Is it Meg or is it Momorex?

For our church "harvest festival" party last night Lori dressed up as Meg... complete with black wig and her bowling shoes. Some didn't get it, but those that know Meg mistook Lori for her. Meg is out of town so her opinion is unknown at present. I think she'd approve and be flattered ...maybe creeped out a bit...

A Plethora of Storage

The only thing we don't like about our house is the kitchen. We have some long term plans as what to do, but those will be way down the road. In the mean time we have been trying to figure out how to increase our storage space.

Based on a projected I built in our Second house; I am taking advantage of a blank wall. We looked at putting cabinets along this area, but it would really cramp the hall way to the garage, bathroom, and pantry under the stairs.

Most of the walls downstairs are thicker than "normal". They are built with 2x6s instead of 2x4s. So..... I cut out a LARGE section of drywall...7+ ft. high and almost 7 ft. wide.... added shelves between the studs, extended the depth into the pantry, and will add some sliding shelves in the empty space under the stairs. This will give us storage for non-can items and odd shaped things. Already we have 50% of the things out of the pantry so I can re-configure that to be more efficient.

Row, Row, Row Your Kayak

Well, we don't have a boat yet, but we have kayaks. One of the tour companies was selling off some older models and we got 3. Now we can take advantage of our closeness to the water.

"My" kayak is a "fishing" model. It is set up to be able to fish from. We'll see.

Lori has been out a couple of times as have I. Charles has gone once. Lori and I went out today. The water was very calm and glassy...no rain either.

The perspective of things is very different when you are sitting right on the water. We finally have a nice picture of the back of our house from the cove. The first time I went out there was a seal(or small sea lion) just poking its head up and looking around.

It is nice exercise although the shoulders and upper back pay a slight price(or maybe I'm just outof shape?). If we have any visitors they can kayak for free instead of paying someone.

What a great place to live!!

German Interruptis

Anna(our exchange student form southern Germany) has now been part of our family for 2 months. We have been amazed at how well she has learned to understand humor...especially ours, considering how strange we are. School is going very well. The only classes she doesn't have an A in are a calculus class and Honors English.. and those are B+s. She is working hard in Debate and is doing well. Both Meg and Charles are helping and are impressed with her abilities.

Her English is doing GREAT. Last night she has to call her school in Germany for some paperwork and they lady at the school couldn't understand Anna... Her German was so bad!! She has been "hanging out" with a guy from school... She has her first AFS weekend starting tonight and we feel she'll be one of the most adapted kids there.

No Rest for the Healthy

Anneka is no longer on "bedrest" . Thanks to rest and some will used medications she received clearance from her doc to resume full activity. While still restricted last Saturday they lost power in their area for 16 hours....8 in the morning till midnight. No TV, No computer, No music. They survived though and AJ is really glad not to be on restriction any more!

Sing in the Rain

Meg and Charles sang in the Sitka High Fall Concert tonight. This is Charles' first year singing and he is really enjoying it. He is in the Vocal Jazz group. His part is a baritone/bass. Meg is singing in the concert choir this year as her schedule would allow for both that and Vocal Jazz. Here are two short clips of the performance. This is my first attempt and they were done with our regular digital camera...I forgot we even had a video camera.

That's Debatable

Last weekend Charles, Meg, and Anna worked overtime and were rarely not at Sitka High for the first debate meet of the season. Sitka was the host school for Haines, Skagway, Juneau, Mt. Edgecumbe, and Ketchikan. We hosted 2 boys from Ketchikan. I judged one round of Extemporaneous speaking on Friday and Lori did a round on both Friday and Saturday. Lori provided the our kids with food each day. It was a very exhausting couple of days, but they all did well.
Anna
Being a rookie this year, Anna did very well. She prepared hard and got lots of advice from the two experts...Charles and Meg. She did an HI... Humorous Interpretation, Debate, and Duet. She got compliments on all her work from both the coaches and the judges.

Meg
This is one awesome chick. Meg only does drama stuff. She as a solo, a duo, and an HI. She took First for her Solo and d and a second for her . During the weekend there was a work shop by a guy from Northern Arizona... THE hotbed for college debate... and he told Meg is she wanted to do this in college to let him know...
Charles
In each of his 3 events Charles was in the finals with a second place in Duet. He and his debate partner(and friend) Berrett could beat everyone in debate if they weren't so lazy and uncommitted(this by their own admission).

Bearly in Time

Fall is the time when bears are feasting on salmon in the streams and getting ready to den for the winter. Here in Sitka I have only seen a bear way far away. Charles hadn't seen one and Anna REALLY wanted to see one as one of her AFS friends had just seen one.
Well, just a quarter mile from home on Tuesday on the main road(Sawmill Creek) we saw a fairly small brown bear(ie, grizzly) who had just crossed the road and climbed up some rock and into the woods. Lori has seen several bears in our neighborhood. Besides my aforementioned sighting, I have seen bears 2 or 3 times when on Prince of Wales Island for work... Those are black bears as they don't have the browns. Of course, we don't have any black bears here.

Close Call

Anneka and Mike experienced a bit of a scare yesterday. It seems my future granddaughter was so anxious to see me that she tried to get here early.... 8 weeks early. Well, as much as I want to see her it just isn't time yet. Anneka went to the doctor and her cervix was almost completely effased...shortened/thinned and ready for the dilation process. Well, they got some meds in Anneka and stopped the contractions and started preparing Samantha for a possible early arrival...get those lungs ready, etc. Lori was ready to fly out today, but Anneka is now home on partial bed-rest. So for now everything is OK.