pull up to, so we stopped and unloaded all our gear, shimmying across a wet log to the shore. Adventure: begin!
Pretty sure he was saying, "See you later, suckers!" as he dropped us off and paddled away, then flew back to civilization.
The first thing that struck me on the island was how green everything was. Like, vibrant green. So lush and beautiful. And wet! "How amusing," I thought, "Little droplets of water just hang in the air!" Little did I know, I would never be dry again.
Even the spider webs were wet.
Our plan, which was carefully routed on Google Earth, was to fly into Aiken Lake (check!) and then hike a few thousand feet up to camp at a certain spot where the deer would likely be abounding.
What we didn't know is that it is really hard to hike on steep, wet, mossy rocks and through thick, thick brush while trying to balance our backpacks, the two bows, rifle, tripod and everything else under the sun. We went as far as we could through the jungle, and as soon as we found a clearing we set up camp.
The tent looks deceivingly large in this picture. It was actually about as high as my knee. Note to self for next time: a one man tent does not equal a one man and one woman tent. It was just big enough for the two of us to lie side by side, but not big enough to sit up fully. Gets to be awful crampy after a few days o' rain, my friend!
We decided to begin hunting right away. Jason had two tags for himself and one for me (not that I would have shot anything), so he wanted to hurry and get a deer to check off his list, and then hunt for a really good one.
Hiking was amazing. It was easier not having ALL our gear, but still pretty slippy. I fell a few times and had some impressive bruises.
There were streams and crystal-clear lakes everywhere. Water! And hidden bears.
I mean, if there are not five families of bears living under that tree, I'll give you a thousand dollars. I would get especially nervous when we would pass these strange and abundant caves because Jason was usually several yards ahead of me and I knew that I would be lunch for the bears because I was bringing up the rear. Pretty sure Jason was banking on that, even though he didn't know my secret plan of feeding him to the bears because he's bigger. I'm SO glad we were never in that situation, because how awkward would our marriage have been after that, both of us trying to shove the other toward the family of bears, then we somehow survive, and still have to spend the rest of our lives together. Awk-ward!
Jason tried pretend like he didn't want me to get too far behind, but then I would look up and, oh great, he's clear up on top of that mountain! Now I have to scale the slimy thing.
Right up around here somewhere we saw our first real herd of deer. Jason took a shot while I tried to video, but I wasn't sure if I was on the right deer, so he didn't shoot right when he wanted to, and once he shot and all the deer ran away we found the arrow sticking in the ground with no blood. He was sure he had hit the deer he was aiming at, so that was disappointing. We hiked in the direction the deer went, but with little hope of finding them again.
Jason took a break to fill the water bladder. Can I just tell you how much I hate the word bladder, especially in reference to drinking water? Please, let us not refer to bladders when we are talking about water we will soon drink! It's so... unappetizing. We had a filter and everything, but still. I don't know if I'm made for the outdoors.
I was waiting patiently for Jason to fill the, ahem, bladder, when I looked down by my feet and saw.... blood! I was standing right by a big blood trail. My able husband had hit his deer after all. I will spare you the pictures, my sensitive viewers. I'll save the gore for the pictures of the actual dead animal. So brace yourself. Here's a scenic picture to help you get ready:
Now here's one of me having a really good attitude. I vowed I would not complain on this trip, and I didn't! I was, however, silent once in a while.
Now back to the chase. We followed the blood trail that I spotted and it led us to a quiet, lonely creature with a large wound. He was lying there, breathing his last. He was so cute, with great big eye lashes. I just wanted to take him home. And then I realized, oh yeah, I am taking him home. In my backpack. And then he didn't seem quite so appealing.
Well, well, well, what do we have here? The mighty hunter with his Sitka Blacktail Deer. Now, if you are used to mule deer, this one must seem quite small. However, this particular brand of deer is very small, so this one is actually on the large side.
I'm having two thoughts here: #1 - "Please don't let me fall off the edge of the earth," and #2 - "How long until I can wash my hands with soap?"
Jason doesn't really care about washing his hands with soap, which is fortunate, because he has the fun job of... dismantling the critter. Soon the job was done, our backpacks were full ("Deep breath, deep breath, it's only meat!") and we headed back down to camp.
Ah, camp. We got there right before dark. A slight drizzle was starting. The slight drizzle became more of a regular drizzle, and then a large drizzle, which continued for, oh, two days or so. Without stopping!! We had no idea how lucky we were to be able to hike and hunt on that first day, because we never again had the opportunity. The rain and fog settled in and didn't leave. Ever again.
