Ian Ryland Wiseman is here!

Ian arrived on Saturday, Setptember 22nd!

Vivian Has Arrived!

Hello everyone! Vivian has made appearance - check out the Rivers blog!

Invasion of the Giant Alaskan Vegetables!

there are many things to be afraid of in Alaska.... lions and tigers and bears ... oh my! but the scariest of all are the giant veggies that grow in the 20 + hours a day of sunlight. starting with the spring equinox of march 21 all the way until the fall equinox Sept 21st, Alaska has more than 12 hours of daylight even though part of that is winter! But never the less by the time it gets warm at the end of May beginning of June we are up to 18 + hours of daylight and it stays that way through about mid August. So you frequently get 80 + pound vegetables. I've post a picture of a giant kale, apparently the smaller of two entries from one person into the Alaska State Fair which is the last week of August, first week of September. boy talk about dark green leafy vegetables!

More adventures in Alaska! Bear Adventures that is! Invasion of the bears! these are pictures from the Anchorage Daily News website, photos sent in

Art & Heidi Lacy on the move!

Heidi & I have had a very busy schedule since the Reunion. We did some real estate projects in Colorado Springs, where Jennifer and Mike Rivers live, and then visited (what we thought was going to be) our new home, Grand Junction, CO (five hours from Jennifer & Mike). We had dinner with some friends in Grand Junction whose situation and advice convinced us that we should consider living closer to our soon to be new grand daughter in Colorado Springs.



We took their advice and immediately reversed ten years of planning to move to Grand Junction, bought a house in Colorado Springs, closing September 28. We are looking forward to living much closer to our family in the West!



Heidi & I really enjoyed the reunion and look forward to the next one. Seems like more often, we find people moving to or around Fredericksburg. This past Saturday we were at a party where Civitan friends informed us that their son and his wife are moving to Fredericksburg. Other clients of Heidi's have or are moving - it's truly a beautiful area (but then so is Colorado Springs)! Look forward to seeing you all in Colorado after we get settled!



We'll keep you posted on progress of our move. - Art & Heidi

Re:The Reunion,etc

Hello Everybody! I hope th is works,since on a scale of 1 to a 1000 I'm about a 2! It was great to see all of you at the reunion and finally put faces to names since I had not met many of you. Aunt Elizabet/Meemaw did a GREAT of keeping our rather far flung clan aware of each other. She was certainly with us in spirit during the gathering. Incidently,she had visited both Chatham and Ellwood on her trips to Fredericksburg. I hope everyone had a chance to see a bit of downtowen Fredericksburg which is rather charming as opposed to the traffic and commecial atmosphere of Cenral Park where Baileys and the motel were. I wish LD the best of luck as he heads off to college (wasn't it La. Tech?) in a few weeks. Jennifer, you look fabulous in your 36 week photo on the Rivers blog. Continue enjoying pushing her little limbs because she will be playing pay back big time in a few weeks! Jane & John are in Michigan to celebrate his Mother's 100th birthday! Bud and I are leaving on a New England/Canada cruise on the 27th. Some day I hope we'll be able to do a Panama Canal cruise-with his engineering back ground he would find that extremely interesting. Has anybody done that cruise ? That's it for now. Best to all. Betsy

Facts about the Land of the Midnight Sun

Hi Everyone,

a colleague of mine has a brother who works for princess cruise line and he was sent these facts below from a sales meeting or something. I realize that everyone is not as fascinated by Alaska as I am, but I couldn't resist sharing these, they are quite amazing....

Did you know... Alaska contains over half of the world's glaciers?

There are approximately 100,000 glaciers in Alaska.

Did you know...Alaska is home to more than 445 species of birds, most of which are migratory.

Did you know...Juneau is the only capital city in the United States accessible only by boat or plane?

Although Juneau has a small population of only 30,000, its boundaries extend to the Canadian border covering 31,000 sq. miles, making it the 2nd largest American City (only behind Sitka). Juneau boasts a rich history, a delightful shopping district, spectacular glaciers and stunning views of both water and mountains.

Did you know... Alaska covers 570,373 square miles of land (or about 365 million acres), plus 45,000 square miles of water? Alaska is:

2.4 times the size of Texas

4 times the size of California

8 times the size of Kansas

10 times the size of Georgia or Florida

11 times the size of Illinois

12 times the size of New York

499.7 times the size of Rhode Island

Did you know....there are more active glaciers and ice fields in Alaska than in the rest of the inhabited world? The largest glacier is Malaspina at 805 square miles

Did you know...the Alaska Range is the largest mountain chain in Alaska?

It covers from the Alaska Peninsula to the Yukon Territory and contains North America's highest peak, Mt. McKinley.

Did you know...Alaska is home to the nation's largest rain forest and the largest national forest - Tongass National Forest. Almost 17 million acres in size, the Tongass offers everything from bear viewing & glacier hiking to fishing and sled-dog rides. Tongass National Forest can be visited on a shore excursion from Ketchikan.

Did you know....the world's largest and busiest seaplane base is Anchorage's Lake Hood? It accommodates more the 800 takeoffs and landings on a peak summer day.

