23 Totes
Stuff, stuff and more stuff. We all have stuff, lots of it. I knew we had a lot of stuff because with each move we added several thousand pounds, according to the moving company, and although much of it was on my waistline, the vast majority was just stuff. Now the older we get and the more kids we get the more stuff we add. The question is, how much of it is necessary? I have heard Pastor Brown deliver several messages over the years regarding people and their stuff. In fact just recently he had a great message on joy vs. happiness and used stuff as an example of temporary happiness, but it does not often bring you joy.
I find great irony in stuff. You see I remember when Tra and I were moving back home after college. We had no money, no jobs, a prospect or two and very little stuff. But that stuff was very very important to us. In fact it was so important that we borrowed $3000 from my Grandpa to buy an 18 foot dual axle trailer so that we could haul our stuff up to Alaska. We then built plywood walls 8 feet tall so that we could pile stuff high. Now, as I sit and type this there are only three items that I remember being in that trailer, a washer and dryer of the utmost cheapest variety that we had recently purchased, and a small table made from wafer board. Neither item we would need for years, neither item irreplacable, neither item that important. But at the time that was our stuff, it was all we had and it had enough value to us that we hauled it nearly 4000 miles through blizzards, mountains, wrecks, and Canada. I guarantee you it cost us more to haul or stuff than to replace it. I quickly found out the most valuable thing we brought with us from Missouri; the trailer.
Now the tides have turned. Over the last 20 plus years we have been blessed to have some decent stuff. Stuff it took us years to accumulate. Just one or two pieces of our stuff now is way more valuable, monetarily wise, than our stuff back then. It also has a lot more sentimental value; as pieces of stuff was acquired at significant moments in our live, moments that often involved kids.
But now that we have to pay around $5 a pound to ship it, it quickly loses its importance. In fact, that is a great way to see what stuff really means anything to you at all. Ask yourself, ” would I (more…)
Costa Rica Pura Vida le segunda parte ( part two)
I think I got the video issues worked out, finally. Now I must pre-worn you, if you don’t like monkey’s, you probably won’t like part two. For some reason, when I was making this, I went particularly heavy on the monkeys. I like monkeys. I call my kids monkeys. So I am not apologizing for the amount of monkeys, I am just warning that you will see quite a few monkeys. There are also some sunsets, sailboats, beaches and all that stuff. I was also able to upload the whole video in its entirety onto Dailymotion, so I have included that on here as well. So sit back relax and allow yourself to be swept away to the land of beaches, sun, rain forests and monkeys, lots of monkeys.
This is part two from the previous post
This is the whole video, both parts 1 and 2 combined.
PURA VIDA
Happy Birthday to Me!!
So it isn’t actually my birthday, it’s the blog’s birthday. Yes this blog is now a year old, and my oh my how it has grown. One year was key for me, very key. You see I hate being an average statistic. For some reason that just sticks in my craw (have no idea what that is but I hope it isn’t bad). If you know me you may have picked up some clues. For instance, the average American family has 2.1 kids we have a few more. The average American gets married between June and October, we got married in December ( much to the shagrin of someone). The median age for a first marriage, 27, me 20. About 3% of American kids are home schooled all of ours have been, in fact we probably account for 1% of that in our family alone.
So what does all these stats have to do with anything? I am very glad you asked. You see when I first started this blog ( after influence from my Jedi blog master Ty at schemanski shenanigans ) I read a stat. This stat stated that something like 92% of all blogs do not last 1 year. So there it was staring me right in the face, a challenge, a glove to the kisser and I knew right then, even if the only people that ever read it was me, Tracy and my mom, I would be blogging for at least 1 year. So you see this day means a lot to me. My last challenge was from twitter, the average twitter has 112 followers, you know what that means! Don’t follow me on twitter unless you really like the stock market and charts, cuz that is all I talk about.
