Reset button!

So we have officially hit the "reset button" here in the Morrison home. We have had some major changes this year (all for the better) and we have gone back to the basics.

I have decided to quit my job after 3 years of working outside the home. I had been at home with the kids since they were born until we moved to Alaska and this job just fell into my lap. I decided that it would be "fun" to work again and that it wouldn't be bad or take me away from the family because I would only be at work during the times that the kids were in school each day, and Quincy, who wasn't in school at the time, would be with me all day.

It was working out pretty good most days until we had this wild hair and decided to pull out all the kids from public school and give home school a try. I thought I could pull a Wonder Woman and do both. (Because as my siblings know, I did own a pair of Wonder Woman Under-roos in my previous life and thought they were the coolest thing ever!!) Well, as much as it pains me to admit it, I was WRONG!!! Boy, was I ever wrong! It was the worst! When I was at work, I loved it, but had the guilt from leaving the kids and not putting my energy and focus on them. When I was home, I loved it, but again...I felt guilty for not being at work. I was wearing out quickly and had nothing left for anyone, including me! (Let's just say that all my hard work at WW had gone out the window and we got to start again at square one tonight! UGH!!!)

But I must say that I am most excited about our re-start and all that it holds for the Morrison Family. I have just finished reading Little Women and am half way through Little Men. Can I just say, I would LOVE to just climb into that book and live with Father and Mother Bhaer at Plumfield and raise my kids there with them! I have thought so much about the things they do with the kids in educating them and parenting them, and it is everything that I have ever wanted to do with my kids. So in the spirit of Little Men and life in Plumfield, we have gone back to the basics. We have said "no" to multiple things and are just doing the things that matter most. Scripture study, prayers, family home evening, nightly family reading time before bed or any other time during the day that suites our fancy (the kids' favorite time of day!), school (and whatever that involves for each day), taking care of our home and each other, planting a garden, and Mom making time for MOM! It has only been a couple of days, but I am so excited for this and all the possibilities that are out there!

I have realized that time is our most precious commodity and it is slipping away faster and faster. It is so easy to say yes to so many good things and get involved in so many good things and before you know it, you are drowning in "good things to do and good places to go" and don't even realize it! I had gotten caught up in the busy-ness of the world and "life" and had forgotten my most important mission in this life, my family.

New Pics!

I just realized that the kids pictures are from 2 years ago...yes, they have grown since we came up here....their Mother is just a little behind in getting new ones up. I will try to get some new ones up soon. :)

Yes, we are still alive!!

Okay, so blogging has kind of taken a huge backseat here and we will just say that we have all been hibernating up here. :) We are all doing well but I have realized that Facebook is so much easier than blogging. If you are on Facebook....look us up....Nancy Klingler Morrison. I will try to do better. Cole is in the 5th grade now and is 11, Myah is in the 3rd grade this year and is 8, Dylan is in 1st grade and just turned 7, and Quincy is still in Preschool with me and is 4, but will be turning the big 5 in March. She is getting excited to start Kindergarten this fall, I am already feeling for her teacher as Quincy has had the run of the Preschool for the past 2 years and able to join any class that happens to be doing something fun or having snack time. She is quite the social creature though like our other kiddos and will do very well in that aspect.
We have had a 5th kiddo join our bunch this past little while so her Dad could go out fishing. He is a single Dad and needed someplace for her to stay while he went out. She is 5 years old and is a sweetheart and fits right in with our crew. She has attended the Preschool where I work for the past 2 years, so she knows me and our family quite well.
Ken is taking the next little while off of work and putting on his tool belts. We had a fire in our house back in November and have just gotten the okay and the $ from our insurance company for Ken to do all the work and not have to pay a contractor to come and do it for us. So he and a friend of ours are going to get things put back together this next week. YEAH!!! No more holes in the house covered by beautiful blue tarps!!
I am getting excited to be heading to Anchorage again for the Alaska Preschool Teachers Conference that they have each year. We leave this Wednesday and are there until Sunday, that is if the weather cooperates!! It has been really foggy here in Kodiak and have had no planes in or out for the past few days. So we are praying for the fog to lift. Ken is coming with me this year and doing some shopping in the "big city" for supplies to fix the house while I am in classes during the day. We have someone coming in to stay with the kids while we are gone. They are really excited for that!!!!
Well, that is most of our news from here in Kodiak....like I said, not much going on....just a lot of hibernating!! :) *But we are getting more and more daylight each day!! Summer is coming!!!