Did you know...there are more Bald Eagles in Alaska than in all other states combined? The largest known concentration of Bald Eagles in the world occurs each fall and winter along the Chilkat River near Haines.

More than 3,500 Bald Eagles gather along the river where late runs of salmon are accessible because of the unusual swelling of warm water that keeps sections of the river ice-free.

Did you know...Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve has grown from a 5 mile cove to a 65 mile long bay since its discovery in 1794? (obviously due to Global Warming! {Michael's editorial comment ;-)})

Did you know... Prudhoe Bay, on the northern Alaskan coast, is North America's largest oil field.

Did you know...more than half of the parklands of the United States are found in Alaska? In all, Alaska contains over 322 million acres of public lands.

Did you know...the Arctic Circle is an imaginary circle around the globe where on December 21 the sun never rises for 24 hours and on June 21 it never sets for 24 hours?

Did you know...the coastline of Alaska is longer than the entire coastline of the United States?

Did you know...glaciers and polar ice store more water than lakes, rivers, groundwater and the atmosphere combined?

My Adventures in Alaska

Hello Everyone,

I figured that I would test this out and see if I had successfully added myself to the blog. Hope everyone is doing well. It was so wonderful to meet all of you and for those of you that I already know to get a chance to spend a quality few days with you.

The first group of my summer Alaskan visitors just went home and my parents are arriving this coming friday to stay until July 31st (I believe that's the correct day).

With my friends Wendy and Darlene, I went up to Denali National Park for several days and took the bus trip into the park. We had a lot of luck and saw many grizzly bears, several of which were up close. One was on a hillside and got spooked by the bus and came scrambling down and then ran down the road aways and over the side of a hillside and dropped down below us. Another was a sow bear with her 3-4 cubs, I never could get an exact count because they were in and out of the bushes, as she herded them up the hill and over the top where we couldn't see them anymore. We also saw a grizzly bear flopped down on a hillside and asleep, something I have never seen before.

Next we went to Seward and took the wildlife and glacier cruise and were extremely lucky to have gotten the captain that was determined to show us the whales and orcas. He put us in the middle of a super pod of orcas (5-6 families) that had come together for the breeding activities so were in the midst of about 50 orcas in a 3 mile radius around us. we also saw humpback whales, stellar sea lions, countless birds, sea otters, and several glaciers.

We also did some short hikes in Denali, at Exit Glacier north of Seward, and at Eagle River.

Well I'll sign off for now. take care everyone. after I get some pictures done, I'll post a few of the better ones.

Page

The Rivers Family

Ok, ok... just to show everyone how it's done. This is the first non-instructions posting on the Lacy Blog.

My update to the blog is..... that we Rivers' have our own blog!!! :) check it out by clicking here!

I can't resist... just a couple more hints about the blog... 1) One thing you may notice is that the blog reads from most current to least current, so scroll down to find older posts. 2) Another thing you may notice is that you can make "comments" on each posting. You're welcome to do so, click on the comments, write a comment, then either sign in with your google acct (for it to identify you) or click "Anonymous" to just make a comment to any posting sneakily!

Welcome to the Lacy Blog!

I hope everyone made it back safely from the reunion - it was great to meet everyone! Thanks again to Elizabeth and the Nortons for all the effort put forth on this!!!

Sometime during the sharing of all the Lacy family stories, Bill Brannon sagely suggested that we should take advantage of The Fabulous Internet to share our stories! I thought perhaps a Lacy family blog might be the way to accomplish that. For those of you not in the blog-o-sphere, welcome, a blog is kind of like an electronic journal - where people can write entries, it's quite a wonderful way to share.

So... you're reading this blog and now you're thinking what you would really like to do is contribute! Perhaps with witty stories about getting rolled up in a mattress during hide-and-go-seek, or Joe Lacy throwing his father's trip book out the window and into a stream. Perhaps you'll want to update us all on some current event going on in your family such as how it's going starting up a chicken farm in Arkansas!

The following is how you do that. It's not as complicated as it looks, I'm just trying to give DETAILED instructions:

1. Shortly you will receive an email from "no.reply@google.com" inviting you to be an author on Jennifer Rivers' blog. Click on the blue link contained therein. If you have long since deleted this email, or would like me to "invite you again", email me by clicking here.

2. The blue link takes you to a google page that asks you to either create a new google account (very easy, free, and hassle free as well, follow the instructions) or sign in (if you already have a google acct - for example, if you use blogger, gmail or picasa).

3. Once you complete Step 2, you will be directed to your "Blogger Dashboard". At this point, you can create a new post by clicking on "New Post". Type a title for your post, then type in the message body. You don't have to worry about typing in any "labels" for your post. When you're done, click "Publish Post" and it will appear on the Lacy Family Blog!

4. Now that you're an expert, you can get fancy... you can upload a picture straight into the blog by clicking the mountain looking icon , or you can include a link to a photo album that you have online (maybe thru Snapfish, or Picasa - contact me if you want to find out more about creating a photo album online). You can also include links to any other websites (like your personal website, your family's blog, etc.) in the blog by highlighting the text you want to link and then clicking the green circle with the chain link icon and then typing in the link.

Happy Blogging! Can't wait to see some of those stories! Jennifer