Hawaiian Vacation Take 2

More thoughts on the island of Hawai'i - the flowers there are just amazing. I liked the lava - but there's a lot of it to see. You just look and look and look, and hey - there's more lava! I wouldn't mind visiting there again, because we had only a few hours to look around, but of the four islands we visited it was my least favorite. I'd totally give it another chance, I'm sure there's more there to see then what we got a taste of.

The next day we hit Oahu. I have been there a couple of times, and John had been there before too, and we haven't been that impressed by it. I mean, come on now, it's HAWAII, right? How bad could it be? But Honolulu is a big city, and the traffic is horrendous. Getting out of Honolulu is a must if you want to spend much time enjoying the island.

This time, we got off the beaten path and John's cousin found an island we could snorkel to called Goat Island. Once we got there, we had the beach to ourselves save the two people that walked by at one point. Snorkeling out there was a bit rough, and on the way back we all decided to walk across the rocks instead of swimming. The water had gotten even more rough, so I'm glad we did.

We spent some time just tooling around the island, taking pictures at all the appropriate places, eating Shave Ice and hitting a cute little farm. The drive from Honolulu to Goat Island was beautiful and it was the best experience I'd had on Oahu. I would happily go back and probably want to stay on the North Shore. I liked the beaches there and the slower pace was nice.

We had a longer time on Oahu, (the ship didn't leave until 11pm) but we had to have our car back at a certain time, so we got back on the ship around 6:00 and went to dinner. We played some games on deck and took it easy the rest of the night.

Here we are at China Man's hat - Matt tells us that you can snorkel out to that island too - we'll have to try that some day!

Cruising - Hawaiian Style

We got home this morning from a 2 week cruise to the Hawaiian Islands with our friends Matt and Shaunee. We left out of LA and cruised 4 days to the islands, hit Hawaii, Kauai, Maui and Oahu and then headed 4 days to Ensenada, MX and than back to LA.

What a great time! We really enjoyed our time with Matt and Shaunee and the cruise was wonderful. We ended up being fairly busy, which of course I LOVE, and John was able to relax while I was running around doing 'stuff' with Shaunee.

Princess has hired a great couple who make the Hawaiian experience authentic from the minute you get on the ship. They teach ukelele classes and hula dancing classes as well as being in a band that plays in various places on the ship and they bring a general 'aloha' feeling to the ship. The four of us took ukelele classes and participated in a show at the end of the cruise that showcased the class. We probably learned a dozen songs and got fairly efficient by the end of the cruise.

I talked Shaunee into taking line dancing and we had a great time learning the dances and trying not to get stepped on. It's pretty funny trying to dance on a ship that is constantly rolling with passengers who are not exactly spring chickens! :) I had always wanted to take the lessons, and it was fun to do it with someone. My next project is to talk John into taking the real dance lessons.

We hit Hilo, Hawaii first and rented a car to tour the island. Here we are in a lava tube. We hiked into two of them and this one we needed flashlights to go through. John hit his head pretty hard on the ceiling coming out of the tube, you're concentrating so hard on watching your feet that you don't watch your head - ouch!




We also drove to the end of the road where lava had destroyed a subdivision and was still covering the road.








At the same place where lava had covered the road, there was a great lookout over into the ocean. I guess at times, the lava cliffs slough off and the area has lost acres of cliffs to them just heading into the ocean. If you know me at all, you know I was freaked out about falling into the sea never to be seen again. So I moseyed out for pictures and then moseyed back to the road! :)



This is getting long - so I'll sign off here and post more later!

John and I had a "Murder Mystery Party" at our house last week - Lethal Luau.

We had a great time, I've never seen John hamming it up quite like that. I never got a photo of all of us together, but I wish I had because the costumes were so great.

I think I'll do it again and this time I'll host - it was hard to have a part and keep the game moving. Now that I'm a little more familiar with how the game needs to flow, I think it would go more quickly and smoothly.

