the pinewood

The line up. Ethan's car is 4th from the left.

Believe it or not this is our first pinewood derby.  Carter did the rain gutter regata and the spaceship derby when he was in cubs...and I think they skipped a race one year year. Then last year we were in NY/NJ/PA for Ben's wedding. So last night was the first time we ever had a pinewood derby car in our home. 

It was intense.

Ethan came up with the design all on his own. When we asked him where he got the idea, he replied, "I saw on Ruff Ruffman how the best design for a soap box derby car was one with the least wind resistance. I figured it would work the same for a Pinewood derby car too." (this is the part where I would like to thank PBS for my children's education.  Olivia knows the most amazing things and it is all in part to hours spent in front of your shows.  Except for Caillou. That show makes us dumber)

JaDee taught Ethan what tools to use and how to use them and came up with the genius way to drill holes in the back of the car, fill them with lead shot from emptying a few shot gun shells, and covering them with black duct tape to reach the 5 oz. weight that is outlined in the rules. Don't worry. They used the scale at the post office to measure the shotgun shells as they were breaking them open and pouring the lead BB's into the back of the car.

Aren't those stands awesome. Ethan's den leader, whom Ethan idolizes, made them. She is AWESOME!!!

Ethan's time is 2.355.  He came in first or second place in every race. That Ruff Ruffman really does know what he is talking about!

Ethan comes in second in this race to the car that ended up winning the overall race of the night.

Ethan setting up at the top of the track.

The whole thing took about an hour.  It was the smoothest running pinewood derby I have ever heard of. Our assistant den leader did an AMAZING job setting up a fair bracket on a computer spreadsheet that rotated the cars against each other and in different lanes.  Instead of recording each time every time, each car got points for coming in first, second, or third.  Overall Ethan came in third with 26 points.  Second had 27 points and First had 29 points.  I guess these things can last hours!!! But it was perfect.  Well done everyone!

an announcement

We came up on our 2 years in Alaska this past December.  That meant there were 365 days left before we could move back home.  I would spend some of my spare time surfing Utah real estate websites and day dreaming about a bigger home with a big yard  that didn't cost six or seven hundred thousand dollars like they do here (don't get me wrong, we have a lovely home but not like what you can get for your money in the lower 48).

Honestly, the first thing I would miss about Alaska is the winters.  I do love them. You are welcome to call me  crazy; it wouldn't be the first time anyone said that to me and I doubt it would be the last.  And when I mean winters I mean cross country skiing.  Oh how I love it.  There is no where to go do this in Utah like there is here.  I know there are places that people go, like the golf courses and what not, but the trails we have here are made and groomed just for us skiers.  I love it.

Then I thought about Carter's schooling.  It has been an uphill battle with this kid.  He has dyslexia (as does JaDee) and in Utah I never got the services that I knew he needed.  Here, I didn't even have to ask. The school approached me with the help he needed.  I cried.  Plus they have recommended him for an awesome program in high school next year...something he will really thrive in...a lot of oral learning and public speaking and group discussions.  I could never find this for him in Utah.

So the decision was all but made to stay until Carter graduated.  That would mean our return rights to JaDee's job with the Army Corps of Engineers would expire, but I figured we would cross that bridge when we came to it.  I wasn't going to worry. I know the Lord always has been there to help us be where we need to be and I had perfect faith it would happen again.

Just not 3 months after we made that decision.

A private company named The Superior Group offered JaDee a job here and we have decided to take it.

It is a great company (the president met with JaDee and showed him that as a company they are completely out of debt and that they are involved in 50% of all the construction here in AK) and it is a great position for JaDee. He will be a commissioning agent, or a commissioner (go here to see  a what a commissioning agent does for schools in California...that is what JaDee will be doing for any number of jobs here in Alaska).  The guy who JaDee is taking over for is moving on to a bigger part of the company and has looked for 2 years to hire someone.  JaDee is the first person he has ever wanted to offer the job too.

We took a long time in deciding if this was right for us.  We prayed about it, researched benefits, retirement options, made spreadsheets comparing the earning power of all of JaDee's options... and bottom line, this is the right thing for us.  We are really Alaskans. We talked to the kids and asked what they thought. Everyone missed cousins and grandmas but love that we still get to visit and that we may get to do so more often.  I personally missed my moms and my sisters and all those dang nieces and nephews who I just love to death. The thought of not going shopping with my sister Courtney all the time...well we will just have to go nuts when I am in town.

We really feel so good about this.

