EUROPE... Here we come!

Stephanie and Madison recently competed in the regional Irish Dancing championships, (for the southern region). They both did awesome, Madison placed 4th out of about 50 girls, and Stephanie placed 5th out of 126 girls! They both qualified for the world championships... which happen to be in Glascow Scotland this year. And yup, its official, we just purchased six tickets to SCOTLAND! We are so excited, we will be leaving March 25 and coming back April 7. Later in April, Brian and Taylor will be leaving for Alaska for two weeks. It should be an amazing month and a trip to remember! :)

We have been super busy this year, with dance, soccer, basketball, violin, Mel's Photography business, school, and every other little thing that comes up in life. But its been a GREAT year, and we wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS! We hope you remember the TRUE meaning of Christmas...Jesus. "And unto us is born, this day, in the city of David, a savior, who is CHRIST THE LORD!" Oh come let us adore him!

Mac Pics...=)

So as most of you know we have a MAC  computer. One of the best things about a Mac (for a kid anyways) is the photobooth. So here are a few of the 700 pics from our computer. Enjoy! =)

Our cousin Christopher came over and wasn't very cooperative when it came to getting his picture taken. =)

Taylor, Kerri, and I did a little photoshoot. This is our "Kiera Knightly face."
And our super model face: Kerri did the best! haha!
This is our "shock" face! lol!
I believe this one was "lets see how close we can get to the camera." =D
seriously...
The wasko sisters!!
Our North Carolina friend Katie, Stef, and Kerri.


Thomas and Maddie
Ferf and the girls!






heh heh heh heh heh! (the evil sisters)



The Wasko Sisters!!! <3

This is for the Hunts..... :)

Warning: this post has many inside jokes... and may not make sense... :)

WE MISS YOU HUNTIES!

We TOTALLY miss you guys and are so TOTALLY glad you are our friends! 

"Busch Gardens was the best day of my life!"

You hat stealers, chair removers, ball dodgers, water bottle stompers, flip flop runners, and TOTALLY LUCKY DUDES! :)

"my cheeks hurt. was an orange girl here?" 

"I'm the moose, I'm the moose, it's my birthday, its my birthday." 

Bad babysitting day........ those oreos were gooood! 

"Why? because im tall, dark, and handsome?" 

"Ok, leave my house now!" 

"At 40 MAALLS per hour!"

"S.S Jordan comin through!" 

"It's only awkward if you make it awkward." 

Taco Bell........... :) 

"MINE!" 

Don't mix up the words feet and socks... EVER!

Columbus day canoeing.... fun times!

We are TOTALLY your dedicated campers. Is all the TOTALLYS getting annoying? i TOTALLY hope so! 

"Taylor always looks like she's in deep thought..."

Swiing dancin! :) Like TOTALLY  a blast!

"Thats a lot of zits in one place." 

"What's that noise?" "It's a giant bumble bee!" 

 "Jearsh is mowin' the lawn."

Gasoline accident....... first timers always make mistakes...haha!

If your fingers are stuck in the window, roll the window down.

"Whats wrong with your nose JJ???"

Freddy..........:) 

Old Dominion Feis and Golden Corral.

Night at the museum 2, TOTALLY fun..... "That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh!"

We love you guys so much! All these memories are so funny to think back on.  We've had a lot! Thank you for being our friends for so many years. WE TOTALLY CAN'T WAIT TILL YOU GET BACK!

Love from,

The Waskies

Hello Again Friends!! :)

Hello All!

I was looking at our blog today and realized how long it has been since our last post! The Wasko family has been crazy busy this summer! Hence the lack of posting....... :)

We took an amazing trip to California, which we posted a little bit about. To see pictures from my uncle's wedding, click HERE. 

Two days after we got back from CA, we took a two week trip to Tennessee to visit family, and for an Irish Dance competition!

Stephanie and Madison competed in the North American National Competition of Irish Dance in July....... they both did great! Madison didn't recalled but danced really well. Stephanie recalled and got 26th! Almost 40 places better than last year! 

All the girls also went to the Hunts' summer camp this year. It was a blast! Always a highlight of the summer!

At the beginning of August Taylor and Kerri  started soccer practice again after a two month break . They are having fun, and are excited about an upcoming tournament at Busch Gardens! 

Our summer has been filled with many memories: beach days, pool days,  relaxing days (though not as many of those, ha ha!) weddings, friends, trips to Mr. Basnight's house on the Sound,... To end a great summer, we will be going to the OBX with the Williams and Hughes. This will be our sixth year! We are super excited!! Then........ school starts! We are excited about that too....... :)

We will be posting a bunch of pictures of the summer in our next post, which WILL be soon! (We hope) :)

Day 2, Swimming in the River on Wednesday Afternoon

On Wednesday afternoon, we drove an hour east to go swimming in a river. It was about 20 degrees warmer inland. We had a great day!

Steph, Taylor, and Kerri had fun swinging on a rope swing and plunging into the river.

Pops teaching Madison how to skim rocks:

Craig, Brian's brother, skimming rocks (look to the left of his left shoulder for the splash).

Pops and Kerri:

Stephanie and Taylor:

Swimming to the rocks:

The swim was farther than it looked:

Madison with Molly's nieces.