John's character was a bumbling tourist and my character was a bikini model. Yeah, a bikini model, that ain't happening folks. SO I dressed up in my best Hawaiian dress and called it good! I'm practicing for our upcoming Hawaiian vacation - people you need to practice for vacation, everyone knows this :)

Three Things

From the beginning of our marriage, I've asked John to play a game I like to call "Three Things." When we play, we both think of three things that we like about the other and we try not to repeat them. If you've ever read Gary Chapman's book "The Five Love Languages" you are probably recognizing that my love language is words of affirmation.

John plays along, but it's not as important for him as it is for me. He has a different love language, and I love him in his way just as he loves me in mine. Over the years as we've played our "game" we've had to get creative and though John plays, he is never the one to bring it up.

This morning, I was reading in Proverbs, and though I'm sure I've read it before I had never noticed the good news I saw today. Prov. 30 has many mentions of "three things." In fact - there are four mentions of "three things"! My game is obviously Biblical. Not only does Prov. 30 mention three things, but it increases to four things.

I think it's time to up the ante in our game - we should play Four things!

So for your reading pleasure:

“There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: 16 the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’

17 “The eye that mocks a father, that scorns an aged mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.

18 “There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: 19 the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a young woman.

20 “This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

21 “Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: 22 a servant who becomes king, a godless fool who gets plenty to eat, 23 a contemptible woman who gets married, and a servant who displaces her mistress.

24 “Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise: 25 Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer; 26 hyraxes are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags; 27 locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks; 28 a lizard can be caught with the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces.

29 “There are three things that are stately in their stride, four that move with stately bearing: 30 a lion, mighty among beasts, who retreats before nothing; 31 a strutting rooster, a he-goat, and a king secure against revolt.[b]

Sunny Days...

Here comes summer, for reals. I'm pretty sure.

I notice that the closer I get to summer, the more inclined I am to get busy. Take this week for example, I had Bible Study on Monday night, Awana tonight, Church tomorrow night and I'm part of a focus group (that pays me, yay!) tomorrow night. Friday night is dinner and games at a friend's house and then its the weekend for a minute.

Phew.

I tend to really pick up the pace during the summer, and have noticed that my pedometer is already reflecting the walking I've been doing. And being industrious is a good thing. I believe it is a good thing, but it's also a good thing to pause now and then.

I'll be working on the pause this summer.

Spring Fever

I haven't been writing, but truly, there hasn't been much to say.

We seem to be on the upswing of the year - the time where winter is melting away, and spring is coming...slowly but surely. I'm not usually a believer in spring until the snow is gone, but that doesn't keep me from opening all the blinds and letting the sunshine in. Hmmm...that reminds me of a song!

Here's Izzy and Bella enjoying the sunshine in our living room. That huge picture window is doing a fine job of letting in the sun!

One of the advantages of melting snow is that I tend to get outside more. One of the disadvantages of melting snow is ICE! AAAAA!! So far I haven't bit it...and I'm holding on tightly to that record!

Maybe I'll think of some more exciting things to write - or maybe I'll run out right now and make some happen!

Craigslist

John and I found a cruise we'd like to go on in a couple of years that goes round trip from Sydney, Australia and circles New Zealand. It has been a life-long dream of mine to go to both Australia and New Zealand, and we LOVE cruising, so this is perfect, right?

Except, it costs A. LOT. Not so much the cruise, but getting there, and we don't want to just jump on the boat and go, so we'll want time in Australia so there's hotel and car and food and, and, and.

I had a thought, what if we saved for a trip? What if instead of just going and paying for it, we just had the money set aside for traveling? what a new concept for us! So, I started an envelope and then started looking around our house for stuff we could sell. I turned to Craigslist.

That's right, I'm going to pay for our trip one $20 item at a time. So far I have $25. I have a ways to go! :)

How do you say Beautiful?

Our dog is named Bella. She was Bella well before the craziness that is Twilight, and had I known that that was coming I would have named her something else. She is Bella because her sweet sister is Izzy, and together they are Izzybella. And let's be real here, she seriously is so cute and the sweetest dog ever, so it's only natural that she should have a name that means "beautiful" in both Spanish and Italian.