And the best news for all of you is you will have plenty of time to come up and see us (oh and have a free place to stay and eat in ALASKA!!)!!!

ps-I will be getting a new cell phone with the 907 area code for up here. I will let ya'll know via facebook and email or text what it is.

Iditarod 2011

www.iditarod.com

The official site of all things IDITAROD.  I tell you we love this race.  JaDee is once again off to Kaltag, like he did his first year. (you can link over to March 2009 for information from his first trip out there). He leaves for a week starting tomorrow.  The weather could not be better for a dog race right about now either.  Lows in the single digits at night keep the snow nice and firm, highs in the upper 20s and sunny sunny sunny all day make it almost warm outside all day.  Almost no wind and no change in the forecast for the next 10 days.

My cousin's little girls are following the Iditarod in North Carolina this year!  Their 3rd grade class is following Mitch Seavy and Melissa Owens. We are sending pictures and information and a poster information back to them as they follow the race.

Here is Mitch Seavy's team lining up and ready to go in Anchorage!

here is what I wrote to their class after our awesome day at the start in Anchorage:

And enjoy pictures of Exxon Mobiles warming/hot chocolate tent at the end! Oh and while everyone wears their fur to this event, the picture of the guy at the end of this post was the best fur display I have ever seen!

Hello from Alaska!

Saturday marked the start of Iditarod 2011! The Anchorage start is considered the "ceremonial" start and the actual times for the race do not begin until Sunday in Willow.  The Anchorage start coincides with our winter festival FUR RONDY.  Rondy, as we call it for short, commemorates the time of year that the fur trappers gathered for a Rendezvous, after months of lonely winter trapping.  They would gather to trade, sell pelts, and share stories and games.  We have a winter carnival, complete with a Ferris wheel and merry go round and other rides, as well as tons of events all week leading up the Iditarod start on Saturday. Saturday's race start is a big media event and photo opportunity.  

It is also the time that the mushers get to take someone on their sleds with them as a way to thank their sponsors or as a way to dedicate the race ahead to someone.  In some of the pictures I have attached you will see one or more people on the sled besides the musher.  Some mushers sell the chance to ride on their sled and give the money to charity. Last year Jeff King raised $10,000 by bidding his Iditarod ride for Make a Wish.  The route they take on Saturday is only about 10 miles long and then they load the dogs up in their trailer and make their way up to Willow for the next morning.  

You guys in Greensboro will be happy to see that I got to see Mitch Seavy take off! I got pictures of him and his team at the starting line up!!   Melissa was already gone by the time we got there. It takes about 3 hours to send off 62 teams.  We also saw Mitch Seavy's trailer with some of his dogs after they got done at the pick up point too!   

I am sending pictures of some of the teams, including Mitch, at the start, dog teams waiting to get hooked up from the sled, some of us on the side of the road, and some of the different types of trailers that mushers use.  Most of the mushers do this on a low budget and have homemade trailers.  Some like Mitch, have made this a business, and have custom made trailers for the dogs.  Most of the mushers that take the lead for the Iditarod have 50-75 dogs in their kennels at home that they train and breed all year to get a good team of 16 to make the race.  Many of them also train for other people and sell dogs to other teams too.  It takes a lot of food and a lot of pooper scoopers to take care of that many dogs!

The dogs are almost always very loud while they are on the sidelines at the start of the race. They bark and bark and bark at everything and pull hard on their ropes. But once they get going they are silent and concentrate on the race. They really love to run!

A dog handler helps keep the team in line while they wait to take off. Because once a dog feels a harness on them, they will take off running and won't stop!  A musher can lose a good dog unless someone is hanging on to them. JaDee was a dog handler for the 2009 race start. A few days later into the race, JaDee flew to Kaltag and ended up being the official time keeper of the checkpoint. That means JaDee recorded the stopping time of each musher, how many dogs they came in with, how many dogs they left with, and what time they left. Sometimes dogs that are sick or too tired get "dropped" at the check points along the way. There are many vets who volunteer from all over the world who come to help take care of the dogs. The dogs then get flown on airplanes back to Anchorage where their musher or their family will pick them up later.

The other thing JaDee does as a volunteer is a lot of work! They have to load and unload supplies on and off little tiny prop planes. Each musher can pack 3 burlap bags no heavier than 60 pounds each of supplies for themselves and the dogs. These supplies include food for themselves and the dogs. Straw for the dogs to sleep in, and fuel to burn to cook the frozen food and melt the ice to drink.  The fuel is an alcohol called HEET that can boil water in 90 seconds. All the food and supplies are kept outside and are blocks of ice to start with, before the HEET stoves warm it up to eat or drink.