Sandwich bread

Well, I have had many requests for the recipe for sandwich bread that I have been using. I love it and it is really easy to make, but I have to preface this with it is all about the weighing. I have a scale that I use to weigh out the ingredients in grams and so I don't know the measurements as far as cups, tsp, etc. But I know you could google them and figure out what the measurements would be-but I think weighing is the way to go because your amounts are ALWAYS the same!! Hence, your recipe always turns out the same! I just use one of those digital postal scales with my Kitchen aid bowl. And the pans I use are called Pullman pans. It is what gives the bread its shape so they look like store bought bread. I love them!!! I got them on Amazon for only $15 a piece. I have two, because then I only have to make bread every other day. I did not get the cover, because I didn't want flat topped loaves. So here goes. :) Enjoy!!

Sandwich Bread
500 g. flour (you can substitute up to 50% of the white flour with whole wheat flour)
12 g. salt
18 g. sugar
25 g. dry milk
6 g. instant yeast (or 9 g. active dry yeast, or 18 g. fresh yeast)
18 g. shortening
300 g. water (about 90 to 100 degrees)

Combine all the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Add the shortening and water last.
Mix on lowest speed for 5 minutes.
Increase speed to next speed up and mix for an additional 10 minutes.

Fermentation
Form dough into a tight ball, and place in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a slightly warmed oven (about 75 to 85 degrees) for 30 minutes. The dough should be close to double in size.

Proofing
Dump dough out onto a greased or floured suface. Press out into a rectangle and begin to form the dough into a loaf by pulling dough from the edges and pressing into the center of the rectangle until you get a tube shaped loaf. Place formed loaf into a loaf pan and spray cooking spray over the top of the loaf. Cover with plastic. Place in a slightly warmed oven for 1 hour.
Remove the dough from the oven and begin preheating (with a pizza stone in the oven) to 400 degrees.
Let the oven get to temperature for at least 15 minutes before baking. Remove plastic and place pan in heated oven on top of pizza stone. Bake for a total of 20 minutes. Turn half way through the baking time to give an even baking.
Turn bread out onto a cooling rack immediately after removing from the oven.
For best result, resist the temptation and let cool for 1 hour before slicing!
Enjoy!! YUM!!

Please feel free to call me with any questions or post a comment with it. This is just too amazing to not share and have you all suceed at it!
WARNING-Store bought bread will be sooooo yucky after this that your family won't want to eat it anymore and you will have just cursed yourself to a lifetime of bread making. Muwahaha- welcome to my world!! ;)

Love ya all-let me know how it goes!

Exploring new worlds!

The world of bread making that is! I have recently had a good friend teach me how to make the most amazing sandwich bread! It acts just like store bought bread, but tastes worlds better and I know exactly what is in it and it is the easiest bread I have ever made. I honestly didn't ever imagine that I would be able to make a bread to replace the crap one can get at the store. But I have finally done it!!

Here they are in my amazing new bread pans that give them their shape.

Cooling off on the counter- oh, the smell was almost more than I could handle! But I had to wait a bit before slicing them so they would hold their shape and not squish under the knife!

And we finally got to partake of its goodness! If only I had taste/smell available on here as an option for you all! Well, I guess you will just have to come on up and we can share! ;)

So long to my bread buying days!!!

Whoo Hoo!!!!

I did it!!!

