Freezer Full of Fish

Royal made it back from Alaska last night with 160 pounds of fish in tow! Well, actually, really early this morning.  He was suppose to get in around 11, which for me is really late to be out and about!  But taking 3 planes across the country you are bound to run into delays, especially we've found, if you are flying United, so he didn't get in until around 1am this morning.  I was so tired driving to the airport, I kept finding myself driving like 10 under the speed limit.  Oops!  Good thing there weren't many cars on the road!  :)

I sent Royal to Alaska with a camera and an assignment to take A LOT of pictures.  He came back with a whopping 38 pictures, which for him is a lot.  Over 7 days, that's a little over 5 pictures a day!

Here is their camping/fishing set up in Sitka.  Royal got to snuggle up with his dad at night and after sharing a bed with all 6 feet of Wayne, I'm pretty sure he's not going to accuse little ole 5'1" me of hogging the bed anymore!

With a view of the ocean!  That's what I'm talking about!  Salty water within walking distance!!!  With fog and everything!  Ahhhh to feel cool and damp.....

Here's Fireball out in the boat.

And some of the fish they caught!  Royal's holding a 45lb halibut and 2 10lb yellow eye rockfish.

 

 

Here Royal is holding a 35lb Chinook (a.k.a king salmon).  He caught 2 of those!  Most of the other fish they caught were Cohos (a.k.a silvers), and there were a couple sea bass in there too!

To try and entice me to one day move to Alaska with him, he took lots of pictures of the things he knew I've been missing out here in K-land.
Water and Trees and Mountains.

Little sea otters and their pups

And Bald Eagles soaring around.  The only bald eagle's I've seen here are sitting in the zoo!

It's been a long week around here with Royal being gone, but it kinda feels worth it when I open my freezer and it now looks like this!  with more fish stuffed in the door and more stuffed in the freezer in the house!

**disclaimer** I know Royal usually looks far happier when he's holding a fish in his hands.  But the face you are seeing in the pictures is the face of Royal as he's trying to explain to his 66 year old dad how to use a digital camera (his dad uses disposable box cameras) and that you have to look for him on the screen not in a little view finder and his dad saying he can't see anything and doesn't know what he's doing and then pushing the button and taking a picture.  And in the world of Royal and Fireball, there is not a lot of patience, so there is not a lot of do-overs.  I assure you, from listening to Royal's voice on the phone every night, he was much happier then these pictures show....

Rock'n Route Triathlon

Today was the race my friend Kerri and I, for the past 11 weeks, have been training for.  The Derby Rock'n Route Triathlon!  I was actually pretty excited about this race.  Since doing Mudwater, I knew where I fit amongst the "pack" of people that would be there, so I wasn't worried about being last.  The swim was in a pool with a staggered start so I wasn't worried about drowning or getting run over so much, I really liked the route for the run, the temperature this morning was about 10 degrees cooler, and, as a bonus, I wasn't sick this time!  Last night, I realized I wasn't nervous about the race, that I hadn't been having nightmares about forgetting things, so then I started worrying about not worrying and that since it wasn't on my mind all the time I probably WOULD forget something.  See?  Even if I don't have anything to worry about, I'll make something up!  :)

Yay!  Number 137!

I woke up this morning at 4:30, got ready and headed out the door.  I met Kerri in the transition area and we set up our stuff together, and went and got body marked, and got our timing chips, and wandered around, and finally got in line to wait our turn to start the race.  The swim went really good, I thought.  I have no idea what my time was since I still don't have a watch, but my body felt good and I was able to swim the whole distance without stopping.  I bounced out of the pool and ran to get my bike stuff on.  I got on my bike and started to mentally prepare myself to chase people down and blow past them. "relax your shoulders, pull with your feet, tighten your core, regulate your breathing, ignore the annoying water drips going down your legs, don't shift down just keep pushing until the pedals feel easier - then spin, etc..."  Somewhere around mile 4 maybe, the road felt different under my bike.  I pushed on, just sure it was that the texture of the road had changed for a second, but the weird feeling didn't go away.  I tried to take a look back at my rear tire to see if something was wrong, I couldn't really see anything too much, but it still felt weird, then I notice I am slowing WAY down, and I know exactly what is wrong.  I jump off my bike, hoping I'm wrong, but there it is.  A big, fat, flat tire.  I have no spare tube and even if I did, I don't know how to change my tire (guess it's time to learn).  I. Was. So. Bummed.  I walked my bike back about a mile to the last intersection where there was a race volunteer and a police officer and had them radio in to get me a ride back to the start line.  I couldn't believe it.  I'm not sure why I'm so surprised, I seem to have an issue with flat tires, but so far they have only been on my stroller, I've never gotten one on my bike, and what are the chances that I get one during a race?  Ugh.  I'm just so depressed about the whole thing.  It's so anti-climatic.  All this preparing, all this building up, all those early, early mornings when I didn't want to get up, but I did, to get to this point, only to not finish.  The constant obsessing over the past week about what I'm eating, how much am I drinking, am I hydrated enough, am I getting enough sleep, am I making sure I don't workout too much so my legs and arms feel good just for this day.  Everything I had worked so hard for this whole summer ruined by a teeny, tiny, little rock.  I found the little rock stuck in my tire that has caused all my angst, and at the moment I felt like hurling it as far as I could down the road.  But instead, I saved it and am thinking about framing it because I hate it so much, and I am now trying to channel all my rage and frustration into it so I don't make a giant batch of chocolate chip cookies and eat them all.  Because you all know that's how I deal with things.  I stuff my feelings, and then I stuff my face....

