Alaska living, home education, gardening, hunting, fishing, trapping and preserving the harvest
On Friday, the men folk went to do manly things in the woods, fishing was one of them. Blessing #1 left his tackle box at the river. When my husband realized this on Saturday afternoon he loaded up the older blessings, some leftover pizza and some fishing poles to head to the river in hopes of finding the tackle box. They found the tackle box, fished a little and had their dinner riverside!
Only the girls caught fish: grayling
May the Lord find us faithful.
Here are the Copper River Red Salmon that were brought home last weekend.
As I have said before, everyone works in our house:
Here is Blessing #2 keeping an eye on Blessing #4
Blessings #1 and 3 wrapped packages of salmon for the freezer.
Saturday evening we went to the home of friends for a birthday/Father's Day cookout/bonfire, we took salmon for the grill.
Blessing #2 finished her nine patch block and decided to make a small pillow.
May the Lord find us faithful.
I have been on a little "what we do at our house" series. I do not write these things to say they are "the" way it is just our way. I can honestly say that the Lord has taught me many things over the years about judging and thinking things should be a certain way or it is wrong. I can say that it would be easy if we as Christians had a checklist of what makes a good Christian and what doesn't. That isn't the way it is. So, don't judge sister so-and-so for her choices. We had a great sermon last night that mentioned striving to do something. He also mentioned that many things we do take up our time and are not sin but that they take our time. I think we all must find our own balance of our relationship with God, family, and others. Where do my priorities lie?
May the Lord find us faithful.
When I posted on our fish packaging and ended up delving into our family child rearing choices it really sparked some further thoughts. A good thing as I have had a difficult time lately getting some things into perspective and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. Some times life goes and we feel as though we cannot be where we think we should be. Major problem there with "where we think we should be" part, I cannot have my own agenda alone. I should have a plan but then I must lay my plan out before God and give it to Him to and accept what He deems necessary for my life. We had an excellent learning opportunity today. I had overbooked my time and my blessings missed out on something they were looking forward to, they had to see that even though it didn't happen they had no right to pout and whine. We must be content even when we don't know why we didn't get what we want. We must see that often we must do what has to be done instead of what we want to do. My husband is a worker, a very hard worker, so therefore, most of our play is work. Think about it... the man works all day at work and then there is the work at home, then there are his hobbies; hunting(work), fishing (work), and then the things that must be done working on home repairs and maintance and then the work he does for widows in our church and work around the church building and housing and occasionally the vehicles. I am exhausted just thinking about it. I go back to the whole entertainment issue, we as a nation are entertaining ourselves to death, literally. Way too many hours are spent watching tv, movies, computer time, video games, going to entertainment venues, you name it. Are those things in themselves bad? NO, not at all. It is the amount of time we put on those things, the importance they hold in our lives. What is more important? Checking blog stats, bloglines, facebook, or spending time in prayer and reading the word of God, what about reading to our children, playing with them, investing time in their lives while they are ready to be taught? Think of a little baby, they completely depend upon others to meet their needs, once they become more independent do we just let them decide what they need, I hope not, we guide them, we still make many choices until they can see the why(s) of our doings. I have often had to remind myself why my blessings do not complete tasks, often they just need a little more on the job training before that chore or task can be independently done.
Now, I must go sleep as tomorrow is to be sunny and warm again. Yipee!!
May the Lord find us faithful.
Our days have been filled with work, work and more work and lots of play as well.
The first picture is of our baby blessing enjoying some time with Dad upon Dad's arrival home from work. This is a special time for Dad and all blessings.
This is what happens when one has older siblings:
The Robin's eggs hatched and she has babies, they are growing quickly. This poor robin built her nest right next to my clothes line and she has great stress the entire time I am hanging and retrieving laundry.
We have been meeting friends at different play grounds around town each week. Last week most of our blessings were able to pile on but not all.
Here is baby blessing and his little friend sitting together after they both had lunch. It was a windy day, see that baby girl's hair blowing in the wind? That is precious.
Here is one last picture that was taken today, Blessing #4 was 6 months old today! Here he is with big brother. I am so thankful for my helpful older blessings, they love to hold and watch while I do quick little jobs around the house.
May the Lord find us faithful.
