Happy Birthday Pat, Mama, Grandma Pat from all of us!

In this post: Jonah, Daniel, Janelle, & Jake hangin' out; alpha-biscuits made by DJ for morning biscuits & gravy; winter sunsets from our living room window; Janelle with Adrianna on A's new snowmachine; Jake trying out his new skis; Jonah videos.

The contents of this post were taken, stored, and uploaded with our obscenely slow internet in honor of Pat's BIRTHDAY!!! We hope you have a very HAPPY day today, and that all of our blog followers enjoy the picts as well.

Ice Fishing

Happy Belated Holidays to you and yours, especially if we missed you by phone or card (although our cards were sent after Christmas, so you may still be waiting)! Our door is filled with cards and pictures from the people we love. Thank you! We miss you all.

Jake and Daniel have been taking advantage of some recent non-windy days by driving out on the river to try out the jig sticks. Since we don't have our own auger, Jake watches out our river-mouth-facing window to see where other people are fishing, and as soon as they leave, he bundles up himself and DJ and drives the 4-wheeler down to occupy the hole, minimum ice-scooping and no chipping required. (We've tried ice-fishing without an auger, and spent nearly 60 minutes with 3 people chipping away at the ice with a razor-sharp pointed, long metal pole ... and still had over 3 feet of ice to go to reach any water or fish... so now we either go with someone who has an auger, or find a whole that is fairly fresh so we only have a few inches of ice to chip through rather than several feet.) It reminds me of driving around Kalaloch Campground waiting to find our (the Gunnings') "ocean-front spot" -waiting for the previous tenants to vacate while we drove around over and over again to see their packing progress.

The last several days have been bitterly cold... too cold to fish, in my opinion, although a few "soldiers" have stayed the course and continued to catch smelt and tom-cod at -30 something Fahrenheit. We have been burrowed down, sipping hot cocoa and playing Wii while we wait for the thermometer to read at least -20 or higher before attempting any non-mandatory outdoor activities.

Other than the cold, we are doing quite well. Daniel and Jonah both seem to be changing daily... learning new things, keeping us on our toes (even when we should be sleeping, at times), growing, making us laugh, and being the centers of our little Unalakleet universe.

Take care, everyone... especially our Spokanite followers. We will keep you, the city, and the nearly 80" of melting snow in our prayers.

Janelle

Daniel Jacob Sven Snyder is 3!

Daniel had a lot of fun yesterday for his 3rd birthday. -Wish you all could have been there with us.

-Woke up ~ 4 a.m. saying/singing, "Happy birthday, me?, Happy Birthday, me?" We sent him back to bed. -Woke up later to find a big, Tonka dump-truck as b-day present #1. He ran around the living room trying to ride it or putting socks in it and dumping them back out.

When we got home, we all had Peace On Earth Pizza (as requested by the birthday boy). Mmm-mm.















He was excited about all of his presents, like this one (play video to see) from Papa Bill and Grandma Retta:


But of all the things he received, Daniel seemed to enjoy the card (play video to see) from his Great-Grandma Betty the most:


Afterwards Darlene, Shak, Travis (their Grandson), Karis, and Adrianna all came over for cake & ice cream (and Dar brought some agutak too). We sang happy birthday (play video to see) and played with DJ's big, foam world-map puzzle from Papa Gary and Grandma Pat:


Life is good.

Jonah is getting bigger. If you look at the LAST picture here, he looks nearly IDENTICAL to one of Daniel's baby pictures (also up close, but with a blue background, if you remember the one).
































This was my first week back at work. Jake goes into Anchorage for training on Sunday, and doesn't get back until Thursday, so I'll be a single, working mother for a week... I already appreciate Jake every day, but even the thought of how much harder next week is going to be for me makes me appreciate him more.

Janelle

Everyday Picts For Your Special Day!

Happy Birthday to "Papa Gary", "Gary", "Daddy" from Jonah Dathan, Daniel Jacob-Sven, Jake, and Janelle Snyder!

While hopefully everyone will enjoy these photos, this post was created today just because it is Gary Gunning's BIRTHDAY. It is in honor of you that these pictures have been lovingly (and with obscenely slow internet) uploaded. YOU get to be the first bestowed with all of our favorite pictures of the last month. You'll notice some differences in the picts: these span from Oct 9 through Nov 6; DJ and Janelle have lost weight, and Jonah has gained, of course... he's 9.95 lbs now, and getting longer every day... almost too big for the newborn outfits now that he's 5 weeks old (also TODAY). -Janelle