Cruise Day 5

Sitka, Alaska!! Such a beautiful place, and my favorite port call by far. There is no pier for the cruise ships, so we had to take a tender in to shore. The first thing we did was rent a couple of bikes and head off for the hills. I loved it, maybe because it felt so.... normal. Like we weren't tourists. The scenery was fantastic, the weather was cool (perfect for biking,) and we pretty much didn't meet anyone else on the trail.
A mountain lake:
We passed by a bear sancuary. We didn't want to pay 20 bucks to get in, so we stopped on the hill above them where we could see them just fine. Sort of.
We also saw this eagle. We think it's an immature bald eagle.


And of course our best wildlife find of the day:
And did I mention that the trail we biked had a LOT of steep hills?? That sign is NOT exaggerating.
Here's a view of our cruise ship from a road we were biking on.


When we were done biking we just had a few minutes to grab a quick lunch, find a Russian doll for Sissy (Sitka is a very Russian city,) return the bikes, and meet up with our group for kayaking! Here I am sporting the fabulous rain gear they outfitted us in:
And here is an orange jellyfish. I really really really didn't want to capsize. Those things were everywhere. It was odd to feel like we were in the mountains, and yet be finding all these sea creatures.



Oh and here's our friend sunstar who we caught and gave a ride on our kayak. He was sssliiiimmmy.



On the way back from kayaking, we saw an eagle pulling his dinner up from the water!
That night was another formal night. I wasn't sure I'd be up to getting all gussied up after our tiring and adventurous day, but it was worth it! If for nothing else, then for this dessert which was fab-u-lous.
I cannot even begin to describe how good the meals were. I'm sure I've never ever eaten so much in a week. My clothes were getting a big snug by this day.
Our nightly guest, this time sporting my sunglasses which I had happened to leave on our bed.

Cruise Day 4

Day 4 of our cruise was cruising Glacier Bay. The scenery was fantastic, and it was a gorgeous day. Well, we actually started out in heavy jackets and hats, but within a half hour were roasting and it felt like summer again.
We took sooooooo many pictures this day. It was hard to sort through them and pick which ones to post here. Plus the pics just don't do justice to how gorgeous it was in person. Here are a few anyway.




This picture pretty much sums up our day (except I was reading, not knitting):
I can't believe how many people stopped to chat with Russ about his knitting. One lady even asked to take his picture, and then missed the eagle picture she was headed toward to try to get!

They told us one of the best places to see whales was as we were sailing out of the bay. But at that point it got super windy, and we were will just a handful of people who braved the bow to try to catch a glimpse. We did see a few, but at quite a distance.
Our towel animal for the night:

Cruise Day 3

Day 3 of our cruise was a port stop in Juneau! Alaska's tiny isolated capitol. (They don't like Sarah Palin there, because she wants to move the capital to Anchorage.) It's only accessible by boat or plane, so even as a capitol city it retains its quaintness. Above is a view as we were pulling in toward Juneau.
The first thing we did was take a shuttle up to Juneau's famous glacier, and went on a little hike to a waterfall that was near it.
This is the Mendenhall glacier. It is beautiful and grand (or so we thought until we cruised Glacier Bay the next day.)
It was a gorgeous day outside. Russ thought it was funny to see people sunbathing with a glacier in the background!

There were huge icebergs all over the place. They seemed out of place in the warm weather, actually. I don't think I'd want to go swimming in that water!
After visiting the glacier, we went on a gold-panning shore excursion. It was pretty fun-- and yes, we got a few gold flakes to bring home. It is actually quite difficult, but I'm sure would get easier with practice. Unfortunately I dropped my camera case in the water (thank goodness it wasn't my camera!) and then left it on the bus.
I love this next picture, with the sunlight streaming down on Russ. Need to cut out the lady on the side though!
After gold panning, we went to an outdoor salmon bake with all-you-could-eat salmon cooked on a big grill. A bit disappointing, actually, perhaps because the food on the ship was soooooo good. But there was a pretty area with some old mines and another waterfall.
And good-bye fair city Juneau!

