hike to snow!

This has been a strange Fall and beginning of winter~ it has been super cold but there has been no snow at our house so we spent many weekends hiking to find some snow!  Rosco loved it more than any of us!

A hike is always more fun with friends along~ especially the Novaks!

dissecting owls and pumpkins!

Teagen came home!  We had a fun whirlwind weekend with Uncle Teagen home!  I'm sure he never would have guessed that he would his first morning in AK... dissecting an owl pellet!  But, since we're a homeschooling family... this is life!

Savannah wouldn't even touch the pellet~ don't blame her one bit!

Noah was the all star scientist!  He was determined to find every mouse bone and reassemble them on this paper!

RoScO~ he's getting bigger!

Silly dog~ he loves cuddling with his stuffed animals and he often falls asleep this way!

We had a VERY rainy fall, so on this beautiful day we headed up to Hatcher's with Rosco's mom and sis!  ha~ sounds so funny!  We all had a great time hanging out with the Cokes!

I mentioned we had a super rainy fall and this pic proves it!  Parker declared that this river should not be called the Little Su, it should be the "Huge Su"!

my sweet girl

Savannah, you are one fun little girl!  You're getting so big... cleaning your own bike, learning how to read and going to a dance class with your sweet friend, Annika!  I love YOU and I love having YOU as my daughter!

Denali road trip!

This Fall, we were super privileged to head up to Denali National Park and drive all the way back to Wonder Lake in OUR car!  Our great friends, the Novaks, had won a road lottery pass but they couldn't use it, so we were more than happy to make use of their ticket!  It was a gorgeous four hour drive, even though it was drizzly, the Fall colors were amazing!

Once we got to Denali, all of us were more than happy to get out of the car... even for a photo-op!  There was this really nice couple from Tennessee that offered to take our family picture.  Then, they started telling us how they were taking "Flat Parker" around the state because there was a little six year old who has leukemia and his dream is to travel the 50 states.  So, of course the man wanted a picture of our Parker with "Flat Parker".  

Here we are taking a much needed walk in our campground while Kep got our camper.

Do any of these silly munchkins look tired!?!  Nope, they were all so excited to have Rosco in their "room"!  Rosco, too, seemed very happy to be able to roam our camper instead of being confined to the entryway!

The kids are all bundled ready for our LONG drive thru the park.  We just had to pose on this grizzly in case it was the only one we would see!

All 3 kids in front of the McKinley Riverbed.  I love this pic of Savannah hugging her puppy!

Yay~ FInally!  We drove for 1 1/2 hours without seeing any animals but then we saw this grizzly cross the road and munch on bushes right by our car!  I have never seen a grizzly bear outside of the zoo, so this was extremely exciting for all of us!

Don't let those blue skies fool ya... it was a chilly and blustery day which is why we're all bundled up!

The kids are up on top of the car getting a better view of the grizzly way up on the mountain side.

"OH MY GOODNESS!!! Kep STOP the car!  Kids unbuckle, LOOK!  Kep, can you take a picture out your window?  WOW!  This is so crazy! Kep, close your window!"  These were just a few of my out loud thoughts as I was super excited for this unreal opportunity to have a bear walk up to our car!  Poor Kep, he was getting more frazzled with every thought and instructed us all to "keep your legs in the car!"  Hehe!

there he goes, strolling within five feet of our car!

Shortly after our amazing bear sighting, we were all excited to see this HUGE bull moose.  It's rare to see a bull in our area, especially one this LARGE!

Our kids and dog are awesome!  We were so proud how all of them sat in this car for over 18 hours in a 2 day time period.  Rosco sat in this little Rubbermaid bin, barely ever making a peep and all the while sleeping in very weird positions!

Denali National Park was so gorgeous and it was such a treat to see 7 grizzly bears!

curly top!

Ha~ this picture cracks me up!  Savannah has super fine hair and it is stick straight.  Now that it is FINALLY growing, I have been trying some new dues.  We all cracked up when I took her hair out of the little buns... she's never had bouncy curls before!  Since she is a big fan of Shirley Temple she was happy that Parker thought to call her "Curly Top"!!!

girls at Flattop

Our boys took off to go backpacking, so Pam and I headed into Anchorage to go hiking with our girls! Savannah and I had such a fun time hanging out with the Smith gals!  None of us had ever hiked Flattop and boy were we in for a surprise!  These unique trees were so fun to sneak through!

The Fall colors were amazing!

The hiked started out with such beautiful weather.  Then, the fog rolled in~ it was so cool to see it roll in and out with the sun rays shining through!  Once again, Savannah amazed us with her ability to hike, this girl can be so tough.  If she has her mind made up, she can out hike me on most steep parts!

Here we are at the top of "our hike".  We didn't make it to the top of Flattop, that will have to wait for another day when the dads are along to help carry the little ones!  At one point, it started hailing and I didn't dress either of us for this kind of weather.  My poor li'l girl was freezing cold so Pam and I took turns carrying her all the way down as her legs were frozen!  Fortunately, we made it back to the car without any of us getting hurt and I learned an important lesson of being ready for all types of weather in the mountains!

Ella, Savannah and Claire~ love you girls!

The french fries at Red Robin never tasted so yummy as they did after this hike, especially since it was almost 9pm by the time we had dinner!  ;o)

SmiKro boys go backpacking

Kep and Tom took their boys backpacking in Hatchers after the TTTRun.  They had an amazing time with awesome weather!