Well, I had a meeting with all the bosses at the Preschool this week and accepted the job as Director of the Preschool. I have been meeting with the interim Director this week and learning some of the things my new position has me doing. I will still be teaching one class a day either in the morning or the afternoon and then taking care of my responsibilities as Director the other part of the day. I am getting excited to see what the year holds for us. I will still have Quincy with me all the time and am so grateful that I can do that. I was so lucky to have found this place to work where I can have her with me all day and she gets free preschool out of the deal. I will have to finish up my Bachelors Degree along the way to be in compliance with state regulations. But as long as I am working towards it, all will be good. We have a college right here in Kodiak that I can get some classes through and the others I can take online. So that will be a good thing, I am excited to go back to school again. So anyways, that is the latest at the Morrison home. :)

Octopus anyone?!?

Ken and Cole went out fishing for halibut on Friday and in the process this HUGE octopus jumped on one of the lines and they pulled him in. Ken decided to keep him and see what octopus tasted like.

Here he is sitting in the sink getting cleaned up and ready to cook.

All clean waiting in the bowl to be thrown in the pot. This thing was just massive!!!

Cooking away!! We talked to a couple of locals to find out what we do with an octopus and were told to boil it for a few minutes and then put it in an ice bath for a few minutes and then back to the boiling water, over and over for an hour and a half. If you don't it is like chewing on a garden hose!! So we did and it was pretty tender and tasted so yummy!! The boys tried it and said it wasn't too bad, the girls ran screaming!!! After the cooking, all the skin and suction cup things just peeled right off, so don't worry, we didn't eat that part!! It was the most amazingly built animal I have seen! I now know why they are soooo strong. So cool!!!!

Now we are going to pickle some, put some into a chowder, and smoke some. So we will keep you updated!!

Friends, Beach, Fun

We found a super fun beach for the 4th of July! Our friend Ashley came with us with her 2 kids and their dog Marley. We hiked back along this beautiful trail, lots of trees covered in green moss and the ground was all green with the moss as well. So pretty. It looked as though someone had taken a green fuzzy blanket and draped it over everything. I love it!! That is how most of Kodiak is.

All along the beach is this rock wall that has the neatest striations all along it. The kids thought it was fun to climb on and Quincy sat down to take a break and let me snap some pictures of her. She sure is growing up soooo quickly! And she lets me know it most days. :)

Myah was a more difficult subject to shoot for her dear old Mom! This was the last in a series of photos with her hands in front of her face. She finally said, "Okay, CHEESE!!!!!"

Dylan was just happy to be in the water and sand. He is so happy go lucky about most everything. He loved looking for sea shells which wasn't hard to do on this beach. It was covered in them. So his goal this time was to find the biggest one that wasn't broken. He found one the size of a dinner plate that wasn't broken and was soooo excited.

Colton took a little Spiderman fishing pole and cast it out into the surf after we saw a bunch of seals out there swimming and then a bunch of salmon jumping up around them. Luckily the only thing that grabbed ahold of his tiny pole was this little sculpin. But it was exciting none the less that he caught something with the tiny pole in the surf.

Our hike out, so pretty!!

We had a great 4th of July out on the beach soaking in the sunshine.

Hope you had a great one too!!!

July the 3rd

We went over to our friends Will and Ashley's for the 3rd of July. (Ashley is Lori Warnicks niece!!! Crazy small world!) Anyways, had sooo much fun.

The kids all going nuts on the trampoline, courtesy of Will!!
Ashley reminded me about the good old days back at girls camp when she whipped out the bananas, chocolate, and marshmallows to make banana boats in the the fire! Holy smokes, I can't believe I had forgotten about them and all their gooey goodness. (I know the picture just doesn't do it justice!)

Then we had to do sparklers!

This is at 11:30 pm while we were waiting for the city fireworks display to start at midnight. Yes, it is still light out!!

