Alaska: Glacier Time

On Wednesday we finally picked the perfect day to take a trip out to the Matanuska Glacier. (It's seriously highway robbery to get in through the private land in front of it though)

The view of "their" mountains before we left.

It was about an hour and a half drive to get to the glacier and the scenery along the way was simply stunning.

You drive high along the hillside opposite the glacier before going down to it so you can see some of the sheer size of it. 

Four miles across and 27 miles long.  Much of the front of it on the left side is actually ice, but covered by the silt and gravel that the glacier has churned up.

The glacier moves about a foot a day, but enough falls off at the front end that it is fairly stable in it's location.  We felt a piece of it shift while we were walking out on it! Spooky!

This is Shalom, and froggy had to visit the glacier with us!

Distances are deceiving... it probably took us a good 10 minutes to walk from this photo to the glacier edge.

At the edge, a lot of the ice is covered with dirt and silt.  But you can see the clear solid ice through it!

David juggling rocks...

All of these rocks have warmed in the sun and melted themselves down into the top layer of the ice.

Checking out a hole in the ice.

The guys got a lecture from Dahlia about letting kids get too near holes... safety first!  We all (except the girls) had these Cat Trax things on our shoes that made it much easier to walk on the ice.  The poor girls had to just be held up as they walked.

Family picture on the glacier!  If we go to Glacier National Park in the future I think the kids might be a little disappointed...

There were many of these holes, most not big enough for anyone to fall into.  You can see the amazing blue color down in the ice though.

Our lovely hosts!

We were on the very front edge of the glacier and it's so choppy that we couldn't climb up on top like I thought we were going to.

Boys on the ice!

These two photos (above and below) are taken looking back towards the parking lot, and from the parking lot respectively.  You can see that we are on the glacier, but in the photo below, where we were standing is very much at the bottom and front.

Let me just straddle a crack for fun!

Checking out how cold that ice water really is!

The boys were drinking the water pouring off here.

This is us, in front of one little piece.  To your right, the rest of the glacier was easily 4 to 5 times this tall, just what we could see!

And after we took this photo the boys walked over to where the ice turned into a small lake.  What they didn't know was that the water had essentially melted out the ice under the edge so under their combined weight it broke, dumping them both into glacier water!  Dahlia was there to grab them out and they must have been treading water hard because neither was wet above their armpits, but they said they never touched the bottom!  You can see that most of us are actually in shirtsleeves because it was such a warm day thankfully, even the air blowing across the glacier was warm, but they were cold then!

Boys: let us push this rock over!

There were some amazing patterns where the ice had fissured and the silt had flowed down into the cracks.  Try to blow this photo up and look carefully.

Views on the way home!

Just a mile or so before we got back to their house there was another moose spotting!  This one had a baby with her, but it was hiding from my camera.

And then just as we were getting the kids to bed (yes, at 11pm) I saw a giant shadow outside the window and this owl landed on top of the tree just off their deck.

All the nature is pretty awesome in Alaska!

Alaska: Life and Anniversaries

Who knew going to Alaska meant I would get to meet up with a ton of old friends I hadn't seen in years.

Amber and I were housemates in the "casita" 15 years ago when we went to Portantorchas together in Costa Rica.  It was fun having breakfast and catching up on where she is now.

Thursdays are homeschool day at Dahlia's house and between the 4 families we had 20 kids there!  It was high school history so all the big kids were downstairs and of course babies don't do Legos, but all the middle group of kids were here.  How do you catch kids?  Apparently put out a big pile of Legos!

Cory found a book with ideas and created this zip line for some Lego guys.  Later there was even fishing line strung between the porch railing and the cabin down below and/or the garage farther down!

I really really couldn't get enough of this view.

Too bad one of the few days we had nice weather was a school day because most days the view looked more like this.

I failed to realize that Alaska summer ends at the first of August so when we arrived they had had weeks of lovely weather and then it rained half the time we were there.  Whoops!  Will plan better next time (and oh yes, there will be a next time!)

Friday the 29th is our anniversary so the kids stayed at the house while Brian and I drove in to Anchorage for the afternoon.  Or I should say evening since it was almost 6pm when we found a parking space, but the light was still throwing me off so badly it felt like mid-afternoon!

