More pink

The rose jelly never did set up so we had rose syrup. We decided to still try it on toast, but we had to dip.
Liam's reaction, yum!

Abbie's reaction, not so favorable...I am going to try tempting her with rose soda after a trip to the store for soda water. Liam is excited to try this. I am thinking it will go better as an accent, rather than the only flavor note.

I had to try some on the last bit of frozen goat yogurt, soooooooo tasty! The tang and perfume went very nicely together. It's pretty too.

Pretty in pink

Today I tried to make rose petal jelly, A new experiment for me...such color! The ingredient list for this jelly is: rose petals, water, lemon juice and sugar. No food coloring! But the finished product is a bright, red/pink. The jars are still warm but it still looks very thin in there. I think we maybe ended up with syrup instead of jam. I haven't tasted it yet either. I will post more tomorrow when we get to try some on our toast.

Late Rabbit

Hehe, this bunny was gray not white but maybe he was still running late?? I am anyway....We finally got a chance to cook the bunny that was hanging out in the freezer. He was not a wild rabbit so no fears of tularemia. After lots of asking around, I decided to grill him. Mostly because it is so hot out!
We made our own BBQ sauce and cut him up for grilling. It took about an hour (so dinner was late, surprising, right?) then he was served up with fried apples and couscous. The rabbit was very good and did taste a lot like chicken. It is slightly more game-y and the flesh is a little meatier. I wish we had not used the BBQ sauce on all the meat so more flavor of Rabbit could come through. All in all very tasty! We also tried some new beers from Gouden Carolus. New to us anyway, Dad found a great beer store in Anchorage that is now permanently on our shopping list.

After cutting as much as we could from the back and ribs, those still meaty bits were tossed in a pot with some pintos to make "hare beans" those were part of supper last night along with grilled pork chops.

Eyes

As most everyone knows, I went to Anchorage earlier this week to have LASIK eye surgery. It went REALLY well. At this point I would recommend it to anyone. The discomfort is minimal and the outcome is fantastic!

(Just a side note, it is hard to get a good picture of your own eye.Sorry for the funny lighting, my skin is not really that orange)
I went to PCLI in Anchorage (the surgery institute who works with our regular eye doctor) They have have a lot of info here if you are interested. I had a complete eye exam, including corneal thickness tests and some extensive mapping to double check Dr. Mavencamp's numbers. They confirmed I was a good candidate and we moved on to surgery. I was given an ibuprofen, some eye drops and a dose of verced (a narcotic) and moved through the waiting area in stages with a bunch of other folks. They numb the surface of your eye and you lie back in a dentist type chair where they place springs in your eye to hold them open. A vacuum device is placed over your cornea and the 'flap' is cut and peeled back. Then a laser is used to cut away some of the inside surface of your cornea. The flap is then smoothed back on and a contact is placed in as a sort of band-aid. The surgery takes about 15 minutes and isn't painful. The most amazing part is, YOU CAN SEE! The change is amazing and immediate! After a few minutes to make sure I have all my after care eye drops I meet Kyle in the waiting room and we were done.
My eyes were light sensitive and dry/scratchy feeling but not painful at all. We went shopping and out to dinner with no problems. The next morning I went back for my first aftercare appointment, my eyes are healing well and my vision tested at 20/15! What an improvement!! I have to go back to my regular eye doctor next week for a check-up but this has been amazing. Today my eyes are still a little light sensitive outside and I need to use medicated eye drops 4 times a day along with some artificial tears. I have noticed looking at a computer screen for too long makes them feel tired, but I everyday is better than the day before.
Did I mention I can see??
Amazing :)

My comment (the comment page seems to be broken for me)
Not much dark to be had around here this time of the year! In the dim light, I have noticed some of the halo-effect they talk about. But, it is definitely fading and they say they can cut a large enough 'flap' to eliminate the worst of it. I shouldn't need glasses at all now until I need 'cheaters' for reading as I age. I will be sure to post an update after my check-up at the doctor here next week. I see better now than I have since I can remember!

