Lobster in Alaska?

YES! One of Greg's captains, Jeremy, is a lobster man from Maine. Well, his parents just came up here to visit him and had such a good time that they wanted to send a special thanks. So Jeremy, Greg, Matt, and I were given 2 Maine lobsters each. I am completely hooked on lobster now and I never thought I would say it...but I love it even more than king crab! Here are a few pics from the night...

They come covered in rock weed (pretty cool I think)



They are done...so exciting!

Mmmmmm

Jeremy had to give us all a lesson on "how to eat lobster" I like to think I'm a professional now :)

So I pretty much have decided that I need to eat lobster at least once a week...I don't know how I'm going to get it but I NEED it. Maybe we'll just have to make a trip to Maine this winter :)

Watching Football

Aspen really likes to watch football on TV. Greg's pretty happy about that :)

My Alaskan Brown Bear

A couple of Greg's good friends came up to visit this past week so we figured it would be a good time to go get a brown bear. I have always been nervous to do any kind of hunting where brown bears hang out but I basically had my "bodyguards" with me so I wasn't scared.

In this picture we have Jarek "rockstar" Wright, Sterling "9mm" Bodell, Tristin "huntress" Taylor, Aspen "baby huntress" Taylor, Greg "mule" Taylor, and Brad "head shot" Bailey. ~I want to thank all the guys for helping me with the hunt...I couldn't have done it without them :)

These are a few more pics from the hunt...

All of us riding the skiff into Mud Bay

Go before you go I guess...I turn around and this is what I see haha. I guess this is the kinda stuff I have to put up with when I go hunting with a bunch of guys

The guys

Brad is up at the top of that tree seeing if he can spot anything

The essentials :)

Aspen at 3 months

Aspen is 3 months old now (14 weeks). The other day we weighed her at the airport and she was 13lbs and I measured her at 25 inches. She is so much fun...every morning she wakes up with a smile and has a big stretch. Then she talks and squeals which is so cute! Over the last couple days she has started squealing more than when we are just talking to her...she'll be sitting over in the glider just staring at one of us squealing away...then we look at her and respond and she gets her little bashful grin and squeals some more. I sometimes wish we weren't all the way up here in Alaska so we could share her little moments with family and friends. So here is a little update for everyone not up here with us...

A few of her favorite spots to be are: sitting in the glider, the changing table (kinda weird but she loves it), and her bath tub. Every time we change her she is kicking her legs around and squealing with excitement...same with the bath(hardly any water left after she's done)

We also like to walk around and look at pictures or go outside to see the doggies and look at trees and leaves...she makes little gurgly baby talk when we do that-I remember Greg's mom doing stuff like that when she was babysitting Sammy :)

Good morning

Big stretch

All smiles at bath time

These next few were taken over the last couple days...she sure is getting a round little face :)

She's started playing with her rattle now

She's getting pretty good at using her legs and standing...I've even leaned her up against the back of the chair and she stood by herself for a couple seconds (we joke and say she's wants to walk before she can crawl)

I think she is going to be a hat girl like her mama

Elfin Cove

We took Aspen out for her 1st trip to Elfin Cove which is a little town right before you get to the outer coast. It's one of mine and my moms favorite places to visit while she is in town...it's a really cool place that has only docks to get around on and no roads at all. After we stopped in Elfin Greg took us outside to the coast and showed us a cool little cove that has a bunch of salmon running up a river and a brown bear even came out. Then we did some jigging and caught a few fish.

Those are a bunch of commercial boats that are taking a break till a new run of Silver Salmon come in.

Showing Aspen to Marina - the lady that fuels up all the boats that come in from the coast

Dad's lingcod

Yellow eye rockfish or also called red snapper

Night of halibut fishing

Greg took out all of us one night halibut fishing for a couple hours...it was a lot of fun and a beautiful night.

She loves getting read to...it's really fun to watch her expressions while looking at the books

We had to borrow an infant life vest from one of the other boats...we accidentally left her cute pink one at home

The Bear

We have a bear at our house again...we saw him a couple days ago and the dogs have been barking at him during the night. He's not really a threat more of a problem-he keeps knocking over our burn barrel dragging all the burned ashes and whatever else is left that didn't burn around the yard. And we saw another one walk through our backyard tonight - no picture though...