I break away from my India coverage just long enough to go meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton and spend a few brief moments with my family

On my way to Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, I found myself behind this fellow on Fifth Avenue. It was one of those situations when I sorely wanted to remove the dirty, cracked, windshield in front of me so I could take a crystal-clear picture. But sometimes, you either get the shot through a dirty, cracked, windshield or you don't get it at all.

I was on my way to meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton when they got off the final flight bringing them home from Phoenix.

I had wanted to meet them as they came out from the secure area, but I didn't make it in time. Jacob, Kalib and Jobe did, though.

And here they are, all of them getting off the elevator near the baggage claim area.

And here came Melanie, who had just arrived home from Kuparak on the Arctic Slope, very near to Prudhoe Bay. Lynxton was overjoyed to see her.

"How does the cool air feel?" I asked Margie. On their last day in the Phoenix area, the temperature had reached 107 degrees (42 C).

"Good!" she answered.

"How does the warm air feel feel?" I asked Melanie. During her stay at Kuparuk, temperatures had ranged from -25 (-32 C) to a warm 10 (-12 C) at the end.

"Good!" she answered.

Here, the temperature was about 50 (10 C) - just about as pleasant as it could be.

The youngest boy: Lynxton, in his Aunt Melanie's arms.

The second youngest boy: Jobe, in the arms of his mother, whom he has not seen for a week.

The oldest boy: Kalib, in no one's arms, walking about on his own two feet.

Lavina had brought Margie to Phoenix with her so that she could babysit Lynxton while Lavina attended her workshop. Now that they were home, Margie would need to spend the rest of the week, at least through Thursday, babysitting the boys in Anchorage.

So the plan was for me to drive home and spend the rest of the week alone, just as I had the previous week, and the week before that, etc.

But instead, I brought Margie home, then got up early in this morning and drove her back to town. Then I drove back alone.

Tomorrow, I will return this blog to India. Some very neat things happened between the time we got off the train in Pune and the wedding functions began, but I really need to get Sujitha and Manoj married, so I will jump ahead, straight into wedding related functions.

On Easter, Thomas gets out of hand; the boys do a typical Anchorage Easter Egg hunt

Kalib and Jobe had stayed with us since Friday and none of us had any idea of the mischief their parents had been up to while they were with us. It all had to with Thomas the Train. They had found this battery powered, ridable Thomas the Train on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago, had kept quiet about it, but had been arguing inside their own heads the whole time.

Should they get it? Or was it over the top? Spoiling their boys just a little bit too much, maybe?

Well, they got it - and boy, was it fun! At least for Kalib and his cousin Ashley. Jobe was asleep in the car.

Oh yea, cousin Julian, too. That's him falling down.

As train wrecks go, it was grand and glorious.

Now, it is still Easter Sunday and this is the second post I have put up today - even though on Friday I said I would put up no more posts until Monday, and then I would take this blog right back into India.

What was I thinking? Yes, on Monday, I will still take this blog right back into India - but what made me think I could let Easter pass without making a good morning Happy Easter post and an end of the day, kids celebrate post?

Except for Melanie, who is doing a job up on the Arctic Slope, and Caleb, who opted to stay home, watch the Masters golf tournament and do laundry, everyone came and everyone contributed. Rex and Cortney bought themselves a smoker and smoked a ham with cherry tree chips - and I swear, it was the best ham I have ever tasted.

Oh, my goodness! Was it good!

I felt bad for the pig that contributed to our Easter feast with its life, but still it was good.

I wonder why God made the Earth this way?

And does the ressurrection apply to pigs?

How could it not?

Someday, I might meet this pig. It might say, "Bill, I am not very happy with you."

I might respond, "but you nourished me and all my family, pig, and you tasted good, and we thanked you and thanked the Good Lord for you."

"Well, okay," the pig might then say. "I'm resurrected, anyway, so what the hell. Everything is fine."

"Being ressurrected is good, but I sure miss the taste of ham!" I might then add.

"BILL!!!!" the resurrected pig might then squeal.

Of course, if it turns out that reincarnation is the real deal, then I might be the pig next time, and the ham might be the man. That would be karma. Sooner or later, though, we would get it right and we would both be happy.