I am glad to see that we have a pretty consistent and growing readership and I really really enjoy the comments, emails, cards etc. They keep me motivated to keep on writing. I must say, this past year has had some of the most difficult moments ever in our lives, and it was theraputic for me to write about them on this blog. I was very conflicted whether or not to post those blogs, they only took me moments to write, but hours to decide whether or not to publish. In hindsight I am glad I did. They were some of our most read posts.
In closing, I want to thank you all so much for reading the blog and encouraging us, for prayers, thoughts and kind words. I especially want to thank those who take the time to comment, whether on our facebook link or on the actual blog. It seems to intimidate people, so I love to see those that do step out. Some of our all star commenters are Liz, Alli, Chelsea, Ty, & Brad. But our top two have been STEPHEN Stephen’s blog, and NIKI schemanski shenanigans, they are the winners of the annual akgodfreys commenters Oscars. Congrats, you two deserve it.
I will finish today’s rambling with links to our top ten posts over the past year in order of popularity. Dumb I know since they are the most popular you have already read them eh? Maybe I should do the least popular and have you read those ones instead, that’ll teach ya! Nope, most popular in order.
1. I have a bbq stain on my white t-shirt This one gets a lot of hits due to people searching for this song. It was not intended.
2. 2009 Christmas Letter Mostly about Florida
3. Costa Rica Day 4 Surf\’s Up! The whole time we were in Costa the blog was hit hard, it was great.
4. Apparently Popping and Locking Refers to the Knees in Hip Hop Dancing Alli’s knee surgery was very popular, probably due to the nasty pics of her knee.
5. Costa Rica Day 12/13 A Thorn in my Heel
6. Costa Rica Last Full Day, Sailing Take me Away
7. At What Cost The day we had to drop Jo off.
8. The Real Costa Rica First Day in Costa
9. Kodiak Moment = Orlando Trip Some of Dorian’s pictures showing off his skills that earned him a trip to Orlando for Fine Arts.
10. It\’s not about the money it\’s about the memories The first time we found out that Jo was leaving us, this one had quite a few comments as well.
So there you have it, they span over various topics, moods and time periods. I wanted to repost the very first blog I ever did, but I moved hosts since then and I couldn’t find it. Trust me, it was no big loss.
General Hospital
Another thing that others do not think about regarding those with a covey of kids is the hospital. Yes the hospital. You see the hospital gets to know your family very well. Lest you think it is just my maniacal wild family, well I guess it could be, but I doubt it, let it be known we know others who spend a lot of time at the hospital. Over the years we have had countless fevers, copious amounts of vomit, diarrhea ( just wanted to use that word in my blog) sore throats and more. We have also had several surgeries, stitches and more sprained ankles and knees than I care to recall ( hence my early retirement from the NBA the No-game basketball association). We have also had many more serious things such as broken bones, emergency surgery and more. Thus the hospital gets visited by the Godfrey ten almost as much as Walmart. We almost have paid for our own wing by now. Thus We are very thankful to have great insurance and a great hospital close by.
So Mr. Glenn, why are you writing about hospitals? Well this past winter Dorian went snowboarding and hurt his toe. He didn’t talk about it much for a month or so, and then it really started hurting. It turns out he had an ingrown toenail and he aggravated it by wearing too small of boots. That was at least six Dr. Visits, due to infection, and one small procedure, removing a portion of the nail. The following pictures are not of the toe nail, but of his 2006 snow machine accident.
2006 Dorian in the hospital right after arm and femur surgery
Jake and Dorian, best buds
Even with a broken wrist and femur he wouldn't miss fishing
Two days ago as I was waiting outside Ms. Vergine’s Dance Studio, where they have a parking spot named after me, one of my Ballerina Girl’s friends came out with her bag. She politely informed me that Alli had been injured, so I rushed in to her aid. Well maybe rush is too strong of word. Maybe I grunted and mumbled something rotten under my breath, but I did actually go in the building for the first time in eons. There she was helpless, moist eyes and limping. Being the super daddy I am I opened the door for her as she hobbled to the car. I did however carry her up the stairs at home.
