Dipnetting 2012

The day after we got home from YW camp, Paul got up at 4 am to do some homework and we were on the road by 6:15 am to go dipnetting.  I slept the ENTIRE way down there.  We rolled in to the south shore of the Kenai River around 10:00 and were in the water soon.  And in no time at all, Paul was pulling out fish like nobodies business.  He likes to do the Kenai Shuffle, where you walk in super deep, up to your armpits and then let the current drag your net along while you walk beside it.  Almost every time he went in, he was catching fish.  I even caught some, standing not quite so deep in the water.  We ran into the Poulini's that we go to church with and they helped us out a bunch with 4 wheeler rides so that we didn't have to lug our heavy cooler all the way to our car.  That was super nice of them. 




We definitely hit the timing right this year.  We fished as the tide was going out, through low tide and a bit afterwards with the tide coming in.  We caught 18 fish at that point.  We stopped and had some supper then and planned to go to bed.  We were going to finish fishing in the morning, but when Paul saw some of our neighbors catching fish, he decided to go back in.  I however, decided not to go anywhere but in my sleeping bag!  What a lazy bum.  Paul kept working while I was sleeping and he caught 13 more fish, for a total of 31!  Our limit is 35, so we decided we were good, packed up and went home.  I almost stayed awake the whole drive.  Almost.  The whole time we were fishing I felt so grateful.  I felt grateful to Paul for being such a good man and such a hard worker.  I felt grateful to God for watching over us, answering our prayers and providing such a bounty for us.  It was the most fun I’ve ever had dipnetting.  It was such a perfect week. 






The shore was super muddy.  So when we would get a fish it would flop around in the mud while we were trying to get it out of the net.  I could hardly see out of my glasses!






Our party car/tent for the night.


I don't know why Paul insists on taking pictures like this and I have no idea why I insist on posting them for the world to see.




Paul, packing up to go home.



At home.




And now, Nat gets here the day after tomorrow and Mandy the day after that with her baby Nora!!!  The fun never stops!  What a life!

YW Camp - Johnson Pass

The Iverson’s left Sunday after church and Monday morning we left for Young Women’s Camp.  I was the camp director this year and I had decided that we should do a backpacking trip on Johnson pass. 

It had been cloudy cloudy and rainy rainy the whole month leading up to Monday morning.  I made a quick stop at the grocery store that morning for some quick last minute items.  The clerk wasted no time telling me he didn’t think we had a prayer for it to stop raining.  The end of the story is that the weather was great.  Day 1 was a little overcast, but warm. Day 2 was bright blue skies with a couple clouds here and there.  The last 2 days were perfectly blue blue blue cloudless skies.  Have you ever heard of such a thing??? That doesn’t happen here.  It was amazing.  Miraculous, actually.  We didn’t have one drop of rain the whole time.  That’s such a big deal to me because it was the difference between having a great time and having a cold miserable time. 
The girls were awesome!  There were 18 of them!  Have you ever heard of taking 18 girls backpacking??  They were 12-18 years old.  There were 6 leaders, which made a total of 24 of us in our group. 



The older girls took a lot of responsibility for helping and teaching the younger girls. 

 

The younger girls were champs too.  I heard next to zero complaining and so much helping each other out.  It was breathtakingly beautiful the whole time!

 



See, that is the sunshine you are noticing in these pictures. 


Brother Roylance let the girls shoot his gun.  They loved it.  And while they were shooting Paul spotted a bear on the other side of the creek where they were going to shoot.  It was a perfectly safe distance away to spot a bear.  That was the only bear sighting we had all week.  I can't imagine we would sneak up on anything!



We had 10 tents!  What a party!




We each drew names for a "Secret Sister" at the beginning on the trip.  We had all week to try to do nice things for that person.  At the end of the week we guessed who our Secret Sister was.  This smile is on my face because my Secret Sister had just taken a TON of weight out of my pack, bless her heart.  I TOTALLY figured out who mine was. 

 


So sunny.  So hot.  Awesome!



After this trip I felt definitely wiped out, but so so happy.  I felt like I finally had gotten my respite from real life that I was feeling such a need for.  I feel renewed and reminded of what’s real and important. 