Sailing off into the sunset. Oh wait, cruising off away from the sunset. Nearly time for a movie and midnight snack. Who am I kidding-- our midnight snacks were another full meal. No wonder I gained a few pounds.

Alaskan Cruise Day 1 and 2

Alaskan Cruise Day 1: We were dropped off at the pier by Russell's mom. The kids were pretty happy to have Nanna around for a week to be with them, especially Sissy. It was a bit hard to say good-bye though. BJ was really mad and wouldn't even look at us. I think he really wanted to go on the BIG boat that we pointed out and told him that mommy and daddy were going on it. But I'm sure he got over it quickly. Anyway, off to board the Zandaam with Holland America! The first couple of days we really didn't take many pictures because we were on board the ship the whole time and mostly in the middle of the ocean. We did have the chance to be on a game show called "stack that plate!" I got to put fake food one a plate attached to a helmet they put on Russ, and he had to run across the stage and dump it into a bucket. We didn't get great pictures, because the couple we gave our camera to were off on the side. But hey, we won! Yippee! Our prize was a free lunch at the super fancy restaurant on board. Other than that we spent our day reading and relaxing, and getting accustomed to constant vibrations and swaying.

The second day was spent all at sea, for that long haul up to Juneau. We read, ate, slept, read some more, ate A LOT, explored the ship, and just generally relaxed. Dinner that evening was a formal affair, so we got ourselves all gussied up and had a fabulous meal.

Here is our first towel animal:

Stay tuned for Day 3, Juneau!

May Birthdays

My princess and my little... well, my silly little guy. Talia just turned 5 and BJ turned 3! Can't believe how big they are getting. This year was non-party year, which was sooooo much easier for me, and I think the kids still had great birthdays.

My dear Talia-- still loves her arts and crafts, and is about as physically uncoordinated as a 5 year old can be. Surprisingly though she has taken to roller blading and does a decent job at that. She also loves to ride her bike, spend time outside collecting random things, and play with pretend with Ammon when he's up to putting up with little Sister. She is a real cuddle bug, too, with a completely irresistable giggle.
Here is her birthday cake. She requested a round chocolate cake. Easy easy!

Our "party" started outside, but it was getting chilly so we moved it inside for the cake and presents, and to watch "The Princess and the Frog."

As one of her presents I recycled my old pink caboodle and made it into a craft box for her:

BJ, or Jarom. 3 years old and one husky little kid (40 lbs!) His mostly happy 2's have unfortunately turned into the I-will-find-something-to-cry-about-every-five-minute and I-will-not-take-a-nap 3's. But we sure love him, and are still certainly entertained by him. His speech has improved remarkably, although once in a while I still have trouble understanding him. His favorite thing is to SWING. He is a little helper a lot of the time too, but mostly just troublemaker.

Firetruck!

BJ had his cake picked out from one of our recipe books for quite a while. I thought he might change his mind, but he stuck to it!

And then he learned to NOT grab the candle directly after blowing it out. He burnt his hand, unfortunately where he had a healing burn from camping the previous week! It took him a loooooong time to finish that cupcake and ice cream.

Anyway, after the cake and presents, we took the kids down to Jungleland Ballocity in Vancouver. A huge playplace, with slides and balls and all kinds of fun stuff. I forgot my camera though, darn it! The kids LOVED it. And it turned out to be a good day to go, since it was pouring rain outside. We finished off the day with dinner out at Red Robin.

One more thing-- when I took him to his yearly check-up at the doctor, he acted like.... well, he acted like Ammon as a toddler. Anyone who knew us when Ammon was a toddler will know the significance of that! It was NOT fun. And he had to get a shot. A couple days later he was cuddling me and I said "I love you, do you love me?" (It's a little game we play all the time.) And he most emphatically says, "NO, I did NOT want to get a shot!" I think he's finally forgiven me now that it's been a couple of weeks.