Cruise #2

So this January the hubby and I went on a cruise..

Through the Panama Canal

Some quick high lights of the trip..that I actually caught on camera...

One of my favorite things, the out door theater.  "Movies Under the Stars", Literally.

With fresh popped pop corn and warm blankets every night :)

 

 

 

 Above also shows us going under the Pan-American Bridge

Connecting North and South America

Traversing the canal is an 8-10 hr deal

The die hards were up at 330am watching us get near the canal

We were up at 6 right before sun up and it was beautiful!

 

Below is the boat that brought the four Panama Captains that take over the ship while going through the canal... There's about a foot and a half on either side of the boat, going through the locks.  A tight fit and one that requires experts.

 One of the many locks we went through.We would have another photo in here of the Centennial Bridge however J and I were the only ones who got to swim under the bridge :)

(Yes, we were in the pool... but we did swim under the bridge it was pretty cool)

 Back to the beginning though... Cabo San Lucas and Lovers Beach

 And a camel ride on the beach, whale watching...

No the Camel is not dead... he's kind of a "special" guy. These camels actually come from Texas! Who knew?  Camels live in Texas. Cheaper to ship them here than from Egypt. :)

So this guy got sold to a circus and spent a lot of time living among horses... so he actually thinks he's a horse.

 

 Nicaragua we saw volcanoes, bought some hammocks for the kids, did some sight seeing, history lessons and all.

Costa Rica was awesome, some river rafting... didn't want to risk getting the phone wet.. saw some monkeys...got a little too close to a baby and the Papa or Mama up above protested by dropping a load on one of our raft mates!  EEEWW

But hysterical! 

 

And after the Canal we hit Columbia!

It's actually called Miami #2 (Cartagena)

Quick site seeing tour.. really quick

 

Almost had an incident when the money exchange guy noticed we had no stamp in our passport..

All in the name of ice cream

 And finally...

Aruba! The happiest island, miles and miles of white sandy beaches :)

We crashed a resort and hung out in their chairs sun bathing and swimming in the ocean. 

HEAVENLY!!!

Wish I could have stayed there all day long!

 

 Florida...had a taxi drop us off at a state park by the beach, turns out its a high traffic area for illegal aliens and drug runs, etc.  So it might look suspicious when two people with back packs have a taxi drop them at the very end of the road.. Border Patrol was spying on us through binoculars.  J tracked him down and had a fun chat with him. Nice guy, crazy things you're wife wants to do... all in the name of beach time. LOL

So we hiked a few miles (8.5) Back to the airport

Stopping half way at some famous ice cream place for some incredible homemade ice cream,

hike well worth it.

 On the flight home we had a 12 hr lay over in Seattle where we got to spend time with Things 1-5 :)

We sure miss them!! Thanks Guys it was a great to see you!

 Arriving home to some excited kids.

And great spring weather in January!!

Little man refused to call me Mommy, I have been 'Annie' until yesterday..(Grandma goes by that name)  But to his disappointment I am staying. :)

We so appreciate Mom and Dad for staying with the kids! 

It was a much needed break, mentally & physically.

Coming back to life was a bit overwhelming

But the warm weather helped!

 

 

 A wide shot of the Panama Canal

I will have to post again with the picture of the Panama City Temple!  It's on the hill side as you pass through the canal, it was awesome to see and beautiful.  Truly a light set on a hill.

Halloween & Game Night

For Halloween E dressed up as a cat with pink highlights in her hair.

  

Ly dressed up as a princess and Mommy did her make up.

H & P. H was a transformer and P was a GI Joe. 

With E & H gone all day at school these 2 just pal around the house together causing trouble. 

 Hopefully they will continue to look out after each other when they get older.

 Friday night game night, SORRY is about the right level of game. 

Can't wait for them to understand Monopoly and later RISK! 

Late Fall / Proof-Reading Volunteers?

It’s November 3rd and still hanging in the 40's during the day and barely hitting freezing at night. It’s been a long time since we have had such a long fall. 2 years ago we thought we were really blessed not to have snow until October 30th, the day after we got the metal roof on our house. This year the kids were able to trick-or-treat in costumes without coats covering them up. L will haft to post pictures later since she still has the photos on her phone.


The chickens are still growing, dealing with pecking problems; a couple of them have large bald spots where we thought they were getting picked by the other birds. I watched them for about an hour and realized they were more or less picking themselves. We tried a commercial anti-pecking-goo borrowed from a neighbor. Has not seemed to work very well so L is going to try and find some pine tar in Anchorage today.