I photographed everybody who came for dinner, from the babies Lynxton and his beautiful cousin Arial - the youngest in the family right now - on up to Margie. But I still have a lot to do and I can't let this post get too long, so I am restricting it to the Easter activities of the children, beginning with the arrival of the big Thomas the Train.

Maybe I will squeeze a couple of the others in this week, somewhere between India posts - at least Lynxton and Arial.

Then I move to the Easter egg hunt. After his Uncle Anthony (Ants) hid the eggs in the nearby park, Kalib slid down the snow bank on his butt and then led the way to the hunt. The first Thomas picture and all the egg hunt images were done with my iPhone, by the way - not because I was following Richard Murphy's example, but because the battery on my 7D went dead.

Cousin Julian heads out in search of eggs, just ahead of Kalib and Jobe. That's Charlie's lens. He photographed the action, too, and already has images up on Facebook - including one with me.

Ashley and Kalib search for eggs at the teeter totter - finally beginning to emerge after Anchorage's snowiest winter on record - 135 inches so far, undoubtedly with more to come.

Julian searches for eggs on the slide. I thought sure he would spot and grab this one, but he didn't. So I did. And I ate it, right there on the spot.

I JOKES! I JOKES! I JOKES!

What? You think I steal candy from babies?

Crimeny. Don't take everything I say so seriously!

Ashley finds an egg. I took it away from him and ate it right there, on the spot. It was really good, but it needed pepper. At first, it needed salt, too, but I turned Ashley upside down and sprinkled his tears on the egg and that was salt enough.

Jobe with his eggs.

It was the kind of day that turns snow into water. After hoarding a good supply of eggs, Jobe wandered into a puddle.

After awhile, he got out of the puddle. Then he dropped an egg into the puddle. "Ohhhh noooo!" he said.

Jobe does not yet have a big vocabulary, but he's got "ohhhhhh noooooo!" down pretty good.

As Ants looks on, Lavina and the boys frolic in the puddle.

Another short post: Kalib witnesses a train wreck; big brother - little brother

This morning, I discovered that there had been a train wreck in the living room and Kalib had witnessed it. Or did he cause it?

A bit later - big brother, little brother.

Little brother.

Train on the floor, Super Cub over head, bunny rabbits and moose at the window, dog in car, young writer turns 21, boys leaving

Kalib and Jobe have been staying with us for a few days, because their dad was suffering some minor pain that could be major if they jumped on him. Last night, Lavina and Lynxton joined them here, allegedly to give dad even a little more space, but I suspect Mom got pretty homesick to see her two older boys.

This morning, I came out of my office and found them all intently watching something. What could it be?

I was going to run around and take a picture from the other side so that you could see their eyes all focused on Thomas as he rolled 'round his track, but when I tried, Kalib came, too, and took the controls. Then Jobe started to come. Kalib was wary, because Jobe can go into Jobezilla mode at any time and wreck Thomas and his tracks.

It worked out okay, though. Jobezilla did not wreck Thomas. Jobe brought another Thomas onto the scene.

After that, I went for a walk. Soon, I heard pistons pumping and a prop beating the air, the volume and pitch rising. I knew it was an airplane, flying low, coming towards me. I looked and sure enough, it was this Super Cub. I wanted to be up there, not down here, but I was down here.

Two ravens held a discussion in the lower reaches of the sky.

Further on, a pickup stopped beside me. The driver wanted to introduce to his new dog, Juneau. This is Juneau. Sadly, his old dog got sick and died. I have a number of photos of that dog, too, whose name slips me - but it is recorded in my old blog, Wasilla, Alaska by 300 and Then Some.

As I neared my house, I saw Dan walking. Dan lives on the corner of Sarah's Way and Seldon, where the domestic bunny rabbits that proliferated in the neighborhood last summer tended to bunk down. By the end of summer, there were many rabbits. I asked Dan if any had survived the winter. Three had, he told me, and now there was one more, so there were four.

Not long after I returned home, two of the bunny rabbits made an appearance in our driveway.

Lynxton made his appearance inside.

I stopped by Metro Cafe at the usual time. Carmen informed that today was the 21st birthday of the young writer, Shoshana. Twenty-one is still young. She will be a young writer for some time to come yet.

