Time to settle

Okay, so I've got many more Alaska posts (three weeks worth) I just need to find a moment to get caught up on life so I can get to them. We got home from the great North and less then a week later I went to Georgia for a week for some much needed R&R and girl time. I got home a few days ago and immediately needed to do some deep cleaning and yard work. Today is cleaning out the refrigerator and some major grocery shopping along with addressing the piles of laundry that are threatening to over take the entire laundry room. Its nuts. I try to activities with the kids during the day so that they can enjoy what's left of their summer vacation, we try to squeeze in school time, I'm working on teaching them about the value of chores and allowances (they aren't totally convinced its a good system), all the while trying to make some headway in a home and yard that has been completely neglected for over a month while we've been enjoying the benefits of hotel living and being the guest to a great hostess. UGGGG....If only I could clone myself a couple of times over...or suddenly have super mom powers...

Alaska Adventure Day #8

 Today was awesome. We headed north to the Chena Hot Springs. It is a 40 acre stretch that is privately owned and has been turned into a wonderful little resort. There are all these buildings build like rustic log cabins but house a rec center, restaurant, a swimming pool, gift shop, and hotel. But the main attraction in this little town/resort is the ice museum. It was incredible. We arrived in 80 degree weather and threw on parkas to enter the 20 degree zone. The outside of the building looks kind of small and I was a little dubious as to what we would find inside, my doubts were soon put to rest.

There is almost a cathedral feel to the building. The minute the doors close you feel like you are stepping into a different realm. The ice dampens the sound and reflects the light in a way that makes everything feel dream like. They start off the tour in the ice sculptor's work shop and explain how the artist takes a block of ice and transforms it into all of this....  The walls are made of ice blocks and every few feet you are dazzeled by the detailed carvings that punctuate the room.

In the center of the space there is an ice bar complete with stools made of ice (the tops covered in Caribou hide for your comfort), glasses made of ice, and an intricate pattern inlade in the bar top. 

 The most breath taking piece in the room is this larger than life sculptor of two knights jousting. The photo doesn't properly capture how incredible this piece is. Where the lance of the blue knight makes contact with the breast plate of the red knight there are ice shards jutting out representing the splintering of the wood. The reins of the saddle are these delicate long strings of ice. The detailing was simply amazing.

And all through out the museum there were these ice balls on stands. I thought it was amazing how the artist was able to carve and light an image inside a ball of ice.

I 

There are themed rooms with beds for rent (only $600 to be cold and uncomfortable for a night), an igloo room with perfect acoustics complete with a xylophone made of ice so you can put the acoustics to the test (Jon tried out his vocal instrument by singing the National Anthem while Ella accompanied him on the xylophone), a sitting area with seating around an ice fireplace, and the whole room was lit by ice chandeliers.

 It will be an outing we will be talking about for a long time. Jon and I thought that we should toast to another great Bartlett family adventure...with ice glasses melting in the 80 degree heat.

Alaska Adventure Day 6

It was pouring rain again today and after spending most of yesterday sedentary (engrossed in our finds at the library) I knew that we needed to take action or the kid's untapped energy would bounce loudly and repeatedly off the small space all 6 of us share. The weather here is so crazy. It will pour one minute and then be beautiful and sunny the next. I check the forecast every morning when Jon leaves for work and usually it changes by the end of breakfast. It makes the days hard to plan and I tell you what, there is such pressure when the kids start off each day with, "what are we going to do today?" I truly never appreciated the energy and creativity it takes to make everyday a noteworthy adventure when you are with your little ones 24/7-so a special shout out to my mom, "thanks for so many years of noteworthy adventurous summer days!!" Today's adventure was swimming. The pool here isn't noteworthy in anyway, but the kids came home ready for lunch and a nap so I was happy. Bringing along a mother's helper also made me happy today because while the kids recharged their energy stores I was able to go to the store alone and get done some grocery shopping. All you mother's out there know the joy that comes from entering a store without your children, free to browse, or be alone with your thoughts, or even pop in your ear buds for some quality e-books time (at least that's what I do). 

The rain finally let up in the early evening so after feeding the hungry masses dinner we headed to the park. These are some of my favorite times with my family. Nothing manufactured, no ticket required, just playing together. I get to remember how it felt to be spun on a tire swing, recall the joy in an intense game of freeze tag, and let my kids glimpse the kids their parent's once were. I have to say, having Ally here to take photos has been great because I am usually totally undocumented in our family outings. 

We decided to end our evening by trying out a local ice cream parlor. Home made ice cream, heavy on the cream and by the wonderful taste and texture of the treat, heavy on the calories...but we're on vacation so who's counting, right? Danali fell asleep on the way over from the park. Its hard work keeping up with her family of big kids.
And that, my friends was day number 6.

