Amazing Baby

Ellora is now 9 months old. For Easter the girls got playground balls that are just smaller than a basketball. Yesterday I found Ellora sitting on one of them and bouncing up and down. I was astonished at her ability to balance and couldn't imagine how she had even sat down on it without it falling out from under her. She has been standing in the middle of the floor a lot lately so perhaps she was standing and just accidently sat right on it. I caught her a little while later trying to sit on it again but she couldn't get it right in the middle and slid right off.

Ellora loves to sit on Chalyse's scoot car and does really well even though she is just big enough to reach the top of the wheels to rest her feet on them (it is several more inches to the floor) In the past she has gotten herself down and I couldn't figure out how but yesterday I caught her. She brings her left foot up to the seat so that it is under her bum, then she stands up straight on that one foot on top of the seat so she can move her right foot off the wheels and over the floor. Then she lets her self down until she falls off the seat onto her right foot and brings her left foot down beside it, sill standing. (I think baby's do all kinds of amazing things when we are not looking.)

Powder Puff Wrestling

We heard Ellora and Chalyse giggling and looked down the hall to find this.

Nora

Chalyse has trouble with her L's and as a result she calls her sister Nora. It seems to fit her well. We sill call her Ellora most of the time and Ella every once in a while but like "Nora." It is a little more unique than Ella but still classic and like I siad it seems to fit her well. Also one of my favorite singers is Nora Jones.



She has the same bright blue eyes as her dad and sister. It makes me feel like a minority having green.

Good Morning

Tonight, Chalyse was being so cute. We put her to bed, but she kept on getting up saying she was hungry and wanted breakfast. We weren't too worried about her because she had eaten pretty well at dinner, but we eventually gave her a piece of bread and milk. As she ate, she kept telling us that she woke up and that it was morning. She even gave us her own version of "Good Morning," from "Singin' in the Rain." "Morning, morning, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you." We kept telling her that she hadn't gone to sleep yet and that it was night time. She would parrot that back to us, then go on saying how she had woken up and that she was eating breakfast. This whole thing was so cute, Camille and I couldn't help but laugh.

Chalyse eventually woke her sister. It's not so cute anymore.

Shark Baby

For the longest time (about 3 months), Ellora only had her two bottom teeth. She looked like a little mouse. Finally, this past week she cut...(drum roll, please)...not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR new teeth on top. It's been an interesting week for us, but all things considered, she was a pretty good sport.

Today was our stake conference. One of the speakers said something really interesting. He was speaking about blessings and trials and said, "Some people are blessed with great riches, and some people are cursed by them. Some people are cursed with poor health, but some people are blessed with it." Our blessings and trials will help us to improve inasmuch as we are humble, patient, and faithful.

Whaling

Last night, our neighbor who is a son of a whaling captain invited me to go with them whaling. I was excited to go, because outsiders only get to go if they're invited. I would get to see the natives whale. They do it more or less the same way that they have for hundreds of years.

The plan was to leave at the crack of dawn (about 5 or 6 in the morning), and I could come back when someone went back to get lunch for the crew. It didn't end up working that way, though. Between members of the crew who hadn't gotten to sleep in time the night before and others who couldn't find a babysitter, we didn't end up leaving until 12:30 or 1:00.

We rode out onto the ice to their spot. It was about 1-2 miles out. There was a channel in the ice about a mile wide where crews were whaling. I got my camera out to take pictures, but of course it wouldn't work with the cold.

I figured out that the way they hunt whale is they wait for the whales to come close to the edge of the ice, then as the whale passes by their spot, they smoothly launch their boat and approach the whale from behind, then they harpoon it with a harpoon attached to a buoy. This way, they can trace it when it goes deep. They then get it with a harpoon that has an explosive in it.

It didn't take too long for a whale to come by close enough for the crew to give chase. I stood looking on as they got ready to launch their boat, when one of the members pointed to a spot on the boat and told me to get there. It's not very common for outsiders to be allowed to help out, so I was pretty honored. Over the course of the day, we chased after about 5 whales. Some of them were within about 20 yards of us.

Another whaling crew was able to get a buoy attached to a whale, but they lost track of it under the ice.

There was a period of about 30-45 minutes when no whales came close enough, but on the other side of the channel there was a group of whales playing and splashing around. It was pretty cool to see. I probably ended up seeing at least 12 whales, all of them bowhead whale.

I'm going to be really sore tomorrow!

Heavy

Yesterday I was putting the girls down for a nap. While I was feeding Ellora, Chalyse asked "Hungry piter (caterpiller)?"

"Okay, go get it." I said

"and mouse book."

"Okay we'll read mouse book too." Chalyse ran out of the room.

A few minutes later I heard her coming down the hall panting "Heavy, heavy." She came into the room with a stack of books about a foot high.

Northern Lights

Mandy is going to be leaving at the end of this week, and she hadn't had a chance to see the aurora, yet. I had seen a couple of fading displays in the morning on my way to school, but nothing spectacular. Although, when I say "nothing spectacular," I mean that relatively. The first time I saw the aurora, it took my breath away.

We kept an eye on the auroral forecasts, but nothing ever worked out. Either the weather would be good and there would be no aurora, or there would be a huge aurora and be completely overcast. A couple of nights ago, however, it finally worked out. We set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. (our local midnight). When we looked out the window in the early hours of the morning, I could plainly see the aurora despite the streetlights near our house. We got dressed and went outside. The display wasn't as big as some that you see on tv, but it was beautiful.

The pale-green river of light flowed from the northeast, splitting here, rejoining there as it occasionally overflowed and dripped its light into space.

Spring Fever

We were getting sick of the wintery background, so here is our new, happy sunflower background. We just need to get a new family picture to go with it.