Spring in Dillingham, 2014

It was an amazing spring this year in Dillingham.  When I say "amazing" I am not exaggerating-  our high temperature for the YEAR was May 16, a whopping 76.1 degrees! 

That is  unheard of!  No snow, no bugs.... a ton of sunshine and hot weather.  A little slice of heaven.  We did not mind the touch of Global Warming we got in these parts, it was actually a little refreshing.

These crazy kids of ours, and their crazy neighbor friends got "hot."  They wanted to go "swimming"- we don't have a pool people.  Not a lake, not a pond, no actual body of water unless you consider the creek behind our house.  What we do have (or had) was a massive puddle from the snow that had melted in our yard.

The kids floated that dinghy all over, playing "Titanic" and jumping off it.

This one got a little carried away, and was actually swimming.  I thought she had asked her parents to get this wet, I was wrong.

Lucky for them we have this rockin' fire pit and they got dried off and warm again.  It was about 8:00 at night and still in the 70's. Heaven I tell you!

A Spring Walk on the Beach

This spring we went to the beach for a walk.  As you can tell, this isn't your typical day at the beach. Nothing like our beautiful day to the beach this summer with my Uncle Craig, Aunt Monica and Chris... but I will write about that later.

  Kanakanak Beach was still covered with snow and ice, and the Nushagak River hadn't "gone out" yet. Meaning the river was still frozen, but about to break up.

Kolbi enjoyed walking in the water, Kiley and Kalin loved the mud!

They loved climbing up onto these massive icebergs, which scared me just a little.  The older girls are fearless.

We even found a waterfall. By then the youngest member of our tribe had fallen into the water and needed a warmer jacket.  Wet is easier to deal with then Kanakanakak beach mud!

 

We ended the day with another sister picture, which they complain about incessantly.  I'm not sure why, because they do love to see their pictures together.  Well, they will, someday.  Anyway. This was a very fun day at the beach, even if there was little sun, icebergs and mud.  These Alaskan chicks loved it, and so did their parents.

Piano Recital.....

The hiatus is over, life got in the way of blogging. Now that summer is here I will try to do better with this online journal... in the meantime I will back track and try to catch everyone up with the Clouse happenings.

Both Kiley and Kalin had a spring piano recital in May, which went really well, and was their second recital of the year. I think I am always more nervous then both of them, if they are even nervous at all! With one year of piano under their belts I am really proud of how much they have learned and progressed.  Kiley is a little more reluctant with practice, but she loves the recital.  Kalin loves practice (most of the time) and does beautifully when it comes to the recital.

Here is Kalin playing "The Can Can and "The Spanish Guitar."

Kiley played "Night Music" and "Beethoven's 5th."

Just hangin' around

The Saturday of Beaver Round Up we just kind of hung around, down at the beach.

Near the iceburgs. We basked in the sun, played in the mud and jumped around. It was a lot of fun.

This was after the "Needle in the Hay Stack" event.  This BRU event was fun too... the kids got to root around a bunch of hay looking for prizes. There was a rumor going around that there were $50 and $100 dollar bills to be found. Sadly, we found none of them, but there were $1 and $5 that we saw!

They came away with candy and a few dollars, well worth the effort.

February Birthdays

I know, I know... February is long past. It is March now. But we are a busy family and unfortunately, blogging has gone to the back burner. I'm still going to acknowledge them, cause that's how I roll.

My baby turned 2 on 2-1-14. She got to celebrate her birthday with her Auntie Jen, Gram and other extended family members.  We even got to see Uncle Max, Coleman, Jess and Caitlin!

We were all in Anchorage to celebrate the birth of my niece, Reegan Ellamae. She is beautiful beyond words.

Baby K got to have THREE "happy birthdays." Yes, three. One in Anchorage, one at home and then a special one to celebrate all the February birthdays. She is now non-stop singing the Happy Birthday song.

Last, but not least, was Mommy's turn. Her happy birthday was spent doing Parent/Teacher conferences until late into the evening. We celebrated a day early.  It was a wonderful birthday with my beautiful girls, hunky hubby and Matthew. I even got to go into Anchorage a day later and celebrate again (yahoo! & that's what happens when you get old like me!)

Here's to another year!

Happy Beaver Round Up!

"By the shores of Nushagak, Beaver Round Up. When the trappers all come back, Beaver Round Up... where we travel in the old familiar waaaaay! And celebrate the Round Up time in Dillingham, Ak!" Yes it is a song, and you should download it from iTunes, it is a top 100 hit.

We are celebrating the final days of our yearly Beaver Round Up, with about 0 inches of snow, which is very unusual.  This doesn't mean we haven't been having a lot of fun, it just means we haven't been able to watch snow-go races or dog sled races (sniff). I can't remember the last time we didn't have one or the other.

The start of Beaver Round Up is the parade, which was a lot of fun, very loud, with a ton of candy, snow or snow!

