School Picture Time

I'm sure that Meg and Charles would think poorly of my decision to post their school pictures here. Oh, well...that's what parents do.
They are actually good pictures of the both of them. Charles doesn't feel he is very photogenic so he dislikes most pictures of himself. Meg enjoys posing and creating "her" look each time. Good looking kids.

Another Debate Trip...Plus

Meg and Charles had another debate trip this weekend. It was just Friday and Saturday. They flew out early on Friday and Charles was back last night(Saturday) at 11pm. Meg didn't come back because she is now in Wrangell(southeast of here) as part of a regional choir she had auditioned for. She'll be home on Wed. night.
The debate(or DDF) meet went well for both Charles and Meg. Charles place 4th in one event and Meg made the finals in 4 of her 6 drama events, but only did fair in her debates. She also place first in her mime competition.

They work the whole two days and are exhausted when they get home. They stayed with various families in Juneau who are also part of the debate team there. Later we will host a student or two when the meets are here in Sitka.

Anneka's ex-Gall Bladder

Well, Anneka now has an empty spot in her belly where her gall bladder use to be. Tuesday she had it out. No problems with the surgery, but the pain medicine she was given made her really sick. Lori realized that she is sensitive to that same thing and got the doctor to change it. Today she is really tired and sore, but not pukey. Lori is making sure she behaves and heals well.

Alaska Day

Today was a unique state holiday. In Utah we got Pioneer Day off in July... Here we get Alaska Day in October... It also would have been Lori's Mom's 75th birthday. Not only did I get today off as a paid holiday, but the kids got out of school early... and it didn't rain much.

On 18 October 1867 the territory of Alaska became part of the United States of America when the Russian representative turned ownership over to the U.S. on Castle Hill here in Sitka. The rest of the state doesn't do much with the holiday, but here it is a big deal. There is the parade downtown, the reenactment of the exchange on Castle Hill, booths, games and over a week's time several events. Last night was a Ball where people dress in period dress. They have a beard contest and some musical events.

Lori was sad to miss it as this was our first, but Anneka is benefiting from her being in Utah.

Charles First Trip East-April 06

Until this event there was a family joke that Charles had never been east of Vernal Utah(that is almost to the eastern border). The fact that it was true made it even a better running gag. When we decided to move up here his first reaction was "I still won't go east of Vernal!!". He had been to most of the states in the west including Alaska(for our site visit last November). Well, to eliminate that problem I took Charles with me to Memphis where I attended a continuing education seminar at my optometry school. Now that I have benefits at work for education I can have some company.

We had the good fortune to stay with one of my best friend's while in Memphis. Tom and his wife Karen opened their home to us. Charles had the company of their kids...Rob and Sarah(twins Charles' age) and Dan...a couple of years younger.

There was so much of our family history that Charles had only heard about and never seen. Four years of living in a place makes it a significant part of your life. We ate at favorite places, visited our old neighborhood in Northaven, went across the Memphis Bridge to Arkansas, played golf(he got to play a couple of times with Tom and the boys), did off-road bike riding, ride a Segway, hit at the batting cages and driving range, and basically got to see most of the Memphis area. He also got to experience multiple plane changes in getting there and back...Sitka to Seattle...overnight at my brother's...to Chicago and to Memphis. This little commuter jet we were on from Chicago had one seat on side and 2 on the other. I could not stand up straight inside.

We had a good time and have made Charles a more complete traveler.

Lori to Help Anneka

Anneka has had a couple of gall bladder attacks and has to have it removed. This will take place on Tues. 17 Oct. Lori is flying down Monday and will help with her recovery and make sure Anneka doesn't try and do things she isn't supposed to...Like any child of Lori's would do that.... Lori will at least get a nice dose of sunshine and warmer temperatures. From here we have to fly to Las Vegas which is about 2 hours from Anneka and Mike's in St. George.

Meg/Charles Post Debate Trip

Meg and Charles had a good time on their trip to Haines.

Charles did not place in any of his events, but he got great experience and still feel he performed well.

Meg did well in 2 of her events finishing 4 in one and 6th in another. She was a bit disappointed, but what can you expect from one of Lori's girls...

Other Places We've Lived-The Utah Years

I is probably obvious, but these posts are getting longer the more recent the event...whoa...what a concept. Anyway, here we are in Utah.

Our first house(or as the kids refer to it...the old, old, old house)we bought almost sight unseen. I had looked at houses in this neighborhood on my trip from camp. The agent found this house, sent pictures, and we bought it.
965 West 370 South Logan, Utah
from 1 Sep 1991 to 10 May 1997
Charles was born while we lived here. The kids were going to Woodruff Elementary and Mt. Logan Middle school. I was working at Standard Optical and Lori was teaching at the hospital and for Utah State. We painted every room. Replaced all the carpet and light fixtures...yeah it was stuck in the 70's. We had a fire in the kitchen one January which involved a new kitchen and paint up stairs. We lived in the basement for 6 weeks. My brother John lived with us for 2 years while going to Utah State for his Masters in History. We eventually got him married off. Our neighborhood was great and we made many lifetime friends.