We spent most of the remainder of the time in the tent. It wasn't so bad. I had my kindle and a large bag of candy. I read five books and I was pretty much living my dreams, as long as I could keep circulation going in all of my limbs. Trying to drown my bear worries in chocolate actually worked pretty well. Jason acted tough, but I could tell he was a little nervous, too, because every so often he would say, "I'm going to shoot the rifle out the door, just in case there are any bears around." And then he would wake me in the night and say, "I'm just going to shout for bears for a minute. They don't like that." Then he'd start yelling at the top of his lungs in a really mean voice, "Get away bears! Get out of here! Shoo!" and I would think, "Oh man, we are doomed." But either it worked, or the bears really were down fishing for salmon at the lower elevations like they were supposed to be at this time of year. Occasionally we had to leave the tent to get water, and we tried to go hiking a few times, but it was just too wet.
Nice bladder!
We were supposed to leave the island on Sunday. Let's see, if you do the math, we shot the deer on Wednesday, that's an awful lot of time to spend in a tiny wet tent! So we called on the satellite phone to see if the pilot could come get us a day early. He said he would try.
Saturday morning we packed up all our sopping wet things and slid down to the lake to wait for our rescue. The sky wasn't looking so hot.
Jason tried to fish for a while, but there were no fish to be caught. At 9:30 am, we heard a plane approaching. We heard it fly around for a long time. And then we heard it leave. I was sure we were destined to stay on this island forever. It really felt like we were on LOST, but with no fruit to sustain us. Just meat. And we all know how I hate to meet my meat. We waited and waited and finally at about 3 pm we heard... a plane! The sky didn't seem any clearer, but suddenly, there was Dave! Bursting through the clouds and headed straight for us!
He's probably never received such a warm welcome in his life. Then again, he's a bush pilot in Alaska... he probably has.
Flying away! Flying away!
Do I look happy? Because I am.
It was a pretty clear day once we got past Aiken Lake. I know why they call it that. Because if you aren't achin' when you get there, you will be by the time you leave.
Alaska is just breath taking. Most of the time I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And the nature! It just goes on and on and on. You can't get away from it!
It looks especially great from a plane after four days on a blessed little island. Don't get me wrong. Jason and I had a great time. The weather took us by surprise, for sure, but we had a lot of laughs and I'm so glad I got to experience all the craziness with him. I told Jason in the beginning that I just wanted to read and sleep on this trip, and man, did that ever come true! But we were also blessed with the hike of a lifetime, and a hunt we will never forget.
I'm just glad we finally got to leave, because a few too many days in the rain tends to make a person... slightly crazy. Take my word for it.
Last Saturday night I got the bright idea to go for a family bike ride.
Originally, the plan was to stay home and watch Napolean Dynamite. I was in the mood to watch it because my neighbors have this sweet bike ramp outside their house and I kept watching the neighborhood kids go over it and it reminded me that I haven't seen Napolean in... way too long.
My good friend Jenna let me borrow the movie, and we were so close to just settling in and kicking back and watching it as a family. But then Jason was sighting in his bow in the garage, and the kids started riding their bikes around, and I thought, it's such a nice evening. Let's just go for a little bike ride first. I grabbed my new, life-changing iPhone and began to document the journey.
Here's Jason giving you a little taste of his bike skillz. Don't feel bad, he's had lots of training. You could probably do this too someday if you set your mind to it and practiced for hours a day.
We set off on our journey.
My heart about stopped when I looked at these pictures later. This is Luke, right where he was destined to take a nasty spill on our way home later in the evening.
We have this certain road we like to take. It's freshly paved, quiet (usually), and we almost always see lots of critters.
These little critters weren't too impressed that I kept making them turn around for pictures, but it's not my fault I had to try out my new iPhone. Gosh!
At one point we saw a chicken running around in the bushes. Luke got off his bike to chase it with a stick. Jason was fed up by this point and bailed.
No chickens were injured in the making of this post.
Unfortunately, one little Luke was. We were about a quarter of a mile from home and Luke was riding in front of me. Abby started squawking in the bike trailer and I turned around to see Jake trying to escape from his straps. He was all twisted around and I was worried that the straps were around his neck. I yelled, of course being overly-dramatic, and quickly stopped my bike. Luke looked over his shoulder to see what all the commotion was.
He lost his balance, over-corrected, and went off the road. His bike tipped over and threw him right into this beautiful barbed wire fence.
I was fixing Jake at the time, but I was aware that Luke had crashed and I ran up there as fast as I could. Luke had jumped up and was walking toward me, bent over. I could see blood dripping from his face. A lot of blood. I lifted his chin to see if it was his nose and I about passed out. His cheek was ripped wide open right under his left eye, in addition to a large cut under his nose. It was one of the worst things I have ever seen.
What could I do? I had two barefoot kids in the bike trailer, I was too far away from home to carry Luke there, and even if I did, what would I do with Abby and Jake? I pressed Luke's shirt against his face and sent Dallin home at top speed to get Jason.