 

We have really been looking forward to the costume race, which happens after the parade.  We dress in our favorite costumes and run like crazy animals from N&N to the fire hall. This year Jon was a crazy bird, first K ketchup, me mustard, Sis was a witch and baby was Tigger. We had people yelling at us, "You are my favorite condiment!" haha. Priceless.

What a fun way to start BRU!

Merry Christmas!

From the House of Clouse to yours.... we hope you had a wonderful day!

Piano Recitals

The girls worked very hard at their piano lessons from September through December.  The piano recital was the venue to show off their hard work.

How Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas, read by Kalin

Kalin was chosen by her teacher this year to read a Christmas themed story for our local radio station.  We are so proud of her and how it turned out!  We will be able to listen to her on the radio on Christmas day.

Santa Visit

It wasn't traumatic for everyone.  Even Kolbi enjoyed herself most of the time.

Clouse Girls Love Santa

Don't judge me, it is now a family tradition.

She won't remember anyway....

A little fish

Now why would I title this post "A little fish" you ask? Well at our elementary school we like to encourage our students for reading.  One of the ways we do this is by recognizing them at our Friday assembly when they have completed reading a series.Their name is written on a little fish and posted on a poster for the whole school to see.

First K has had the pleasure of having her name called and being recognized for finishing a multiple of series. Once second K figured out why kids (and her sister) were getting to stand up on Fridays she was bound and determined to get her chance.

This picture captures the moment when they said her name and she got to stand up.

She finished reading all of the "Fly Guy" books by Ted Arnold.  Her name is now on a little fish in her school.

We couldn't be prouder.

A Million Words

Recently our oldest was recognized in front of her elementary school for reading a million words.  She is now a member of the 2013 "Million Word Club", the fourth student to be inducted so far this year. I am beyond proud of her, she has been a reading machine and has worked very hard to reach this goal!  Her elementary school tracks word status by using the Accelerated Reader program, and First K has read about 85 books to reach a million words!

Harvest

We had another great harvest from our garden this year, and with a summer like we had I would have been very surprised if we didn't!  We grew mostly those plants that have produced for us in the past, but Jon did break out and plan kohlrabi this year.  We were pleasantly surprised at how well it grew and how good it tasted. 
We gad an amazing amount of lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, snap peas and cabbage. I was disappointed in the size of our carrots, but the ones we got were delicious even though they were fairly small.

I am proud to report that I was even able to produce multiple tomatoes from my green house this year! If you look close you can even see the jalapenos I grew. These beauties made some very delicious salsa!

I was going to put in a post about our potato harvest too... but that deserves its very own post. We were very happy with the amount we got this year!

First tooth gone!

She's been working on a loose tooth for what seems like months... and with the help of her Dad it finally came out this week.  She has now joined the "First Lost Tooth" club.  There were some tears and blood but she survived.

The Tooth Fairy brought $2, a Laffy Taffy and a giant beef stick, which made it allll worth it.

She's got the moves like Jaggar...

We really need to just carry around a video camera to keep track of all the cute things this kid does and a camera handy just to document her moves!

GB & Papa Paul

She was forced on this boat ride, but I got a smile out of her anyway.

 
Every year GB makes a trip up to Alaska to help us manage our chaotic lives.  This year we knew it was going to be worse than usual so both GB and Papa Paul came up to help.  Papa Paul stayed for 10 days and then went home, but GB stayed longer.

Papa Paul tried on this sweet jacket we had at our house, and it fit!

 I honestly don't know how we would make it through the start of school without her. Jon works pretty much 7 days a week from 7 am until...... who knows.  I started a new position with new everything, so I began the year over my head, and was also working 7 days a week. It only got better from there.

Once the school year officially started.... honestly its a blur.  But again, I am so thankful she was here. I can't even begin to explain how helpful it was to my psychie to know that someone who loved my children was taking care of them, my house was kept in tip top shape, the never ending laundry was done on a daily basis and there was always a delicious meal to come home to every night.

Thank you GB. 

Can you come back soon? We sure miss you in this neck of the woods.

Many firsts

We've had many firsts these last few weeks at the House of Clouse.  First K started third grade, yikes, how on earth did our first born be old enough to be in third grade? 

Sis started Kindergarten!! Boy oh boy was she ever ready to be in school. Beyond ready.  Her first week has gone really well, she's made some new friends and really likes her teacher.  I asked her what the best part of school was? Recess! she replied.

Baby K started "Baby School", which is a local daycare here in town. We were lucky enough to start 1/2 days with Bonnie here, then we moved into a full day schedule this week. It was rough in the beginning, but she seems to like it now.

 Even Mom had her first day of school.... the first one for me in eight years! (double yikes!) I am teaching fourth grade this year,  in my home town! I was beyond nervous and excited, but everything came together for me. I have a fantastic group of kids, but even fantastic kids have bumps in the road.

We have been rocking and rolling trying to get into a rhythm at our house.  It hasn't been easy, our days are very long and full, but we are doing our best and that is all we can do.