Go Huskers!

We enjoyed the first husker game of the season this afternoon. Lauren looks adorable in her first husker outfit, thanks Mom! We had lots of appetizers during the game and did some web cam with the family while rooting on the huskers. It's pretty cool to be able to watch our favorite team with our family while we are so far away.

The newest member of our household has settled in nicely. Cassie moved up on August 19th and will officially become Lauren's nanny starting September 2nd. Ashley has enjoyed having her sister with her prior to going back to work. They've been buzzing around town, getting the house in order, preparing Cassie for her new role, and playing lots of Wii! We are both so glad Cassie was willing to come up and take care of our daughter for us.


Last week Lauren rolled over for the first time! It was an unexpected moment as Dad had just finished giving her a "baby massage" and thought she might like to lay on her belly for a few minutes. Before we knew it Lauren had rolled over three times! Since then she's rolled over two more times. It is wonderful watching our daughter grow up.

Camping Trip

This weekend I was lucky enough to get to go camping (Ashley stayed home with Lauren). On Saturday I went out with several friends to Young's Bay located about 30 miles outside Juneau on the backside of Douglas Island. The Geary's (Nate and Sarah) went with me in my skiff, the Ivaniszek's (Josh and Colleen) took their boat over the night before. The boat ride was about 40 minutes long, delayed slightly by the boat traffic in the area for the annual king salmon derby.

After anchoring my boat I had to walk around the bay back to the cabin. Josh and Nate came to walk me back, each carrying a rifle. We were separated by a large stream so we had to walk around a ways to find the low spot in the stream to cross. The guys (on higher ground than I) spotted a bear walking my way about 50 yards up around the bend. At that point I decided to cross the stream where I stood to avoid seeing the bear face to face!

We stayed at a "nice" four bunk cabin located about a half mile from the bay. There is a small stream a stone's throw from the cabin. The Ivaniszek's said that on Friday night there were bears everywhere feeding on the salmon in the stream, making it hard to sleep. We saw bear skat all over the area (along the trail to the cabin, by the stream, next to the cabin!)


Here we are sitting around the camp fire (l/r: Nate, Josh, Sarah, Collen). I got lucky and actually caught a fish from the stream. My first fish as an Alaskan resident! It was a 10" dolly varden trout. We pan fried it in a little oil and seasoning over the open fire, man it tasted so good! Nothing better than some keg beer and fresh caught fish!

After dinner we blew off the rest of our old fire works. Several minutes later a coast guard helicopter came hovering over our cabin and shining its spotlight down. It was kinda creepy (like a scene from the X-Files) but they eventually left us alone. At first we thought they were harassing us for using fireworks, but it turns out they were out searching for a plane that went missing in the area just a few days earlier.


We learned to appreciate tidal changes on this trip. Here, Josh & Colleen's new boat is stranded on shore due to the large tidal changes. They couldn't leave on Sunday until around 7pm because of that darn tide. I got lucky with my skiff and managed to get Nate and Sarah out of the bay around 2pm.


Here's the stream next to the cabin where we caught the trout.