As I drove home, I saw this boy running alongside a hill.

Not long after I returned home, two yearling moose calves took the place of the bunny rabbits in our driveway. One of them had a stare-down with Kalib. Neither frightened the other.

Lavina and the boys had planned to stay one more night and leave tomorrow, but Kalib got lonesome for his dad, so his mom decided to take them home tonight. Caleb said goodbye to Lynxton.

The boys got buckled in...

...and then Lavina drove off with them. I do not remember precisely what the time was, but I believe it was a bit after 8:00 PM. Before I left home, Alaska still had the shortest days of anyone in the country. Now Alaska has the longest - growing steadily longer the further north you go.

India and Arizona never get really long days - although this time of year Arizona gets a longer day than India does. Still, compared to Alaska, Arizona's spring and summer days are short. Even though I have been home for a week now, come night, I am still a bit overwhelmed by the lingering light.

It doesn't help solve this persistent jet lag problem, though. If anything, it just makes me feel sleepier. And I forgot to buy Melatonin today. So I guess I will go to bed pretty soon, then sleep for two or three hours again, then wake up, groggy again, not able to sleep or fully function.

Still, I functioned better today than I did yesterday. Today was the first day that I made what felt like some significant accomplishments. So maybe, despite how I feel right now, I am making progress.

Grandsons: after an absence of more than five weeks, they reappear in the blog to play in the snow, pet Jim the cat, sit on Carmen's lap and don an India Indian suit

Margie informed me that Jobe was standing outside the door, so I opened it up to see if it was true. Sure enough, it was. More than five weeks had past since we had last seen each other. He looked at me with an expression of disbelief, a slight smile upon his face.

He held this expression for a very long time. Then I picked him up and carried him around for a bit.

I actually saw Lynxton and Kalib before I saw Jobe. I had stopped in at Metro Cafe to say "hi" to Carmen and to down an Americano. As I was sitting there, Kalib and Lynxton burst through the door, along with their parents, Jacob and Lavina. Jobe had fallen asleep and so stayed in the car where he continued to doze.

Carmen quickly scooped Lynxton from Lavina's arms and pretty much kept him for herself for the remainder of our visit. Although she had smiled and pleasantly entertained her customers throughout, this had been a bit of a trying day for her. Lynxton gave her spirit a boost.

It remains difficult for me to believe that Pistol-Yero is not going to appear at any instant and leap onto my lap, or my keyboard, or sleep by my head at night. I know he is wrapped up and in a box waiting to be buried, but still I keep expecting him to show himself.

He is not here anymore, but Jimmy is and so is Chicago.

We were going to try to bury Pistol-Yero today, but the truth is it was going to be too much of an ordeal, given the frozen earth and the depth of the snow in the cemetery where the fur-clad animal members of the family lie.

There are many places in Alaska where communities wait to bury their winter dead until after breakup. I am told that March has been a very cold month here, with sub-zero F weather (0F = -18 C) on an almost daily or at least nightly and morning basis, but it appears that the thaw is about to begin in earnest.

So we are going to wait for two or three weeks and see if it will be a little easier then.

Melanie is doing a job on the Arctic Slope and won't be home for three weeks. Hopefully, by then, it will be a little easier to make a grave out back.

A little after noon, I took a walk and Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy followed. The air was brisk when we left, the temperature still well below freezing although later in the afternoon it would go above. I did not wear a jacket, because after all my time in the heat of India and then Phoenix, I wanted to feel the cool air.

It felt wonderful!

Kalib plays in the snow.

After we returned home, Lynxton took a bath.

After he got all cleaned up, Lynx tried on his India Indian suit that his Aunt Sujitha bought for him. Everyone was quite pleased, because the colors were just right for him and he looked pretty damned handsome. Suji bought such a suit for me, too, and I wore it to her wedding... as you will see when I reach that part of my story.

So far, I have made no progress at all. 

I have some problems to solve and I am just flat-out jet-lagged and jet lag makes it difficult to solve such problems.

Jobe and Kalib are back in Anchorage and they should be going to sleep right about now. This is what they looked like when they dozed off here.

Rex came too, and so did his and Cortney's dogs.