Spring has Sprung in Alaska!

It's been about four months since our last post, which is terrible. Sorry. The good news is we've been busy! And now that Spring is here at last, we're out of our Winter clothes and enjoying every ray of sunshine. The temperatures now get into the 50s during the day, which is t-shirt weather up here. When Summer truly hits, we'll be sweating in the 70s, but for now we're loving all the "warmth" we can get.

So what have we been up to lately? Believe it or not, we've been doing a lot of swimming. Despite a March cold snap that saw temperatures of 20 below, the community pool is a happening place year-round, and the only place for now where the kids can really learn how to swim. We made the Easter Bunny welcome, of course, and have for a few weeks now been working like mad outside: felling trees, cutting firewood, building a dirtbox for the kids, digging out the garden from last year's weeds and putting up a dog fence. The kids love to run around the yard and woods while Stephanie and Brandon work, sometimes lending a helping hand.

We took our first fishing trip of the year last weekend, just a short practice session at a creek down the road. Malcolm has an excellent cast, and Chloe is already excited to reel in Daddy's line. They'll be much better anglers than either of their parents. With the snow and ice gone, the moose have been more active around our house again. We think there's one female in particular who brings her "babies" by for choice eats. It's great until you have to do something outside, and are faced with a wild animal the size of a horse standing in your lawn. But they make for good photos.

The dog fence should be finished by the time you read this, which will allow us to go camping, our favorite weekend pasttime. This year we're also doing some traveling. Brandon is flying to North Carolina in May to visit his brother, Ryan. And we're all heading down to San Francisco in October to see Stephanie's parents, Barbara and Joe, as well as the rest of her family, plus a few of our good friends from California and Nevada.

Hopefully it won't take another four months till our next post. :) Till then, we hope you're all enjoying the beginnings of Summer!

Oh, almost forgot one other important piece of news: WE'RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY! Stephanie's not pregnant yet, not until she accepts one of the new jobs she's currently interviewing for, but we expect to start "working" on it in the next few weeks. And if Malcolm and Chloe are any guide, she'll be pregnant very soon thereafter. Naturally, Chloe wants a baby sister, while Malcolm keeps asking for a baby brother. The names we chose some time ago are Molly Ellen and Calvin Islay (pronounced "eye-luh"). We won't know until he or she pops out and greets the world. But we'll definitely keep you all posted! Take care of each other. We miss you all.

-Love, Chloe, Malcolm, Stephanie and Brandon