Let me tell you about this crazy duck in the picture below. It was so funny because this duck was swimming around a whole bunch of geese in the pond, it got pretty close to them and then all of a sudden dove completely under the water only to pop up right in the middle of the geese and yell BOO! Well in a duck sort of way, the geese scattered and this silly duck almost looked like it had a smile on its face and swam around quite proud of scaring the geese. I really wished I could have had a video clip of it and not just a picture!

Its amazing how quickly the babies grow up, the top photo was taken on June 6th and the one below was taken on the 23rd.

The butterfly that fluttered by in our backyard. He got to briefly enjoy the dandelions before I got rid of the little yellow sneeze factories.

One of the best parts about summer is the wonderful selection of flowers that we have in our yard. The roses being our favorites!

If there is anything that we have learned from our dogs these past few years is that they are not normal. In fact in looking back we have never had a "normal" dog. We have always had characters. Dax our little 63 lbs of wiggle as we call her, has been our watch dog lately. She loves to sit on the arm of the couch and look out her window, every once in awhile she lets out this big doggie bark that surprises everyone including herself to let us know that someone, or something has entered into her yard.
Tanna is now officially our "old doggie" she is not very impressed with her new summer hair cut but is allot cooler at night and allot happier. She has not only gotten lippy and needs the last word all the time but she is all about the naps now. When your 10 or 70 in dog years naps are very important and they are always better in the bed and she starts complaining around 10pm to let us know we should be getting our butts ready to go to bed too.

Then there is Chadish, he is our 110 lb "what a dog" because he usually does things that requires us to look at each other, shake our heads and say "What a dog!" In this picture below he is laying in his usual sleeping position. I placed a leaf in a strategic part so it doesn't offend anyone ;0) He loves to be on his back, legs in the air and mouth open to expose his beautiful pearly white teeth and snores like a bloody freight train.

We are enjoying our tropical vacation in Maui. But then its hard not to, toes in the sand, the wind in our hair and the sound of the ocean while going to sleep at night. Every time we are in Maui we always show a picture of the sad little sail boat as we have called it. Here is what they said about it in an article in the Maui news. " Six Halloweens ago, an Oahu man ran the 30-foot, steel-hauled Dolphin aground in an effort to reach Lahaina's big party night. Now the 22-ton hulk rests on sand in just 6 feet of water at medium tide. It's situated inshore of a delicate reef and roughly 100 yards offshore from the Historic Lahaina Store at 744 Front Street.
The other pictures are ones that we took on our first snorkel in front of out hotel. There is so many different kinds of fish there and its hard to just spend a half an hour, you end up saying just five more minutes and then an hour and a half goes by.

This is a lizard fish
This is a Pennant Butterfly fish.

This is a spotted pufferfish

This is the threadfin Butterfly fish.

This is the Humuhumu-Nukunuku-Apua'a

Reef Triggerfish - Hawaii State fish

Anyone that knows us, knows that we love Halloween. Every year our display grows and so does our excitment for that one night. I think the joy that you see in the childrens eyes when they walk up our sidewalk to the door and are met with the animated characters talking to them is priceless. And if the truth be told we are just a couple of big kids that have alot of fun decorating and handing out candy.

Every year our neighbors get together for our annual Fall picnic and hayride. This year the weather was very co-operative and the day was filled with lots of fun and some sunshine. We get the nice people and horses from the Horse Drawn Carriage Company to come over and get to take a nice slow ride through the neighborhood. The horses who where named Bob and Barny were a hit, the food was great and it was a very nice way to end the summer.

Fall is one of those seasons that I have bittersweet feelings about. I am really sad at the thought that summer is over, but the beautiful colors of the fall season seem to over shadow that for a little bit. Well until the beautiful colors are gone and the ground is covered with that cold white stuff! All joking aside even though I am not a fan of winter Alaska truly is a beautiful place to be in all the seasons. The pictures below are taken on the walk to Thunderbird Falls. Its our gorgeous little retreat just down the path from our house. I have also found some really pretty mushrooms to take pictures of, I am grateful for my large memory card in my camera because I never stop snapping the pictures.

We love you and miss you Dad

Back from our adventure down the ALCAN to see family and friends in Maple Creek, Sask and Medicine Hat, Alberta and back. For those of you that have made that trip you know how beautiful it is. We were blessed with great weather, good health and only a few minor things that needed to be repaired on the camper when we got back home, the road has definitely improved since it was first built but with all of the pot holes and frost heaves in sections you really cant afford to not pay very close attention and drive a nice slow speed especially with our 5th wheel hooked on. Ben did an absolutely great job of driving and makes it seem so effortless keeping that big bugger on the road, I prefer my job as navigator, mobile chef and dog entertainer, not to mention photographer. I have about 1000 plus pictures to sift through and put in the new book that I am making. We left on June 13th and got back in the wee early hours of July 4th. It would have been nicer to have a little more time so that we could have taken more than 5 days to get down and 5 to get back. A nice comfortable trip would be about 300 miles a day instead of the 500 or so miles that we did. Here is a taste of some of the things that we got to see, to many pictures to put them all on here.

The fire weed is in full bloom and looks beautiful and smells great. An important thing to remember though if you have allergies is to leave the flowers outdoors!

Momma bear and her two cubs that were happy to sit by the road so that I could take pictures of them. In the picture above the one cub seemed to be more interested in its belly button than what was going on around him/her.

These buffalo were just a couple of the numerous buffalo that we got to drive by just outside of Laird Hot springs Provincial Park in British Columbia. They are really not bothered by the vehicles and continue to saunter down the road minding their own business.

This was a picture of the drive around Muncho Lake it was breathtaking for the passenger but a little hairy for the driver. The road is quite narrow in places and you can see how the water is starting to eat away at the banks. They were in the middle of some erosion control when we went through.

Well we seemed to have let life get in the way of our blogging this time. When we got back from our trip we were thrust into the excitement of having all 3 dogs come down with kennel cough. And for those of you lucky enough not to have ever had to deal with it, take a big sigh of relief. We got back to the house about 6 pm after picking up our dogs, got them bathed (yes they smelled) and got ourselves cleaned up, had supper and promptly fell asleep in our chairs around nine pm. We decided at 10:30 we might as well haul our tired butts to bed and then at one am we were awakened by Chadish coughing like a wild goose, and so hard that he was throwing up, then Dax joined in with what it called a reverse sneeze where her little body would just seize up and all she could do was inhale. So at 5 am on Sunday morning I haul Chadish and Dax to the vet, while Ben stayed home with Tanna, who at the time was okay. I got a handful of medicine for them and headed home where we tagged team trying to keep ahead of the throw up mess and the pills in the dogs. Of course two days later Tanna got it and she was in the routine. So with that, Ben being horribly busy at work and little bits of spring popping up and the jobs with it, blogging was put aside. So to make up for it I have added some pictures of the geese that are at the Loussac Library in Anchorage, for me they are always a sign of spring so I was very happy when they were just wandering around on the lawn looking for the new sprigs of grass trying to poke up after a very long winter.

On Thursday I was very pleasantly surprised when I answered the door and a man was standing holding this gorgeous bouquet of flowers for me. My wonderful husband surprised me with them. On Wednesday it was Administrative Assistants Day and he got them for me for everything I do around our home. He is the most wonderful and thoughtful husband and is always surprising me like this. We do love to spoil each other and try to make each day an adventure and of course our dogs do help us with this also, sometime adding more adventure into the day then planned.