Ballerina on crutches
Two days later another trip to the Doc. Dr. Innes informs us that surgery is imminent and necessary because her ACL, MTl, PTL, LOL, and AOL are all torn and need replacement. Needless to say Dr. Innes, who fixed Dorian’s broken bones, has worked his way onto our Christmas Card list once again. Perhaps he will be joining us for Thanksgiving Dinner as that is about when Alli will be done with her visits to his office.
Do not look at the below picture unless you like disgusting nasty jello looking stuff. You have been warned.
Please do not look at this if you have a weak stomach, or if you are a normal person.
Addendum to the percentage theory and the sourdough bandit
This weekend we had a couple, or actually three little house guests. This event has convinced me to add an addendum to the percentage theory blog, It’s all about the percentages. The addendum is that when the additions to the family come in multiples, you must use a more complex formula. The formula is as follows, (NK+NK)/(CK)*100= percentage familial impact. So in our case this weekend, we had 1+1+1 NK (new kids) or 3 total, divided by our CK (current kids) 8. It works out as follows 3/8=.375*100=37.5% impact on the family. That is similar to going from 2-3 kids, a significant step. So if you are planning on adding multiples to your household please use the above formula to correctly calculate the percentage familial impact.
Josiah and Josh playing with Play Dough
All this being said, it has been a very busy few days at the house, even more than normal. But there has also been a lot of fun times. One of the neatest things was the case of the sourdough bandit. You see Tra got up early to make a huge batch of sourdough pancakes for the expanded family. One of our all time favorites.
Jo and Aitana waiting for dessert, patiently I might add
The tub trio
Well everyone ate their share and then some, including Aitena, Josiah and especially Josh. None-the -less, there was a huge stack left over and put in the corner for nibbling on all day. Soon we started to notice the stack of cakes dwindling away, but we had not seen anyone eating them. So an investigation was launched. I knew it couldn’t be any of the little kids, there is no way they could reach them on the counter in the corner, or could they. I recalled that Josh had hit the flatbreads hard for breakfast and he was my first suspect. When I finally located him, he was empty handed. But next to him was a small man in his Spiderman underwear and his hands behind his back. I thought that may be a little suspicious, after all, I am a trained investigator. But I didn’t have to use my interrogation skills at all, for at that second the spider ware clad little man turned his back to me, still thinking he was hiding the flapjack from my view.
Lunch time, hope there is no play dough in that mac-n-cheese
Choco man
Case solved. It actually turned out that both Josh and Josiah took an extreme liking to the sourdough pancakes and snacked on the stack of about 25 left overs throughout the day until they were gone. These are true Alaskan men.
The elusive sourdough bandits later in the day showing off their treasure
What’s up homey? It’s always something.
Ever notice that when you own a home there is always something that needs to be done? Since we have been married, Tra and I have owned four homes two of them have been brand new. I have learned that no matter if your home is brand new or older there is always something that needs to be done. It can be as huge as new floors or as simple as new lights, there is always something. You may wonder why I would bring this up, with spring comes projects and we have a lot of em to get done. When you have 8 kids running around your house, and sometimes as many as 20, things get broke, and they get broke well. So spring always seem to motivate me to get to that endless list of projects.
Eagle River home living room
Outside of Eaglr River home
But, you see I have a problem, I love to start big jobs, remodel rooms, put in new floors, build walls and closets, add outlets and much more. What’ s the problem? Well I don’t like particularly finishing jobs. Once it is good enough to function it’s good enough for Glenn. I was warned of this by my good friend Ryan when I moved into the home we are currently in.
Our first Soldotna house being built
Inside the Soldotna house
Finished Soldotna house
When we first moved into this house, we lived downstairs for a couple months while we completely remodeled the upstairs, and I mean remodel. We tore up the floors to the joists, we tore down walls, we put up walls and much more. It was a filthy mess. Finally we came very close to completion, we just needed new vent covers and window sills, so we decided to move up stairs and I could finish it all over the weekends. Ryan prudently counceled me not to do it, he begs me not to move in until is completely done. What does he know? I am one motivated individual. Well last week I put in most of the vent covers, and the window sills…… well I’m going to get to them soon I promise. Since then I have done probably a dozen other huge projects, none of them 100% complete. Oh and for those of you that are not aware, we moved upstairs over three years ago.