We go to the dog park now and then, and there are many dogs named Bella. It's confusing for her sometimes and more than once she has followed the wrong human (though not entirely due to her name as she is also a Shih Tzu and they are not known for their intelligence).

Yesterday we were at the park and I was thinking about all the Bella's in the world (both human and canine) and wishing I had had the foresight to name her something else. Then I started thinking that Bella is only one of the names I call her (and she responds to). I have a very long list of pet (ha) names for her. Wanna see it?

Bella
Bells
Hells Bells
Bella Brown Bottom
Bella Brown
Bella B
Chooch
Bug
Little Bug
Little Buggie
Sweets
Sweetie
Stinky
Belly
...

I think that's about it! She likes Bella the best, but if she knows I have a green bean in my hand, she'll respond to just about anything!

Sleep Schedule...so messed up

My husband works nights. Through the last 2 years that he's had this schedule he's always flipped back over to a 'normal' schedule on his days off...going to bed with me and getting up with me (sort of) in the morning.

I'm a morning person, so I've always enjoyed him being on my schedule. When I was off last week, I got all messed up, staying up late and getting up after 9:00 am, this is very unusual for me. I'm a get up around 7:30 whether or not I'm working kind of person. This was hard to break going back to work this week, but I finally got into the swing of things even managing to work out in the morning a couple of times.

This week, on Thursday and Friday nights we stayed up until after 3 a.m. Trust me when I say this is such abnormal behavior for me that even my husband couldn't believe I was still blinking after 3. I tried to get up "early" (around 10) this morning so that I could reset my crazy clock.

I was going to complain about this and then I remembered the past 2 years and what my husband has done going without sleep to match my schedule. Staying up now and then with him so that he can sleep in a long time is probably the least I can do. After all - he works hard and I appreciate all he does for me!

Thoughts on money

Here's something I've been thinking of - I may offend some people, and that is not my purpose. I don't really know what my purpose is...but it's not to offend.

Today on "America's Court" (what?!?! I had the week off - daytime television is interesting when you're scrubbing the house) a woman was suing her church for $5000 that she gave toward a building project. She wanted it back because she had recently found out that her pastor was performing wedding ceremonies between homosexual couples. She felt that the church was not following the original plan God had for churches and in addition, she thought that this church in particular had drifted from what the original founder's ideology had been. She did not want her money going to support that ideology and only wanted the special project gift back, not her tithes.

I thought her request was reasonable and wondered at why the church didn't just give her the money before it went to court. I mean, seriously, did she go to him, tell him that she was leaving the church and why, and then ask for the money back and he said no?

This got me thinking about an agenda for more money. I think lawyers are behind the push to have marriage between homosexual people made legal.

Among heterosexual couples, the divorce rate is just about 50%, let's assume it is the same among homosexual couples - this gives the divorce lawyers all kinds of new clients for divorce cases. Have you known someone who has gone through a divorce? In many cases (if the couple has any money at all) the lawyer is making some dough.

Let's also consider churches. I believe in the institution of the church and am a regular church goer myself. I am totally aware that churches are full of humans, and mistakes happen, feelings get hurt, sin goes on. And - I think of how much more tithe and giving churches could 'make' if they embrace the homosexual lifestyle and include marriages among those that are officiated. I could see how a humanistic pastor could look at the controversy about homosexual marriage and see dollar signs.

I am sure that there are more ways that this could be a money making opportunity - I just have to think some more. And like I said, I'm off this week, so thinking time is very limited.

Dump of Long News

As you can tell by how sporadically I write in my blog...not much goes on in our world! :) but that's okay - it's better than having lots of drama (I suppose)!

