Alaska, Day 5 and 6, Going Home . . .

Erin and I started the day with another run (actually, we started the day with Ben waking me, Lucy, and my mom up - he called my mom's cell phone . . . forgetting about the time change. . .).  Of course it was drizzly, but still a great run.  We ran along the harbor on the boardwalk.  Pretty cool.  Not something I do everyday.  :)

After that we pretty much got ready and packed our bags and headed up to Derek's for one last visit.  Derek showed us his "building" site - where he does all of his log work.  He has some cabins up there and it's just cool to see.  Someday I hope to have him build us one!  :)  He does some great work.

We said our goodbyes and then headed on to Anchorage, about 5 hours away.  While it was pouring in Valdez and sprinkling at Derek's place, it cleared in less than 15 miles and we had awesome weather and could see Amazing Alaska!  All that we missed on our drive out on Friday.  It's beauty is just incredible.  I didn't even get a picture of the majestic Wrangell Mountains.  Stunning.

 Heading out from Derek's place.

 We stopped here and took a look at the Matanuska Glacier.  So cool.  The kids had snack and we got to stretch our legs a bit.

 A closer look.

My cute sis and nephew.

We made it in to Anchorage before 7pm - and we had time to kill since our flight was scheduled for midnight.  So we went out to eat.  Then we went to the movie Planes.  It was an okay show.  Ollie held out for quite a while before finally succumbing to sleep.  Lucy stayed awake for the whole show: 

Then we drove to the airport parking, parked our rental car, then took the shuttle to the airport.  Ollie stayed asleep: 

Our plane was delayed on boarding, then once we boarded we had to wait because the wings had ice on them.  Oh bother.  But Lucy was out - way before we took off.  I think we took off close to 1 1/2 hours late.  Lucy and Ollie slept like champs - the entire time!  Even the landing didn't wake up Lucy!  Poor gal.  But, being late, caused my sis and Ollie to miss their connection  - just barely, though!  Her plane was right at the gate next to ours coming in and we could still see it when we arrived!  Bummer.  But Erin was able to get on another flight about 2 hours later.  So we got to hang out.  Erin and I checked our emails, the kids played play-do, etc.  Then Erin and Ollie finally boarded and Lucy and I headed out to find us some frozen yogurt.  Yum!  Lucy ended up getting ice cream . . .

I think she liked it.

Then we went up the escalators, visited a toy store, then headed to our gate.  Lucy fell asleep in my arms.  She's heavy.  But she only slept for about 15 minutes and then woke up when I put her down on our seat.  She was all chatty with a gal behind us who was flying with her 2-year old son.  She kept trying to talk, but those propellers are so loud it was hard to hear her!  Oh well, that didn't really stop her.  The flight was pretty uneventful, we landed, my friend picked us up, we got our luggage, drove home, then I was locked out!  Bummer!  I was so ready and anxious to shower and take a nap before I had to get the kids from school.  I ended up using our neighbor's phone and got a hold of Ben at work.  He had his boss drive over our keys.  I got in, put Lucy to nap, then took a shower.  I didn't have enough time to really nap and I was worried that if I did, I would just sleep through my alarm, so I didn't.

Emmy and Jonas both came running and jumped on me when I got them from school.  :)  It made me feel like they might actually like me.  Miles smiled - so the jury is still out if he likes me or not.

A great trip.  A really great trip!

Alaska, Day Derek and Renee Get Married!

September 8th, 2013

 We got up there (Derek's place) an hour or so before the actual wedding was to happen and so Derek took us on a little walk from his cabin.  My dad kept saying that we should head back as we should help and such, but Derek kept telling him, "There is nothing to do."  Awesome.

 We chatted for a bit in Derek's cabin.  Again, this picture does no justice to the view from this large window in his cabin.  It's amazing!

 The bride and her niece-to-be Lucy.  :)

 Let the ceremony begin . . . Here is Derek getting a first look at his bride as she walks up the path.

 The lovely bride Renee.

