Kudos to the kiddos

Today I had to go to Homer and conduct sea trials on one of our new patrol boats. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera to get some shots of our new Prince William Sound vessel, the Sound Justice. The sea trials went well and when I finished, I headed straight north to home. By the time I got back to the office it was almost time to pick up Jeremy from soccer practice at 7:30 so I went directly there. 

When I finally got home I was surprised  to see how great the house looked. You see spring in Alaska is not a pretty time of year. The dirt so coveted  for traction on driveways and roads in the winter becomes, well just stinking dirt. And dirt is dirty, go figure. Furthermore, there is a lot of dirt everywhere and the grass is not greener, and I almost always amazed at the prizes revealed buried underneath the winter snow; boots, gloves, scooters,balls, moose and more. I am shocked we have not yet thawed out a kid. 

The tools of labor resting after a long day's work.

Kids playing hard after working hard.

The end result, a yellow lawn leaf free, and leaf free trees too. Maybe we won't have to rake next year.

Upon walking into home sweet home, I was quickly informed that the kids had helped mom for over four hours raking, washing, cleaning and just getting the house ready for summer. Tra informed me that they did this all without complaining and that they all worked very hard. In fact, believe it or not, Alli and Ben even  got a sunburn on their arms and shoulders, from the sun, the actual sun!! Maybe it truly is spring in Alaska.

A beautiful clean driveway, next to a clean garage, every man's dream.

Never too tired to jump at, not even at 9:30.

The amazing part was that Tra was so sore she could not go do her nightly workout , and although the kids swore they were sore, they stayed outside playing until well after 9 pm. So this blog is a THANK YOU to Tra and the kiddos for their excellent work. Now if they would only drag the dead moose carcasses into the woods we could be done. 

Kassie showing off her moves, I just hope she didn't land on Jake.

1/2 the kids around the house, including a few of the neighbor kids, who didn't help clean.