And just to show you how tiny of a dagger the stupid thing is....did you notice it on the picture above of my race number?  If not, here's a close up.

How in the world did I manage to run that one little rock over?  Out of all the places I could have ridden my bike, it was in the path of this stupid tiny rock.  *sigh*   I'm sure tomorrow I'll feel better, but for right now, I'm depressed and angry.  I hate you little rock.

Storm Damage

Holy smokes there was a big storm that rolled in last night!  I really need to do a better job of paying attention to the weather, one of these times it's gonna come back and bite me!

Let me get you a little caught up, though.  Early Tuesday morning, Royal left for Alaska.

Look at those long sleeves!  I wish I was somewhere I could wear long sleeves.  I talked to him on the phone last night and he said he's already caught enough fish to fill a 50lb box!  Yes!!!!

So, while Royal's away, his mom decided she'd fly in and help me with the kids.  I know she would've preferred me to fly with the kids to Washington, but I have a triathlon this weekend and it's just too close to school starting to drag the kids through time changes.  Jayden starts kindergarten in just 18 days!

Grandma Norma's been a trooper though and trying not to complain about the heat too much. 

Last night Norma and I were down in the basement watching a movie after the kids had gone to bed.  I knew there were suppose to be some thunderstorms, but this time of year I've never experienced a bad storm, so I didn't think too much of it, figured I see some flashes and hear some thunder.  Well, the lights flickered a couple times and then I heard some of the kid's toys moving around under the deck.  So, I finally checked the weather and the advisory said there were going to be like 80mph wind gusts.  Holy smokes!  So, I finally looked out the basement window under the deck and I noticed the kid's pool was not there anymore.  We had lost it one other time earlier this year, but we managed to retrieve it unharmed.  I then heard all our deck chairs moving around, so I ran upstairs to get all the stuff on the deck put away.  I was getting hit with rain and ice pellets and once we got the chairs stacked and the towels and clothes and toys picked up, the wind was blowing so hard I couldn't get the door opened again.  Norma had to push the door from the inside while I pulled on it from the outside to get it open enough for me to get back in the house.  It was really dark outside and I looked for the pool with each flash of lightning, but couldn't see it.  I figured with that wind we may never see it again.  About an hour later the storm calmed down and I went to bed.  When we got up this morning, I looked outside to see if I could find the pool.  I did.  It flew over our 6ft fence and I think the only reason it didn't go any further than it did was because it got snagged on our neighbors iron fence.

It has some holes in it, but grandma and I are going to dry it out and see if we can patch it up and limp it through the rest of summer (a summer that feels like it's never going to end)

Unfortunately there was a bit more damage.  Our slide was ripped right off the slide platform.

And then one side of our fence was pretty much blown off.  No need to use the gate anymore!

Looks like Grandma and I have some repair work to do!

Rock River Rapids

We haven't ever been to the water park that is just south of Wichita in Derby.  It is actually the location of my triathlon next Sunday, and when I met up with my tri-buddies last Wednesday to do a trial run of all the routes, I saw the water park and had a feeling my kids would probably love it.  On Saturday mornings, they have a tot-time from 11-12:30, so you can get into the shallow pool if you are 5 and under without all the bigger kids and crowds around, so that's what we did. 

Jayden really wanted to wait around until 12:30, because that's when the rest of the park opened and you could go down the lazy river and the much bigger slides.  So, we waited around!

Sadly, Jayden missed the height requirement by 1 inch!  1 measly inch!  So the only thing he could do was float down the lazy river, but he had to wear a life jacket and he had to sit on an adults lap.  He was pretty bummed about not getting to go down the slides, but I think we had fun on the river!

