Alaska

We so enjoyed our visit to Alaska! There is so much to report. I'll try to stick with the highlights and skip some of the more unnecessary details!

Just an airport pic to start off...


Of course our travel time is always long, but the boys really are good travelers. The first day at Greg and Aimee's we tried to rest up and get on Alaska time. But, mostly we visited and tried to get all packed for our camping trip starting the next day! We had big plans to travel and see lots of South Central Alaska, so lots of preparations.
On our way to camp at Quartz Creek, we stopped at the Alyeska ski resort. Chris skied here a lot growing up. We took the tram ride up and then did some hiking. The view was gorgeous. We hiked right up to where the glacier run off started...

before the tram ride

Fireweed was growing everywhere...isn't it beautiful?

so glad we had this backpack so Chris could lug Clint around!

Preston really enjoyed all the hiking

Caleb and Elena in the distance

Caleb, Greg, Aimee, Shell, Chris, Clint
Nate, Elena, Preston

Just us!

playing in the glacier run-off

He was excited to touch the water, but didn't anticipate how cold it would actually be!

camping at Quartz Creek

Jason and Kim met up with us here, and we all headed to Seward for the next leg of the trip. During our 2 night stay there we went to the Alaska Sea Life Center....

P and Amanda. We had been watching the sea lions. Fun!

Clint, Kaylin, Nate, Amanda, Caleb, Daniel
Elena, Preston
We also took an afternoon to walk to the harbor and check out all of the boats. I just had to take a picture of this one...

Amanda and Elena
After exploring the harbor, we went to Seward Creamery for ice cream. Yummo!

Clint's first ice cream cone

The day we were leaving Seward, we went hiking at Exit Galcier and the weather turned out to be sunny...and perfect!

A view of Exit Glacier from a distance.

Preston and Exit Glacier

silly kiddos and Exit Glacier

Leaving Seward, we headed to Soldotna. Kim and Jason had arranged for us to all stay with some of their friends there. The Grinestaff's were such an enjoyable family to be around and were so generous to let us stay in their home. We had big fishing plans while we were in Soldotna, and we caught a lot of big fish too. One day we went Halibut fishing, my first fishing trip in the ocean. It was fun, even though we were very unprepared for the rainy, cold, windy weather. Our saying at the end of the day was, "You're not havin fun unless you're cold, wet, and puking." No need to explain that one, I'm sure. The fishing and catching was really fun. We were allowed 2 per person, and we caught a lot more than we kept.

Jason (dressed like a true fisherman), Daniel, Me, and Chris. I felt nearly frozen solid in this moment, so I'm surprised the photo didn't capture the reality!

We did our other fishing on the Kenai river, again with people Jason and Kim were friends with. We caught lots of Silver Salmon (pictured below). Not pictured below is the 60 lb. King Salmon Aimee hooked, and I reeled in! We had to throw it back, reluctantly, because the King season ended the day before. Aimee got some great pics of her camera, and I'll post em whenever I receive them from her later on. It was so much fun to catch that big ole' fish! When they finally netted it, the guys (Greg and Chris) we encouraging me to pick it up by its mouth for a pic. Well, I considered it for about a 1/2 second until the fish growled at me!! Yes, it actually growled! That was one mad fish. So, I told them "No. Way." While Chris AND Greg managed to get it out of the net for a photo, it bit them both and drew blood. So glad I didn't try it.

I caught the biggest Silver, about 16 lbs.

Preston went out on one trip, and was an excellent fisherman. We reeled his fish all the way in, but it shook its head and got off the line just as they were netting it. His other really important task he volunteered for was getting the fish whacker for Chris. He took it so seriously, my little man.

Amanda and I caught most of the fish on that particular trip. This is her holding my big catch.

Greg, Aimee, Caleb, Elena, Nate, and Kaylin headed back to Houston (ha ha, I'm sure most of you find it humorous that there is a Houston, AK) so that Greg could work for a few days. Kaylin was headed to a youth retreat type event for a few days too. So the rest of us, seen below, did a little more fishing on the Kenai and went to Homer one day.

In Homer, we did some exploring and found lots of cool shells and other little sea life in the tide pools. Chris saw this Eagle flying on the beach right when we got there. We also went to eat at this great little pizzeria place called Fat Olives. Funny name, really good food. There's lots of good fishing (Halibut fishing capital of the world) out of Homer, but since we'd had our fill of that, and our licenses expired, we checked out the Alaska Island and Oceans Visitor Center.

Amanda, Clint, Daniel, Preston on the Homer Spit.


After Homer, we drove back to Greg's house in Houston, AK and had a long relaxing weekend. We visited Greg's church that Sunday and helped do some everyday life chores around his house and on Jason's truck. One more fun thing before we flew back...Hatcher Pass for blueberry picking. Now this was really fun. We ate about as many as we picked. We might have stayed longer if it hadn't started raining on us.

So all in all we had a wonderful family vacation in Alaska. Check back soon for a math lesson.