Some pretty views on the way home:

A perfect ending to a fun day:

Mike, Sharon, and Mel cooked an Italian dinner.

Day 2, Wednesday Morning Dance Practice

Since Madison and Stephanie are less than two weeks out from competing in the North American National Irish Dance Championships, they were hoping for a large place to practice. Our HUGE back deck works out great! They have practiced every morning and love view they see while dancing.

Day 1, part 2...Agate Beach

Tuesday afternoon we went to Agate Beach at Patrick's Point.

Stephanie, Taylor, and Kerri decided to climb the side of the hill. Coming down was easier than going up!

CALIFORNIA, Day 1--Tuesday

We arrived in Trinidad, CA around midnight on Monday, well really Tuesday. On Tuesday, we explored the house we are staying in as well as the surrounding property. Below is the house where we are staying.

Below: the view from the back deck.

Various flowers we found while walking the paths on the house property:

Stephanie's bouquet.

Our house has a ping pong table outside. I'm not sure who the current champ is; it keeps switching.

Take a Hike!

Yesterday (April 29th) Dad, Mark, Keith (both vendors), and I took a hike to the Mendenhall Glacier. The huge amount of snow made the journey much more difficult. We took a path that led off the main road. We thought it would lead back to the main route, but we were wrong. It led through a crazy trail to a rocky mountain face that we climbed and then right on the other side was the glacier. It was absolutely amazing and so much fun! We all got to actually touch the glacier. Definitely the highlight of the trip! =)

Dad and I, we finally got a picture together!

Ok, these pics aren't in order, but this is a closeup of part of the glacier.

I made it!!

It's kinda hard to see, but the white fluffy things are mountain goats! There were seven of them, one more thing to add to our wild life list.


Dad and I trying to figure out how to get across a raging river, it looked easy until we got into this position!

The inside of a glacier cave. The ice was crazy blue. We aren't sure if the ice is actually blue or if its just the shadows and light that make it appear blue. Anybody know?

Some sweet river pics!

Dad hiking in the snowy forest.
The glacier from a distance.

Ok, the rest of the pics are from our drive from Fairbanks back to Anchorage.

Ok, first isn't that a cool pic? Second, see the tallest two mountains in the distance to the left? Well, we're pretty sure that is Mount McKinley (a.k.a. Denali) the tallest mountain in North America.

Another animal group to add to our wildlife list... CARIBOU! We saw eleven of them (split between two groups) while we were driving.

Some pretty mountains.... there are a lot of them in Alaska!

So we came from the nicest hotel in Alaska called the Captain Cook, to this old cabin without running water, a record player, and animal fur hanging everywhere called Trapper Johns! It was really cool!

I let Dad have the bed with the dead wolf hanging over it!

This is my bed and the door led to a little wash up station with a bowl and pitcher and a creepy "hair dryer" that looked like it would set my hair on fire!

More pretty mountains... I think I'll stop labeling these.

Our final animal count is: 14 moose, 11 caribou, 7 mountain goats, and around 30 eagles. (We only count the wild ones, not the ones we saw at the refuge and we also don't count the dead halibut we ate, the stuffed animals we saw, the animal skins we saw, and the everyday ravens and seagulls. Just wanting to be clear.)

Well, we leave for Seattle tonight, and will be home tomorrow (late).

Finally, we found some time to upload some cool photos of our trip:

This is Mt. Redoubt, which started erupting in March, but is still spewing clouds of gas. They expect another lava eruption anytime. We are looking at it from the Kenai Peninsula, across Cook Inlet (on our way to Homer). We're about 20 miles away! There's still volcanic ash all over the streets and plants.

This is a sunset from our Anchorage hotel room. We're staying at the Hotel Captain Cook--one of the nicest places in all of Alaska.

At the Soldotna show (the first one), we got the coveted "bear booth." Steph thought of putting one of our catalogs in the bear's claw.

We saw some eagles on our drive to Homer, but the best shots we got were at a trash dump. I guess eagles are pretty much scavengers. They sure look beautiful, though.

Speaking of beautiful, here's a shot we're going to send to Irish Dancing & Culture magazine. In the background is Homer Spit. It's pretty much "the end of the world."

This shot is from Homer. It's the halibut fishing capital of the world. We've been eating lots of halibut on this trip--yumm.

This is from Homer Spit too.

This shot is from a scenic overlook as you enter Homer, Alaska. I've been told Homer is the prettiest place in Alaska. It's hard to argue. And we had an unusually beautiful day for our visit.

One of several wild moose we've seen on our trip. This was one of three who crossed the road just ahead of us. Alaskans find this pretty ho-hum, but it's still cool to us. Note: 162 moose have been killed by motor vehicles on the Kenai Peninsula since last July!

This cool shot was taken on our way back from Homer. In the foreground is a Russian Orthodox cemetary. Cook inlet and a mountain range we don't know the name of is in the background.

This is the Turnagain Arm--on the way from Anchorage to Soldotna/Homer.

This is a mountain (duh). We stopped at a wildlife conservation area where they have various Alaskan animals behind fences. These are elk.

A genuine grizzly bear (called brown bear here). It was inside a fence.

A moose.

More later!