Alaska Adventure Day 5

Woke up this morning to lightening and gray skies. YEAH! That means we're spending the morning in the library. The library here is awesome! It is super close to our hotel and offers reading areas for adults as well as the best kid's room I'ver ever seen. Its funny because we've only been here a little while but already we have our library routine. We walk in the door, the girls sprint to the kids room to play and see if there are other kids to play with, Caden starts combing the junior section for the next book in what ever series he's reading, and I gravitate to the three large round abouts with dozens of books on display. I keep meaning to ask who chooses the books that make the cut or what criteria frees a book from the obscurity of being one of thousands of titles stacked in the rows upon rows of books, but I am so caught up in reading jacket covers I always forget. I think that if I meet the display genius we would be fast friends. I am always drawn to at least half the eclectic collection of books and out of the 9 books I've read thanks to the mystery display person, only one wasn't worthy of finishing.  

This is the kids play room. There are these great murals on the walls, blocks, balls, dinosaurs, stuffed animals, books, and all sorts of activities for kids. 




 Ella tells me every time we go into the kid's room that she wants her play room just like this and can we please please buy some wall paints so that I can paint the walls like this room. She would be so disappointed in the stick figures the balloon animals that would result if I put my artistic prowess to the test.

This is the door leading into the kid's room. It certainly is my magic kingdom when I need a reprieve from providing entertainment and activities. I LOVE reading and so do the kids. I seriously go into bliss overdrive when I go into a library...so many books, so little time, and the smell, ahh, the almost musty but comforting smell of settling in with a well loved book. It gives me such a thrill to see mine and Jon's passion for reading passing into the next generation. Caden especially will devour books. On library days,  Ella and Danali play while he and I each pick a spot on one of the couches or find one of the bean bags spread around the kids room and curl up for reading time. 

We are a family of nerds and I don't mind owning that. 

After Jon got off work we decided to check out the family fun center here on base, scratch that, they call it post. Whatever, but people love correcting me about it. Anyway, the family fun center has a downstairs area with a kids play gym, arcade style games, and LASER TAG! Jon and Caden were thrilled by this discovery. We decided to gear up and fight a light beam battle in a pretty sophisticated laser tag arena against another family and some random off duty soldiers who split themselves amongst the family groupings. At first Ella and Danali joined the fray but after the section we were in pretend blew up and the lights started flashing, the jackets started buzzing, and the sirens started blaring they were DONE. The director of the fun center took them out and offered to look after them while we finished our 20 min round. I told Ella to just play on the play gym with her sister and that we would do games and stuff when  we were done. So after we emerged as the victorious blue team (woot woot-we were really working hard at it-can you tell by the flush of my face?) I was surprised to see Ella playing one of the arcade games. I thought at first that maybe the director had given her money to play a game until I noticed my purse at her feet and the 50 credits she had yet to play on the game!! I asked her where she got the money for the game and with a deer in the head lights look she spun around and said, "mom I only took three moneys from your wallet!". Yup, just three moneys, two Andrew Jacksons and one Alexander Hamilton. She had fed $50 into the LAMEST arcade game but boy was she proud of all the little trinkets she'd won. And boy was she mad when I made her give them all away to the other kids in room who didn't steal from their mom's wallet.

  

On a little side note, we explained to her what stealing was (being disrespectful of other's property isn't new territory with my sweet little Bella but I wanted her to understand the concept and consequence of stealing) and tried to impress upon her that she should be upset about doing something wrong, not the loss of some jelly bracelets and gum ball machine toys, but her heartache was all about losing her bling. She had a right little fit that lasted the entire 45 mins it took to play out the 50 credits on her machine and continued in the car on the way home. I told her to take a breath, a drink of water, whatever she needed to do to get her self under control or we would have to pull over and she would have to sit out side until she was done sobbing. I was seriously close to losing it by this point. I had kept myself in check and tried to use the experience as a teaching moment, tried to calm her down so she would understand her punishment, but the loss of $50 bucks and then the tantrum of my 5 year old because I made her give away her ill gotten gains was almost too much. In step my almost 8 year old peacemaker, Caden. Man is he a great kid. Out of all the little toys that came tumbling out of that machine Caden only wanted to keep these three little dinosaurs. For some reason he really loved them so it kind of made up for the fact that Ella's little sticky fingers robbed him of playing any of the arcade games he wanted to play (because we were out of money!) or win any of the prizes that he had originally coveted. Anyway, she was balling and wailing about wanting her stuff back and Caden says, "Ella, you can have one of my dinosaurs".  Not only that, but he let her pick which one, and she picked his favorite, and even though he had been super annoyed with her only a half hour before he gave it to her so she wouldn't be empty handed. Her tears dried up immediately and they set to playing dinosaurs in the back of the van. I don't know if the stealing lesson sank in for Ella, but the mercy lesson from my son will forever be with me.