Current Soldotna / Sterling home. Hmmmm, looks like it needs a deck upgrade!
So now I am overwhelmed with what I hate most, a whole bunch of mini projects that need to get done. I have dedicated myself to completing at least two mini-projects each week and this week it was Alli’s door and the vent covers. Next week, I think I would like to remodel our bathroom. Does that count as a mini project?
It’s all about the percentages
Quite often we are approached with ” I don’t know how you do it. I thought two was a handful.” In fact I was approached with that exact statement today. Well we have had a lot of time to think about this and how we are not overwhelmed, oh and btw at times we are quite overwhelmed. None the less, how can you go from 2 to 8 kids and survive?
It is all in the percentages. When you have / adopt your first child that is huge. You have gone from zero to 1, and you are not the center of your universe anymore. There are now prohibitions on travel, dates, sleep etc. etc. You get used to it and decide it’s not so bad. Then you decide to have another, you go from 1 to 2, that is a 100% increase, a substantial change. Twice the poopies, pukies, and problems. This intimidates many because it was such a dynamic change, and they think there is no way they can go any further.
But let’s say you do not want to be average, you want more than the 2.5 national avg. so you make the leap for a third. Now you go from 2 to 3, a 33% increase, substantial, but not nearly as significant as 100%. You find it is easier than you anticipated and you have had practice, so now you know some tricks, shortcuts, and you are anxious to correct all the mess ups you made on the first two; so you go for four because even numbers are always better. This time it is only a 25% increase, almost nothing, in fact you almost don’t even notice that you have another kid.
You see how the math works, and so by the time you get to your 8th child, that is only a 12% increase, and by then the older ones can help out with much of the workload. So the more you have the less it actually affects you.
Now that I have shared the ancient Chinese secret of big families ( and yes I am aware they only have one child each) I expect to see all of our faithful blog followers doing their part to add to our tax paying base and shoot for at least double the national average.
HAPPY “A” DAY OLIVIA GRACE!
Today was Livy’s adoption day, and for the faithful readers, you know what that means. She gets to chose the meals for the day and she gets to pick one present out. So let’s see what she did. For breakfast, she choose pancakes. Not a bad choice. For lunch, grilled cheese sandwiches, again on a cold cold winter day, not a bad choice. Now what do you think a 12 year old girl would choose for dinner? I hear pizza, hamburgers, tacos, McDonald’s…? Nope, she chose fish, specifically salmon. Not fresh salmon, frozen salmon. Now Tracy and I love salmon, and most of my kids like it, but Livy loves it. That’s my girl! How many of you out there, if you gave your kid choice, would they choose fish for dinner? I bet ZERO. Of course I would like to credit this to our awesome parenting, but if I have to be honest, I am sure it is due mostly to my personal tutelage.
Baby Olivia
Kodiak beaches, a common hangout for us, apparently she was happy to be by fish even back then!
Those of you that know Livy, know she has a hamster and a pet fish. She asked for a Chihuahua for Christmas, and dad said no stinking way! I know, I am mean, but a Chihuahua? No quiero rat dog! So instead she asked for another friend for Hammy her hamster. So we welcomed Gracy to the family today. Her original plan was to have a roommate for Hammy, however, apparently Hammy would view Gracy more as a main course rather than a roommate. So instead they will be condo mates, and Lord help us all if Hammy or Shyla (the dog) gets ahold of her.
One of the hot hot hot (65 ) days in Eagle River
Hmmm, wonder why she likes hamsters so much?
Livy in her tomboy stage.
My little princess.
Gracy, the newest member of the zoo ( she says the name is derived from combining mom and dad's name. We consider it an honor)
So there you have it. For a small fee, you can spend a day at the Godfrey zoo, well maybe not a day, more like 75 seconds, hence the small fee. But imagine the lifetime of memories, and if I can snap of picture of you, you can be in the blog!