 The wedding line - or something like that.  From left to right:  Josten, Colette (Renee's best-friend from college), Renee, Antoinette - a flower girl/daughter of Meg, Meg (the "officiator"?  I'm not sure what to call her, but she's their friend and neighbor and was able to marry them that day), and Derek.

 I stole this idea from my sis.  Kind of a fun shot.

 Renee:  "I do."

 Derek:  "I do."

 The rings.

 "I now pronounce you wife and husband!"  I'm not sure why she put wife first, but she did?!

 Now kiss!

 Their rings.  Lovely!  (Nice fingernails bro.)

 Aren't they cute?

 So sweet.

 The happy (and shocked) parents.  :)

Our family!

After the ceremony, we headed down the road a bit to a lodge.

 The wedding cake.

 Derek did all of the log work in the lodge's new addition.  It was pretty!

 Renee eating cake,

 Derek eating cake,

 and Lucy eating cake!

We stayed and visited for a bit, then Erin and I and our crew headed back to Valdez.  It didn't take Ollie and Lucy too long to fall asleep!  As we got closer to town, we decided to take a detour and drive down the road where we had seen the bears the day before.  We drove to the end of the road - and right when we were going to turn around, we saw a bear cross the road.  Cool.  Then when headed back on the road and found this bear:

We saw him get in the water and even get some fish.  Then we saw another bear up on the hillside going up.  Super cool.  Lucy was happy to be sleeping in the back . . .

A great day and we are so excited to have Renee as part of our family!

Alaska, Day 3

Erin and I started the day playing with our kids downstairs until people upstairs started waking up.  :)  The kids didn't really get up that early, so that was nice.  Erin and I got to go on a wet run that morning and that was fun.  We ran around the town (it's pretty small . . .) and ended up heading out a little bit to a huge, gushing waterfall.  It was pretty impressive!  There was a little stream there, too, loaded with huge fish.  It was pretty cool.

After the run we (Erin and Ollie and me and Lucy in one car, my parents in another, and Janice and Brian and Josten in another) went for a couple short outings.  Derek had told us of a road to go on to see bears.  I guess a mama bear had four cubs last year and they kind of hang out around there.  So we went and bears we did see - I saw two, no three.  Lucy didn't want to get unbuckled from her car-seat to even just look from our car!  Silly girl.  We saw this bear - maybe 50 feet away?  We saw it grab a fish and eat it - pretty cool.

 Lucy finally got a little brave and let me unbuckle her so she could the bear.  We were right by a ledge and Erin had joked, "I bet there's a bear right down there and we just can't see it!"  Well . . . she was right .  A few minutes later I am saying, "There's a bear right there!!"  It was like 10 feet from our car.  Awesome.  We drove out of the way quickly.  :)

 After the bear outing we drove out to the Valdez Glacier.  It was really cool - this picture does it no justice at all.  It had all these icebergs in the water and was just beautiful.  Josten said he ice-skated here last winter - crazy cool.

We went home and the little kids had lunch and a nap.  Erin and I went shopping at a few places in town.  I found some cute things for the kids.  Oh, and me, too.  :)

After the kids woke up we headed the 46 miles up to Derek's cabin where a little dinner shindig was going to be happening at 6.

Friends brought in lots of good food, hamburgers and fish were grilled, as well as reindeer hot dogs (that we had bought at Costco!).  It was only slightly drizzling at Derek's place and so we lucked out a bit.

Our two cuties enjoying their juice.

Lucy just playing and being really adorable.  I think she's like my dad a little bit:  she demanded asked for her jacket and rain coat to be off.  Whatever, she was happy without them.

 Here is the wedding sign made by Josten.  :)

 This picture just shows a little bit of the area.  This is all part of Derek's property.  His cabin is down a little path and across the gravel road.  Maybe a 1/4 of a mile from here?

What a fun picture of us siblings!

We hung out for a bit and then a little before 8 Erin and I and our two little ones headed back down to Valdez.  It was a nice evening and fun to see and meet a lot of Derek's and Renee's friends and neighbors.

