Fourth of July 2009 in Juneau

Ready for another long photo blog, well too bad if you're not cause this is one of those.

Fun Fourth of July this year. We skipped the Juneau fireworks which started at 12:00 am July 4, so I could go fishing the next day. My day started at 2:45 am. I was invited by a local fellow Dawson employee to go fishing, so I jumped at the chance.

Auke Bay Harbor at 3:30am, just after boat launch.

Lighthouse located at the North end of Admiralty Island.

My very first fish ever cought in the ocean, a rock fish. Rich, my boating friend, caught a flounder. Not much meat on either of these fishes, but they both made for nice fillets later on.

Bald eagles are everywhere up here. I'm starting to take them for granted.

And then another one of my life long goals got checked off the list, ... see a live whale in wild. We came across a pod of 8-10 humpback whales feasting on a school of fish. You could tell they were having fun as well. Saw one jump completely out of the water. Whales are everybit as big as you think they are. JUST HUGE!! Here is a video and a few pictures of them. For the record, boaters are asked to keep quite a distance from whales, for a number of reasons. So today I was very glad to have a camera that could zoom really far.

Fourth of July fireworks, Alaskian style!

We got back into the harbor at 9am. I took a short power nap and then it was off to the Juneau Fourth of July Parade. This is a particularly special year for Alaska, and Juneau (Alaska's state capitol,) because this day also marked 50 years of statehood. Fun to be here to celebrate with the Alaskan's this historic day.

Alaska Marine Lines, (actually a local Whatcom County, WA headquatered company,) is huge here is Alaska. Nearly everything that is shipped to Alaska goes through them. We ship construction items on their barges every week of the year.

Vicky and the boys celebrating 50 years for Alaska! Wave those flags boys!!

After the parade and another nap we decided to take advantage on being in Alaska on a beautiful sunny day and went on a hike. A nine mile hike to see the Herbert Glacier. (It's a bit of a funny story, but we didn't plan to take such a long hike. I under estimated the distance and Vicky and I both are really feeling it today! But to our credit we walked it in 3.5 hours.)

What a great and beautiful day! Happy Fourth America!

Something Fun

These two are always ready for a good laugh!

Fun to watch these little ones grow. How incredible it is to think that it wasn't long ago (1 yr) and he was hardly able to control anything he did.

Happy Birthday, Rhett-bomb!

Rhett turned 1 yesterday!

It was a fun day that I looked forward to for a long time! We had a great time celebrating at home with just the four of us. (Want to read Rhett's birth story?)

It was Sunday, so we obviously went to church, but our ward doesn't meet until 1:00, so the morning was nice and laid-back.

Paul and I, being the practical parents that we are, bought Rhett a pack of balloons for his birthday. It's hard to say who enjoyed them the most--Rhett or Benjamin? But Rhett definitely had a good time with them as you can see in this video.

Except for the end.

He's starting to tentatively walk, and we can tell that he's going to take off running any day now.

Rhett gummed his way through his cinnamon-raisin pancakes at breakfast--because he has no teeth! That's right, he made it through a whole year of life on earth without sprouting a single tooth.

After a macaroni-and-cheese birthday dinner (not from a blue box, thank you very much), we headed out to the glacier again. We decided to re-explore a trail we took recently called "The Trail of Time," which has markers along the way to indicate points on a self-guided tour to the post-glacial environment. Interesting stuff!

Then it was back home for birthday cake! I wanted to make a cake in a fun shape for his birthday, but the only "favorite" think of Rhett's that came to mind was "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." It seemed to weird to make a spider cake in June, so he got a party-sprinkled cake instead.

And he loved it!

And how we love Rhett!

Happy birthday, Rhett buddy!

For Dada

My boys have a great dad.

How could they not love a dad who takes them on the constuction site?

They'll always have plenty to do and learn with a dad who loves to get out and experience the world, wherever we are.

Ice from Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska

He's a great shoulder to lean on.

And they can't wait to try to fill his shoes.

Happy Father's Day!

ALASKA Postcards

The locals say we have been spoiled with quite a bit of good weather. We sure haven't been bothered by seeing the Alaskian sun more than normal. Here are some ALASKA postcards to share. Not hard to find pictures like these. And there most likely will be more to share later. Alaska! The Last Frontier!

