Fall is here...

Fall is a four-letter word. In our house, it means there's a whole lot of work to be done before our schedules sort themselves out and we can settle into our respective roles at home and in the community. From here I'll just go down the list, one by one, so you can get an idea of what we're up to this time of year and how we get ourselves prepared for the next 9 months.

JoElle

I've quit my summer job at Mountain Miss/Work & Rugged Gear and I'm settling into a new job, serving and training to tend bar at Bayview Restaurant & Pub. It's true that working at the clothing stores was just a summer job, but the main reason I left was because they weren't able to work around my schedule, since having Stephen back at work means that I am only available nights and weekends. Truth be told, it's not necessary for me to work, however much our bank accounts are helped by me doing so. I just like having a reason to get out of the house and interacting with different people.

Speaking of getting out of the house, I'm also enrolled full time at University of Alaska Southeast, studying to complete my Associate's degree in Health Education. I'm taking 15 credits this semester, including Introduction to Psychology (on-site), American Sign Language I (on-site),  Weight Training for Women (on-site), Intermediate Algebra (distance), and Music Appreciation (distance). It's notable that this is the first time I've taken any live, on-site college courses, so I am experiencing a little bit of a learning curve in getting everything going, but I've started all but one of my courses (my first ASL class meets today) and I'm really enjoying everything so far.

Between work and school, I'm kept pretty busy running around, but they just fill the time when I'm not at home with Porter during the day and taking care of our household.

Stephen

Stephen is back to work after a long and somewhat relaxing summer. He is working on exciting things for the MEHS music program this year. Besides his regular music, rock band, and choir classes, he is also gearing up for Southeast Music Festival, hosted in Sitka this year, and working on a radio club that will take students to our local Public Radio station and teach them to run soundboards and dj, create radio programs, conduct interviews and share stories, and collaborate with their community for content. This, of course, is in addition to the fortnightly College Radio show he co-hosts with our good friend, Cassidy Patnoe.

If that wasn't enough, Stephen has also involved himself pretty heavily in a community playground project that will hopefully erect a family-friendly, ADA-compliant, and endowment-maintained community-built playground in 2013.

Seren

Seren might be the busiest of us all this school year. She has started full-day Kindergarten at the SEER School, a private elementary school near our house. The theme for learning this year is World History, so she will learn about different cultures and adventurers, get plenty of physical activity while discovering the cultural and natural aspects of our own community, and learn some Spanish from guest instructor, Maite Lorente, who is also the children's librarian at Kettleson Memorial Library.

Additionally, I am going to be working closely with her participation in a brand new 4H program that has been started in Sitka and she is slated to start Pee Wee Wrestling in January, which is coached by MEHS's own Japanese teacher and Wrestling coach, Mike Kimber.

Porter

Somehow, even with all the craziness that the rest of us have going on, Porter only spends ~8 hours per week at daycare. The rest of the time, he and I pal around the house while Seren and Stephen are at school. Porter is still too young to have too much going on outside the home, but he is still in speech therapy and doing well. So well, in fact, that he has been reduced from visiting his speech therapist down from once a week to once every other week. If his ability keeps improving in the way it has been for the last few moths, his visits will drop down to once a month. He now has a vocabulary of around 60 words and uses 2- and 3-word phrases occasionally. Now that he has a vocabulary strong enough to make requests and identify his surroundings, we are working on verbs, spacial awareness, and abstract concepts like feelings and memories.

He is also very close to being completely potty-trained, which means more freedom for him to do the things he likes to do and less hassle for his parents (us), which is always a high priority. Along with the transition from diapers to jockeys, we have replaced his toddler bed (actually his sister's toddler bed, which is now a frame for her full-size mattress) with a real "big-boy" twin-size bed. He loves his new bed and all the extra room it gives him. He also likes that we can sit in bed with him to cuddle, read, or whatever.

...And that's about it. *Whew!* If all that isn't enough to keep us out of trouble, I'm certain nothing will.

We hope all of you are settling into your own cool-weather schedules with ease. As always, we appreciate all the questions and comments everyone leaves on our blog. We enjoy hearing from you and it gives us a reason to write updates more frequently.

Porter's Traveling Harmonica Show

I was about to upload this video to Facebook, but then I decided it was worthy of its own blog post. It's less than a minute long, but here are some things to watch for:

• Continued blowing minus the harmonica
• A brief, yet incomprehensible mid-song introduction by the artist
• An up-turned chair
• Exit over the back of the couch

In other news, we went to a going away party for the niece of Sitka's favorite watercolor artist, Keith Greba, on Saturday. Ashleigh is going to college in Georgia and spent this summer in Sitka, working at Sea Life Discovery Tours, learning to paint under Keith's instruction, helping Keith stage his house for sale (which sold in under an hour of listing!), and occasionally coming upstairs to visit with me at work.