Alaska, Day 2

It was raining when we got up and we didn't get a good look at the sun for the next 3 days . . .

We got up, went to breakfast, and then met up with Renee at Costco - so she could get some food and other things for the wedding.  It was Erin's first time meeting Renee.  Cool.  We did our shopping - Erin and I even got a cute jacket there!  We also convinced my mom to buy this awesome raincoat - with a hood, just like she wanted.  It was a little more than she would have spent if we didn't convince her to do it.  :)  But it looks great on her and with all that rain, I am pretty sure she is super happy we made her buy it.  That was my birthday present - making her buy her a coat.  :)  I'm pretty awesome like that.

Anyways, we then drove the rest of the way to Valdez - in pouring, drenching rain.  It never relented.  It was super no fun.  UGH, as my kids would say. We did make a stop at some huge cabin my brother had built for someone.  It was a really cool cabin.  But Lucy just cried the whole time because I made her leave her boo in the car.  Nice.

We finally made it to my brother's cabin and stopped there for a bit.  We were a little unsure if we were going to be able to make it in to town since the road had flooded the day before.  But we were told they put up sandbags and would be okay.

 That's my brother's cabin.  Still in the making.  It's a really unique design and lay-out, but I think it's cool!  It was fun to see his place and exactly where he lives - 46 miles from Valdez.  He has about 8 acres of property.  One section of his property is devoted to his building site.

After we were met up with Derek at his place, we all drove in to town and went to a restaurant for dinner.  We met up with Renee's brother Brian (there are some many coincidences with Renee's family and our family!) and his wife, Janice.  They live like 1-mile away from my in-laws!  And Janice thinks she knew - or knew of - my sister-in-law Debbie.  Okay, while I'm doing this, I'll go ahead and bring up the similarities:
1.  Renee and Derek both have older brothers named Brian.
2.  Renee and Derek's mothers have the same birthday - which is the day they got married, September 8th.
3.  Brian and Janice live in Littleton.
4.  Janice went to the same high school as Ben and his siblings.
5.  Janice and Erin both work for the BLS - Bureau of Labor Statistics.
6.  I think there are more, but I can't remember . . .

Anyways, we had a good dinner and then went back to Renee's house and put the kids to bed.  Erin, Ollie, Lucy, and I all slept in Josten's room (Josten is Renee's 13-year old son).  The kids slept on the floor, Erin on the bottom bunk, me on the top.  It turned out to be a fine set-up.

 Driving in the rain - we became very, very familiar with this.  We would have dense, dense fog.  The clouds just seemed to be layers and layer thick.

Lucy and Ollie in the backseat.  They were such troopers!  This was not a super kid-friendly vacation, yet they were great.  Sure, they had their moments, but overall I was impressed, so impressed, with both of them.  What cuties.

We stayed up visiting with family and then headed to bed.

Alaska, Day 1 (and into 2 . . .)

So I don't have tons of pictures for each day, but I thought it would be easier for me to break it down this way.  So here goes my Alaska/Uncle Derek's wedding posts!

Lucy and I flew out of the Montrose airport at 4:55.  So we left our house at 4:00 and still had plenty of time!  Love it.  (Sorry, sis.)  I love this picture:

 Oh Emmy's expression!  It was "acted" here, but was more true than not.  She went home and cried that afternoon . . . for me.  And she cried throughout the time we were gone, wanting to play with Lucy and the such.  What a sweet gal.

 Lucy on her first plane ride - looking out the window!

 I guess snacks are not really offered anymore, but if you are as cute as Lucy (or her mother), you get some pretzels.  Awesome.  Lucy did just dandy.  Once or twice she told me her stomach hurt and I thought maybe she was going to barf (frankly, I thought I might, too!).  But she didn't.  Nor did I.  It was a sort of small plane and sort of bumpy, too.  But it was short and so that was good.  We got off at the Denver airport (after waiting on the runway for over 20 minutes . . .) and met up with:

Pig!  Just kidding, we met up with cousin Ollie!  Yay!  And his mom - Erin!  Yay, yay!  The kids just played and then we boarded our plane . . . late, of course.  But we made up good time in the air.