And Ashley, her son Liam, Quincy and doggie Marley watching the Kodiak fireworks. Such a fun firework display! This is how we kick off the 4th of July, because of the sun not going to bed before midnight. So it technically was the 4th, but we went to sleep between activities. :)

Day at Fossil Beach

After church today we decided it was way too nice of a day to stay home. So we loaded up the kids and some food for dinner, called a friend and all headed out to Fossil Beach. Kodiak has one road that runs from one end at Monashka Bay which is where Ken caught his king salmon the other day which is only about 10 miles from our home to Fossil Beach which is about 45 miles from our home. So we took the long and beautiful drive out. Along the way we saw silver foxes, a herd of buffalo, and our friend saw a bunch of whales in one of the bays we passed. It took about an hour and a half to get out to the beach because of all the windy mountain roads, but it was well worth the drive.

Fossil beach actually has fossils all over it. Ken and Cole had fun looking for fossils and the other kids had a blast in the sand and the surf! It was sooooo warm and sunny all day.
We went out with our friend Ashley and her 2 kids, Liam and Olive. Her husband Will is out to sea on one of the Coast Guard boats right now. This is Liam and Cole with Myah buried up to her neck in the sand! ;) She thought that was so funny!

Quincy didn't want to get left out of the action, so they buried her next.

Quincy and her buddy Liam went "fishing" on the surf with Liam's little princess fishing pole and only a lure on the end, no hook. They thought they were big stuff! It was so cute though! Liam was in my preschool class last year and he and Quincy got to be good buddies.

Ken getting the fire ready for the hotdogs and marshmallows. And Ashley with her daughter Olive and Colton getting ready for dinner. We also took out the salmon that Ken caught earlier this week, for those of us who don't care for hotdogs, to cook on the grill. There is nothing better than sitting on the beach with good friends eating dinner and watching the kids laugh and play in the surf and sand while the sun is shining down on us. This day has to rank right up there with some of the best days of my life.

Early morning fishing trips

Ken got up this morning at 3:15am to be out on the river at 4 am because we had heard from a good source (the local king fisherman guru himself aka: the toy store owner and good friend Mr. Ron) that the fishing was going to be good this morning for kings and you had to be on the river at 4 am. So Ken got up and headed out and within 15 minutes of being on the river caught himself this king salmon!

We have one small king salmon run here in Kodiak. Mr. Ron is out every chance he gets and has put in many many hours out on the river to get the kings and has only brought in 9 so far this year. So we are really happy to get one. Not to say that we won't try for more. :)

Colton's first halibut fishing trip

Colton went out on his first halibut fishing trip today and I think it is safe to say that he had a great time!! :)

Here he is with his "catch" of the day. Yes, it was bigger then him!

All the mighty fishermen of the day. Colton, Ken, Dave (a friend from the ward), and Steve (another good friend from the ward). Ken caught a 50 lb halibut.

And Colton's halibut weighed in at a whopping 120 lbs!! He was so excited. It is always a good day when you have to shoot the fish before you can bring it onto the boat. :)

Needless to say my freezer is filling up quickly with all these halibut fishing trips. YUMMY!!!!

Ken's fishing expedition

Ken had a great fishing expedition on Saturday. He went out fishing for halibut with Steve, a friend from church and Andy, a co-worker from the hospital.

They saw whales that kept breaching around them, sea lions, puffins, and sea otters out floating in the ocean.
They were not having much luck with catching halibut all morning, but pulling in lots of cod and rock fish. These are some cod that they reeled in.

This little fish is called an Irish Lord. Pretty weird looking thing, but this fish could be over 100 years old!! Crazy!!!

By the afternoon, they had found the halibut and were just pulling them in one after another. This is Ken's biggest one of the day.

Here is the mighty fishermen with their catch of the day! Steve, Andy, and then Ken (L-R) They had a lot of fun and are looking forward to doing it again soon!! (I am excited for them to do it again also and fill up our freezer with fish!!! Yummy!)

Dylan at Circus Camp!