For a long time I have had several friends and family tell me I should write some of my stories from work. So for the last 2 months I have been writing these "short stories" in my spare time. (Usually while waiting to see if I have an allergic reaction for an hour every week at the doctor's office after getting my allergy shots for my K-9 partner I am allergic to)

If they are not good enough to publish, at least I will have them for posterity.

If anyone is interested in proof-reading and giving input/constructive criticism let me know and I will email you copies. Each of the stories are true stories from my experiences at work, they are about 1-2 pages long (about the duration of a morning constitution) and are meant to be entertaining and a little humorous (stupid criminal type of humor). I was thinking about posting them on the Blog but it might be legally safer not to publish them until after I retire (12 years and counting) but who knows, retirement might come early!

Weekly Update

I have been promising L. a bed frame for a while. But other things always seem to take priority like working on the house, going to work, and finishing outdoor projects before winter sets in. She was finally fed up with sleeping with the matress on the floor that she went and bought a bed frame on Craig's List for $300. Unfortunatly after she bought it, while loading it onto the truck, something happened and it fell over breaking both headbord corner posts. When the posts broke it revealed most of the bed was made out of that cheap pressboard made from sawdust and glue. We used our $300 Craig's-List-glued-sawdust bed for about 2 weeks until L was able to resell it on Craig's List for $50 more than she bought it for. Since then our matress has been on the floor. On Tuesday after hearing the same request for a bed frame, and me giving the same empty promise - "I'll get to it when I have time" - I looked at my calendar and realized I had 2 whole days off without any work related activities scheduled. So I Googled "Queen Size Bed Frame" and got some ideas for a bed frame from Google Images. Went to the local Lowes and spent $200 on dimeisional lumber, bolts, stain and urethane. I put them all together and came up with the following bed frame:

I didn't want ugly screw holes to show so I grabbed a piece of an old broken broom handle and made some wood plugs to hide the screw holes. Not perfect but I think it came out alright, kind of the homestead look.

Finallly L does not sleep on the floor anymore.

Chickens are doing good. Ordered 25 hens and got 27 in the mail. 8 died in the box before they arrived. L nursed 3 to good health that were almost unresponsive and were not standing on their own when we opened the box. Still have 19 and they are growing fast. Here they are at 11 days old.   

No blog posting would be complete without a picture of the little munchkins. Porter decided he really likes chocolate milk. My parents always talk about me drinking a gallon of milk a day, Porter is already up to about a 1/2 gallon a day. Thinking about investing in a dairy cow in the future.

Porter helping daddy, he loves playing in sawdust!



GARN Boiler

I often have people ask me about my heating system so I have added a few pictures. According to the manufacturer and the only authorized dealer here in Alaska, I am the only owner of a personal GARN boiler system in Alaska. There are about a dozen now in operation in Alaska but they all serve villages, schools, businesses, and community centers.

The GARN is a wood fired boiler built into a 2000 gallon steel tank surrounded by about 1800 gallons of treated water. The boiler is designed to burn the wood extremely hot and fast, which increases efficiency and decreases creosote. In the ceramic core the temperature will reach about 2000 degrees. The flue gasses then make 6 passes through the water in the tank before exiting the chimney at between 300-500 degrees. The water in the tank heats up and stores the heat for use later. I load the boiler with 3 foot long un-split logs with a few dry pieces of kindling and dry bark to help start the fire. Its takes about 5-7 minutes to load the boiler and light it. But then I get to walk away and the boiler does the rest. I burn a mix of any local wood I can get for free or really cheap, which includes cottonwood, birch, spruce, willow, and alder.

The GARN boiler occupies a small room about 12 feet X 7 Feet. My house is about 5000 square feet which includes 1000 square foot basement and 1000 square foot garage. I framed the house with the exterior walls double walled with staggered studs. Essentially I built 2x6 walls and then 2x4 walls inside with a 1/2 inch gap between the walls. The studs were staggered so there was less thermal transference from stud to stud and out the wall. Both walls were insulated giving it about an R34 in the walls and then an R70 in the energy saver trusses. Every room of the house has radiant in-floor heat and is controlled by 7 zones that can be adjusted to preference.

The basement is wrapped in 4 inches of blue-board foam with 3 skirts extending 2 feet out at a 70 degree angle to the wall.

I currently burn about 10-12 cords of firewood a year. This provides the heat for all 5000 square feet (kept between 68-72 depending on the room) and the domestic hot water from the end of August through May. Unfortunately from end of June-Aug the heat from the boiler makes the house too hot to be used effectively for only hot water those 3 months and we currently resort to Electric or Oil heat depending on the cost of fuel VS KWH.

It’s the middle of October and I currently only fire-up the boiler once every 2 days. In the middle of winter I usually have one fire a day unless it drops down to below -20 and I haft to double load or have a fire every 18 hours or so.