As some parts of our street started attracting a different type of resident we felt the need to get out so the kids would have a safer place. This became House #2 or the Old, Old House. We ended up still in Logan, but about 3 miles away at:
375 Westhaven Dr. Logan, Utah
from 10 May 1997 to 12 July 2001
This was a nice dead-end street which made it very quiet. Lori and I now had a master "suite", the kids each had their own bedrooms and we had plenty of space. We again did a lot of work from carpets, floors, paint, wood work, etc. While here Anneka decided to go on an exchange to France. While she was gone we hosted Annika from Belm Germany. This was our first house with a garage. Very nice to have in the winter. The kids attended Ellis Elementary, Mt. Logan Middle School(only one middle and high school in the Logan School District) and Logan High School.

House #3 or the Old House has been partially described in an August post. However, for the sake of continuity/analness...
1680 East 1220 North Logan, Utah
from 12 July 2001 to 28 Dec 2006
Here we expected to live long and prosper and die. However, as discussed before, when the Lord wants you some where He provides the ways and means. Here we painted every room, changed most of the carpet and totally changed the basement. We had many parties and bunches of the kids friends over. Our neighbors were great. We were higher up so we had a bit more snow than before.

Other Places We've Lived-The Transitions Years-NC, TN, RI

After we made the decision for me to return to school and our plan developed it became necessary to leave California. Our plan included me attending North Carolina State to finish the prerequisites for optometry school in 2 years and then move to Memphis for the 4 years of Southern college of Optometry.

Our first place in North Carolina was in Durham.
1920 Bedford St. #21 Durham, North Carolina
from 1 July 1985 to 15 Feb 1986
This is where Duke is located. I attended NCSU 40 miles away in Raleigh, Lori worked at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital 15 miles away. It took a lot of gas and time. This was a townhouse. I was also working in Raleigh.

Lori got a job in Raleigh at Rex Hospital and we consolidated our travel to one city. We found a nice townhouse that was just a duplex. Large yards and good location.
815 Athens Dr. Raleigh, North Carolina
from 15 Feb 1986 to 6 Jun 1987
This is where we experienced one of the worst winter storms we've had...6 inches of pure sleet. This is also where Richard Edward James Hart was born 11 May 1987...the day after Mother's Day.

Once I finished my work at NCSU I still needed one class since I had already been accepted to the Southern College of Optometry...microbiology. I couldn't get it at NC State, Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill...so we packed up moved everything to storage in Memphis and went to California to stay with my parents while I took the class at Long Beach City College.

After getting back to Memphis we moved into a townhouse.
3665 Outland Rd. Memphis, Tennessee
from 21 Aug 1987 to 30 Nov 1987
This was a nice place, but it was too expensive and way far from school. We had not had a chance to investigate our housing in Memphis....no internet in those days.

Once we did get to check out other places we found a duplex in Northaven, just north of the Memphis city limits. New and nice, but in a classic white-trash/black neighborhood. We never had any problems and stayed 3 1/2 years at:
645 McWhirter Ave. Memphis, Tennessee
from 21 Nov 1987 to 28 May 1991
This is where Meg was born, where we had a dumb dog that was stolen, where I put up a fence that still stands. We wallpapered and changed the flooring. This was our first place where we had more than one Christmas.

Since I could not practice right after graduation we decided to make an adventure of my studying. Lori got a job as the camp nurse at Camp Fuller in Wakefield, Rhode Island.
Camp Fuller(YMCA) P.O. Box 432 Wakefield, Rhode Island
from 14 Jun 1991 to 24 Aug 1991
While Lori was playing camp nurse and being a celebrity to every camper, Anneka got be a camper for the whole summer. I studied and kept a close eye on the 4 year old Richard and his little side-kick Meg while they wandered the camp grounds. We stayed in a cabin with power. That August Hurricane Bob went up the east coast and right through Rhode Island. The whole camp was evacuated to a roller skating rink in town where we spent 24 hours...20 without power.

During camp I made a trip to Utah to find housing. I wasn't successful that trip, but the real estate lady(Belva Hart) found use one where we lived for 6 years.... that's another post... stay tuned...same bat-station...