Let's see, since September what' happened in our lives. We finally finished up (mostly) our energy rebate update and got our first winter bill. We saved $200 over last December, wowzer...we're shaking our heads at why we didn't do this years ago! There's a new boiler, new water heater, insulation in our heated garage (yes, we heated an uninsulated garage), and the crawl space is all sealed up. We'll get on the list soon to have our blow test redone, and hopefully we'll get back most of what we spent to update our house. We are so green.

In October we took a short (and I mean S H O R T) trip down to CO to pick up meat. My uncle is a rancher in NE, and my parents buy beef from him and shared a half with us. It's great meat, and we have a freezer full of love!

In November, we went on vacation. It was a wonderful 2 week cruise to the Caribbean, and I'd do it again next week if I could. YAY! Then we came home to subzero weather...and into the funk that is winter in Alaska. I'm pulling out of the funk, and looking forward to spring. I think spring is coming in more ways than one in our lives, and I'm looking for signs of green. We're planning another trip in April so we have something exciting to look forward to.

I have some exciting projects to do including a bedroom makeover, so maybe I'll post some pictures of that...maybe not. Depending on how good it ends up looking!

Learning to Slow Down

Well - the title of this really should be: Forced to slow down. I had a couple of surgical procedures done on Tuesday of last week. I got pretty sick and my husband was very bossy about what I was and wasn't allowed to do at home. I am notoriously bad at "being sick" and almost always end up relapsing because I think I'm better before I am. John wasn't going to let that happen this time.

A week of doing nothing can start to wear at you - especially when you're used to running around with little down time. This past week was good for me. I learned that I am capable of sleeping during the day when my health requires it, and I also learned that, indeed, the world does not fall apart if chores have to go a few days without being done. Amazing, right?

Here's to good health, husbands who work hard and take good care of their wives, and to our God who heals.

Canada and Alaska vs. White Fang...part 3

The third and final (almost) post about our wonderful trip. Seriously, this was a great trip - and I didn't even have to fly anywhere!

Thursday morning after dealing with the bees, we headed up the Yukon Loop Highway to Dawson City. It got warmer and warmer as we drove and we estimated it to be in the 80s by the time we got to Dawson. We checked into a hotel (that's right folks, I got one night in a hotel) and hung out around the hotel going for a couple of walks and playing cards.

Friday morning we got up and headed to Claim #6 where John and Dan panned for gold and Stacey and I went for a walk. I felt like a new woman - clean hair two nights in a row and a bed to sleep in! YESSSSSSSSSSSS! We played around in the mining area for a few hours and then headed into town for, get this: a walking tour! YAY!

We walked around Dawson and noticed that some of the sites had a fancy stamp you could use. We asked about it and found out the the Yukon does a passport every summer and if you get at least 20 stamps you're eligible to win 5 ounces of gold. What? So we got a passport and got all the stamps we could in Dawson. I got to looking over the passport and realized that had we had it at the beginning of the summer (when we were driving all over Canada) I could have most of the stamps! What a bummer. I guess that means I'll have to do more traveling!

After our fun with stamps and walking tours, we headed to our campsite and played Frisbee and made dinner. We ended up staying up really late that night having a great conversation and slept like little rocks when we finally crawled in our tent.

Saturday morning we head to have a bit of a schedule. We were to meet the convoy across the Taylor Highway and we had to be there at 2:00 when it left. We headed out of Dawson on the ferry and drove on up the Top of the World Highway.

If you haven't yet traveled on the Top of the World...it's a must in Alaska. It's a great drive with lots of little hikes to stop at along the way. At the Y where the Top of the World meets the Taylor, we had to wait for the convoy. There were lots of blueberries around, so we spent our time picking berries until the convoy left.

Following the convoy was not so fun. It was too hot not to roll down the windows and dust came in whether you had them down or not...so the right side of my hair was so dirty with dust that the water from my shower on Sunday literally ran dirty. It was so gross. But I digress. The Taylor has been washed out with all the rain we've been getting (don't get me started) and you could see the areas where the road had sloughed off.

After the 1.5 hour drive on a dirt road behind 7 or so other cars, we made it to Chicken and continued on to Tok. We stopped at our same spot for camping that we stayed at on the first night and headed in Anchorage Sunday morning.