I really feel sorry for those who have to purchase meat and fish from the grocery store. Really, true sympathy. I am thankful for the man that goes out and gathers for our family. I realize that not everyone can and that is fine. It does sometimes take my husband away from home for a couple of days her and here and I am fine with that. Sometimes we are able to go with him and do something else while he fishes. As our son gets older he will go with my husband and that will be a great time added to their already long list of times spent together.I do not know how to purchase beef at the grocery store. For the almost 16 years (16 at the end of this month) that we have been married, we have had a freezer with at least moose(a couple of times in these 16 years I have had to purchase a little meat here and there to get us to the next hunting/gathering season but I am very thankful that it has not been the norm ) Since we have had children we have had salmon and if we are really fortunate, halibut and other fish from the sea such as cod, red snapper and sometimes (like today) prawns!! Can you tell that my husband just returned from a fishing trip? This afternoon he and the blessings processed and packaged halibut, snapper and jumbo prawns. I prepared some prawns and snapper and veggie kabobs on the grill while they packaged. I am thankful that we have made this a family affair; for many years I dealt with crinkled tape, backwards letters on packages and sharpie marks every where. Today, I was able to step back and do something else like feed a baby and prepare lunch and be the fill-in person when need arised. For those of you with younger blessings, keep going...it eventually begins to bear fruit. For those of you with older blessings, keep them near you and teach them to work with you, it really is fun. I had a friend tell me once that her daughter was waiting for her to finish dinner so they could "do" something together. Why couldn't they cook dinner together? Why did this child think that she could only spend time with her mother doing some sort of entertainment activity? My eight year old blessing is learning to do some independent things in the kitchen, she can make salad dressing with very minimal assistance, I still double check the 1 tsp., 1/2 tsp., 1/4 tsp. measures to avoid adding too much or too little ingredients. Which leads me to this, our children do not spend the night with friends and we really don't split our children up to do things with various and seperate friends. We enjoy them and we are teaching them to work and play and be a family. I know we are often "left out" of things because it is just a girl or boy thing, that doesn't matter to us, what is important to us the family aspect. The day will come when our children will begin pursuing seperate interests and activities but until then, we will be a family, we will tie heart strings and we will teach and train and love and learn. The time is short and we will not waste it.
I am thankful that my husband returned safely, I am thankful that he was able to spend a couple of days with a friend he doesn't see very often, I am thankful for fish for my children to eat. I am thankful for a husband that works hard and also takes care of others, he truly is a servant....And he loves me, despite myself. I am blessed beyond belief.
May the Lord find us faithful.
It has been busy here lately...summer usually is. I am working on getting the inside cleaned and decluttered and what is left...organized. I realized after clearing out my bedroom and cleaning the carpet that I needed a couple of underbed containers for a few items. Then, I realized that now that we have bunk beds in both blessing bedrooms that I have room under there for storage! I bought and filled a few today with soon to be worn baby clothes and other items needing a home! Yahoo! I will have room for sheets and blankets and toys and seasonal clothing all nicely hidden yet easily accessible!!!!!!! I am thrilled. I am very easily thrilled, I know it is sad but it is my reality.
My husband had the camera with him while fishing today and you don't know how many times I wanted to grab the camera for a picture.
Blessing #4 is cruising around the house in his little walker, he goes everywhere and it is so funny to see his little feet and legs moving. He is such a good baby.
I started doing a little planning tonight for school. We will take a little time off after we return from our trip to the lower 48 then we will begin again. I love Ambleside Online but I really enjoy chronological history study (the one thing I use from the Classical Education research I have done) so tonight I found where we will be in history for next school year. I enjoy Charlotte Mason's teachings and methods so I will strive toward her ways this next year as well.
We are still doing a little schooling here and there but this week has been a little less than past weeks. The weather has been too nice and we have had a little more time out of the home the past two weeks as well.
On another note, I have been admiring the yellow daisies along the highway and wishing to have some....today we drove a different way home and I saw some right next to our house on a side road that we haven't explored lately. I was estatic! I plan to go attempt to dig a few up for my flower bed and cut a few for my enjoyment. Everything wild is blooming right now...iris, wild roses, potentila and so much more! The garden is greening up a little and the rhubarb is huge!!! Yummy food is coming soon!
May the Lord find us faithful.
We have been busy as usual. I almost think this summer is going toooooo fast. I took the time this week to deep clean our bedroom. Most of the room was cleared out and the carpet and walls were cleaned. I have some things back in there but I am giving the floor one more night to dry before putting some things back into the room. It looks so nice empty though!
We will be taking a trip to the lower 48 sometime in the near future, I am finally looking forward to the trip! It will be nice to visit with family, some of which has never met my husband or my children.
May the Lord find us faithful.
Don't get shocked when you see pictures in this post!!!
First is a common sight in our home
Daddy and baby rocking...this blanket belonged to Blessing #1 when he was a baby ( I think it was lost today 
. I hope it is just misplaced but I really think it is gone.)
I found a KNex pulley and something set at the Used Curriulum Sale a couple of weeks ago, Blessing #1 had fun using this set!
Blessing #3 lost another tooth!
We have ladybugs!!!!!!!
We finally have occupants moving into our nesting box!!! Pretty sure these are Tree Swallows
And the Robins are back and built their nest in the same spot as last year, here are the eggs!
I had some dental work done today so I should have taken a picture of that but the camera was left at home. We had a good evening visiting with some friends and home for plant watering and baths and now off to bed!
May the Lord find us faithful.
