Orien Family News

Today is Labor Day, the traditional end of summer. We are hoping to eek out a few more weeks of good weather before the snow flies as we have several jobs to finish up at the Lake House. This summer has been eventful and memorable with so much happening it is a shame to lump them all together instead of letting each one be examined and savored individually.

The first event which we looked forward to for two years was the homecoming of Joseph from his mission in California. He arrived home on June 10 looking handsome and bright eyed. He loved his mission and the people there but didn’t quite know what to do with himself at first as he made the adjustment from being very busy to not so busy. He managed to figure it all out though and kept fairly busy with a part time job at a bike shop and a part time job helping the folks at the Lake House. He has gone back to college now and left us alone and missing him.

The month of July was pretty crazy with activities and guests. Everyone was excited to go fishing, play at the Lake House, tour the state, and just relax. We had all of our children home except Erin and her family as they were expecting a baby right in the middle of all this. We were thrilled with the birth of Anna Sophia Lowry who was born on July 21 in Salt Lake City. Megan went down for a week to help out and then I went down for a couple of weeks. Anna is very cute and a good baby and a wonderful addtion to their family. She resembles her sister Kate but has her own look.

The Hammerman Triathlon in July was another big event for us. Orie, Jason, Joseph, and Kyle all signed up to do the full triathlon with Megan, Caroline and Nathan signed up to do a team triathlon, each one doing one leg. Orie trained faithfully all winter and was ready for the race. He wanted to redeem himself after last summer when he took off for the biking portion without his glasses and crashed and burned when he couldn’t see the trail. The rest of the Orien family particpants trained minimally but figured it would be fun anyway. Joseph tried hard to learn how to swim by practicing in the lake each night and did improve but realized swimming is not his strong suit…yet. It is weird that although he grew up on the lake and water skied and played in the lake constantly, he didn’t learn to swim well. Oh well, he is a good biker and runner and figured he could make it up in those areas. A couple of days before the race Orie and Kyle decided to ride the biking course to check it out. They found it was an extremely hard course and so hard in fact that Kyle crashed and got a concussion and had to withdraw from the race. Nathan missed his plane and arrived too late to race so the Megan/Caroline/Nathan team had to withdraw. So that left Orie, Jason and Joseph as the only Orien family partcipants. They all did well, finished the race and had a lot of fun. Orie finished first in his age bracket (the old guy bracket) and therefore qualified to participate in the National Exterra Triathlon in Nevada in October.

Fishing was a big part of our summer and was really fun. Thanks to the efforts of everyone we got enough to feed us for the winter and some for them to take home. We love salmon! It is fun to catch them and delicious to eat them. It was a blast watching Spencer dip net salmon at the mouth of the Kenai River. He was a maniac! No one on that beach caught more fish, was as tough and hard working, or had more fun. The look on his mud splattered face was priceless each time he hauled in a net full of fish. He figured out the technique for catching them and hardly missed an opportunity. It took three of us on shore to take care of the fish he hauled in.

And, speaking of fishing, we had our annual end of the season float and fish down the Kenai River last weekend. It was a gorgeous sunny and warm day so the float was soul soothing and pleasant to say nothing of the fun of catch and release fishing for rainbows and dollys. The topping on the cake that day was a bear encounter that turned out well with no one hurt. As we were finishing up our day of fishing at the mouth of the Kenai River Orie noticed a large round object floating in the river just downstream. It seemed to be heading straight for another fisherman who had just flown in and parked his float plane on the shore at the mouth of the river. We suspected it was a bear and it was. A big one! The fisherman saw him but just kept on fishing and the bear swam right on by him and headed for shore with a silver salmon in his mouth. Nathan and Kyle got so excited about the bear they wanted to get in our raft and float by for a closer look…so we did. We sat off shore for about an hour watching the bear eat salmon after salmon. He would wade out a bit and come back with another fish in his mouth and then proceed to eat it. Meanwhile it was starting to get late and the fisherman walked back down river toward his airplane but Mr. Bear was between him and the plane. We watched in suspense wondering what was going to happen. The bear was right on the shore and the fisherman had to walk very close to get by him and to his plane. The fisherman made several attempts to get by him but about the time he got within 20-30 feet of the bear, Mr. Bear would raise his head and look threateningly at the man, prompting the man to scamper back a ways. It wouldn’t have taken that bear more than a few seconds to reach that guy and make mince meat of him. We were on edge and afraid we might be witness to a bear mauling, at least I was. I think the boys were enjoying it. Anyway, we all sat there quietly spell bound by the scene. Finally the guy gave up and decided to be patient and sat down on the shore to wait it out. We wondered what was going to happen and how many more fish that bear would eat. The fisherman was sitting too close for my comfort so we were trying to figure out a way to rescue him and had just begun our manueving to fetch him when the bear decided his tum tum was full for the moment and he wandered back into the woods. The guy made a dash for his plane and in a snap was in it and airborne. The show was over so we started up our motor and headed across the lake for the car and home. We got some pretty good photos but were sure wishing we had taken the telephoto lens camera with us. Who knew we could have a chance to get some great bear shots.

So, although it is September 1 and summer is officially over, we have lots of fond memories of a fun summer to think about all winter and as we contemplate the fun we antcipate the next summer. We are getting it all planned out to the day. That’s life in Alaska. We live from summer to summer with a long blur of cold winter in between all the fun.