Here's a shoreline favorite of Benjanin's.

Here's another reason we love taking walks, (the boys fall asleep.)

See you soon in Alaska!

Benjamin Visits the Construction Site

One day Benjamin and his family visited his Dada's construction work site.

Everyone has to be safe at the construction work site. So we all wear hard hats!

Even Mama wears a hard hat!

Benjamin also learns we need to keep a safe distance from the heavy civil equipment.

Watch out Benjamin!!

Maybe someday Benjamin can opperate heavy construction equipment too!

What a great day for Benjamin!

Mendenhall Glacier Video

Sometimes pictures and words aren't enough.

(Hope this can come even a little bit close to how incredible of a sight this really is.)

Alaska, continued

I'm not sure how to organize this post. With limted time to use the internet (we don't have it at home), I'm tempted to just throw on a bunch of pictures with breif captions, but that just wouldn't be right. So here's a little bit more of what we've been doing in Alaska.

Mostly, Paul has been working. He is being so dedicated, and I'm really proud of him for that (but not surprised). In the evenings, though, we still have several hours of daylight to work with (do you call it "nightlight" if it's 11 pm and still light outside?) so we head out in the truck most days and see what there is to see.

The first week we were here we were driving "out the road" and happened upon some local wildlife. (Driving "out the road" is what the locals call driving on the road that basically takes you to the farthest north point of Juneau that you can drive. You can't drive to or from Juneau to anywhere else, so driving up that road is as far as a car can take you.)

First we saw Porcupine Pat. I don't know why we named him that. He was just ambling down the road, which seems to be a habit of his, because he looked like he'd had a run-in with a fast-moving vehicle before. Or maybe porcupines all look like they've had their back quills rubbed off. The only porcupine I've ever seen was on "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey."

Anyway...

Later on our drive Paul saw a little black bear up ahead, also hanging out on the side of the road, but for some reason we had put our camera away! We pulled over and scrambled to get it out while the bear sort of stared at us. Just as I was trying to focus the picture he decided he was tired of us and sauntered back into the woods. This is the best picture we got, of his backside.

Aside from animals, the scenery is just amazing! This is a common view from our house:

I love it when the clouds are hanging low and mingling with the trees in front of the mountains. When I was coming home from a walk with the boys last week and looking up at Thunder Mountain ahead of me, I had major deja vu of the mountains in Honduras. It's so beautiful.

No more than a mile away from our house is Mendenhall Glacier.


When Paul first showed me pictures of the glacier after his trip to Juneau in March, I wasn't sure why it was so cool. Then I looked at it on GoogleEarth, and I became impressed by its size. Seeing it in person is so different. It's huge. It's majestic. It's beautiful. And, no pun intended (well, sort of intended), it's really cool!

We went for another walk out there last week and took some trails around to a spot on the other side.

As we stood on the shore admiring the view I noticed that a hunk of ice was slowly making its way inland. We waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally! We dragged this huge, heavy piece of glacier onto the sand.

It was like touching a piece of history, which sounds lame. But to us it was awesome. Think about it: That chunk of ice had been frozen for over 200,000 years! And we touched it! Rhett sat on it! (And, okay, I licked it.)

We've had a great time to far. More to come, including the two bears Paul saw tonight while I was writing this post, bald eagles, and what the boys have been up to with me all day.

Alaska: Part I

Here we are! We've been in Juneau for a week. Here are some highlights:

We barely made our flight from Bellingham to Seattle! But we did, and then we spent a while at Sea-Tac airport eating Ivar's fish and chips and waiting for our flight to Juneau.

We arrived in Juneau around 10 pm and were greeted by this beautiful view from our house:


If you look closely you can see the waterfalls carving their way down the mountain as the last of the winter snow melts.

This is the view from the other direction. Our home-away-from-home. It's suiting our needs just fine.

Benjamin has already climbed in and out of this window several times. Rhett only wishes he could too. Speaking of Rhett, he's almost walking! He stands pretty well on his own, but is fearful of taking those first steps.

Stay tuned for Part II: Bears, Glaciers, and Porcupines!