I think I can, I think I can...

So our computer's disk drive died a while back, and we made do for a while, but eventually we opted to send it in for fixing...in the meantime, we're limping along on the Stone Age era piece of crap, and just checking email has become quite a chore. Never you worry, fans of the Crazy Stevenses ;), we'll be back and blogging again in no time. After all, there are just too darn many cool things to do and share with the world! Things we have planned for this precious, short Alaskan summer include creating an organic lasagna garden (I spent most of today shoveling manure for it!), building an earth oven, finishing the pond in the back yard, and contiuing with the planning for Summer Coronet, which our little SCA group is holding (biggest event of the year in the whole state, baby!). I'm sure that many other things will crop up along the way.

Cheers (and we'll see ya soon!),
Those Crazy Stevenses

Miss Keely's Big Adventure

The Boo left on Monday for her adventure in Seattle. It was a heckuva day. We agonized over packing the bass guitar and amp, hoping they were well enough cushioned to survive being thrown around during transport and postively mummifying them with packing tape. We made lists, checked them twice (okay, maybe more...), looked at the time, and headed off...

Now for some reason, they wanted us at the airport 2 hours before her flight left, and it takes us 3 hours to get to Anchorage, so we left town at 2 o'clock for her 7 p.m. flight. A mind-numbing 3 hours later we plastered the musical equipment with 'fragile' stickers (yup, we were still worried), got security passes for Liam and me, and headed to the dreaded security line.

After having everything we owned swabbed for chemical residue (wow, they weren't doing THAT last year!), Keely's book box came up positive for nitro glycerine, and as the parent (and presumed bomber), I was singled out for a pat-down. It was quick and uneventful, however, and we were on our way.

Behind security lines, we still had to figure out how to entertain ourselves for an hour before Keely could board, so we wandered the airport aimlessly, paid waaaaaaaaaaaay too much for some food and a bottle of water (can't bring the water with you, you might hijack the plane with it!) at nigh movie theatre prices, and walked, ran, skipped and jumped back and forth across the moving sidewalk.

Once Keely was on the plane, we still had to wait for half an hour for the plane to lift off before we could go. Poor Liam- he just sobbed when the plane took off, and we stayed and watched it fly away until the tiny speck faded from view...

Then we headed back to the car, crossing multiple escalators (much to Liam's delight), for the long journey home. It was a quiet trip, without Keely and her iPod. And just after we walked through the door, Keely called to say she was there and Worried Mom breathed a big sigh of relief.

We talked to her yesterday, and her adventure is going well- she got to go shopping, see the space needle, watch an Imax movie, get her picture taken next to the world's biggest guitar and who knows what else all in the first day. I don't think she'll ever want to come home. Except for that whole rain thing...

As for us homebound Stevenses, we've been enjoying the awesome sunny spring weather and eagerly anticipating the melting of the snow. It got so warm yesterday that we even had the front door open for a while! Liam, optimistically, decided he wanted to put together our solar car kit, so we did, but we're just too far away from the darned sun to make it work just yet (we'll keep trying!). As for me, I'm waiting to see if my bulbs come up and dreaming of my garden. Guess I'd better get on that seed order, huh? Before we know it, we'll be digging out the trampoline, sculpting earth ovens and building fort-houses for the kids. And, of course, enjoying the midnight sun...if it ever warms up, that is. It was 0 degrees when I woke up this morning- what the heck?

We're all still having fun playing with our MySpace pages; in fact, Keely's becoming quite the little computer geek! She spent the day at the Jones' house before she left, getting Gramma Peggy and Aunt Krystal on the bandwagon too. Everybody seems to be finding long lost friends and getting back in touch, but I must have goofy friends or something (I know, look who we're talking about!), because they're either not there, or they're ignoring me. Here's a big fat raspberry to all the old friends who've logged in, seen my friend request, and done nothing- not even write me!

I suppose I should accomplish something constructive, though, so that's it for now...

See ya soon!
Those Crazy Stevenses

Still not buying this whole 'spring' thing...

So today is Ostara, the spring equinox, the beginning of the end of Winter...as I write this, it's warmed up to a whopping 24 degrees outside (up from -8 degrees when I woke up!), and it's -ugh!- snowing some more...

Last night we did the obligatory egg-dyeing extravaganza, and this morning there were buckets o' stuff for the kiddos.

We went light on the candy this year, and stuffed the buckets with mostly toys instead. The two biggest hits were the screaming missiles (huge, long balloons you blow up and shoot up into the air) and those 'plastic balloon' thingies that I remember from my childhood- you squeeze a bead of (probably toxic, highly fumey) sticky goo out of a tube and blow it into a sort of ball (the kids thought they looked more like brains and fat boomerangs, and even stuck several together and made a creature of some sort...)

Personally, I thought that the fumes were just getting to them, but a good time was had by all...