We enrolled Dylan in Circus Camp this summer and he has had a blast!! They brought in a couple of people from New York who came and taught the kids all the different aspects of circus performing. It was pretty neat! By the end they had kids on unicycles, trapeze, hanging upside down from ropes, stilt walkers, kids walking around ontop of balls, all sorts of things you would see at the circus. Dylan was in the younger group and so they tried to keep them as close to the ground as they could! :)

Dylan was trying out anything that they would let him do! He loved the trapeze rope and swinging around on it. Something a "monkey" would love to do! :)
He got really good at juggling. This was one of the things he did at the performance.

Myah also got in on the action one morning while we were watching them practice. She got pretty good with the juggling as well.

Dylan also like learning how to use the "Devil Sticks". They were pretty cool, and he could get those things hopping around.

He had an awesome make up job for the performance! He was a Marshmallion Alien from another gallexy. They had an alien themed Circus Performance. It was a lot of fun and he did a really good job!! We are very proud of all his hard work and all the things he accomplished these past 2 weeks!!

YEAH DYLAN!!!!

Beautiful Day at the Beach!

These are the days we live for here in Kodiak!! It was soooo beautiful today that we just couldn't help it and found ourselves at the beach! It was 70 degrees and sunny. We couldn't have asked for more. Dylan showed up in his swimming suit and the girls just pulled up their pant legs and didn't care about getting all wet. By the end Colton had rolled up his pant legs and joined in. Don't get me wrong, the water was still cold, but it didn't phase anyone! And we weren't the only family at the beach swimming today! :)

This is the girls before they decided to join Dylan in the ocean swim. You can see Dylan in the background. He climbed up and jumped in over his head the first jump! Talk about a shock to the system! Didn't phase him though!
Cole and Dylan playing in the water. When we first got to the beach, it was high tide and all the rocks that the boys are standing on were completely covered. As the tide went out, they started climbing on all the rocks looking for sea creatures and shells, etc.

I caught Ken and Cole off exploring up the beach and got this picture of them sitting by an old tree root. My good looking boys!

Colton was brave and climbed out on the rocks above the water in his clothes. I was just waiting for him to fall in and get all his clothes wet, but he did good and didn't fall in. But I got this fun picture of him on the rocks with the ocean in the background. I thought it turned out pretty cool!

We had sooo much fun today and are so excited for summer to be here and we can have more days with sun and beaches! It has been rainy and cloudy the past little while so we are just soaking in all the Vitamin D that we can. Oh, we love it here!!!

