Christmas dinner

We are having duck, Brussels sprouts, roast Tate's, Leigh's soft warm buns.... Hahaha

Reading the night before xmas

     And I am trying to push the button.  Love yall.

Marshmallow

Merry Christmas to you!

  

Sir Francis Drake

Liam had to dress up for an AP Euro report as SFD, a good excuse to visit Leigh's studio of quick and dirty costume sewing. Cape from a previos costume, shirt and sash loaned from the drama dept., crazy pants by mom!

 

Make a leg!

Liams shooting weekend, day 3

12/15 was the last day for the JORQ, air rifle portion. The kids also had a decent write up in our local paper for the MAC: link to the news minus One quote credit is wrong for Liam, it is the LHS Coach, Curtis Watkins saying how Liam has natural talent.

Liam's score from today was a 561 for 60 shots of standing air rifle. Not his personal best and just a few points shy of medaling again. There a quite a few Anchorage area shooters who come up for this event who only shoot air rifle so there was roughly twice as many shooters than the .22 section.

This was a long, full weekend of shooting, but Liam put up some great scores and had a really good time. Now we get a small break as he heads into finals week for school and we switch over to the Midnight Sun Sharpshooter season. There are several matches in the works but a greatly reduced schedule of 2 days a week at the range instead of the 6 that is normal during the High School season!

Liam's shooting weekend, day 2

12/14 was only the final day of the mid Alaska championship, small bore competition(.22). Liam did OK, a 552, not his personal best (a 557) but good enough to win the Gold for this years tournament!! The picture is from the award ceremony in the UAF indoor rifle range. Also pictured the 2nd and 3rd place winners from Hutch High School who ultimately won the top team award.  Hutch also hosted the match this year, presenting awards is the coach and principal for Hutchison High School.

Liam's shooting weekend, day 1

Liam has a full week of shooting this year, his regional high school match is this weekend and also the Junior Olympic Regional Qualifier for the state of AK. The first round of the MAC (mid Alaska championship) went ok, air rifle to start with a 555. Not his best, but not a bad score either, and his team won the air rifle portion today. The .22 small bore JORQ was shot directly after, Liam's score was a 549. Definitely not his best, but enough to earn him the bronze medal for Alaska men!

Liam looking Olympic.

Liam's medal he earned today shooting at the JORQ!

Liam will be shooting 12/14 at 2:45 (.22 for MAC)
12/15 at 1 (air rifle for JORQ) you can watch the targets live here:  Nooks Rifle *All times for local Fairbanks time

Better late than never

One good pic from Halloween for this year. Abbie was a rock star!

Also pictured: Christen, the lone ranger and Rachel a spider queen! Playing silly games at the Girl Scout council. Liam wore a power rangers shirt in a group costume with some friends, but I don't have a good pic to post :)

Christmas concert beauty

Na

Holiday baking 2013.1.0

We are celebrating Thanksgiving early today with Stan, who will be gone at work on Thursday. Mom's recipe of old fashioned apple pie and some soft white rolls:

For Auntie Terry

Vietnamese crispy fish

Very tasty! I used less lime, but I will very much make it again!

Making fried rice for supper

Cakes of the dead.

For the Halloween carnival cake walk at Weller. Yum! Also, if you ever want to multiply your fave recipe by 3, use a scale to portion ingredients by weight instead of volume, they turned out great.

Pumpkin carving day

It has become tradition for us to carve pumpkins with Stan and Lorna, and today is our day for 2013!

The reveal, all lit and ready for Halloween. Now it just has to cool off before they rot!

Steam buns

A trial recipe, leftover pork and dough from scratch.

Meat candy dinner

Ok, really it is Chinese barbecued pork (char siu) with seared peppers and onions over rice. In the recipe description it is described as meat candy and we agree! This one will go in rotation, and luckily it made plenty so we have enough for another meal or to freeze for lunches or snacks. Maybe next time we will need some steam buns as a side...

Eggs!

A flatish place

Thanks dad for the use of the tractor! Look its a flatish place for stuff. I still need to level it better than by eye but the ground was acting squishy from the dry wet clay mix.

Nomnomnom

Well, maybe after cooking! We are on our way to filling the freezer, 8 meat hens left and 6 or so layer culls, if we don't winter them.

A place for chicken murder.

All set up, just waiting for chickens...

