my maiden name

Meet my family-the Hamiltons. They live in Rupert, Idaho. And they are awesome. 

 My older sister is on the far left. She is a medical assistant-a dang good one :) Next we have my younger sister-she is a junior in high school and is beautiful (watch out boys). And next is my little bigger brother-currently a missionary serving in my neck of the woods (yep-he is serving in the Anchorage Alaska LDS Mission. Currently he is in the city of North Pole). Next in line are my awesome parents. They are sooo wonderful! And last but certainly not least is my littlest brother. He is hilarious-without meaning to be. He is just a funny kid. 

I love this family and am so grateful for each of them.

 I think they kind of like Aubree. :)

But how could you not like her.

She is pretty cute!

And so sweet.

And this is my cute little family. I love them both so much and feel so blessed to be a part of their lives. 

(These pictures were taken back in May when we were in Idaho/Utah visiting family and i thought they turned out super cute so i had to share)

dip netting weekend

We live in such a cool place. It is absolutely beautiful and just so much fun. We think Alaska is awesome. Every summer the salmon run up the rivers to do their thing. Fishing is HUGE during the summer. We recently went on a fishing trip (a few weeks ago) and had lots of fun. This last weekend was quite the fishing trip experience. Alaskan residents get to "dip net" every summer. The head of the household is allotted 25 fish and for every other person in the family it is another 10 fish. So-our family could have brought home 45 salmon. Dip netting is different than a pole and rod fishing. To simply explain it-you have these ginormous nets that you dip in the water and when you feel a fish in it, you scoop it up and take it home. Pretty simple. And lots of fun. This past weekend we were lucky enough to have some awesome friends invite us to tag along with them to the Kasilof where we camped on the beach and fished during the high tides. It was absolutely beautiful and we all had a lot of fun. Eric went out at about 1 in the morning with some of the guys and had HUGE success. They came back around 6 or 7 in the morning with 98 salmon!! After everything was said and done we came home with 20 salmon (which is TONS for our family-i don't even like it). We had so much fun and are so grateful for awesome friends for inviting us along! 

warning: picture overload

This is Mt. Redoubt. It recently erupted-back in 2009 i believe.

 We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather which allowed us to stay out and enjoy this beautiful view.

 It was a little crazy to launch the boat out into the ocean. Realizing I was just a small little person in a small boat in the HUGE ocean was a little nerve wracking but it was a short boat ride over to the mouth of the river where we fished. 

 I had to include these pictures of the crowds because it was absolutely crazy! It was sooooooo packed! People standing shoulder to shoulder in the water with their nets out in the water. I still am amazed that you can catch fish standing on the shore like that. I would MUCH prefer the boat :) 

 This is what eric came back with when they caught 98! It's crazy to think there were so many more! I think in total the group (like 6-8 families) caught about 300 salmon! That's A LOT of fish.

and then the fun part-cleaning the fish. Luckily I had to watch Aubree so I couldnt help :)

They just set a table up right on the shore and did it right there. The seagulls were in heaven that's for sure. 

 This little munchkin is such a trooper. Camping is hard for a little one. We didn't have a bed for her so night time was hard. It doesn't help that it doesn't get very dark-and when it is dark enough it's past 1 in the morning! Needless to say we didn't get very much sleep, but that didn't even phase her. She played and was a happy camper (no pun intended) for the trip. 

 This picture was perfect timing. This is her reaction to feeling sand on her hand for the first time. Priceless.

independent

Aubree has really started to become "miss independent" lately. For example-eating.... (i know i know...all of these updates consist of Aubree eating-but i find it entertaining)

She has been surprisingly pretty good at using a spoon. Eric says it takes her WAAAAYYY too long to eat this way but I think it is fun for her to learn how to do it herself.
                                             

It always starts out with the spoon. And then....

she realizes that there is a much faster way.

  

 slurping it down is SOO much faster. Duh!

And this is where she finally makes the "Ahhh" sound. 

She enjoyed her meal.

 But wait...she is not done yet.  

 We almost forgot an important part. 

The part where you use your hands and fingers to get all of it out of the corners. 

Success.

Good thing she is fine with me scrubbing her down after she eats. This meal wasn't too bad to clean up.

But don't get me started on her eating her chocolate chip pancake by herself. 

 The pictures don't do it justice. This child was covered in chocolate!

But she was soooooooo happy that all the scrubbing was worth it. 

(Is it just me or is it hard to get everything off of little baby hands. I scrub and wash and then let her down to play and 5 seconds later i look at her hands and they are still covered. This is a big part of why she usually goes to the tub after she eats. MUCH easier clean up that way :) Good thing she LOVES bath time!