Here are a few memories from this Spring :
1) This spring we took a trip down to Anchorage to attend the temple. We had hoped to make it to the temple for the Friday night session and then one of us would attend in the morning while the other would accompany Charlotte to do baptisms. However, the drive to Anchorage is long (6.5-7 hours on google maps but when you add in bathroom breaks etc, it is more like 8.5-9 hours) and the kids needed a reward so we decided to go out to dinner and watch a movie in the theatre which is a rare things for us (both dinner and movie). We watched The Bad Guys which the kids thought was really funny. That night we staying in Eagle River with a friend named Tua Palmer who is also an AF Family Doc but is stationed at JBER. They were kind enough to offer us beds and space which saved us quite a bit of money. Tua also attended BYU and USUHS and he was 2 years ahead of me but we met up and became friends when he was stationed at Geilenkirchen, Germany which is a small NATO base and would travel to Spangdahlem for his kids to participate in cross country. He was also part of our clinical peer review group which allowed us to get to know each other a little.
While we were in the temple the kids were able to spend time with friends in the neighboring meeting house where Sister Butler watched the kids and they played games. One of the games Charlotte remembers was folding a paper in thirds and then without looking at what others drew, you would either draw the head, body or bottom and trade papers between body segments and allowing them to draw another section. When they were done they did a "reveal party" where they would see them all together and they would vote on which was the most humorous. Hazel recalls playing musical chairs and doing relay races. Zachary remembers that someone drew a target on the white board and then they would throw these soft small rubber "squishies" at the board to see who could get them to sick and get the most points.
This was the first time Charlotte was able to attend the temple to do baptisms. Sister Matteson helped her get dressed as Jari and I were in the main session that morning. Charlotte remembers "2 disasters" - first was that she forgot to take off her wrist watch so she had to pass if over to us and hoped it would not go off (it never did). The second "disaster" was that she forgot to bring extra underwear. In spite of this, she recalls feeling "very calm and excited at the same time... and peaceful as well. As soon as I entered the temple I felt nervous but once we were in the baptistry all of that went away and I was filled with peace and calm and knew that no one would laugh at me for doing something wrong. It was nice to help other people" After everyone had completed their tasks Charlotte was trying to sit on the edge of the bench but there was little room for her and she was only half sitting on the bench. She did not want to draw attention to herself even though it had been about 15 minutes ("it felt like hours though") and her leg was very tired. Jari noticed she was only on the edge of the bench and she pretended to push her off by scooting over and knocking her off the bench which made Charlotte laugh.
Here are a few pictures of the melting snow in Denali when we were driving home:
3) Kayaking! This spring/summer we decided to buy kayaks so that we could go kayaking as a family. We bought an inflatable kayak for Hazel and Charlotte to float in (Camille likes to sit in the front of their kayak) and then Zach would sit on the kayak that either Jari or I were floating on. Charlotte seemed to get the hang of it the fastest and Hazel would give up after 15-20 minutes and say she was too tired. Charlotte loved to kayak around the small islands as "it felt like we were exploring." We have discovered that we can go out for about 30 minutes prior to complaints by the younger 3. We have been out as long as 1 hour though. So far we have kayaked in Moose Lake, Bear Lake (both on base) and Chena Lake as well.
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