This was a great trip with wonderful pictures. I plan to post photos soon - when I get around to it - with all of the fun captions you're waiting for! :) John and I thoroughly enjoyed the company, the weather and the spots we visited.

Canada and Alaska vs. White Fang...Part 2

We spent Wednesday mostly doing walking tours of Skagway and Dyea (yes, for those of you hanging on the question "did she get eaten by the bear or was she able to thwart off an attack with her sledge hammer" I did make it through the night bear-attack-free). We didn't mean to spend so much time on the walking tours...but alas...we did.

It was pretty funny - we went to the townsite of Dyea (what we thought was the townsite anyway) and spent an hour or so wandering around trying to figure out the weird map and wondering what we were supposed to be looking at. We found a stream with spawning salmon and hung out there for a while looking at the totally fresh bear skat and fish parts that had obviously been flung to their resting places by bear. Probably a mom and her cub judging by the also fresh footprints.

Amazingly enough I wasn't feeling scared of these bears. Probably because it seemed they had plenty of fish to eat, and had little interest in us. That and there were tons of people around. We pushed through some forest after our time at the creek and found more fish parts...but still no city. We finally walked back to the trucks and Dan noticed that there was another path. Yes, two paths diverged in a wood - we took the one not to Dyea. So - we did the real walking tour of Dyea, which was very interesting, and headed into Skagway.

We had lunch in Skagway and began the walking tour through that little town. If you don't know much about the Klondike and the gold rush(es), I would encourage you to find out more. It's very interesting and since there are books written about it, I won't plagerize here.

Again we had great weather and no rain to speak of. Our drive out of Skagway was beautiful and we could see so much more now that the foggy mist had lifted. We drove on to Whitehorse, again stopping along the way when stuff interested us.

We got into Whitehorse later than we would have liked and checked out a couple of campgrounds. I don't know if it's just the Yukon Territory, or Canada in general, but they just don't do campgrounds like Alaska does. The two we went into near Whitehorse were the weirdest campgrounds I'd ever been to. We debated staying in one as we were all tired and ready to make camp, but of the four adults there, none of us felt comfortable staying - so onward we went. We decided to stay in a hotel that night and checked out one that looked inexpensive but not gross and learned that it was Discovery Days in the Yukon and if we could find a room, we'd be lucky.

Huh. We needed two rooms.

Onward ho - up the highway to find a place to camp. We headed toward Dawson City in the almost dark and found a great camping spot along the way. There were hardly any bugs and it was a beautiful clear night. The next morning we found out that we must have camped near a bee hive of some sort because they were out in masses. We ate breakfast and packed up quickly to head on up the Klondike Loop highway.

Canada and Alaska vs. White Fang...Part 1

WOW!

We just got back yesterday from a great camping trip across Alaska and Canada. We had a wonderful time camping with John's cousin and his family - they have a little boy. We hadn't done any traveling with them and you're never too sure how that's going to go (camping can be a bit stressful and we didn't have a solid itinerary) but it couldn't have gone smoother. Great company and fabulous weather capped off a fun adventure.

We had originally planned to drive up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territory, Canada...but alas, the closing of the Taylor Highway caused us to do some rethinking. We regrouped once we hit Tok and realized we'd have to add at least two days to our travels if we went up the Dempster...so we decided to head to Skagway and hit the gold rush towns.

So - here is our route (this blog is mostly for the purposes of helping me remember in the future when I scrap it, I'll add our photos and more information as the week goes by)

We left last Sunday in the afternoon and drove up out as far as the Tok Cutoff. We found a great little gravel pit to stay the night in. To our surprise, we only got the tiniest bit of rain and by the morning our tent was dry. We weren't sure what to expect for Taylor Highway conditions at that point, so we decided to head up to Tok and find out what the road was like.