The volunteers are only allowed to act as a handler for the musher to get his team hooked on or off the sled. The musher has to feed and water each of his dogs. And get the booties on and off each dogs feet.  Remember that is 16 dogs times 4 feet so 64 booties come on and off at each stop. The booties get worn out running over the ice and snow and it is important to take care of the dogs' feet.  Each dog eats around 10,000 calories a day. That means every 90 minutes the mushers stop to feed and water the dogs along the trail or at a checkpoint.

When the dogs sleep they sleep outside in piles of straw. They bury themselves in the piles and curl up and stay nice and warm. The mushers sleep in big sleeping bags next to their dogs and usually crawl in the bag with their boots and everything on. Sometimes the mushers sleep inside, if there is a village at their stop. When the mushers and teams leave a check point, volunteers like JaDee, haul the hay and trash and old booties to a big burn site and burn it all. This keeps litter out of the villages and stops along the way.  Last year, JaDee burned trash for 1 whole day at the Rainey Pass checkpoint.

I got the class picture and it looks great! I also picked up an awesome poster from the race yesterday that Exxon-Mobile was handing out in their hot chocolate and cookie tent.  I am going to put the picture on the poster and send it to Kaltag and JaDee will get anyone who wants to to sign it.  It may not be too many mushers, especially the ones in a hurry to win, but the mushers that are in it not necessarily to win, will probably sign. Although Lance Mackey is a pretty cool guy, if he stops in Kaltag, he just may sign it! I also got a cool magazine given to us from a shop in town. It has a neat article in it about Mitch Seavy's son, Dallas. I will send it all out to you guys!  

Oh, in 2009, JaDee ate dinner with Melissa Owens and she gave him the rest her cookies to take back to back home to his kids.  Her mom had made her the cookies to put in her supply bags along the race.  They were really delicious gingersnap cookies :) She is really nice and we hope she does well this year!

It was a really pretty set up for free hot chocolate, coffee and hot cider.  Thanks Exxon-Mobile! We picked up free posters, a survival whistle, blinking lights for our backpacks and a coloring book from Wells Fargo too.

free cookies!!
as a nod to the gold and fur trade in Alaska, the cookie display was pretty cool. Ethan thought it was real gold and that it was free. I told him they were spray painted rocks and only the cookies were free.

Ethan and I got hot cider

Yup. its real all right!

the play 2011

Last weekend was Carter's school play: The Lost Treasure of La Puloma Gulch.   Or drama teacher, Vicky Otte, who is also my Stake Relief Society President, wrote this original western melodrama script and directed it. It was so funny! One playgoer, who did not have a child in the play but likes to go to all the school's productions, said it was the best one of the season!  Even beating, in her opinion the other middle school and the high school!  Sweet!

What makes it even more amazing is that exactly one week before the first performance and with only 1 rehearsal left, one of the leads (there were about 7 "lead" parts) was taken out of state rather unexpectedly on a family emergency. He was going to miss the entire performance!  His character was Jasper Sullivan and one of the heroes of the melodrama!  carter played his opposite as the Bad guy, One Eyed Bart.  To fill the hole that the original Jasper left, Carter moved over to play Jasper and a new kid came in (who had never been in the play at all to this point...) to play Bart.

Also to note, the original Jasper is one of Carter's best friends. So with the emergency that his friend was going through, Carter was really worried about him and emotionally drained from just the aspect of quite possibly never being able to see his friend (we weren't sure if he would be able to come back after the emergency was dealt with...long story and not mine to tell here...).

Well they pulled it off. The cast even voted Carter as best actor in this year's production for essentially learning 2 parts.  And the new Bart won Best Ad-Lib for correcting some prop malfunctions during a "gun fight" and turning the scene into some pretty funny physical comedy.

So here are some pictures. When I come to UT and WY this summer, I will have the DVD for anyone interested in watching it with us!

Carter as Jasper Sullivan

Jasper is quite a ladies man in the Sundown Saloon!  The girls get in a fight over him.  We think the little yellow and black striped dress girl is particularly cute!

Ah but Miss Grace Stake, who has been blind since her first birthday, is the woman to take Jasper's heart. She is miraculously cured by Chop Suey's ancient Chinese medicine cookies!

And here are Jasper and Grace with Grace's sister Gabby and the other hero, Arti Choke.  Red Hawk is the Indian that saves the day by returning the stolen treasure to the town after rescuing it from Gilgamesh's (the villlain)  father years ago. 

Hear are heroes Arti, and Jasper with Villains: Gilgamesh and One Eyed Bart.