Youth Conference

Well, I would have never guessed in a million years that I would be going to Youth Conference at the age of 35!!! But after 7 attempts to get leaders or parents of the young women to go with them, I volunteered myself to go with Ken and the Youth, as he is the Young Mens President and would be going to chaperone the boys. So I divided up our 4 kids between two friends homes and took off for Anchorage with Ken and 5 young men and 7 young women. Little did I know what I was in for!!! I had always had a hard time with this age group and just didn't quite "get" them. I didn't even when I was that age! So I was already cringing when the plane took off! We started at the temple after the plane landed and did baptisms for the dead with our stake, which consisted of our 12 youth and 5 others from the rest of the stake. It was wonderful to be in the temple! Then we headed off to the Bi-Stake Youth Confernce with the Anchorage Stake and our tiny Soldotna Stake. We had some great speakers and some fun ice-breaker games. We had dinner and then off to the dance. Ken and I sat in the back of the gym and headed out to dance every now and then. (Ken was supposed to be on bed rest because he had a bad infection in his leg, but the doctor let him go if he promised to keep his leg up. So he was sitting most of the time with his leg propped up on a chair.) But it was so interesting as the dance went on, Ken and I were there and the kids just kept coming back and sitting with us for awhile and then would head back out to dance. We were like the "home base" where they felt like they could recoup before going back out again. It was great to get to know them better and to begin to understand them and what life is about at that age again. Ken and I stayed at a members home, but they were in Georgia, so we had the whole house to ourselves. And the kids were shipped out to different members homes.
We had a great time the next day at the service project, all but the mosquitos!!! They were out for BLOOD!!!!! Horrible! We don't have many of them in Kodiak and so none of us had thought to bring bug repellent or anything like that! We weeded and pruned a park in Anchorage. It was great to work side by side with the kids. Then we headed to dance #2. Another interesting night with the kids coming back to "check in". Ken and I went to the late movie after the dance and caught the new Star Trek movie. The theater had the most comfy recliner seats and I had myself a nice 2 1/2 hour nap that cost $10!!!! But Ken enjoyed the movie. And only in Alaska can you come out of the late show at 12:30 and it still be light! I love it!!!
Then the next day we had some great classes and devotional speakers and then testimony meeting to finish up the conference. I was having flash backs to when I went to Youth Conference many years ago at BYU and Pocatello the whole weekend!!!! CRAZY!!! I must admit that I am so glad to be past those akward teenage years. I could see myself in so many of the youth there and I just wanted to tell them not to take it all so seriously and not worry so much about what you think everyone else is thinking about you. Just be you and be proud to be you!!! Hhhmmm, I vaguely remember having lessons about that as a youth, but didn't listen or think it applied to me. And the cycle continues! But all things considered, it was a really great experience for me!! I got to know, love, and respect our youth, which I honestly couldn't say before this past weekend. So to all of the parents, leaders, etc. who for one reason or another couldn't and/or wouldn't go with the youth to conference- I THANK YOU!!

So Grateful!!

What a day on Saturday!! We had our little bug business opened and had someone stop by to get some crickets. Well, as he was parked in front of our home, a car driving by just smashed into his truck! The driver had a seizure and just lost control of her truck. Luckily Ken was home and he ran out and helped. The kids had been out all morning playing in the yard and on the sidewalk and it could have just as easily been them out there playing instead of his truck parked there! Luckily everyone was okay, but it just makes me stop and think and take inventory of all that we have and are blessed with!! And so grateful that we have a loving Heavenly Father watching over us and protecting us!!

Salmon release

Quincy and I went today with Coltons class to release all the salmon babies they have raised from eggs. They did a really good job this year taking care of them and keeping them alive!

Here are some of the fingerlings that they released today. It was so fun to watch them let them go. They even gave Quincy cups of fish to let go. She thought she was big stuff!

Here is Ms Judy, Coltons teacher, netting out the fish for them to let them go. She is an amazing teacher and we are hoping that Myah has her next year.

Colton letting his baby fish go. They will spend the next 2-3 years in this lake and then swim on to the ocean and return many years later, and then we will catch them again and have them for dinner!! Yum! :)

A Wonderful Weekend!

We had the most wonderful weekend! Saturday, Myah decided that she did not like her younger brother knowing how to ride a bike when she didn't. (She would get too scared each time and fall once and be done.) So she hopped on and just kept trying until she got it!! She was so excited and proud of herself! So now all my older kids have transportation! AAAHHHH!!! At least we are in Kodiak and I don't have to worry too bad! :)

I was snapping photos on Sunday morning of the kids and ended up with this one of Quincy that just about made me cry! It just captures her personality and everything about her in one! So anyways just wanted to share.



Then we celebrated Myah's 8th birthday on Sunday May 10th-Mothers Day. As you can see from the photo below-she got what she was wanting! An I-pod! After she got it, she put it on and I told Ken, "Do you realize we have just lost her to being 'plugged in' until she moves out?!?" LOL!!!

Then that night we had the awesome experience of Myah's baptism! What a way to end the day! It was sooo wonderful! All of our good friends from Kodiak were there and we had rootbeer floats in the cultural hall after. We have the most gorgeous church building I have ever seen! It is all wood walls etc. So pretty.

Daddy Kisses! We are so proud of you Myah and your choice to be baptized! We Love You!!

What a wonderful Mothers Day/ 8th Birthday/ Baptism Day!