they're back!!

i can't take any credit for this picture. thanks to bonita for letting me use it in the blog. great shot! she was late meeting us, pulled over to let this guy cross the road and instead he climbed on her hood and used it to springboard over the berm on the side of the road. i have not seen this bear, but he has been photographed and seen several times out basher/campbell airstrip way this week. i went back out there again today. think i just missed him, but i was told he'd been in the north bivouac parking lot, but had headed across the street in opposite direction! lucky me...my walk was bear free! love the bunny ears on the dashboard by the way!! hopefully, we'll catch up with bonita again for one of these last monday walks or head out to hike her way and meet up with her there. hopefully, we don't have any more bear encounters! i think i would have needed to change my panties had that bear jumped on the hood of my car...bonita is so chill!!
blossom, rio and i were joined by amy and lena and our malemute friends. they wrestled lots and i'm guessing they all slept pretty well that evening. at least for a few hours. ekko above, laika below, though i'm not sure i will be so good at the malemute identifications in all these photo's. tanya volunteered for overtime and i think she regretted it. the money is always great, but when it's in the 40's out there and perfect weather...it's just so hard to be inside!chatted with my sister today. had to laugh, had read her daughters blog and i guess there is this activity that people are doing over easter with thier kids where they put a marshmallow in a cresent roll and the marshmallow disappears with the cooking. it's a way to demonstrate jesus rising and not being in the tomb. i'm totally screwing it up, but for some reason i just found it so funny/strange/kinda freaky. just seems so wrong to put jesus in the oven. then i mentioned the whole jesus is a jew and that putting a jew in the oven was maybe not the best visual for the children. this hadn't occured to her as i'm sure it wouldn't initially. maybe my brain just takes stuff to that next level and i'm the one that is strange. not sure who comes up with these idea's...sadly, i fear this one wasn't well thought through. not sure if it just seems odd as i don't attend any church services so i'm just out of touch...? anyway, it rattled around in my brain for a bit as it was sorta a disturbing image. i do love to keep in touch with various family members via thier blogs. i think it's a great way to get to know people and stay connected without being too invasive. amy and lena out enjoying the perfect weather!more malemute action. manny on the left, then ekko and then laika. blossom gets involved initially but soon realizes she can't keep up with the malemute wrestling levels. these two were just fun shots. kinda reminds me of those old photo booths that used to be around. i had no idea that the first picture took so i tried again. apparently they both took. i mispoke in my last post. i said i had never been to the mormon temple. i have. a few times i went through a multilayer interview process and was found worthy to do babtisms for the dead. i'm not sure how familiar most people are with this practice. it is a reason that mormons are super into geneology. they believe that after people have passed you can babtize them and then they can have the opportunity to become mormon even after they have passed.
always thought it a strange thing even when i was an active member. i mean what is the point of our whole earth life if we can screw that all up and then just repent after death and move on with a clear slate. i have always felt the same with the whole born again christian thing about repenting and finding jesus in that last nanosecond of your life. i recall working with a very devout born again girl one night in ketchikan. we weren't very busy and had this long drawn out discussion. nobody was truely happy without jesus. how did she know some buddhist monk was not happy. i also brought up a few examples. like so some poor girl who has been molested by her father her whole life and at age 16 kills herself and never accepts jesus, she goes to hell, while hitler could have been forgiven for all in his last minutes of life if he just accepted jesus. she said yes, but for sure the girl would accept jesus in her last minutes and hitler wouldn't. i guess i need a post life justice system that is a bit more fair than that. i think there was an outcry against the mormons doing babtisms for the dead when they decided to start babtizing holocaust victims. that didn't sit too well with many of the relatives of those who lost thier lives due to their religion. i can see where that would be offensive. that website ancestry.com is based in provo, utah, which is mormon central. i don't know, but i suspect it has a pretty strong mormon connection and it may even be that the mormon church owns some of it. would be interesting to find out. when i see those commercials for people to go on there i doubt those people know that all the relatives that are found will be babtized mormon. you are really just helping with the process. i know the first time i went in to do babtisms for the dead i was babtised over 100 times and i think it was mostly people in a family with the surname sears. so that was something i was granted access to do in the temple. i think i was 16 or 17. not sure what the age cut off is and it's been along time. i also did it once in college when i was at utah state university for that one year. i was freaked out with the interview process. in retrospect i think i had a bad bishop. the questions he asked were super inappropriate. i suspect they were not the church sanctioned questions at all. i think the dude was a perv. that happens in all religions and in all settings in life. sadly, there are just alot of pervs out there.i like the buddhist ideas of returning to earth in a quest for enlightenment. it's all a growing process and if you fail miserably in one life you will return and have to kind of make up for it in another. there is far too much to learn and experience to get it all in on one trip. you just never know what path anyone is taking on thier journey. it all gets rather complicated, way too complicated for us mere humans to comprehend. in my mind that makes it even more critical that we not judge each other harshly as we just don't know anything of thier journeys and what they need to experience to grow. there were a few moose lounging on the trail yesterday. they were both on the tank trail, mother and calve. i guess i had thought they were by the post, but they were on the other side of the trail and seemed quite chill. i'm sure they are just ready for all this snow to melt.i think most everyone is at this point. it is melting pretty nicely so i can't complain. i really thought there'd be some flooding and nastiness. so far it's going pretty well. as i was out on the trails today a little plane, seen below, was flying pretty low like it was looking for something, later a helicopter was doing the same thing. if it was los angeles where i grew up i'd assume it was a manhunt of some kind. today, i wondered if they were monitoring the bear. i just didn't want them to scare him towards me.spent the afternoon getting ready for the pool party. it was fun and well attended i'd say. i always feel bad that i didn't get everyone. it's jsut so hard to know how many will show up and try to plan. still rely somewhat on word of mouth, but facebook does make these events much easier to organize and helps take some of the guesswork out if it. i think i had 7 crusts made for the event and sent a few home with tanya and bob. it was fun to have a make your own pizza night. it worked years ago and i think it worked again. party planning is still a renewed adventure for me and i still get stressed a bit. you just want to make sure everyone has fun, hope that people show up, hope the food goes over. i suspect for some entertaining is a chill event. for the hermit that i am it's a bit worrisome. do think it went well though. just lack some social confidence at times. i need to just use my flash on the camera as well. my indoor pictures are always crappy and blurry. the flash just always seems so intrusive. i think maddie had fun making her pizza. gail and sandra above, below nash. he had fun with blossom once he discovered her toy box. she enjoyed the attention and tennis ball tossing. what labradoodle wouldn't!!got maddie drawing as she informed me she was bored at some point. sandra and andrea joined in. she's a very good artist! had her draw ms breezy chatterbug as ms breezy was in hiding and wouldn't come out to play. pogi finally did. rio took over the couch, but overall the dogs were very good. everyone was laughing as we all sat around chatting and laughing and rio was snoring away on the couch. she can sleep through anything.nash also found the cat toys! he wasn't too keen on the feather boa so that bodes well for him not having a future on the dance floor. i'm pooped...one more day off, then back to work. my days off go quickly. sharon gave maddie some pool tips. when her shoulder is feeling better she will give us alot of competition in the pool hall, sharon that is. i totally forgot to turn on the sparkly lights tonight. oops! the pool hall looks so much better all decked out! so sorry, not the best pictures today, but a good time was had by all. it is fun to entertain and i really need to just do it more often. force myself out of my hermitage every so often!!