Happy Adoption Day Olivia! We love you with all our heart!
Is it still considered a laptop?
Well I haven’t posted in a while. I am experiencing a little bit of laptop issues. As many of you may know, we traditionally spend Thanksgiving at my Mom’s in Eagle River. This always, without exception, involves a copious amount of food, including 12 different pies. Well I feel most obligated to try all 12 pies, so I did, except the cherry pie, not a huge fan of the cherry pie. So that brings me back to my laptop issue, no I didn’t spill the cherry pie on my laptop, but close. The eating of a dozen pies has an adverse effect on ones belly, consequently the belly enlarges and pushes the laptop away from the lap and onto the knees. So my laptop has now become a kneetop, and hard to reach with my stubby arms. So I am writing to you from my kneetop. It is much slower and tedious, but for the faithful readers it is well worth it.
We had a great Thanksgiving, lots of food, family, friends and fellowship. Jake had his birthday the day after Thanksgiving, aka black Friday. I told him they didn’t name it after him, but you know how impressionable kids are. I pray he doesn’t get a complex.
an after main course shot with the infamous cranberry salad in the forefront. Notice not much is missing from the salad, that is the tradition of the infamous cranberry salad. ( I might eat some if there wasn’t celery in it)
Mort, Chris, Sonya, Jenna, Brad, (Glenn’s chair) Tracy, Laura, Sean discussing whether or not we should break out the pies.
Kids table with 1/2 the kids eating.
One new guest we had this year was the pie Nazi. Usually it is tradition for us to eat pie the night prior to Thanksgiving, and for breakfast the morning of. However, the pie Nazi showed up this year, I won’t name names, but her initials are TMG and she has 8 kids. The pie Nazi wouldn’t let me have the traditional early pieces of pie, so a conflict ensued and I lost. However, if you look closely at the pie pictures, you will notice some pieces missing. The freedom fighters, the Mortenson’s, were able to secure some pre-Thanksgiving pie thus keeping the tradition alive. I will always be grateful for their sacrifice.
So we are alive and well and we had a great Thanksgiving, and we pray you did the same. I will post some more of our excellent adventures throughout the week as I am going to be stuck in Anchorage all week for training. Oh, btw, only 27 days left until Christmas.
This is how we rolled.
For those of you unfortunate enough to be a friend of ours on facebook, you have had to endure a bounty of 80′s pictures recently. The 80′s were a very special era for Tracy and I. We met in the 80′s, we dated in the 80′s, we got married in the 80′s, I had a mullet in the 80′s and we had some sweet duds in the 80′s. So looking through the photos I saw some pics of our old cars. If you remember I did a post on the Godfrey Bus, the 15- Passenger van we like to call our home on wheels. Well prior to that we went through a few vehicles, so I decided to share some pics of them with you. Now mind you, I haven’t found pics of all our past rides, so these are just a few of the classics.
S-10
Ok, so this is actually high school, my Chevy S-10 Maxi Cab, Cherry Red. This was a nice truck, we bought it brand new and the back seats faced each other. It was always fun when my friends would fight over who got to sit in front. Not cuz they loved me so much like I thought, but because they hated having their knees touching all the time in the back. This thing was two wheel drive and terrible in the snow. I don’t know how many times I got it stuck but enough to pay for the 4-wheel drive upgrade for sure. Still a fun truck for a high schooler. Next to me is Matt Tarbox, one of my best friends. Nine out of ten times when you looked in the truck this is what you would see, me and Matt, and perhaps some rap music. Yes, rap music. I am a recovering addict, so the first step is to admit I had a problem.
Firebird
This was my custom Pontiac Firebird, AKA KIT. This was the first car I ever bought on my own. What makes it custom you ask. Well first of all the tinted windows, duh. Second, if you look closely, the lights in the front are are the blinking kind, they open and close. Well notice that both these shots are in the daytime and the lights are up. That’s custom baby. Those lights never went down. You can’t buy em like that, you have to customize em that way by breaking the lights. The bad part is they really like to catch bugs when they stay up. Oh well, to be one of a kind you gotta sacrifice a little. The best thing that ever happened to this car is when the catalytic converter went bad, and I had it welded straight through. Talk about power! Talk about pollution! Talk about illegal!
