Soccer and VBS (sort of)

Boo is playing soccer this summer. He's playing alongside other five and six year old children.  His team name? The Huskies.  He plays so hard out there. Just running and chasing the crowd. :)  There are a few on his team who really seem to 'get it' when it comes to strategy and where to stand on the field, etc. He isn't one of them. Bless his heart. He just runs around in a herd mentality kind of way. It's so hard not to compare! Even mentally compare. I don't want to tell him he's great at it when he's not yet but I want to encourage him as well. So when he gets off of the field, I don't lie. I say, "I love watching you play soccer." Which is true. "I love how you try to go after the ball." Which is true. And, "You need to stop playing in the white chalk lines on the field and pay attention to the game." Which is true. Lol!
He'll get there. Right?
Of course he will. He always does, just in his time. You'd think I know that by now. Duh.

He definitely looks the part.
Soooo cute!
I love the way he looks so big and so little at the same time.

This is how he came off the field for a water break the other day. Hehe.

My BFF on the sidelines.

And at the park.
Not soccer related, just a cute picture of our girl.

The second half of the title of this post is VBS (sort of). Let me explain.

Boo and Bit didn't go to VBS this year. Vacation Bible School.  We haven't really found our church here in AK and the VBS on post starts with kindergarteners. Which means Bit couldn't go. So, I decided to do a low key version of VBS at home. I thought it would be fun (I used to love playing school as a child) and I thought it would help get me out of the mom-otony of it all. Get it? Momotony? I can't take credit for coming up with the word, but it just works so well.

 I found a free curriculum online concerning the Armor of God. I thought it would be right up our alley being an Army family and all. It talks about the armor that we can "wear" to battle evil in the world. Like truth and righteousness, etc. Well, it turns out our concrete thinking five year Boo old has a time understanding metaphors. "Where is my belt of truth? I don't see it." And he was serious. Where? Is? It?  "How can God live in heaven and in my heart? I think I believe in Jesus. I hope I do." His innocence as he made these statements had me in tears because he's so sweet and well, innocent. I was also frustrated because I didn't know how to answer his questions and because what I thought would be a 20 minute lesson was turning into an all day undertaking.

Is it magic, Mama?
Is the devil in every snake (uh...yes!)?
And it went on from there.

And our two year old? Well, she didn't want her pants to look at her. Can't say I blame her. That's all she had to say during our Bible School time. Well that and that she was hungry, of course.  She also just rolled around on the floor for most of it. Nice. ;)

Now let's go back for a minute. To the devil. So it turns out that this was the first time he had ever heard of the devil/satan. If I had been a thinking Mama, I would have thought about this and picked a different curriculum! I mean, we've talked about bad guys before, but not THE Bad Guy.
Let's just say, he was most concerned. And as we talked, I just knew he was not going to be able to let it go. Because he thinks like I do. I could just see his wheels turning. So, I just quickly moved past the devil. But he kept bringing me back. "What does he look like?" How does my belt (that I don't see) help fight the devil (that I don't see)?" I was in over my head. So I whipped out a coloring page and tried to lighten the mood. He didn't let it go so easily.

After our lesson, he spent all day "reading his Bible" and pretending he was battling the devil with the Truth.  He was serious about it. As he usually is.

So, it should have come as no surprise to me that the other night at his soccer game, I overheard him talking to his teammate... "Did you know that the dove is God's anemone?" 
Oh brother!
I'm pretty sure he was going for, "Did you know that the devil is God's enemy?"

The thought that immediately came to mind was, nailed it!

And by nailed it, I mean like this...

 (source)
B-man and I got so tickled at this picture one night on pinterest.
We could not stop laughing, because it's just spot on.
So, we always say nailed it when our finished products don't turn out as planned.

And it doesn't end there folks.
It should also have come as no surprise to me that Boo was terribly afraid of the devil that night and couldn't sleep because he was so scared that the devil was actually going to come get him. He was just beside himself. And all I could think at this point was a.)  This is my fault and b.) He is TOTALLY me. Poor baby. He's got a lifetime of worrying and irrational yet logical fear ahead of him.
I did my best to quell his fears and get his mind thinking about happier things...like the Disney Planes movie coming out soon. Whew! That seemed to work.

The next day, we took a very lighthearted approach to the second lesson on the breastplate of righteousness. Thankfully, it went much better.

He's been sick the last couple of days, so we're taking a break. Maybe forever.

Aunt R and Uncle D!!

Aunt R and Uncle D also made the journey to AK this summer! We were so thrilled to have them come visit! Aunt R and Uncle D are so much fun! Aunt R always teaches me to just relax a little and to have. more. fun! And Uncle D is just great with the kiddos who think he is their own personal playground. 

They had THE BEST weather out of any of our visitors, including BeBe's past visits.

WARNING: Photo overload. I know BeBe is dying to see some more photos.