I love Tok - it's such a cute little town. It's like Delta Junction - feels like the midwest in the middle of Alaska. Does it get any better than that? As I mentioned earlier - Tok is where we made our decision to head on down the road to Skagway and then up to Dawson City. The weather was just perfect and we headed down the Alaska Highway toward Kluane Lake.

We did plenty of stopping along the way and took our time driving across the highway. It was great doing this drive during the day as I felt like I'd missed so much when we drove through in the dark in July. We checked out a campground or two when we got to the lake, and finally settled on a "make your own site" right on the lake. We all slept great that night with the sound of the lake lapping the shore and just a bit of wind lulling us to sleep.

Kluane Lake is amazing. It's 150 square miles on greenish blue lake that just goes on and on. Stacey and I had a great time walking along the shore and the boys played in the dirt with Matthew. Of course we saw these signs at one of the campgrounds we checked out and I got completely freaked out about bears. The sign said that the area we were camping in was full of soap berries which apparently bears really like. Naturally we squatted our tent down right on top of a whole crop of soapberries. UGH! We didn't see any sign of bear (at all at this spot) but I kept my eye out just the same. Why can't bears just plan to stay away from me in general?

Again we were blessed with great weather (though it was a tad chilly) and headed out the next morning for Skagway. The drive down into Skagway is like you're heading into Mordor or some other mythical place. When we drove down, the fog was sitting in and it was getting misty out. I thought for sure we'd have rain once we got into the valley by the water. But once again - I was wrong.

Skagway is a great little tourist town that totally caters to cruise ships. There were four docked when we got there Tuesday evening and four when we left Wednesday morning. We took our time checking out the little town on Tuesday and did a little bit of shopping. Then we headed out to check out the town site of Dyea (the famous Klondike city where the Chilkoot trail begins) and tried to look for a camping site along the less traveled road and came back empty handed.

When we were crossing the bridge to come back into Dyea, we noticed a guy stuck in the middle of the river with his truck buried deep in water. We had a fun 'hero moment' watching Dan pull the guy out with his wench. This of course leaves John with much wench envy (and I'm talking about the kind you mount on a bumper) so we'll probably have one before too long!

We finally settled on camping in a campground and didn't get to unpacking to stay until after 9:00. This south in Alaska, it was dark much earlier than we are used to and we hadn't anticipated that. As we were getting dinner ready (of course we had to have salmon that night) the camp host came around and gave us some information on the area. She also had to tell us (again we had salmon that night) that there had been many bears in the area and one had taken a swipe at a tent two nights before. great. just. great.

Of course this put me in hyper clean up mode and I was cloroxing everything down and looking for little bits of food. We stayed up late talking that night and I think it was because we were a bit scared of going into our tents. Dan had a few hammers for fossil hunting tucked into his truck, so we went to bed each holding a hammer. I had a hard time sleeping that night - every sound was a bear trying to get into my tent and every stick breaking was a bear coming. John fell right asleep and snored away. Sigh.

The Cracked Pot

A recent email forwarded to me had this sweet story:

An elderly Indian woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream, "I am ashamed of myself because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
SO, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!

Hopefully I just look young!

I called a dear friend today in my car on the way to Target. I didn't really want to go in the store while I was speaking with her, and my car was too hot to sit in while I talked, so I sat outside the store on a bench and talked with her.

While I was talking with her, a group of kids (10 or so) walked into Target just as I laughed at a story she was telling me. One of the boys in the group mocked my laughter and I looked up at the kids as they walked in. One of the girls that was in the group said "don't mind him, he doesn't know what he's saying" and I must have been glaring at them because then she says "and don't roll your eyes at me."

Wow - I am at least 15 years older than this group of kids, since when is it okay to mock an adult and then tell them not to roll your eyes at them? Seriously! Maybe being rude to your peers is acceptable, but it seems many of this younger group no longer have respect for adults. I didn't say anything to them, mainly because I was one the phone and couldn't think of anything to come back with that wasn't as rude as what they had done. Weird - I'm hoping that it's just because I look like I'm not much older than they are...but I doubt it as I'm fairly certain I look exactly as old as I am!