While we were at Keith's place, though, Porter was sitting in a folding camp chair on the deck out back and one of the legs of the chair fell off of the 12" deck, landing Porter on a pile of rocks with the chair on top of him. At first glance, he was fine, if not a little shocked by the fall, with only a bitten tongue. After a few moments, another person pointed out that there was blood on Porter's forehead. Sure enough, there was a 1/4" long puncture wound in his head, presumably from the chair falling on top of him. Stephen took him inside and cleaned him up and we put some ice on his head for swelling. There wasn't much blood and I wasn't all that worried, but we decided to leave the party early and take him to the doc for a once-over, bracing ourselves for this trip to include a couple of stitches.

If I haven't said it enough already, I absolutely love the doctors out here. I called ahead to the emergency room and they ordered Porter's chart while I was on the phone. Then, I went directly into the emergency room and announced my presence. The records clerk dropped off Porter's chart right after me and I was asked if I checked in up front. No, I didn't, but the nurse called up front and checked us in so we wouldn't have to backtrack. Within about 2 minutes, we were sitting on a bed and a nurse was fetching some baby shampoo and wet gauze to clean the wound. The longest part of our visit was waiting for the doctor to arrive, as he was on-call from another department (presumably Maternity, since all of our OBs are family practice doctors). He asked me what happened, checked Porter over in a thorough-yet-casual manner, and commented on how charming he is. The doc then told me that the cut was not in a place that warranted concern about scarring, that head-wounds rarely see infection, but to keep it clean and dry and go on as normal. The only reversal he had on this opinion was that I was to call him if Porter started vomiting. That was it--a quick swab with Bacitracin and a shiny new bottle of ibuprofen, and we were on our way home.

Keith and his wife, Martha, were both very concerned for Porter and have kept up with his healing progress over the last few days. Porter, on the other hand, has not shown the slightest bit of concern for his head since about 15 minutes after the accident took place and he and his sister are back to rough-housing as normal.

almost on the road!

We just spent the night in sleeping bags on the floor. Not as bad as it could have been, but I know two people who definitely aren't 14 any more. We got the carpets vacuumed last night and have to mop the tile and scrub a few counters this morning before we have the head of maintenance come over and look things over. Once he's done, we head to the business office to try to get our housing deposit back. Once THAT is done, we hit the road!

Our plan is to go about 200 miles and stop for lunch in Holbrook with our friend Roger at Romo's (disregard that negative review - I've never seen service that bad, although it's rarely perfect) for my last fried shredded beef tacos for a long while. Once that's over, we're getting back on the road to try to make it to eastern New Mexico for the night. Our goal is to make it to Tucumcari, where I'll do my best not to talk like John Wayne all night.

sometimes it's good to just be around the people you care about

I wanted to come straight home and write this post tonight because I wanted whatever remnants of this day to find their way into what you are now reading. Today was a dreadfully long day for all four of us and, at the same time, it was one of the best days I've had in a very long time.

We started out this afternoon at my sister's house for my niece's birthday party. It was nothing fancy, just a backyard barbecue and a whole lot of family. I've never been hugely motivated to go to family functions, but I was definitely reminded today of how important it is to see everyone whenever you can.

Our next venue was all the way on the other side of the Valley, at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, AZ. This was where we held our farewell party for those who could be there to see us off. I have to recognize those who shared this day with us: Dad & Gail, Jimmy & Claire, Kristin & Dave, Jaime & Dave, Veronika & Viktor, Gordon, Glory & Jack, Doug, Julie & Todd, Heather & Tim, Roger & Becky, Amber, Don & Sarah, and ALL of their children who spent the evening making Seren feel special. I wish I had the words to express to you just how much tonight has meant to me, that my heart is somewhere between breaking from the loss I already feel from knowing that it will be some time before I see any of you again and bursting with the love and support I received from each and every one of you. My only regret is that we did not have more opportunity to see everyone more frequently before this enormous change came into our lives.

The most difficult part of today is knowing that we do not have any more opportunities to visit with any of you who did not make it out tonight. We wish there was more time, but we just can't manage another trip down to the Valley. The movers will arrive on Thursday and we will be on the road Friday morning.

But all is not sad. You will be able to follow our adventures here and continue talking to us by phone or Internet. We hope you will do these things and leave your comments on this blog so we can better share this Alaskan Adventure with you. This is not goodbye, only a heartfelt farewell until we see you next.

saying goodbye

We really want to be able to say goodbye to as many of you as possible, but there isn't much time left. We're having one last hurrah in Scottsdale for friends and family this Sunday, so if you haven't received an invitation contact us for details. (We're sorry if you are one of the few who we may not have already reached. You're not being snubbed, I promise!) Otherwise, we expect to be on the road before June 20, 2010, so check here for updates!