`This was probably my all time favorite car, my 1986 Toyota Supra. This car was very fast and very heavy. I went faster than any other time, on the ground, in this car. Don’t ask don’t tell. The bad thing, it was prone to getting in wrecks for some reason. My brother wrecked it, I wrecked it, and I think someone else wrecked it. The good news, every time it got wrecked, I made some more custom changes. I added a spoiler which is crucial to the overall performance of the vehicle, tinted windows an more. This is the first car for which I found it an absolute requirement to wear driving gloves when I was driving it. I wish I was joking about that.
After one of the wrecks
This was after the worst wreck, and believe it or not, it wasn’t my fault! The driving gloves obviously helped my reaction time. The good thing was that it was a heavy heavy car. I hit a 79 Oldsmobile that ran a red light and I was going about 35 and this is all the damage I got. The Olds was another story. It was smashed to pieces, but no one got hurt. The really bad news is that the guy was a perennial violator with no license and no insurance, good times right there.
Tra in her Sidekick 89? Daytona Beach
This was Tra’s Sidekick that I bought her for Valentine’s Day. Well, actually I bought it for her after Valentines Day because I forgot about Valentine’s Day, or maybe it was her birthday. It was one of those bonehead things I did in our first year of marriage. I was a real Romeo. Anyway, this was her present. What a powerhouse it was. I drove it from Missouri to Alaska and kept it pegged, literally, through Montana due to their lack of a speed limit. It topped out at 80 mph. Not 180, 80 mph. It was a long long trip. But hey, it was reliable and got me and the dog there in one piece. I kind of wish we still had it, it got almost 30 mpg, but back then who cared about mpg? It was all about looking good.
At house
This is the rig with a new top parked in our house in Springfield MO. We had to sell it prior to our drive back up to AK. Notice the sweet hoop in the driveway. There were may a viscous chocolate thunder dunks reigned down on that hoop over the years. Well that is enough for today. I will dig up some pics of our rides as our family grew. I noticed we started to buy vehicles not based on what we liked, but based on what was practical, what fit us. The cooleness factor faded quickly, as quick as my hairline. Nuff said.
NEW HOST
OK, as you can see I have moved the blog. That means you will need to re-subscribe if you were a subscriber to get automatic updates. If you were not, then you should be now shouldn’t you? I imported some of the posts from the old site (tedious as it was) but I had to re-title them, hence the “2″ after all of them. I really enjoy the comments so keep em coming, even if they are dissing me. I will be changing the appearance etc. over the next few weeks until I get it how I like it, cuz it is all about me. Here are a couple of photos of me and Tra in our innocent youth.
Glenn & Tra Engagement
This is a picture of us on our engagement day. It wasn’t too romantic because I couldn’t hold on to the ring;It was burning a hole in my pocket. I was late getting to a friends birthday party and Tra was a little upset with me, so I pulled her outside and she kept saying “what is wrong with you?” I hope she meant at that moment, not universally. Then I proposed. I wish I could say I had flowers and fireworks, and I could and you would never know, but alas I did not. It must have worked though because here were are 20 years later and loving it. I think the “stache” may have to make a comeback.
Glenn & Tra working for VECO
This was the summer of 89 I think. We were both working for VECO in Kodiak during the oil spill. I was Tra’s boss, so nothing much has changed. The funny thing is, I didn’t get my house remodeled for 1/2 price. I must have missed that form when I applied for the job. It was a fun summer though. We made some dough, basically lived on a boat and had not a care in the world. Jenna and Valery were there too, so it was a family operation. I remember after they implemented the drug testing we lost 90% of our crew, amazing. I told them not to eat those poppy seed muffins. I just noticed something, we had the same hair style! We rocked!! ( literally cuz we were on a boat remember?)