Harbor Mountain Hike

We have been blessed with a great fall day. The sun has been shining although sometimes it has been behind a few thin clouds giving a nice hazy light. With the kids gone on their debate trip Lori, the dog, and I took off to enjoy the weather.
The Harbor Mountain trail is about 5 miles up from the west side of our island. The whole trail (one way) is over 6 miles. We did about 1/3 of that. We are at this point about 2000 feet above sea level. Lori's popped on the way up. We are out of most of the rain forest at this elevation. The size and shape of the trees gives evidence that the wind and weather is severe in the winter. They do close this road from late fall till spring.We let D'Artagnan off his leash and he had a great time...until he decided to just run off. If you have seen Funny Farm, it is like the first dog running off. He found some other hikers and they found Lori...I was off searching through the woods.
From our vantage point we could see many of the islands that are near Sitka. The rugged interior shows why people haven't moved to the mountains. We had great views of the hospital where I work, the airport, and Mt. Edgecumbe...our volcano.

Other Places We've Lived-The Early Years-California

This might be a bit sketchy as many of these place we lived in 25 years ago. However, I'll at least get the locations and a couple of things about each. Pictures may be forthcoming...I'd have to find them and then get them scanned...so don't hold your breath.

I will start at the very beginning...is a very good place to start... Oh, sorry, I'd better come down off the mountain...

After our wedding on 20 June 1981 we moved into Lori's aunt's house to house-sit. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Chuck were driving their truck and 5th-wheel up the west coast to Alaska... the irony is just rusting as you think about it... Anyway we were at:
2845 Iriquois, Long Beach, California
from 20 June till 15 Sept 1981
It was a nice chance to save some money...but as with many newlyweds we spent it too fast.

Our first apartment was in north Long Beach in an area with LOTS of apartments. This is where we spent our first holiday season.
4590 Banner Dr. #1, Long Beach, California
from 15 Sept 1981-1 Mar 1982
This convinced us that apartments weren't for us. We had a pool, but due to those "cold" California winters we didn't use it. There were too many stange sounds from the apartments around us...especially the one upstairs.

Next we found a cute cottage a family had created out of an old garage in the Bixby Knolls area. It was one bedroom... maybe 400 sq. ft. The owners...the Stumps...were really nice and they had a English Springer Spaniel who would eat the avacados off the ground. He had a nice coat, but was a bit fat.
3729 Lewis, Long Beach, California
1 Mar 1982-15 Jun 1983
Anneka was born while we lived here. Although small this is one of our all time favorite homes.

Our next move took us back to north Long Beach to a duplex on a fairly busy street.
6385 Orange Ave., Long Beach, California
15 Jun 18983-10 Apr 1984
We had a small garage(even then we needed more storage space) and access to a backyard and a front porch. My car got totaled here. I had a 1972 Duster that I got when Lori's grandma died. It was in good shape. I was parked acrossed the busy street in accordance with the streetsweeping law when a kid who had been drinking fell asleep and rear-ended my parked car and moved it 60 feet before he came to a stop upside down in front of my car.

Back down to Bixby Knolls to a 2 bedroom duplex.
3541 Lewis, Long Beach, California
10 Apr 1984- 25 Jun 1985
This was our last home in California before we move to North Carolina. We took over this from some friends of ours and later another couple we knew moved into the other part of the duplex.

Meg/Charles School Trip

Meg and Charles are off on their first school trip to Haines Alaska. This is for Drama/Debate. It will be the first time either of them have been to another place in Alaska besides an airport.
The will fly to Juneau early Friday(the ferry system has been scaled back so they can't boat directly to Haines), and the Friday afternoon ferry to Haines. Coming home they will ferry overnight directly to Sitka.
Haines is about 100 miles north of Juneau and right next to Skagway. Lori and I had a stop in Skagway on our cruise...long ago. This is where the gold rushers filed into Canada in 1898.
The sports/school trips here involve having the kids stay with local families who usually have kids involved in the same activity. Same would apply when teams/groups come here to Sitka. Gets the kids to know each other and reduces the dumb inter high school rivalries. Meg already knows one of the boys from the Haines team as he was a friend she met going to her exchange(he was in Spain... oh, he was pictured in the Meg and Friends post..behind the 2 girls).
Charles will be competing in expos and public-forum debate while Meg is doing a drama solo, dramatic intrp, and public-forum. Results will come later. As I type Meg is typing one of her things.

I Spoke too Soon... Autumn

OK, So I spoke too soon about autumn coming. Of course, this may be the only day it looks or feels like this. We woke this morning(Sunday 1 Oct) to sunshine...the long-shadowed fall sun... and frost on the roofs. The first snow is on Mt. Verstovia and there was ice on the walkway in back on which D'Artagnan did the Bambi-on-ice thing.
With the recent lack of sun around here I forgot one of the indicators of fall... the lighting. In Utah it was usually late August or early September when you would notice a change in how the light hit things and how the shadows looked.
September was exceptionally wet this years we ended up with 16.7 inches in the month... that is compared to the average September rainfall of 11.12 inches. 16 is more than Logan averaged in a whole year. Now... October is the rainiest month of the year with an average of 14.14. We'll see how that holds up.