Happy Birthday Clarity Blue

Dear Clarity,

You are now oficially one year old. One whole year! You are an amazing little girl. You inspire me every single morning when you wake up so ready, present, and full of joy to begin the day again.

You love to stand at the back door and look at the birds in the bird feeder. As soon as you hear the birds you flap your arms and laugh with delight. The flapping arms is your sign for birdies. You also love dogs and cats. Your sign for dogs is to stick out your tongue and pant like a doggie.

You are quite a climber. No walking just yet but I think it will come any day. Your daddy was so good to teach you how to climb up things but more importantly how to climb down things safely. No we don't have to say NO to everything because we know you know how to get up and down.

Eating is your specialty. You love all kinds of foods like beans, tofu, cheese puffs and pickles.

Sleep is still a problem for you. I am sorry to report that we have had to let you cry a little in hopes of teaching you how to soothe yourself. Sweet Clarity, you need your sleep and Mama and Daddy need their sleep. Let's work together as a team to sleeeeep all night long!

I should also mention that you love music. You dance whenever there is music on and you always love to help your daddy play his guitar.

I am so blessed to have you as my daughter. I love you and happy birthday!

The End of An Era

Hello, folks and friends, sorry it has been so long since we have posted on this site, Michelle's busy finishing up school and I am particularly lazy so the blog has fallen by the wayside. I'm on the north slope finishing up my last trip ever (can you hear the applause and cheers?). I have spent the last few days harrassing polar bears and crawling around in their dens (not to mention freezing my arse off!), all in all not a bad way to call it quits. Not sure what our next adventure will be, we are toying with the idea of going outside (that's what we Alaskans call the lower 48) for a year so Michelle can get some good nursing experience, maybe in Oregon of Arizona. We are looking forward to being able to see all your smiling faces more. We'll try to do better on the blog so keep checking back and we hope to see you all soon!!

Love,
Steve and Michelle

CUTE

After traveling for a month in Central America, it sure is nice to be home. Alaska seems so pristine. This web site sums it all up!
http://www.globalcommunity.org/flash/wombat.shtml

Aubrie Jane cute as can be!

Heading to a Theater Near You

Hello All, hope that the holidays went well for everyone. We just finished with 8 days at Lago de Atitlan and are heading back to Antigua today (we prayed to the shuttle god this morning, so hopefully with a little luck and a lot of Valium we will get there in one piece). The vacation has been great although we are looking forward to getting home and seeing all your shining faces again. We fly out of San Pedro Sula, Honduras on the 12th and will be home Saturday morning, anyone up for a ski? We won´t be buring up the slopes as we have had too much hammock time, but we promise we will entertain you with tales, both true and made up, as well as a healthy potion of Caña de Flor, the local rum. Hope everyone is doing well and we will see you soon!!

Antigua

Antigua Guatemala is beautiful. It is a medium sized colonial town in the mountains of Guatemala. It has cobbled streets and adobe architecture that is painted wild Guatemalan colors. From town we can see a smoking volcano. Literally, we see a skinny plume of smoke shooting up from the mountain.

Very little English is spoken and Steve has been doing a great job with the spanish. I wonder whos idea it was for me to take French in highschool.

Crazy parrots everywhere.

Onto Guatemala

Hola! We are now in Copan, Honduras which is about 10 miles from the Guatemalan border. Very beautiful with coffee plantations everywhere. We have been drinking about five cups of coffee a day which is making me a little antsy here at the slooooow internet cafe.

Today we are moving onto Antigua, Guatemala. The sun is shining here and it sounds like it is shining in Antigua so we are happy.

We are on our way to catch our bus......More later.

Diving

Every morning at 8:00am we head to a new dive site to see the underworld. Each dive is so different. Today we saw a moray eel that gave me the CREEPS! The water is about 78 degrees with about 20-30 feet of visibility. It is really spectacular. Last night I went on my first night dive. WOW! The whole place comes alive with bright fish, octopus and phosphorescents.

We had intended on staying here until Dec 23 but now we have extended our time on Utila until.....well...I just hope I make it home to finish school.

The snack of the day was a Baleada. Yummy torillas with beans, cheese and pickled onions for .30 cents.

The weather is pretty much RAIN! It is supposed to be the end of the rainy season but it is coming down in buckets on a regular basis. I am sure tomorrow the sun will come out:)