I'm going to have to start walking around teaching kids manners. Hmmmm.....where to start!?

Family Trip

John and I got home from our Family Adventure on Monday morning. We had a great time seeing my siblings and parents and several of my cousins and their kids.

We arrived in Denver on Wednesday morning, and my sister Beth and her three girls picked us up and drove us to Colorado Springs where my parents live. We spent the day trying to stay awake and getting dinner together for the little BBQ we had with my other sister Jeni and her boyfriend and his kids.

Here's John with my little niece Amanda - playing at my parent's house.


Thursday we had a good time hanging with the kids and Beth at Whit's End at FOTF and then doing some shopping to get ready for our Nebraska adventure!


Friday morning we got up early and jumped in the car for the eight hour trip to Nebraska. We met my brother and his little girls (YAY!) in Valentine and then headed over to my Grandma's house where we met a bunch of cousin's and even more of our cousin's kids.

We had such a great time catching up with family and floating on the Niobrara River. That was an adventure in itself...making it down the river with our drenched selves and surviving the wind, rain and cold that was the weather!

It's always good to see family and catch up - the trip was too short and we were exhausted on the plane ride home Sunday night.

Alyssa, me, Beth and Anna at Whit's End trying on the costumes.

Bailee being as cute as she can be

The freckle queens together again! Steph and Jayden

Beautiful Weekend

It was a great weekend here in Anchorage - the sun was out all weekend and we hit the high 70's - that ain't bad for May! :) we could definitely use some rain, especially now that there are forest fires and the smoke is getting a little thick, but I really can't complain about the sunshine. I had a great time with family visiting early in the week and then the fun weekend.

My friend and I are planning to walk a 1/2 marathon, so we spent time 'training' for the walk, today we walked 6 miles. The training couldn't have come at a better time since we just started a contest at work. We all bought the same pedometers that can't be cheated and keep track of data to download into the computer. The grand prize for the most steps between now and a date in August is $300 with second place receiving $150. I'm hoping to win - I can think of a few somethings I can buy with that prize money!

I put out my flowers today and it always energizes me for summer. I'm not sure if I'll do my usual baskets in the front of the house, but I bought a basket and window box arrangement for the front of our unit, and filled the pots I have along the side of the house. The pots look cute, and I can't wait for them to fill in. Each year I try to do the flowers a bit more inexpensively, but this year I had a gift card to Bells so I splurged on the hanging basket.

Fun with John

Our 7th anniversary is on May 24, but since John and I both work that day and we have opposite schedules, we thought we'd get away this week. I reserved a room for us at the Lake Louise Lodge for a couple of nights and off we went.

Lake Louise is about 20 miles south and 17 miles west of Glennallen. The night we got to the lodge it was pouring and I thought we might have a "weekend" in just hanging out around the lodge. I've confessed on here that we have a great time at hotels because we love watching cable and get stuck on HGTV and Discovery Channel forever...this hotel didn't have cable let along TVs in the room - so he were forced to talk with each other. What a drag - ha! :)

On Thursday we woke up to a beautiful day and decided to drive to Delta Junction since I've never been there. It was a beautiful drive and Delta was a cute little town - very midwestern which was strange considering it was interior Alaska. We spent a few hours strolling around town and checking out the 'hot' spots and then headed back to Lake Louise. We are addicted to the "Milepost" and treated ourselves to a new copy for this trip. I'm glad we got a new one - there were updates and the one we'd been using was about 15 years old. For you un-Alaskan's the Milepost is basically a bible for traveling on Alaska's roads. As you've probably guessed from the title, it is a mile by mile description of what you'll see on the way.

We headed back to Anchorage on Friday and planned our next trip on the way. We're trying to plan a trip to the lower 48 - driving around the west coast or something. We've got to get serious and decide where we'd like to go and when we'd like to go, etc. We love road trips - good time for all!

Happy Anniversary, love of my life, you're still the best husband I ever had! :)