We couldn't pass up this beautiful photo op on the way to Matanuska Glacier.

There she is.
This is one of the most amazing places on earth as far as I'm concerned. And you just can't really appreciate its beauty, grandeur, majesty until you actually get out on it.

See, everyone has more fun with Aunt R and Uncle D around!

Sisters!

Sillies!

Beauty.

They spent a couple of days with us and then headed North to Talkeetna and to Denali National Park. They had great weather with amazing views of Mt Kinley during their travels. They saw a lot of animals in the park as well. Some people come to AK and never see Mt McKinley or any animals. They got lucky!
After spending a few days up North, they came back to Anchorage for a couple of days and then we joined them on their trip South to Seward.

Waiting on our dogsled kennel tour at the Seavey's place in Seward.

That's a LOT of dogs! They do a great job keeping it clean and smell free.

Woohoo!

Meeting the pups.

Wearing the 2013 champion's parka!
It went all the way to the floor on him.

The next day, we went on a SIX hour marine tour. I've been putting this adventure off since we moved here.  Six hours stuck on a boat with little ones did not sound like something I was ready to tackle until now. Lil Bit is pretty independent these days and doesn't require a stroller or to be held in a backpack carrier. And with Uncle D and Aunt R along, we would have three adults to two children. Sounded like good coverage to me! AND, the weather was beautiful! Sunny and 70! You can't beat that for a marine tour in AK.  So...we set sail!

We couldn't have picked a better day.

Seals!

Sea Lions.
Boo was sea sick at this point. Poor fella. He was telling us that his tummy hurt and then he lost all color in his face. And then...well, you know. But we had our sea sickness bags in tow, so no mess was made.  He perked up quite a bit afterwards.

Sea Otters!
These guys are THE CUTEST!

Glacier. I can't remember the name of it.

Aunt R and Uncle D

My crew.

Puffins

We also saw some humpback whales (they were kind of far away) and Dall porpoises. They are porpoises who have the coloring of Orca whales (killer whales). I had never heard of them before and thought they were so neat. They are FAST too! After our tour, the little ones and I drove back to Anchorage. Aunt R and Uncle D stayed in Seward that night and then headed down to Homer for a couple of days. They were able to see the salmon run down there.
They spent their last couple of days in Anchorage and were kind enough to watch Boo and Bit one evening so that B-man and I could go on a date night. Thank you!

On their last day in town, we went for a hike.

Hiking!
The mosquitoes were terrible. We had bug spray on, but they were just swarming everywhere. And, there was bear scat on the trail.
Luckily, we didn't have a bear encounter.

Gotta throw some rocks.

This pic is somehow out of place. I'm too lazy to try to fix it.
Just more sea lions from our marine tour.

We're so glad that they came to visit us! After we dropped them off at the airport Boo, Bit and I shed a few tears. Lil Bit said, "I'm gonna miss them." Me too, baby! Me too.

Butlers head North to Alaska

One of my great childhood friends, Allyson,  and her family were quite brave this summer and journeyed to AK. It's a LONG way from SC. There were 2 adults and 5 children in the group. And they handled it beautifully. I never once saw them flustered or stressed. I was so impressed with how well they traveled. It just proves to me that I don't handle stress well. I'm a total mess and I'm at max capacity with my two. A and R were so calm. I could definitely learn a thing or two from them. 

Here are just a few pics of our adventures together.

Boo and E. E is Allyson's nephew.
I think they were both excited to be "brothers" for their short time together.

We went panning for gold one morning.
It was a lot of fun and the owners of the gold mine were great with the kids.
We were successful too!

Mr. R helping C and E.

Only part of our crew.

Lil Bit helping me babysit the babies!
9 months old and they were champs!  You should've seen me trying to feed them bottles at the same time!!

A and her babes!

Miss C and Lil Bit exploring.

My girl!

I took 3,000 pic of them here. And they would NOT look at the camera. Not at the same time anyway.  So, I made some grand gesture to get them to look at me and instead of just looking at me, they repeated my gesture. Not exactly what I was going for but it turned out PERFECT!
(Sound familiar BeBe...monkey see, monkey do?)

Silly faces.
We were also nearly carried away by mosquitoes here.

Hmmm...

These guys were such troopers!

Hiking in Denali National Park.

A and sweet baby J!

Family photo.
Sort of.
Everyone is in there, just not looking.

Beautiful views on our hike.

The big little people earned their Junior Park Ranger Badges at Denali National Park.
Boo is totally into this Junior Ranger thing and plays Junior Ranger all of the time now at home.

I'm so happy they came to visit. It was so nice to chat with A and R in the evenings. I miss our people from home.
Boo and Bit have been missing them since they left and want to know when they'll be back to play. Next week is good for us, how about you, A??!!


Up next...the Faye B&B opens it doors again for more special guests!