YMCA

Zach and Sam have really enjoyed the swimming lessons at the YMCA.  It is always fun to spend time with friends before the class starts....even it means all watching a little screen on Lake's i-Pod!

Laurie, Eli, Zach (back), Lake, Camden (Back), Sam.

Zach and Sam got their certificates of completion for their current level of swimming lessons.  They are signed up for the next session and are looking forward to learning more!

Teenagers

Halliburton is in the process of issuing all field employees i-Phones which will allow them to submit their daily time sheets, driving journey management requests and eventually inventory and customer billing.  The first couple hundred phones just got distributed in Prudhoe and I had to laugh walking into the Cement office that they were all looking at their phones....so, I took a picture of it (L-R:  Wes, Jose, DK, Jon and Randy).  I e-mailed the pictures out only to be greeted back with an e-mail of me looking up something on my BlackBerry!  At least we all can laugh about it.

Moving and Grooving

Donnie from the corporate Real Estate group came up this week to check on the new building progress.  We made a 1 day trip up to Prudhoe today.  All is looking good...the furniture is looking great!  A 1 day trip makes for a long day as I am up at 4 am to get ready, pick-up Donnie and make the flight and then arrive home at 7:45 pm.  At least I get to nap each way for 1 hour and 40 minutes...love that nap time!  Our good friend, Dustin, was also on the flights today so it was nice to catch up with him at the airport; even with our kids at the same school we rarely see him and Cecile.

Wreck-It Ralph

It was cold out!  Zach had been talking about the movie "Wreck-It Ralph".  Doug found that it was playing at the discount theater, Totem, this afternoon so they headed off for the movie and way too much popcorn.  Even Doug said he had too much popcorn and didn't feel well.

Valentine's Day Decorations

It was a good day to get the decorations up for Valentine's Day!

Happy Birthday Eli!

Happy 6th Birthday Eli! 

James and Reed

Laurie and Ollie.....he is a doll!

Doug, Karl and Ollie

Sam the monkey!

Sam with his favorite Superhero friend, Lake.

Zach and Nora.

Boyd's Bears

Thanks Papa and Mema for the Boyd's Bear candle holder!  We like that the moose is reading a book about the Great White North!

Great Afternoon

Doug was off today, Zach was done with school at 1:30 pm, it was a clear day out and was a comfortable temperature.  A perfect day for snowboarding!  They arrived at HillTop to find the lift broken, but decided to stay around a while to see if it was fixed.  Good plan, as about 40 minutes later they were on their way up.  A great afternoon/evening - they would return home at 8:30 pm as the weather was starting to change.  It changed.....it was brutally cold Saturday and Sunday!  Glad they took advantage of a nice day on Friday to have some fun!  Zach had fun showing his skills off to Doug; Zach is getting good!

Easy Dinner

Doug and Zach were out snowboarding this afternoon/evening.  Sam and I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work/school and decided that the Carr's Chinese food looked pretty good for dinner!  Date night with my little guy!

Ready for Spring

Doug went to check on the camper today.  A few more months and we will be ready to head out for some fun!

Object Runaway

ANCHORAGE - It was a packed house Thursday night at the Bear Tooth Theatre for what turned out to be a most unusual evening. The entertainment was a fashion show, based on the popular television show Project Runway, only in Alaska the title of the show is “Object Runway.”

Object Runway is a fundraiser for the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in downtown Anchorage. Now in its fourth year, organizers say they’ve been amazed at its success. The show has sold out every year.

“The interest is just amazing,” said IGCA board member Holly McQuinn. “People are wanting to come and be designers, people are wanting to come to the show. People want to talk about it and participate in different ways and we really love that.”

The objective of Object Runway is to encourage local artists to make wearable art for a crowd that clearly appreciates it. But what’s “wearable” may surprise you: gowns made from plastic bags, branches and twigs, even a mock army uniform constructed from chewed chewing gum.

The show is a competition with a three judge panel that this year included celebrity judge Joshua McKinley from the original "Project Runway." McKinley said he’d seen some of the creations ahead of time but was very impressed by the 60 models and their clothing featured in part one of the competition.

“I didn’t get to see a lot of them until just now, and I’m blown away by a lot that I hadn’t seen before,” said McKinley. “It’s going to be a tough decision, just to do the top five. I don’t know how we are going to get there but we will.”

When the finalists were announced they included a dress constructed of red cocktail straws, another fashioned from manila envelopes, a plastic bag bridal gown and a driftwood tutu.

In the end, designer Zoe Schneider’s cocktail straw gown took it all, one of many amazing creations to walk the stage and make this year’s Object Runway a runaway success.

Here we all are!  L-R (Heather, me, Joe, Sarah, Lori, Amelia and Maria).  We came tonight to have a good time, but to also cheer on Maria who is a professional quilter and has an entry in the show.  She purchases wool sweaters at thrift store and "felts" them in her washer/dryer (hot water/hot air to shrink them down).  Then she cuts them up and makes dresses.  Her model tonight wore the beautiful dress with hood well!  Maria took 4th place out of 64 entries!!  Yeah!

Friend, Van, was a model tonight.

During an intermission, they did a fun activity where so local artists painted a few people!

Finalists.  It would have been so hard to have picked a winner!  Maria's dress is in blue.

Sarah and Maria!  Congratulations!

Kenai Visit

The next 2 days are going to be busy with a trip to Kenai today and then to Prudhoe Bay tomorrow.  For Kenai, we needed to visit a customer's site - no driving today, it was slick and the 3 hour ride down from Anchorage would make for a long day!  A 25 minute flight Anchorage to Kenai was much better.  A quick review of the location and a few pictures and then back to the shop for the afternoon in Soldotna. Usually there are 4-5 employees there.  Today there were 9 or 10 - we stopped to get pizza for lunch for everyone.  3 pizzas didn't quite fill 9 big guys.