Paul was such a champ to come along.  Those girls love him.  He and Brother Roylance were the only men and they each carried some heavy packs AND guns. 


 



IT WAS AWESOME!!!

Iverson Time

A couple summers ago Ben and Griff Iverson came to visit. They had a nice time and Ben thought it would be a snap to convince his Dad and brother to come up for a little Alaskan Adventure. Well, they made it happen. Ben, Ned, Dan-o and a friend of Ned's came up for a float trip on the Talchulitna River. Even though the river was closed to King Salmon fishing before they even got here, they had fun catching tons of other fish. Before they left on their float trip Paul took them out on a hike where they found this little guy.




This is no telephoto trick of the eye. He was right on the trail!



He didn't seem to mind everyone trekking by.






Dan-o wanted to see a glacier. Check.



We got to hang out a little as they were packing up for their trip and cleaning up from their trip.  They took us out for supper and we really enjoyed having them here.  Ben and his Dad discovered a hole in our air mattress.  Sorry about that! 



PS Ben had walking pneumonia the whole time he was here! What a trooper.

Fish Stories

Paul went fishing again with Eric this time. They were SUPER successful. They each got their limit (or almost). As they were winding down getting ready to come home, Eric was cleaning the fish while Paul was in the river. Paul looked up as he heard Eric say, "Hey!" really loudly. A bear had come out on the trail above where Eric was cleaning the fish!  They bear turned and walked away, thank goodness.  Paul came out of the river and they were deciding to leave without catching their last fish when the bear reappeared on a ledge above where they were.  They quickly got out of there and were none the worse for wear. 



Look how happy this guy is!




This happened on a Thursday while I was at work.  Paul got home the next morning at 4:30 am, so excited he could hardly stand it.  Needless to say I was a little jealous.  So with very little coaxing, he talked me into taking Saturday off and going fishing with him. 

The fishing was still great!  (For Paul...I have a little figuring out to do still...)  We were catching catching catching!  We were in the river across from a couple other people who were on the trail, doing just as good as were were.   At one point I had just put our 4th fish on the stringer when we heard the people on the other side of the river say, "Bear.  Hey, Bear."  We looked up and there were 2 bears on the trail.  When they saw the people on the trail, they decided to cross the river.  We saw them deciding to come our way when we saw the people point very near us and say, "You better hurry and get over here!"  So we did.  That's the fastest I have ever crossed a river in my life. 

As we got to the other side we saw the mama grizzly of the two cubs come out right where we had been standing.  And she saw our fish on the stringer.  Paul tried every persuasive suggestion he could think of to convince mama bear to leave our fish alone.  She and her 2 cubs each took one fish and we watched them eat our hard earned suppers.  Then mama came back and took the last one for herself.  We watched for a bit while they lumbered around.  At one point mama came back to check out our packs that we had left over there in our hurry to get out of the way.  (That's where the camera was the whole time.  Sorry, no picutres.)  Paul tried spraying her with some bear spray.  It didn't look like too much reached her over the river, but she definitely didn't like the sound of the spray, probably having encountered it before.  They eventually meandered down the river, leaving us in peace but fishless. 

We caught one more fish and went home with a great story. 

Where do I start?

Paul and I get a kick out of planning incredibly packed summers for ourselves.  This year has been no exception.  I guess I'll just try to fill you in.



We had such a good time hiking with the Olsens that we thought a fishing trip was in order.  We went down to the Russian River and took Andrew fishing while Brianna and Jessica guarded our campsite.  Jessica was in heaven!  In this picture she is in bed.  Don't let the darkness fool you.  It wasn't nearly this dark at about 11:30 or 12:00.  The flash just makes it look that way, honest. 



We had a good time even though no fish were caught. 

Just a side note.  While we were in Boston this summer our landlord got us a new fridge.  So we no longer have an avacado green fridge, which is kind of sad.  The other sad part is that it doesn't fit, so it's kind of sticking out into the kitchen.  We quickly got used to that, but it blocked the cupboards above it.  Here's Paul taking off the doors of our cupboard so we can use our blender to make very important milkshakes.