I finally managed to get outside and find some branches with buds and put together what I call the 'Ostara tree', which in reality is a bunch of branches stuck in a vase, hung with cute little symbols of spring...a little sympathetic magic couldn't hurt, right? The coolest thing is that after a couple of weeks, the darn things actually sprout leaves...

In previous Stevens news:
We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a big Irish dinner of glazed corned beef, colcannon, and raisin-caraway soda bread, and of course lots and lots of Guinness! The kids had been counting the days, and finally got to see their uncle Andrew, who came down and spent the night on Saturday. While he was here, he was assimilated into the MySpace gang as well- Keely helped him create his own page...

After dinner, we headed up the street to the Soldotna Sports Center, where the St. Balrick's Foundation was holding their annual fundraiser to benefit 'conquering children's cancer'. Ben had his head shaved and raised over $200, which wasn't bad, considering he just showed up and hoped he could play too...some of the people he sees every day don't even recognize him now...

I told him that all he needs now is combat boots and a pair of red suspenders!

And that's it for this installment of our crazy adventures!

More to come...

Never a dull moment!

Well, we've been up to various things lately...

Like playing with our ancient civilization treasure chests, which are definitely a cool way to explore history. We've been learning a lot about Rome, because we have several Roman SCA events coming up, and there's so much to learn. Keely practiced her Roman numerals with the wax tablet and stylus in the Ancient Rome chest, and Liam got into the Aztec one and asked me to make him the war headdress. Here he is, modeling it for your viewing pleasure...

In the process of getting our Triops tank set up, we realized we didn't have a stick-on thermometer to make sure their water was warm enough, so we took a trip to the pet store. While I was looking for what I wanted, the kids looked around at all the animals, and we found out that they sell rats. Now, granted we already had 2 rats (Keely has one named Pogo and Ben has Freckles aka Yuna), but Keely had babysitting money burning a hole in her pocket and decided she needed a baby. She named her new rat Napoleon because she has no fear, even of the dogs. Here's Keely playing with her two rats.

It was Dr. Seuss' birthday last week, so we made cupcakes in Seussian colors to celebrate. We wanted to make oobleck too, but the day seemed to get away before we had time.

MMMMMMmmmmmmmmm...chartreuse cake and lavender filling- looks like something right out of a Seuss novel...

And it's even better when you wear it!

Here's all 3 of our resident rodents, from top: Napoleon, Pogo and Yuna aka Freckles.

Apparently Ben's been driven mad after hours working on getting his myspace page set up...


And Liam actually caught me with the camera. Hard to say no to such a cute little guy...

And last but not least, our Triopses are growing like crazy. We haven't seen them eating each other...yet, but we're still waiting ;).

I need to finish taking down the Chinese New Year decorations and get up the St. Pat's Day and Ostara stuff...it's a bit hard to think spring, though, when it's been below zero and now it's snowing like crazy. I keep wondering where our share of the global warming is...

We've all joined the herd and got our myspace pages set up: Ben's, Breezy's, Keely's, and Liam's. It's been fun (I've always loved dinking around with HTML), and the kiddos are learning a lot about HTML and the internet (I'm calling it 'computer science'). Soon we'll be a whole family of computer geeks! Our friend Peter gave us another old Mac and we found a monitor, so now we have 4 working computers. Now we just need lots of extra ethernet cable to get them hooked up to the internet, and everyone will have one they can use whenever they want (sometimes there's a line for this one, between the ipods and the myspace pages and the emails and...).

Friday we're going to try to go see a jazz show at the college, and maybe we can take a look at the special periodic table of the elements display while we're there. It has each actual element encased in a block of lucite, so you can see what they look like. Saturday there's an event at the Visitors Center that sounds like fun...

But for now it's off to tidy up, work out, and run some errands!

Once again, never a dull moment...:)

Those Crazy Stevenses

Year of Pig, Birthday of Dragon

So we spent Chinese New year in our own traditional way- eating Chinese food and watching Chinese-themed movies: Kiss of the Dragon, and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Ok, so that's a lot of dragon for the Year of the Pig (or boar- that sounds far more dignified, doesn't it?), but pig movies are few and far between, and somehow, Babe the talking pig just didn't seem Chinese enough to cut the hot mustard...

The house was all decorated in red and gold, and the bulletin board (known in the summer months as the back door) was covered in a display of various Chinese trivia. The kids (and almost anyone else that came by) got traditional red envelopes or lai see, filled with shiny gold (chocolate) coins. For dessert, we had Glico Pockys, and tried some pretty strange sugared winter melon. The Pockys rock- we've been eating them in my family since I was a kid, but the winter melon was, well...just downright weird. We wished there'd been a smaller package.


We also got this thingy of Chinese candy from our corner store- the girl who does the ordering was nice enough to stash it for us (I love living in a small town!). It closes up into a cylinder and is decorated to look like a firecracker (see the 'fuse' on the lid?), which are used during the New Year's celebrations to scare away evil spirits.















Two days later, as we were making playdough, we realized it was Mardi Gras, or Pancake Tuesday, and I decided to try making chocolate-chocolate chip pancakes for lunch. Here's a picture of Liam making playdough spaghetti while eating chocolate pancakes. That's the life!








