The Open Road

The boys glassing for wildlife in Denali National Park.

The second week in August, the Adcox family packed up the scamper camper and took off for a week long camping road trip.  We left Kenai late in day one and made it to the fun community of Talkeetna.  The next morning we explored the shops and the river.  Many residents live down the train track year round with their home only accessible by train or four wheeler.  A highlight of the town was visiting and sampling the Alaskan Birch Syrup Company (hmmm hmm good!).  The next two days we explored Denali National Park with the kids.  They loved it!  We honestly didn’t spot much wildlife with exception to one of the largest bull moose I’ve seen walking off the side of the road about ten feet from our car.  The boys completed the Junior Ranger Program and became a Junior Ranger, which somehow made them even more excited about animals and nature!  We then migrated north to Fairbanks to visit friends for three days.  It was nice catching up with everyone, thank you all for your hospitality.  While in Fairbanks we ate at the Thai House, went to the new Tanana Lake Recreation Park,  went to pick blueberries on Murphy Dome, and ate dinner with old friends.  We then drove south on the Richardson Highway to Paxson Lake State Park just south of Paxson.  It was truly wild and desolate.  We decided to collectively take a bath in the lake with nothing but our birthday suits on.  After drying off we picked more blueberries and built our usual campfire.  The next day we were beginning to feel the effects of the road trip and moseyed our way back to Kenai, but not before stopping in Palmer.  My goodness, the Glenn Highway is my new favorite stretch or road.  Exhausted we landed back at home -safe and sound!

Mount Denali and all it’s glory.

The Open Road!

Archer is 4!

Our second annual birthday breakfast at the local bakery.

As these last four years have unfolded before us, it was obvious from the start that Archer looks just like his Mama. However, it was not till this last year we discovered more and more that in the inside he is all Daddy! His passions match his Daddy’s! Started with Superheros at age two. Then shortly after he fell in love wth all the movies Daddy introduced him too. So much so that this year for Halloween when people ask, “Who are you going to be for Halloween?” he responds, “Sam Flyn.” If you are with the majority of other people who do not know who this is, do not worry you are normal. If I continue to tell you that Sam Flyn is a character from the Disney movie Tron and you are still confused, do not worry you are normal. Archer has only seen motorcycle scenes from this movie, but he loves it so much that he qoutes the movie when he plays and goes so far as to reenact fight scenes. When we went to Disney World, he was crushed when they did not offer a Tron ride. That alone tells you how unpopular this movie is. Archer was given a Cd player at his birthday party because he loves his Disney soundtracks and other 80’s music his Dad loves such as Africa by Toto, Broken Wings by Mr. Misterand more. James is planning to burn him some new CD’s. Oh, how I wish we were a digital family. We realized this last year he is passionate about music and it has been fun to give him the freedom to play his music on his own. He is one big goof ball and his imaginative play ceases to amaze us. James’ family always labeled James as the one in the family with the temper. James always quickly argues, “No, I was not.” However, if he was when he is younger, than Archer takes after him as well. He can be quickly angered at times, but thankfully it goes away about as fast as it comes on. However, when he is mad, he is mad! Archer is also passionate about books. A month or more prior to his birthday we were reading The Bernstein Bears and Too Much Birthday about every other day. The books has games, food and lot of other bears at the party and at the end little sister cries because things did not go the way it was suppose to go. When I look back at Archer’s party he asked for games like the book, we were not sure who was going to be able to make it so we over invited and had lots of friends come to celebrate and then Archer did not cry that night, but he cried the next morning as soon as he woke up because he thought he never had cake. No matter how many times I tried to retell him about the party he continued to argue that he never had his cake. This is Archer at 4!

The games were intense!

Playing a twist on musical chairs to Archer’s favorite song Take on Me by Ahah.

more games…

more games…

We had a movie themed birthday party. So his cupcakes looked like movie popcorn, which all the kids took to the TV room to watch a video of them at the party playing the games.

This might help those of you still confused as to what Sam Flyn looks like.