Oklahoma Aquarium

I thought it would be fun to do something different this weekend.  Go someplace we haven't gone (air conditioned of course) and see something we haven't seen.  You never know, you might find something great!  Plus, I thought it would be fun to spend some time away from the chores and work and life that is our usual weekend and just do something with the kids, especially since Royal leaves in about 9 days to spend a week fishing up in Alaska. (Yea for fish!!!)

So, I surfed around the web and Royal and I decided on the Oklahoma Aquarium down in Tulsa.  It's about a 3 hour drive and the website looked like it would be pretty good.  Sadly, it was pretty lame.  Maybe I just had high expectations growing up going to the Seattle Aquarium.  Where were the sea lions? and the sea otters?  and the seals?  penguins anyone???
The only aligators were these statues out front (that exhibit wasn't finished I guess)

The windows to the fish displays were so small that it was hard to fight through the crowd to get a peek at what was inside.

They had obviously renovated parts of the aquarium and had put in some bigger tanks with bigger windows, so not all of it was these tiny peep holes to look in.  The reef exhibits with all the warm tropical fish was pretty great to look at, and the shark exhibit was pretty awesome.  The best part of that, of course, was the megalodon section - a shark found back in the dinosaur times - Jayden knew what it was before anybody even told him.  He went running down the hall, "MEGALODON!!!!"

We ended up spending only a couple hours at the aquarium before we had seen everything (a couple times), so we decided to leave.  I was a bit bummed because we had spent more time in the car then we did at the aquarium, so thanks to our GPS and my sister on her computer in Phoenix (we don't have internet on our phones), we found a children's museum to play at, and we spent a few hours there letting the kids play and run around.
Willow did some shopping

and made me a cake with cabbage on it and sung me happy birthday.

Jayden happened to make a new best friend while we were there and I couldn't hardly find him to get any pictures until they got to the stage and dress up area.

Onto a silly sidenote...we are still working on potty-training Willow.  She does really well at home and has no accidents there (other than she refuses to go #2 in the toilet and waits until bedtime and poops in a diaper....I seem to remember her brother doing the same thing), but she does NOT like using any toilet other than the one at our house.  Well, I didn't get her diapers washed the night before our trip to Tulsa and I didn't want to buy any disposables and I didn't really want to have her spend a day in diapers, but I didn't want to have a pee'd in carseat, or a puddle of pee at the aquarium to clean up, or wet clothes to change and bring home.  So, I came up with a genius idea!  I put her little potty chair in the back of the car, which I wasn't sure if it would work because she has only used it a few times, but when I showed it to her before we left, she promptly jumped up in the back of the car and pee'd in it.  YES!  And 2 hours into the drive down to Tulsa, she asked if she had a diaper on, I told her no, we pulled the car over and victory!

Envy

I opened my freezer and found this.

Strangely, I kinda wished I was that snake.......will the heat ever end????
(and I know if I was in back in the good ole northwest and was experiencing their 78 minutes above 80 degrees the entire summer, I'd be complaining about it.  but i'm not there, i'm here and if i could get a 65 degree rainy day, i'd put my lawn chair out in the middle of the road and sit there.  all. day.)

Big Fishin'

I'm pretty sure Royal's dreams came true last night when Jayden finally popped the question, "Dad, can we go fishing?"  Queue a slack-jawed Royal and angels singing in the background.  Don't worry, Royal quickly recovered and made promises that the next night, as soon as it cooled off a little, they would head down to the pond to try and catch a fish....and there was no way Willow was getting left behind!

 At first, there were a lot of wild casts (Willow didn't get to cast, she just reeled in) and a frustrated boy, that he couldn't cast as far as Royal, or even hit the water half the time.  And there was a lot of catching this:

And Jayden about gave up and said he was no good at fishing and that he wasn't going to do it.  But Royal kept telling him that he used to be just like him, and that it takes a lot of practice, and soon enough Jayden would be outcasting him.  Then Jayden said, "Dad, you have to reel it now.  My pole keeps getting really heavy"  To which, Royal and I both yelled, "That means you have a fish!!!"  And then Jayden reeled in this sucker.

There was a lot of concern on the kid's part about the amount of bleeding the fish was doing after Royal finally got the hooks out (they have been recently freaking out about Royal killing flies and how he's killing a family), but don't worry Royal put him back in the pond and he swam off and never came floating back to the surface, so we think he's ok.

Then, about a minute later, Willow reeled in this one!  And she was very enthused that her fish didn't have any blood on it.

And we now have plans to go fishing again before this week is out.  We're pretty sure the kids are hooked.  :)