Robersonplus1

Greetings from the internets! Lol. Obviously I've been slacking on the whole blog update thing, so I am trying to catch up. The story of my life...especially since I had kids, lol!

Immediately below are some pictures my friend Emma took before my Mom left-aren't they great? And they were taken in about five minutes flat.

Here is Kenai with her ears down, she's so cute when she does that.

Here's Zach loving on his sister. He is a good big brother.

As you probably know, Chris reenlisted last month. He signed until 2018! Gulp. And if he tries to get away, that polar bear is going to get him. When you reenlist you have to swear the oath of enlistment again. Instead of reading from a card and going line by line, Chris and his boss memorized it and both said it in full! Pretty impressive.

So, here is a chance for you to have the Alaska experience if you want. I am driving home to drop off some medicine for Melanie and what do I see? Not much since it's always dark here in Alaska...but I noticed two black spots up ahead. Moose! They were hanging out IN my driveway, eating my shoveled snow/icemelt (gross). I couldn't go home! So, the first picture is from my car and the second is from our window, taken by Chris.

Notice the moose is staring down the street. I had to go to school, so I put the medicine in the mailbox so Chris could come get it. The moose was making sure I wasn't up to any funny business.

And here come grandparents! David and Kathy came to visit...and they picked a good time-Melanie was in that smiling/cooing stage...she's in between the not sleeping phase and teething, so it's a great time! And Zach is just plain hilarious-so much fun to be around.

Our friends Emily and Holly came to babysit so we could go out with David and Kathy. Emily is holding Melanie here. She text me that picture and a message that said, "I want to have a million babies," while we were out. =D

Below you can see my very loud pink Carhart jacket. It's awesome...combines pretty and functionality all in one! And that is my very handsome husband.

This was our second bar...can you tell? And that cosmo was labeled the Alaskan take on Sex and the City...which apparently means YUCK. Ugh, it was awful. But, who doesn't like a drink that matched their jacket?

During the winter the "park" downtown has ice sculptures. Here are David and Kathy sitting on the ice train. Can you imagine how cold their bums are?

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Chris and I took advantage of the babysitters and went barhopping! Above was our first stop, the anchor. Below, and like four bars later, is the world famous Chilkoot Charlies. This was our first real date since before I was pregnant! We had a good time...as you will soon see in the upcoming pictures.

We decided that since this was likely our last chance at fail proof babysitting that we would do enough partying for the rest of the year. We hadn't been to any of the bars downtown except for Humpy's so we decided we'd do one beer a bar until we went to them all. It was a good plan...except that we forgot to eat! We went to this one bar that was as big as my living room. It was very weird. ANyway, as the night wore on, the photos got worse. I can't believe this one is in focus.

You know the best way to get over a hangover? Go outside when it's less than 10 degrees out. And stay out there. Yes, the next day we went to watch the ceremonial start to the iditarod. The real race starts about an hour north on Sunday...here we are in Anchorage on Saturday. All the mushers run through the town. Zach does NOT like being on his Daddy's shoulders btw.

There's a pretty girl!

Grandad showed us how to make dumplings when he was here. ...there were a lot of dumplings. David always doubled the dumplings because Chris and Brandon would eat them all!

David hates dogs, can you tell?

These were photos David took...they are everyday photos for us, but it's neat to see the place through a visitor's eyes.

We went bowling at the base bowling alley. It was Zach's first time bowling. He had a lot of fun! Also checkout those Carhart overalls my mom bought Zach! Look outfox Melanie in a couple of years because Nana bought her some matching pink ones!

Everytime it went down he'd say, "Whoa!"

Melanie just slept the whole time. Such a pretty girl!

Grandad tried to wear him out by having him use a heavy ball-an 11 pounder!

Zach helped Nana celebrate after she rolled the ball down the lane!

Grandad got a lot of good baby-holding time in.

Project! We made melted crayon art for each of the kids' rooms. Melanie loves to stare at it.

Nana, Grandad, Zach and Melanie had a lot of fun together!

One big happy family!

The grandparents figured out how to take photos with their computer!

"My crazy brother is behind me, isn't he?"

The other day I was coming home and this is what happened...I pulled up to the train tracks just as the gates were lowering. The train stopped about 50 feet short of the crossing and stayed there for about ten minutes. You'd think I would've left by then...but I was stubborn. THEN it sloooowly started pulling up. And it stopped in the position you see there. At that point I did give up and turn around. Stupid train.

"I'm so tired I can't keep my mouth closed."

Zach had his last day at daycare Friday. It was bittersweet. He's coming home since I'm almost done with school-there's no reason for him to be in preschool full time. But he'd been there for about a year and a half so it was a little sad. They gave us all of these little cards that they'd filled out since he started. The one below was pretty funny! I'm going to do my best to keep teaching him stuff since he's so smart. His brain is like a sponge-we've just got to keep filling it. If you have any suggestions, they are welcome. Balancing him and Melanie at home along with all the other stuff at home is...enough to fill the day! Thank goodness I recently took up coffee drinking.