Counter sitting

Counter sitting was a pretty common thing in my house when we were little. I am sure there are photos of all five of us sitting on the counter or in the dishwasher while various things were being done in the kitchen. Maybe that is why, to this day, the kitchen is still the gathering place in my childhood home.
  Lately cooking dinner has been quite a chore, you see, my charming daughter is usually tired and ready for a bed, or wanting to be played with, both very difficult things to do while cooking. So yesterday during the first five minutes of cooking the whining and pulling on my pant leg started and so genius me puts my daughter on the counter. That did the trick! She happily played for the next 1/2 hour with various spoons, cups, stirrers, and of course, the sugar.
The sugar, well there is a bit of a story behind that. You see, I was, (actually I still am) the eater of all of my mother's children. Eating sugar really isn't all that bad you see, most of the time I am told I would just eat sticks of butter, I am sure that my mother's thought was one I often have these days "if he keeps her quiet and happy right now, I don't really care"
I did not need the sugar yesterday but somewhere in my mother's scrap book, there are at least two pages of me sitting on the counter eating sugar, so I had to recreate this photo of my own daughter. I'm tempted to try it with the butter too, maybe not, that thought kind of makes my stomach churn.

 

Proof! Thanks Cousin Sherry for sending this!

Mike was invited to go hiking with a couple guys from work. When he told me, I laughingly said he could take Lillian with him, he very happily said sure. So this morning at 8am, my husband and daughter left and were gone until shortly after 12. I stayed in my pajamas, watched a movie and knitted. I also talked to my mom for 30 minutes and my sister for almost an hour. It was wonderful, to say the least. They had a good time though I think the hike was a little more intense that he was expecting, add a backpack and 25 pound baby and I'm pretty sure he got his work out for the day!

The view here is of Eagle River, a town outside of Anchorage. 

I love my munchkin and her Daddy! 

Teeny girl on a big big mountain. 

New hat, new toy

Lilly's latest hat. I made it in two days including the little fabric flowers.

Lately, Lilly has been banging on things to make noise. I decided that a xylophone wouldn't be totally obnoxious. (I'm usualy against noise making toys) It took her about 10 seconds to figure it out, she loves it. If she's not making "beautiful music" she's crawling around the house with the mallet in her mouth.

Denali National Park

       Last Thursday Mike, Lilly and I rode the train from Wasilla to Denali National Park, the home of Denali (Mt. McKinley). Our train left around 9:30am and we arrived around 3:30pm.  It rained the entire day, so when we got there we checked out the very little town and had dinner and called it a night.

       Friday turned out to be beautiful so we spent the day hiking around the entrance to the park. The park itself is over 6.5 million acres, we did not venture inside as we were unaware that we could. Everything we saw said that you have to have a tour to get in and neither one of us were interested in sitting on school bus for 8 hours, just to see inside. We got a good taste for the area where we were and enough hiking with Lilly on our backs that we were a sore for a couple days. *ok maybe I was the only sore one* Friday evening we went to a dinner theatre, it was more of a history lesson than a play and I don't remember much as I had Miss Lilly on my lap for the show and after not sleeping or napping well she wasn't the happiest little one. The food was great and we did have a good time. 

       We left around noon on Saturday and got home around 7pm. We had a good time even though we didn't get to see "the Great One" as the clouds were too low and from where we stayed the mountain was 80 miles away. 

       Mike and I would both love go back, go in the park and maybe do some whitewater rafting or a jeep tour, and definitely drive ourselves!

 

The train station in Wasilla. This functions as something else too but I don't remember what.

The beginning of the ride. Lilly was so good, even napped on my lap for a while.

In between the cars was open so you could see out. We spent quite a bit of time here entertaining Lilly.

Enjoying the view.

This is the upper level in the "food car." They had lots of things to eat and the change of scenery was nice. It was fun to be able to walk between cars.

The train was not very full on the ride up. This particular car was totally empty so we took all of our stuff and let Lilly crawl around. In the background you can see a staircase, it led up to a domed glass viewing area, yet another place we hung out for a bit. 

This was at Hurricane Gultch. There is a pretty steep curve so we could see the front of the train from the back. This is the longest bridge on the railway and as you go over the river you are 300 plus feet about ground.

This didn't turn out so well but kind of shows how high up we were.

The beginning of our hiking Friday morning. Lilly spent so much time in that backpack, she was such a good sport!

The call this a creek by the way... everything is bigger in Alaska!

This place is so natural. The park is only open 4 months out of the year so everything really remains untouched. I was totally surprised that even with the amount of people that visit here you didn't see any trash or hint of people.

Taking a break, notice the sleeping baby in the back?

I love the color in this picture. We had such a beautiful day!

Minus the sun spot, this is my favorite picture!

A pretty simple trail gave us this view of Horseshoe Lake.

At the bottom, Lilly practicing her wave. 

We had dinner here the first night. Great food, great prices, more food than we could eat! This is the beginning of what they call the boardwalk, a bunch of little shops, and attraction spots. 

Enjoying the few minutes of sun we had on the way home.