Dessert first at the Cake Studio on 4th St.  If you ever get to Anchorage I highly recommend it! This was my vanilla mousse chocolate bomb.  Then some cool art (it's a special trip tradition) from the Sevigny Studio next door, and finally dinner at the Glacier Brewhouse.

There was a very long wait unless we wanted to sit in the bar.  Sometimes it pays to be out without children!  I had fresh halibut and Brian had steak.  Once in a long while a very fancy dinner tastes amazing!  Usually we decide we could have made it better at home for less, but not this time!

After dinner we went down to the "waterfront", if the mud flats can be called that!

The train from Fairbanks was pulling in when we hit the Coastal Trail.  My parents have ridden this a couple times and the colors are so different than the trains we have around here that it was fun to see.

Just for fun we sat and waited for sunset and watched the planes come in.  The airport is off to the left, south of downtown.  I really couldn't believe how incredibly flat the whole bay and valley around Anchorage are.

Unfortunately this is all the sunset we got and below the spot where you can see it, it completely disappeared behind the clouds and didn't give us anymore colors.  But I did notice waaaay off in the distance that you could see a snow covered mountain range.  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me until I used my zoom lens and could actually see defined ridges.  Too bad we never did get a clear enough day to see Denali.

On the way home we saw a moose on the side of the freeway, but thankfully it didn't decide to cross!  And then we got home at dusk... or 11:30pm!

Alaska: True Vacation

The view from their front windows, I simply couldn't get enough!

I'm not sure it's possible to put into words just how amazing this vacation was for me.  We went to stay with some long time friends at their new home about an hour outside of Anchorage.

I have not seen Dahlia or her kids since we went to visit them in 2008 in Arizona, so neither had she met any of the rest of our kids besides Cory (and David only met Noah briefly just after he was born).  But we have talked on the phone off and on for years and she is so laid back it makes it easy to get along.  Plus we have 4 kids in common!

Noah and Shalom playing mini Uno

After day one, which was us ladies shopping expedition to Costco and Fred Meyer to stock the cupboards for 12 people for 2 weeks we were ready... to relax!

The next day we trekked down to the river, you can see it in the top photo, and played in glacier fed water!

That's the Knik Glacier in the distance, in the middle just above the trees.  Funny enough, the water didn't feel that cold, until we'd been out there an hour or more and had to wade back across the shallows from the sand bar.  Then it was cold!

The boys had a blast playing in the silt.  They made dirt bombs complete with puff flower fuses.

So of course the girls had to copy them.

Macaiah is a rugged mountain man and keeps a canoe in the small lake between the road and the river.  I really think Noah would be just like him if he could... nine year age difference, but he was his little shadow.

Cory also got a turn in the canoe and with more paddling and swimming experience they went down around the point to check and see if the salmon were coming upstream yet.

Discussing the merits of skipping stones with David

Brian spent his weeks with one of his best friends, playing games and nerding out with a new 3D printer.

This vacation really had nothing to do with the place (although yes, Alaska is beautiful) and everything to do with the home of our friends and their welcome of us into it.  Three stories for the girls to roam, tons of new toys, outside adventures (even moose in the yard!), and older kids to help keep an eye on them so I didn't have to be "on guard" very much at all.

Plus just having a girl to talk with every night for many hours, yes once we even saw it get light again.  We were very short on sleep (kids don't go to bed when it's light out!), but my mental exhaustion was so much lessened in those two short weeks.  What a treat!

And Then We Went to Oregon

After driving by for so many years we were actually relatively early this time (does it actually get easier to pack as the kids get older? someone pinch me!) and on a whim stopped at Multnomah Falls.

The kids were happy to get out and stretch their legs.  It was a little cool.  And in a couple more years maybe we will be able to hike to the very top.  I was there once as a kid!

This time we just went up to the first bridge and checked it all out.

First morning at Grandma and Grandpa's house... a tea party with cousin Cassia and our friend Isha.

There are always plenty of takers if anyone will read a story.

Time for snuggling on Grandpa's new couches!  (which seems to have almost entirely cured my allergies in their house, hallelujah!)

Don't forget swimming in Grandpa's pool!

Cousin Cassia floating all around and Uncle Brian trying to teach cousin William how to kick!

This is the crew, six cousins from 2 to 9, all in the pool!

And that was just the first weekend!