Those were some bad moments. I was trying to keep Luke's cheek closed and keep him calm at the same time. He wasn't in much pain, surprisingly, but he was scared. "Am I going to die, am I going to die?" "No, no, you're just fine. It's going to be fine."
When Jason arrived, he about freaked. Dallin had just told him that Luke scraped his face, so he was NOT prepared for the sight that greeted him. Somehow we piled all the kids in the truck and drove home to switch into the van.
I just couldn't believe that our Napolean Dynamite night was turning into this. Why, why, why did I insist on a bike ride?
Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. We couldn't get anywhere fast enough. We didn't know where to go, first of all. An instacare? After-hours clinic? The ER? I had heard so many bad stories about the ER, I thought that should be our last resort. After driving to a closed instacare and frantically trying to figure out what to do, we drove to the hospital.
Of course there was construction. Of course every road we turned down was closed. It was horrible.
Finally, we arrived and Jason dropped me off at the door and I carried Luke in. Luke was clutching a damp white dish towel that was soaked in blood and we looked like we had been attacked. My worries about having to sit in the waiting room were put to rest as soon as we entered. The receptionist and nurses rushed over and helped us immediately.
This is the part that is so touching to me. I expect that my friends and family members will be kind and show lots of compassion. They always do, and I am so grateful for it. I didn't expect it at the ER. To receive that kind of treatment from total strangers who see this kind of thing all the time is so humbling. Every single person we dealt with - the office people, the nurses, techs, doctors - were beyond kind and were so gentle with Luke. He had to go through a lot to finally get all stitched up, and it was so much more bearable to be working with people like that. For example, Luke was so proud of the hospital bracelet with his name on it, and when we were carrying him out to the car, one of the nurses (male, no less) came running out and said, "Wait, you can't leave yet!" We turned around, expecting to have to fill out more paperwork. "He dropped this!" and handed us the bracelet (Luke was fast asleep). So nice! It was the first thing Luke asked for when he woke up.
They gave Luke some kind of sedative through a nasal spray. Luke hated it, but I'm pretty sure he would have been hating it a lot worse without it. It made him groggy and he fell asleep several times. He doesn't remember waking up several times and having to have us hold down his arms and legs and head, and then spray more junk up his nose. THANK HEAVENS.
He ended up with 28 external stitches that will need to be removed on Friday, and a whole bunch of internal ones that will dissolve, mostly in the gash in his cheek. I can't even describe how deep that gash was. The most gory picture doesn't do it justice. But I have been impressed again and again that he was protected from worse injury. He could have lost his eye so easily. The cut under his nose was deep and could have taken the whole nose with it. I know that's graphic, but I just can't help but be so incredibly grateful that he was spared from more permanent damage. The cut in his cheek is in the soft tissue on his face and didn't reach the muscle. The doctor was so precise stitching him up and I know he did a great job. Luke might still have scars, but when I see them I will be forever reminded of how blessed I am and how each moment I have with my loved ones is a true gift.
It was hard to see Luke lying there having to go through all that. I would have traded places with him in a second. But he did so well and was the bravest little boy ever. I am so proud of him.
We have had an outpouring of love from everyone. It has been amazing. My in-laws picked up the other three kids at the hospital and took them home so we didn't have to worry about them. My sweet friend offered to play the piano for me in church so I could stay home with Luke. My sister-in-law made him yummy rice crispy treats. Lots of Luke's friends have showed up with treats and cards. One little boy even used his own money to buy Luke a pack of Pokemon cards. Thank you to each one of you for your prayers and concern. It really means so much. Sometimes when something major happens to someone else, I think, oh I shouldn't even bother to contact them, they are probably so overwhelmed with everyone else in the world reaching out to them. But seriously, every single person's efforts are so appreciated. I will try harder in the future to be more compassionate when others are going through hard things.
Putting Luke to bed that night was scary. The sedatives were still in effect and we couldn't wake him up, so we just had to hope that he was all right. Imagine my relief when I woke up Sunday morning to a happy little boy standing by my bed saying, "Mama, I'm okay!" He is doing so well and I can't shake the thought that even though it is unfortunate that he has had to go through this (and try to shake the thought that it was my fault), it could have been so much worse and he was very blessed and protected.
A few thoughts about helmets
I've never thought much about putting bike helmets on my kids. They have them, but I never wore one growing up and my kids aren't reckless, so I have never bothered with them. But that was the first question the doctor asked us, and I was very ashamed to have to answer no.
I'm not sure if anything would have been different if Luke had been wearing a helmet. It's very likely that things would have been exactly the same. A helmet probably wouldn't have protected his face from the barbed wire. I don't know. But I think about how quickly that happened, and how unexpected that moment was, and I was right there. What if in the future it is a head to the concrete, or getting hit by a car, and I could have prevented at least some of the injury? One instant is all it takes. I will definitely be more careful in the future.
