My Birthday in Juneau!

Mendenhall Glacier

I told you Alaska is GREEN!
This is the smile that I saw on Debbie's face pretty much the whole trip! I have a new respect for my dear sister-in-law now. She was in pain due to knee trouble and as she is over 6' tall, she really had some hard time with all the walking and steps. But since she had the best attitude, you never would have known it! Way to go Deb!!
Grandma at Mendenhall Glacier
One of the funnest parts of the day was shopping with Debbie and Koral after an awesome Mexican lunch with our guys. We had so much fun! In this picture, we found three chairs outside of a shop and just sat talking and enjoying the scenery for a few minutes. Now this is the way to have some good female bonding time. Eat, shop, talk!
Me and my birthday "cake". Our waiter pretended he had made it special for me right:), but it was pretty cool to have my birthday on the cruise.

The rest of the story...

I had such a fantastic birthday! It really was one of the best days of the whole trip. First, the Rainforest and gardens were amazing. I couldn't believe how green it could be in Alaska. With all the rain they get it makes a temperate rainforest and we went into the rainforest a bit that morning. After that, we got back on the bus and headed for Mendenhall Glacier-our first glacier of the trip. The bus driver was ecstatic to see the sun on the way there-evidently they hadn't had sunshine since the first week of June!

Check out these "planters"! They are actually dead trees with the stump/roots and all. The story is, the owner got frustrated while trying to clear a section of the garden with his rented equipment and picked up the offending tree and rammed it into the ground. Then he got the great idea to use the uppended tree for a planter. It is quite unusual and looks beautiful as you can see!
The indoor garden area had some unusual planters as well.
Riding up the winding road through the rainforest.
On the trail at the top.

Time to leave Juneau
and the sun sets on an absolutely amazing day!! I hate to admit that I had so much fun, I didn't even miss my sweet little (and big) ones in Washington! This was a day to enjoy and remember. Thanks everybody for making it so fun!

Ketchican and you won't believe what we saw!

Cool and cloudy day ahead...

But we had fun anyway! (Koral, my sister-in-law and I on our bus tour to a waterfall, eagle watching, totem pole park and the lumberjack show) Mike, Debbie and Renee also went on this excursion. We stopped on a lane to go looking for bears, which I was hoping we would not find! Our bus driver was a local guy and told us some pretty good stories, some more believable than others. They seem to have a lot of bear encounters but the sasquatch story was a little more difficult to believe!

The lumberjack show was hilarious! They had some great performers and they were really good lumberjacks too! We all had a great time even though it was raining.

HUMPBACK WHALE ON THE PORT SIDE!

This was one of the most exciting experiences we had on the cruise. We were told that day that we would be going through an area that is a good place to spot whales. Sure enough, they put on a show for us! Our ship had a naturalist who would come over the PA system and let us know when there was any wildlife to see on deck, or glaciers, etc. Evidently, it was the best whale watching they had had all summer long. I didn't catch it on film, but the whale jumped clear out of the water-amazing!

First days of our Alaskan Cruise...(Pt. 2)

(Edited this afternoon...so make sure and scroll to the bottom to see the new pictures I added)

Satuday: Just arrived on board in Vancouver
One of the two large pools. Everyone is on deck to watch the ship head out.

Beautiful scenery as the ship heads North

The Inlaws...

...and the Outlaws! There is a chapel they mostly use for weddings on board where we had a short church meeting. Koral and Larayne spoke and we even had a visitor who was not from our group but wanted to have a Sunday meeting who stood and introduced himself. We had to dress up Sunday for formal dinner. The food is fantastic and is actually worth dressing up for! We clean up pretty good I'd say!

Sun setting on a beautiful day at sea...next stop is Ketchican!

Seattle and next...Alaska!

Time to say goodbye to the beach and head to Seattle...

Pike's Place Market was really exciting and probably the best one I've seen.

Isaiah and Koda

Thanks to Melanie (Larayne and Steve's daughter-my niece) and her husband John, we were able to leave the kids with them while we went on the cruise. Isaiah is Olivia's age and Connor is Eliza's age. They had a great time and Melanie even put together a little scrapbook of all the did while we were gone! they rode the ferry, went to the zoo, went hiking among other things. We really appreciate Mel and John taking such good care of them for a whole week!!

Our Wild Day on the Deschutes River!

Kyle was our river guide for the day and Steve (Jensen) was the other rower. I tried but would usually just hang on for dear life when we went down the rapids.

Can you tell the kids are loving this??!!

Notice the look of anticipation on our faces...

Now we know why...

AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

Note to mother...yes, we were all hanging on tightly to our hand holds on the seats!

And, nobody fell out on the rapids the whole trip! Okay, the boys jumped in during the calm area once and Olivia fell off the front when she tried to "ride the bull" but we all got back in safe and sound!

Summer Vacation

Our first few days in Portland and at the beaches...

Mike's sister Larayne-she is an amazing cook! They just bought their house and are planning on remodeling it and putting in a bigger kitchen.

Playing in the sand at Lincoln City, OR (on the Pacific Coast)
Eliza had a fun time with "Grandma" Larayne! (we tried to call her Aunt but Eliza and Connor are about the same age, so I guess Grandma made more sense to her)!

By the way, the water is really cold!! The boy's favorite thing to do was build sand sculptures and wait for the waves to come and destroy them. Or just run in the waves and wait for a big one to come and freeze you!
Olivia could have played there all day!

We went over by Tillamook to see the lighthouse and play at the beach there. It is a beautiful area!

Mermaids!!

It was really windy and kind of cold, but we still had fun. The boys found some horseshoe crabs and we played in the sand again.

End of Summer Report!

OK...It's been awhile, but it's summer and we've been really, really busy. Time to fill you in!
TRIP TO OREGON, WASHINGTON AND CRUISE TO ALASKA
July 21-August 2

WE FINALLY MADE IT!

(At Aunt Larayne and Uncle Steve's house in Portland)

Having fun in Portland...

Zach at the huge garden center that is just minutes away from their house.

Calvin looking his cutest. When we first came in their house, he was so hilarious! He started running in circles around us and through the kitchen and family room. He just loved the new visitors, especially Olivia!