We went camping! This is me and B with my lovely sister, T and her husband, B. Weird! Just noticed that she and I have the same first letter in our name AND our husbands have the same first letter. Has potential to be confusing huh? I'll try to be clear. Anyway, we went camping at Dworshak. We had high hopes to use the boat. We had borrowed mama B's boat for the summer. B was so excited to have it and be able to use it all summer. Welp folks, the boat didn't work. It truly was a sad day in B's life when he learned from the boat fix it man, that the carburetor and the water pump that B had him replace weren't actually the problem. The problem lay deep down inside the engine of the boat and would cost a lot of money to fix. So, using the boat at Dworshak was a no go, but we still had a great time!
We had brought our paddleboard and the kayak we had borrowed when we borrowed the boat. We brought our tubes and the kids had a smashing good time! They literally played in the water all day. For two days. They loved it! Watching our kids hang out with cousins is truly one of the best things in the world. I love it!
When these two are together, they are basically one unit. Where one is, so is the other one. C is 5 months older than M. They have been close their whole lives. We haven't lived by each other since they were 5 but when they get together, they act as if they've never been apart.
When these two are together, they are basically one unit. Where one is, so is the other. Sound familiar? I didn't know how to say the same thing differently. B is 6 months older than K and they have been close their whole lives. They have a stuffed dog named, Sparky. They have joint custody, if you will. One of them takes him and then when they see each other, they hand him off. The times that Sparky has been here and been misplaced, there have been tears shed. I'm pretty sure it's not because K loves the dog so much and can't stand to be without him. I truly think that it's because the dog gives him a connection with B.
We stayed in cabins
Played games at night
And played on the lake during the day. It was a total blast that ended too quickly.
Our big trip for the summer was Alaska. We went to see B's sister, J and her husband, K and their family. Alaska is beautiful! I feel like there is such unequal distribution of beauty. Alaska is beautiful and here, well, it's just not. So many parts of my life are chuck full of unequal distribution; boobs, brains, being 4'11. That's my dream height ya know. Anyway, Ah, Alaska.
We saw a bear! In their backyard! It was amazing! I had hoped and prayed that we would see a bear and boom! Day 1- we saw a bear! So, so awesome! We also saw a huge fox but no one got a good picture of it. Also in their yard and on day one.
A moose! On the side of the rode. We saw a couple throughout the week. We actually saw a bull moose too but he's so far away in the picture we got that you can't really even see him.
We made it to the top and soaked up the amazingly beautiful views.
He narrowly missed death as he waited for us to get a picture of him falling off the top.
We did not think that Alaska would be warm enough to go swimming in a lake. Every day we were there it was over 80 degrees. Every day K would tell us,"This is the hottest day of the year. It's never like this." Even though we didn't get a reprieve from the heat like we were anticipating, we all loved it. This is Nancy lake and it was beautiful! I hear the water wasn't too cold. I didn't get in because, well, I feel like if water is lower than about 98 degrees it is far too cold to be in. So, I named myself the official picture taker and stayed on the dock.
This was another gorgeous hike that we went on. As we were walking, K was in the front. Our K, like the ten year old K that went to Alaska with us. Just wanted to be clear. Anyway, he was in the front and as we rounded a corner, there was a black bear standing on the trail. K said he just stopped and he and the bear had a staring contest. K won and the bear turned around and left. Thankfully he walked away with just a cool story to tell.
One night, B and I went on a double date with J and K. We went on a night hike. It's so weird that it doesn't get dark there. This picture was at the top of the hike and it was 10:30 at night. Or maybe it was 11:00. OK, let's compromise and say that this was 10:45 at night. So nuts! The hike was, I know, you're shocked, but it's true that it was beautiful. It was even more beautiful because we didn't have our kids with us. Don't get me wrong, we have great little hikers but we were happy to leave them at home for this one.
This was taken at the end of the same hike. It was just after midnight. SO crazy!
We did another hike where we did hand trams to get ourselves across
This gorge. The river is more than 100 feet down. It was so loud and so awesome and one of our favorite parts of the trip. The hike on the other side of the hand tram was incredible. We were almost done with the hike when people started hiking back up the trail telling us there was a grizzly bear with her cubs on the trail so to go another way. I wanted to go take a picture, B said no. Bummer!
We were there over the fourth of July. They do the fireworks at midnight so that hopefully you can see them better. I was surprised that we saw them as well as we did.
This was at 12:15 right after the fireworks ended. I thought that it would be hard to have it be light all the time. I discovered that it wasn't too bad. I told B that I could totally live in Alaska in the summer but the winter's would be too awful. All day light I could do, all day darkness? Not a chance.
The gang's all here. Well, except for their oldest, J, who is on a mission in New York. J and K have 8 kids. 8! I think that's incredible! I wish I could handle 8 kids. I think it would be so fun to have a big family but I know that I couldn't handle it. There are some days that I feel like I'm going to pull my hair out and we only have 4. Anyway, this picture was taken at a glacier that we hiked to. It was pretty awesome.
This was after the last hike that we went on whilst in Alaska. The babies were so tired from hiking so much. This was at Exit glacier. The cool thing about Exit glacier is that there are little wooden signs that have years on them. The years mark where the glacier ended in that year. As you drive towards the parking lot you see signs with a year from the late 1800's. J and K told us that in the 11 years they've lived there, the glacier has melted a ton. I thought that was pretty crazy.
I was looking through our Alaska pictures, (all 200+ of them and we were only there 5 days. Be thankful I'm giving you the abridged version of our vacation!) and I saw this one. This is at the new base of Exit glacier. It was so windy. Truly, I almost got blown over one time when the wind caught the carrier I had on my back. Anyway, little miss A loved the wind! She would stand up in the backpack and just laugh and laugh into the wind. It was so funny!
All flight home from Alaska are overnight flights. The boys fell asleep almost as soon as we took off. The bright eyed one year old, did not. She slept for about 45 minutes and then no more. She was happy as long as she could walk around. Thankfully we were in the last row of the plane so she had plenty of space to walk around in. The flight attendants were awesome and let her walk into their little space back there. She would say hi to them and then turn around and walk away. She did awesome and when we landed little B sat up and said,"Whoa! That was really fast to get here!" We all had such an amazing time in Alaska.
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