Abbie's new violin

Abbie is still in orchestra, and this year needed to get her own instrument. Luckily Grandad and Grammie Lorna have been interested in buying her one! I think she likes it! And I didn't even get a shot of her hugging the case on the way home in the car :)

Test post from the iPad...

I have downloaded the blogger ap for iPad in the hopes it will be easier/faster to post and maybe I will do it more often.

A shot of our front yard, now with chickens! Meat birds on the left, layer flock culls on the right. Chicken murder scheduled for Monday for at least 10 of the most irritating roosters. Some of the largest hens are going to go too. Tasty!

Updates

Once again my blogging time has been hijacked by kid fun. Not that I mind, and it does seem as though I have plenty of time while out waaaiting on practices and classes to be over that I could blog. Maybe I should take up a collection to fund an iPhone so I can blog from the range and ballet studio?
Abbie Rose just finished a ballet class with North Start Dance studio. I have been bad about bringing my camera to events and so I have no pictures to post...but she did have a good time and is already thinking to do it again next year. Abbie Rose also got to check out her violin for the summer from school. She had to turn in most of her sheet music but has he beginning book to practice from and has had it out several times so far.  Abbie Rose has also decided to try an overnight camp this year and will be going to Li-Wa in June. The Girl Scouts are also planning to go camping as a troop sometime this summer, possibly in July. I also have a cooking for kids camp to sign her up for on Monday. The end of her school year has been pretty good, she has become quite a good writer and their class entered the "Six words for the birds" contest in the paper: (link) (AR goes by just Rose at school) Ms Hammer has been a great teacher that AR has gotten to stay with for two years, but on to someone new next year!
As for Liam, he is gearing up for the end of school, his load of accelerated classes mean lots of extra work and a high expectation of these kids. He is also still shooting with the Midnight Sun Sharpshooters for anyone who doesn't know, they shot a match on May 5 as a postal for the 3 position state junior Olympics. They did so well as a team their score was the highest in the section! That means they got invited to the National competition in Alabama in July. There are three sections competing with a total of 225 shooters who compete as teams and also individually. The match is called the Three Position Air Rifle Championships run by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. With our official notification just coming in this week, we have all been in a flurry of travel plans and fund raising efforts! Everything will come together fine and I am sure the kids will do well, but this means much more time at the range for our kids.
As for us grown-ups, Kyle has a full work schedule for the summer. He built a chicken coop with the intent for having meat birds once it warms up...I will encourage him to post about it, but don't hold your breath!  We are also having some of our layer flock to vacation for the summer at least, the coop is intended to hold some of them for the winter but I think we are going to end up eating a few. Kyle's sister and her family are going to be visiting in July, overlapping Liam and I's trip to AL. With all of these big doings, I don't know how much camping we will fit in but I'm sure we will at least make it out for day river trips!
Some random recent pics for you:

 I decided Abbie Rose needed a corsage for her Spring orchestra concert. I think she liked it :)

No good pic of Liam from anytime recent, so you will have to make do with his birthday cake...he had rifle on his birthday so his request: chocolate cupcake cake with cream cheese icing. The air rifle was my addition! Note to self, don't try to ice a cupcake cake in a warm room with real frosting. Lots of dripping, but it tasted wonderful!

2013

Sigh. I am a bad blogger. We really have been busy....

Some of this:

This was taken at Abbie Rose's holiday concert. But we are treated to a private concert several times a week. And A LOT of this:

Regional High School competition for the Lathrop Rifle team. Liam did very well, getting to shoot there as a JV and a freshman is kinda like getting play with the Varsity players for your championship game on the football team as a freshman and first year player. Pretty cool. And then there was this:

Christmas breakfast, crepes. I think Liam ate four :) And some of this for the rest of Christmas break:

The blankie and pillow was Girls present from her big brother, it was a hit! The kiddos started back to school this week. Kyle is still working nights, but they have a finalized contract for this year. Liam is shooting for another team, The Midnight Sun Sharpshooters. They only meet 2 days a week, but we will get to travel twice for matches and they have decided to invest in an Orion system (LINK) so we can participate in more matches without traveling. Abbie Rose started a new yoga class and is very much enjoying it. She also continues to do Girl Scouts. As you might know, they will start the cookie pre-ordering next week and I am the cookie parent for our troop this year. So, still busy, but I will try to blog more than once a month!