Unshiny rocks

Kyle is doing some dirt work so this morning we got two dump loads of gravel. Cutting in a new ditch behind  the  pizza oven and creating a pad for the shed and plow truck.

Get dinner

Sometimes you just need a quick dinner. Biscuits  and gravy can make it to the table in about  20 minutes.
One of the Sargents  taught me how to make gravy one morning I was cooking breakfast for Kyle's unit in the military. I have made it the same way ever since, but I don't usually start out with 15 pounds of sausage any more!

Girl adventures

Abbie and I went to a Girl Scouts camp this summer. I don't have any other pictures from it as it was actual camping, and I'm terrible about taking photos any more! We drove down, just us girls to Anchorage a few days early for some hang out and shopping time. Abbie is a good car trip companion, She sleeps half the time I think! Though it would be nice if she could drive some of the time.
We didn't do anything special in Anch. Lots of hanging out at the hotel pool and hot tub, Abbie's favorite! I will absolutely recommend the Hampton Inn. They are newly remodeled and it is always a great stay there. We ate at Aunt Annie's Pretzels I think 4 times! My girl loves her bread...and this new place Fat Ptarmigan Yummy wood fired pizza and wine, also ice cream around the corner. Also a little shopping, nothing amazing except finally finding mud boots big enough for my girl.
Next we met most of Abbie's troop in Palmer at the fairgrounds for 4 days of Girl fun! It is a huge event put on by the Anchorage council, they said about 720 girls between the ages of 8-18 were registered at the camp. The fairgrounds is really big, they had a fun walk/run one afternoon and the main loop we walked all the time was almost a mile! It was great to have the flush toilets, buildings and landscaping from a major fairgrounds and the organizers really knew how to manage that many people. As most of us were in tents, it was greatly appreciated.
The girls had 3 activities to go to a day, everything from intro to dog mushing, coin collecting, and HAM radio operating. Each night the whole camp would meet in the main event hall to hear a speaker. The favorite of all the girls was Ally Zirkle, a, Alaskan lady dog musher, she managed to hold all their attention for almost two hours! It was a little chilly as the wind blows pretty much non stop in Palmer, but we were dressed for it. We did get rained on and our tents flooded our last night but luckily the organizers let us use an empty building to sleep in.
We drove back to Fairbanks with AR's troop leader and some more girls. There was much less construction but we didn't make it any faster of a trip, we stopped for several hours in Denali Park to eat dinner and wander around. It was a great trip and so nice for me to travel with Abbie this time for an activity.

Junior Olympics 2015

I was thinking I should post some pictures from Liam's JO  competition here. We actually went in April, but I haven't had a chance to post about  it.
Junior Olympics  for air rifle is a national  event split into several groups. Men and women compete separately in 10 meter air rifle and .22 events. Liam qualified (in December) for the 60 shot standing air rifle event. Men from 12 to 20 shoot a qualifier, ours was at UAF, from a field of about 1500 the top 200 or so are invited to shoot head to head at the Olympic training  center (OTC) in Colorado Springs.

This is the Olympic Training center range building. A really nice facility, two floors of electronic lanes, I think 35 per floor.

Before competition, you have to sign paperwork, pay fees, and get all of your gear inspected. They use machines to test the thickness and flexibility of jacket and pants. They measure seams and boots, gun sights and adjustable pieces. A lot of rules to follow in this sport. This was taking place in the main gymnasium in the OTC, a separate building from the shooting range. The facility is still open to the public when there are competitions, we saw several tour groups. I wondered if they got a good explanation of all these doings?

This is from day one of competition. The monitor shows the live score for each lane, Liam's target is on the bottom row, second from the left. He is shooting on the lane second from the right.

The men get one practice slot and two competition rounds (60 shots each) The top 10 shoot head to head against each other in front of all the spectators. Liam qualified with a 555 (integer score, out of a possible 600) somewhere in the bottom third. Junior Olympics is scored using the decimal places from each shot as well. They are scored by a computer, for example a perfect bull is scored at a 10.9. Day one he shot a 589.7 for a place of 77, integer score of 567. Day two Liam really paid attention to keeping his routine and focusing on each shot. His score was a 606.3 (integer 581) finishing him in 52nd! 

These are all the interior AK men, two from Delta and six from Fairbanks/North Pole. Pretty good showing for a small program! We all had a good time, some scores better than others and it is a packed few days of range time, meetings, spectating etc. Liam is already looking forward to returning next year :)

Grown up girl

Abbie's finally had enough courage to get her ears pierced! All healed up with new ear rings

Adventures in cooking

I found this small appliance at a yard sale for a whole three dollars. Before you think it's an abelskiver pan, I'll tell you-it is a Takoyaki  cooker! Takoyaki are Japanese snacks. They are dough cooked usually with octopus (Tako in Japanese) but can be made stuffed with most anything. They are crisp on the outside soft and eggy  inside with scallions, seasoned with dashi  (fish and seaweed broth) ours were stuffed with shrimp and krab. You are supposed to eat them with sauce and toppings like bonito  flake and kewpie  mayo. They are not Abbie's favorite but the rest of us liked them well enough to almost eat the whole batch! So fun to try something new on the cheap!