The following weekend we had Liam's birthday party. He decided to have it at McDonald's so he and his friends could play on the tubes. Grandpa Mike and Grandma Kim drove down, and we all had dirt cake and ice cream cones, and the kids played to their hearts' content. Liam even got to see his old buddy Xena, who he hadn't seen in years...
When all the wrapping paper had settled, he got a portable DVD player (bought with $ from Gramma Candel), an ipod shuffle (from us), a couple of new outfits from Mike & Kim, a book from Grandma & Grandpa Jones, and various toys and art supplies from his friends. What a lucky (and spoiled!) kid.







After the party, Liam feasted on the last crumbs of his dirt cake, checked out some of his snazzy new stuff...and fell asleep on the couch. What a cutie...

Ben's been busy creating his mySpace page and spiffing it up, and I've been working on digging up new songs for our SCA bardics (song circles).

And as I write this, we're gearing up for the Iditarod, which starts this weekend, as well as St. Patrick's Day and Ostara, the spring equinox (which we celebrate instead of Easter). It's been verrrrrrrry cold again the last week or so, but we're hoping for warmer weather around the bend. We're so ready for spring!

Well, off get some real work done and get our Triops tank ready to hatch...

Blessings,
Those Crazy Stevenses

The hills are alive...

...with the sound of music! It was just one of those days at the Stevens house. Yesterday Keely got money from her Gramma Candel to buy a bass guitar, so this morning we went shopping. We scouted all the local pawn shops, and as a last resort we went up the street to Whitey's Music. We didn't figure there was much chance of being able to afford a brand new setup, but Whitey turned out to be an amazingly nice guy, and he gave us a heck of a deal. Keely ended up with a new bass, a new amp, a strap and even a video, and she still has a couple bucks left. Whitey cautioned us that if we bought from a pawn shop we could be getting broken equipment and not know it until it was too late. So she's very happy, and she's been plucking at it all afternoon...
The other musical event today was a concert for all the local schoolkids by a band from Nova Scotia called Grand Derangement. They're hard to describe- they combine several different kinds of music, including French, Celtic, Cajun...and they have stepdancers! Too cool! We sat right in the front, and we could feel the bass thumping in our chests. The craziest part was the French rap. Who would have thunk? We were hoping for a full show later this evening, but sadly they went back to Anchorage tonight. Hopefully we'll catch them next time.

Well, that's all for now...stay tuned for more craziness!

Love,
Those Crazy Stevenses

Getting behind...

Well, this is a bit of a catch-up post. I haven't gotten around to the blog for a little while, and we've been busy!

Here's our latest and greatest egg harvest! Keely didn't check on the chickens' nests for a few days, and when she did, this is what was waiting for her. 22 eggs, and not a single one was even cracked! Yum...






Liam's regained his former interest in ice skating, and he's been going to free skate with Ben once a week. Lessons will be starting soon, and we're going to give that a try again. Ben hadn't been on skates for maybe 15 years, but he got his groove right back on, and the boys have had a great time.






The stick bugs we got last October have sure gotten big! We love them, especially since they're so low-maintenance. All they need is a good squirt of water once a day and a leaf of lettuce when you notice the old one is shriveled up. We love to watch them do the 'water wiggle' when we squirt them, and seeing them change out of their old skins is pretty cool too...



I took a trip to Anchorage on Saturday, and brought back a couple of things for the kiddos. Liam has yet to open up his latch hook kit (it's a pillow with a yellow Lab on it), but both of them tore into the Magic Nuudles and Keely built a whole family, complete with a dog and doghouse for Liam. Magic Nuudles are like packing peanuts, except they're brightly colored and made out of cornstarch. When you get one wet it gets sticky and you can put them together and build with them. Here's Keely's masterpiece in progress.



Last year I picked up a bunch of old laptops at a garage sale for $2. I knew they didn't work, but I figured it would be fun to take them apart and see what was inside. They sat here for the better part of a year, but finally Liam decided to get out a screwdriver and begin the deconstruction. Last night at midnight saw Ben, Liam and I gathered around the kitchen table with screwdrivers and allen wrenches, prying, pulling, bashing and stabbing our way into the guts of the ancient computers.


When we got the screen apart, we found these two layers of filmy stuff that was quite fun to play with. We noticed that if you looked through them, things seemed to jump to one side, and that our faces looked pretty weird when we took pictures through them.

And finally, at long last, we'd taken apart every screw and torn, broken and crunched every last bit we could find. It was pretty fascinating to see the hard disk once we managed to breach its case. When we were done, around 1 am, we were too tired to clean up the mess, and left it for morning. As I write this, Liam's busy tearing apart the second one.
Whew! That's it for our crazy adventures for the last week or so...stay tuned for Chinese New Year (we're decorating today), Liam's birthday, and who knows what else!

Love ya!
Those Crazy Stevenses