We arrived in Anchorage and met my parents at the airport.  We got our luggage, shuttled to our rental car, drove to the military base where we were lodging that night (and had to "check in" and get ID badges and all sorts of ridiculous things at a ridiculous time . . .), and finally made it to bed by 2am Anchorage time (4am Western time, 6am for my sis and Ollie - waking up time!).  We all slept well, though, and didn't get up until like 8?

Oh, and Lucy and Ollie just slept on the plane.  They were great.  I got to hold and cuddle Lucy the hold time.  It was awesome.  Except my bum didn't like it.

Labor Day Weekend

Well this is going to be short and quick, but 1.  I hardly got any pictures at all!  and 2.  I leave soon on a plane to Alaska!  With Lucy!  Aaaack!

Anyways, we got an early start to our weekend and were able to head out Thursday evening.  We arrived around 11pm and had a pretty uneventful drive.  We listened to stories on tape and all was pretty pleasant.

First up on Friday morning:  swimming of course!  We had the pool all to ourselves and so that was fun.  Next we went to the Sheep Dog Competition at Soldier Hollow - right in Midway.  It wasn't everything we were hoping for (slightly unorganized, scheduled "performances" or "exhibits" that were totally unprofessional and kind of lame - the "raptor show" was horrible!, it was hot, etc.), but it was still an experience and it was something kind of fun to do.  :)  The splash dogs were pretty fun to watch:

After we ate our lunch, we were all ready to head out.  We decided to drive down to Provo to the BYU bookstore and get some hats for Jonas and Ben.  We did that and got hats, some pom-poms for the girls, and a shirt for Miles.  It was slightly chaotic as it was back-to-school weekend or something, but it was still fun to be on campus.

We drove back, went swimming again, had dinner.  My parents were pretty much busy with Swiss Day stuff (volunteering at booths), but made it home in the early evening.  The boys stayed up with us and we watched Night at the Museum.  Totally fun.

Saturday morning I did my 10K Swiss Days race.  It was awesome as I set a PR!  Wahoo.  I ran it in 54 minutes, which came out to be an 8:41 minute/mile.  Definitely faster than I normally run.  I felt really great.  I finished 35th overall and 10th in my female-age division.  So cool.  The rest of the family went to the Swiss Days breakfast.  Lots of food is what I heard!

 Some of the gang. . .

Post-race!

And Lucy just being . . . cute.

After my race (my family missed me running in!), we walked around the Swiss Days booths.  It was kind of hard with our kiddos - the girls couldn't care less about anything, Jonas just wanted to go back to one booth that was selling swords, and Miles wanted to look at it ALL.  There was a bouncy-house place that the kids had fun at, plus a climbing wall:

Ben and I even tried - it was fun!  A little hard and I didn't like the height!  But it was fun.  I'm not showing Ben's picture because it is mainly of his bum.  (My mom took  it - Mom!  :)

We then went and watched the parade - it was fun, with lots of candy for the kids, but it was also like an hour + long.  After buying a sword for Jonas, a finger puppet for Miles, and 2 tiaras for the girls, we left Swiss Days and headed home.  We then went swimming and had a good time.  We tried watching the BYU game and were able to watch some of it, but due to weather-problems and then not having air-time left, we didn't watch much.  Oh well, they lost!

We finished up the day with dinner and then the boys got to watch the second "Night of the Museum" with us.

Sunday was church.  We had a good dinner all together - finally.  :)  I even made waffle-cones - so fun.

Monday morning was swimming again - our last time.  Grandma and Grandpa came and watched.  We had fun!  Then we came home, Ben and I packed up while Grandma and Grandpa took the kids for a ride on the Polaris.  Then we drove home.

Good times, for sure!