Goat day

Abbie and I got to go to Zara's farm to milk goats with her. *Guest post by Abbie Rose*

This is Me-He, the other one Abbie got to try milking is Winnie! They are both little dancy-pantsys!

Their udders were soft! I tried the milk it was a little too sweet! They were both really cute. If you milked one, what would it feel like to you?

Honored Son

Liam was on the Honor Roll for the last time at Weller school. They also gave out certificates for completing their elementary school education.



One of the sixth grade teachers also made a slide show with the youngest picture they had on file fading in to the current school year picture. So sweet to see all these kids that Liam has been to school with for seven years as little ones!

Creamers Field

Today I went with Abbie's class to learn about life at Creamer's Field. It was a nice day despite some clouds. Warm and no rain (or snow this time, yeah!)

Such a pretty place! I wish they would open the barns to the public, some wonderful spaces inside there.

We got to see some birds up close at the bird banding station run by the ABO. This one is a robin.

She had a fun day (me too!) and learned a lot. We will definitely have to plan a trip back here with fewer classmates.

Alaskaland

After 2 posts about Liam, I figure you would like to see one of Abbie. I took her to Alaskaland last Saturday for a birthday party, she just HAD to ride the carousel before going home :)

Rocket 1.2

After hearing how cool Liam's rocket was at school, Kyle decided they should build one for home too! No bike pumps for these guys...we have an air compressor. The first launch ended up in the trees and resulted in the destruction of the nose cone. After some quick repairs, it was back to the launching pad.


The replacement nose cone (after hitting the house and the ground).

Filling the fuel...soapy water.

Clear the launching pad!!

LIFT OFF!! If you click on the picture you can see the rocket as a smudge slightly to the left of center above the tree tops. I don't think it flew quite that high, it was higher than the house roof but not the monster birch trees. Too much fun!

Rocket man

I went to Liam's class to see them shoot off the rockets they made. They are constructed of soda bottles and use air pressure to launch. Liam's had a few problems on the platform, it fell over and headed through his classmates! Luckily no one was injured, but the rocket didn't fare too well.

Getting 'pumped'

I think this is just as the rocket fell over. You can see the cloud of water from the propelling system.

Happy Mother's Day!

Some mom-loot, a flower pot and card from Abbie, a card from Liam and a spoon made by Kyle!

And some cute kids, sleepy morning time; working on cards and eating some breakfast.

Kyle's Birthday

I have been delinquent on posting! We had a 2 part celebration this year, waffles on his birthday day and 'cowboy dinner' on Tuesday. (Cowboy dinner= grilled chicken, beans, tortillas, salad, and salsa.)

Our BBQ Chef!

Lemon meringue pies!

Birthday loot and a lonely waffle.

Blueberry cake for sharing at work.

For some reason Kyle got lots of gun paraphernalia for his birthday....

Outdoors Days

I went with Liam to the BLM sponsored outdoors days today....it we had great fun and it was a really well done project. But. It was the coldest day we have had so far this spring. Not a good plan for hiking outside and listening to lectures on various outdoors jobs!
They got to do hands on experiments with fisheries (a stream life and bio-cumulative contamination game), animal tracking (finding a transmitter using an antenna and receiver), archeology (doing a mini dig), forestry (taking a core sample of a tree and finding its height, ours was 73 years old and 66 feet high), mapping (the kids got to make a map and Liam got to tell what radar is, smartypants!), and Liam's favorite, mining (they got to pan and keep the gold they found).

Learning how to dig at the archeology site.

Doing their digging, they found a campsite and learned how the bones and other clues could help determine how long the people had camped there.

At the mining site...see the snow??

I told Liam he had found more gold just now than his dad had in all the time he has been doing prospecting! (and took the picture at just the right moment!)