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!

On Weekends with Friends in Idaho

You know you're a parent when you spend a weekend with friends and out of 100 photos you end up with 2 that have any adults in them!  Sorry friends, but at least our kids are cute!

After I got over my fear of the girls being outside with no fences or boundaries (and they kind of learned where to stay) they had a blast.  So nice to have fun things in the neighbors yard that you are allowed to play on!

Boys building things...

They have a really cool dirt bike track at the park in town, right near the playground and the neighbor also loaned us bikes for the boys.

The lake on the way home.  I could live with a view like this often!

The girls also spent as much time as possible driving this jeep around... heaven help me in 12 years!

As mentioned, what happens when you get two dads together who love science and nerdy things?

Dry ice of course!

 

with soap.

 And then we went to Silverwood on Memorial Day and the weather was perfect!

And we didn't lose anyone for more than a minute and we all had fun... except when we were scared of the rides!

The girls first ever real rides!  They loved the airplane!

Not so much this frog hopper which I made them watch our friends go on first and they still wanted to ride... I didn't take a picture after they started screaming when it was falling and bouncing!

Two 9 year olds, an 8 year old, two 6 year olds, and two 4 year olds.  Wheee!

 Brian went on this Panic Plunge three times and the last time their girls went with him!  The younger one was not so happy with her choice!

In the meantime I took Cory on the Sky Rider and he would have been okay, but they put us on, took us to the top and stopped for another car to load and he freaked out over the height.  Bummer.

Noah also got his freak out moment earlier when Brian took him and Cory on the wooden roller coaster and it was a bit much for him!

Then we rode the 101 year old train, more everyone's speed.

The last time I was at Silverwood this train was the ONLY ride they had here!

Official train robbery in progress!

I remembered it being a bit more "authentic", but perhaps that's my 7ish year old memory, although the kids sure weren't scared this time either.

They said they would "blow up" the train because we all had pictures of them, but their "dynamite" fell into the well and just blew water all over the train instead.

Through the "fairy woods" it really was a nice train ride.

Then promised dessert, what a motley crew!

When you are six and eat caramel apples...

We have made this visit twice and hopefully we can make it more of an annual event.  We miss our friends and the kids get along so well.  Thanks for being such great hosts!

Blue Lizard Sunscreen = Awesome!

The color changing cap has major kid appeal

I received a sample of Blue Lizard sunscreen in a box from Influenster.  All opinions are my own.

For Father's Day weekend we went up to a fun cabin on a lake.  Which meant we spent the better part of the weekend on the lake and out in the sun.  It was the perfect opportunity to try out a couple of new sunscreens I had this summer.

The hands down winner was Blue Lizard Sensitive Sunscreen.  It's a barrier sunscreen with zinc and titanium dioxides, the kind I prefer to use on my kids because there are no toxic chemicals in it.

The first thing I noticed was that it wasn't nearly as greasy as some of the other barrier sunscreens and it spread easily without leaving my kids looking like ghosts.

Another cool feature is, depending on which size you get, either the cap or the whole bottle turns from white/clear to blue in the presence of UV rays.  Perfect for when you're wondering if you really need to put on sunscreen.  One of the days we were at the lake it was fairly cloudy so the cap changed slowly, but it did still change.  Less exposure to the UV rays, but they were still obviously there.  Layer up!

I typically don't use this kind of sunscreen on myself, we're still using up some of the more chemical laden stuff we had from a couple years ago, but this Blue Lizard one was so much less greasy that I did use it on myself and ended up feeling about the same as usual.  Now that impressed me!

Blue Lizard is an Australian company and as my husband says, the Aussies know what it's about when it comes to sun so they make products that work.  I'm happy to report, there were no sunburns that weekend!

Father's Day Fun!

My mom booked us a special getaway for Father's Day last weekend, we all went to stay at Patterson Lake up near Winthrop.

View from the cabins

View from the pool up at Sun Mountain Lodge where we went swimming a couple nights.  I'm hoping to go back and stay here sometime sans children.

First night, Mom smoked Brian with a 20 point hand in cribbage!

The point of staying on a lake?  Fishing!  Papa's trying to get all his grandkids hooked.  I think Noah's taken the bait!

First fish!

Second fish, a keeper!  It was flopping all around.

The sisters were quite impressed!

This one was a bluegill and big enough so we kept it for Noah to try... and my mom thought it needed to stay fresh longer so she put it in the cabin sink.  It was funny to watch! (still, ew!)

My brother came up Friday night

A little late evening fly fishing from the dock

Sisters find a way to be silly all the time!

Look who stayed in our cabin and got a morning snuggle!  Uncle Kevin!

Saturday's weather turned out awesome.  The girls played in the nice shallow water...

And the boys played in the boat Uncle Kevin brought up.  Fun times!

More sisters being silly...

With plenty of encouragement from the Nana.

After dinner on Saturday there was a small squirrel out by this tree.  Joy went out to see it and instead of running away it just kind of went in circles slowly around the tree.  She was walking around and talking to it, but I couldn't get to my camera fast enough.  So cute!

Then the other two came out and it ran up the tree farther.

We had our own private "park" right in front of the cabins.  Unfortunately about 20 seconds after I took this picture Joy turned around, swung out on the monkey bars like she had been doing, lost her grip, and fell flat on her face.  Scary!

Sunday morning brought the butterflies out to play!

And how do you keep little girls occupied while you're packing up?

You let them play and they find themselves cabinets to climb into.  Bunkbeds I guess!

Then we had hot chocolate, another 5 minute distraction.

The girls got a short boat ride back across the lake to the boat launch.

Uncle Kevin

Now there's trouble!

Mom and Cory also went horse back riding on Friday morning, but she has those pictures.  All in all, a really fun trip in a gorgeous setting!  Even the mosquitoes weren't too bad, the first night we went out on the dock at dusk and could see the bats swooping the water, probably hundreds of them.  Very cool.