Skagway and Glacier Bay, Alaska

Skagway

Skagway was an interesting place. Actually, the town of Skagway didn't have much to offer except a cool hike to a waterfall. Dad, Jenny, Chris, Heather, Todd, Dave, and me all hiked to the waterfall. Everyone else stayed behind and got them and their kids ready for the day!

We weren't content with being that far away from the waterfall, so we decided to climb the rocks (which, at times, was quite a task!) and get closer!

 

 

Victory!

 

We had all planned to go on 4x4s in Skagway, so we had to take an hour long ferry to Haines, Alaska to where the 4x4s were. This pic is one of our ship, the Island Princess.

 

Dave wanted to take a picture of the map of Haines, Alaska. As you can tell, there wasn't much to offer there either!

 

Time for the 4x4s!!! We all took turns driving and some people switched around. I got pictures of everyone except Josh and Laura and Natalie! I wasn't able to get any pictures of them because they were either in front of us or too far behind. It was hard enough taking any pictures because it was sooo bouncy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family photo! We stopped halfway up the mountain at a lodge for lunch and hot chocolate! It was very yummy! Isn't our family cute?!

 

 

Along the way, we were able to grab some photo opportunities!

 

 

At the very top of the trail, there was a big meadow and the view was amazing!

 

All the sisters got together to take a picture!

 

 

While in the meadow, Todd couldn't resist frolicking/running/hopping really fast down the mountain. It was funny to watch! I'm surprised he didn't just start rolling down! It was pretty steep!

 

As we headed back down the mountain, there were some pretty photo ops, so I took advantage of them!

 

 

Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay was awesome! We were able to get really close to glaciers that you can only access by boat! We were also able to get so close to them and saw some good chunks falling to the water, too! It is definitely a different site to see! In this first picture, you can see the glacier from further away, as we approached it.

I thought all these birds hanging out on a piece of ice was cool, so I took a picture of it! =)

 

A closer view of the glacier!

 

My brother-in-law, Josh, took this next picture. You can see the glacier's size in comparison to the yacht next to it! He's actually a really talented photographer! You can see more of his work at http://galleries.joshtrefethen.com.

 

We're winding down to the end. Probably only one, maybe two, posts left of Alaska! Lots of pictures were taken and I want to share them all!!!

Ketchikan and Juneau

Ketchikan

Oh, the lovely Ketchikan! This was our first stop on our Alaskan cruise!

I stole this next picture from my sister, but I thought it was pretty funny. It was the great "mooning" bald eagle of Ketchikan. It was quite the site to see this as one of the first things off the ship. Heather is shielding Jenny's eyes =)

This is one of the many totem poles we saw on our trip. If you can see me at the very bottom with my red jacket on, it gives you a bit of an idea at how tall this thing was!

 

Super close to a bald eagle!!!

 

 

While in Ketchikan, we went to a lumberjack show!!! During the show, there are 2 two-man teams competing against each other in different events to see which team are the better lumberjacks. It was fun and definitely different from what we usually see! They don't have shows like this in Vegas! Dave and I posed with the guys afterwards!

 

This is one of the competitions: the lumberjacks had to stand on thin pieces of wood as they hack away at a thicker piece of wood. Whoever chopped through the wood first won.

 

This next competition was pretty cool. The lumberjacks raced to climb up these tall, tall tree poles and whoever got to the top and back to the bottom the fastest won. It was more fun watching them basically fall down the pole then climbing back up! Crazy!

 

 Here's the whole family at the show!!! I love my family!

 

Juneau

A small, but quaint little town. We actually had a bit of activities that we did here. Too bad it was heavy drizzling all day!

One place we went to was to see the Mendenhall Glacier! Along the walk up to it, Jenny and I both had our rain gear on while underneath the umbrella!

 

Here we are at the Mendenhall Glacier! This is as close as we could get, but it was still pretty awesome! Later on our trip, we got to see glaciers crazy close! (Pictures to come of that!)

 

This city of Juneau as we rode up a tram to the top of a mountain to eat and do a little hiking.

 

Me hiking. I wore my raincoat the whole time here. It wouldn't stop raining!! While hiking, we got to see a little bit of the view, but as time went on, rain clouds blocked our view and we couldn't see anything! Oh well, it was still fun.

 

Dave saw this tree and had to get inside it to take a picture. Silly Dave!

 

So I didn't actually climb these stairs, but there were a ton of these between the buildings in the city! It's like the stores were at the bottom and then you had to climb these monstrous stairs to get up to the houses!

 

 So, there's a couple more of our stops. Skagway and Glacier Bay, as well as Anchorage and fun ship moments are yet to come! Hopefully I can do at least one of those posts before the end of this week!

Alaska!!! Part One...

 K, so I am finally posting pictures from our Alaskan Cruise!!!! Aren't you excited? I know I am. So let me take you on our trip of pictures and fond memories...


Vancouver
Here is a shot of the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada as we were traveling across the ocean on a bus ferry.

K, this next picture just belongs =) Dave had to ride in the very, very back of the minivan my parents had rented because we were all so cramped in! I think the most we had at one point was 16 people (legal in Canada)...IN ONE MINIVAN, FOLKS!!!

While visiting the sites of the city, Dave and I decided to go Tandom bike riding through Stanley Park, a huge park that is almost surrounded by water with nice biking trails right next to the ocean. It was a lot of fun!

On our journey, through the park, we saw a huge gathering of people that didn't speak English...I believe it was Chinese, but I'm not too sure. Anyways, there was a guy wearing a blow-up airplane around his waist, so naturally, Dave wanted a picture!

While in Vancouver, we stopped by the Capilano Suspension Bridge.This bridge is 450 feet long and 230 feet above the Capilano River. It was pretty awesome!

This is what we saw when we looked off the bridge. I didn't get a picture looking straight down....I should've...

Here are Natalie, Ashley, and Grace (all my nieces) about to go back across the bridge!

Grace and Natalie are only 2 days apart. I had to get the upper shot of them holding hands! The lower shot was Natalie posing to get her picture taken!! You can really tell when parents take a lot of pictures of their kids when they have poses like this for you!

 

Our family, minus Josh (who was taking the picture), smiled for the camera in our treehouse!

 

The kids found "Smokey the Bear", or at least a big stuffed bear, to cuddle with and pose for pictures at, and we decided to take a pic too!

 

 

On the day of our cruise departure, we packed our minivan FULL of suitcases. We had 16 people, total, in our group, so imagine just 1 suitcase for most...some had 3...Jenny... =) So because we didn't have a car to ride in to the port, we decided to take a final stroll through the city to it. It was only about a 30 minute walk, at most, and it was fun! Heather was great at keeping the kids entertained (she would be, she only works with them everyday!) This next picture is the "train" they made. They were walking this way for quite a while!!!

 

While on our boat we checked out the ship and our rooms and got ready to set sail!

 

My nephew, Kyle, was being passed around like crazy. He is so cute, everyone wanted to hold him! Here is a cute pic we got together:

 

Finally, we're on the ship and setting sail!!! Yay!! On to Alaska and our future, awesome experience and memories!!!

 

 

 

Tune in next time to see pics of our stops! Much more is to come!!!!