Alaska!

I got to leave my kids and go to Alaska and spend a few days there with Jared.  Rachelle came too because Brenden was also with Jared.  The night before we left Eva was getting into the fridge and dropped a can of soda on her toe and cut it really good poor girl.  She wouldn't leave her bandaids on and it got a little infected while I was gone but other than that the kids did really good for my sister.

 I also had to say goodbye to this cute piggy of mine!

This is Jared's silver salmon he caught on the river before I got there.  He loved fishing for salmon!

 We flew into Anchorage and drove to a this small town and rode a tram up to the top of this mountain 

 Ate lunch up there...

took some pictures....see the ocean in the background surrounded by mountains....BEAUTIFUL!

Then we rode the tram back down.

We stopped at a zoo which was a good thing because that's about the only wildlife we saw there.  Jared said that moose are like deer are here but we never saw one.  

This bear was chowing down on his food.  It looked like dog food.  Very strange but they were cute!

We drove to Soldotna to my cousins house.  This is the view from his back yard and it was beautiful!  

The next morning was Jared Birthday and we went to Homer to go out Halibut fishing with Byron, a friend of my cousin. 

It took us a while to find some....

Just enjoying the beauty and fresh ocean air!

We finally found some!  I was the first one to pull one in and I was freaked out after watching Sarah Palins Alaska.  I also wondered if I would have something else on the line, like a SHARK but it was a halibut and it was so cool!

 

 We hit a jack pot and Jared kept reeling them it! They are the craziest looking fish!

My second fish I caught, I had the hardest time pulling it up.  I completely wore me out and when I got it up it was a cod instead of halibut.  I thought it was pretty cool but the natives didn't haha!  They are spoiled with halibut and salmon and that's all you find there. Brenden caught the other cod of the day.

This is Jared's lucky lamp fish he pulled up with a large halibut so he put it on his line and he caught another large halibut!

We had the most gorgeous view while we were out there!

So I guess Jared took this picture while I was sleeping.   My cousin had us nervous about sea sickness so we all took a little dramamine but all that did was make me want to sleep.  Especially since I didn't sleep much the two nights before.  I slept all the way back to shore and it was a long and bumpy ride haha!  Then I slept all of the way back to Soldotna then when we got there we went to bed.  Man I haven't been that tired in a long time!!  I felt bad because it was Jared's birthday but he was tired too.  At least we stopped at McDonalds for Ice cream! Oh, I slept through that too! But I don't think you can top halibut fishing in Alaska for your birthday!  It was the funnest part of our whole trip!  I could get addicted to fishing if I could catch large fish like that all of the time!

The next day we drove down to Seward.  It was the most beautiful drive!  I fell in love with Seward!  We stopped at exit glacier and it was gorgeous.   All over Alaska was this beautiful flower.  It's their state flower and its actually a weed called fire weed.  But it was so pretty!  They say it starts to bloom at the top at the beginning of summer then works its way down.  Once the bottom buds bloom then it turns cold and after two weeks the leaves fall off of the trees there.  Kind of cool but kind of depressing to know how long you have until that harsh winter.  Most of them were really close to the bottoms while we were there. 

Glaciers are so pretty!  Every time I saw the beautiful turquoise color in them it made me think of the Water Boy and it made me thirsty! 

Here is a pretty waterfall in Seward.  There were waterfalls all over!  There's a lot of mountains and snow on the mountains and so there were a lot of water running down the mountains.  Gorgeous! 

We visited the sealife aquarium.   And it was fun. Then we ate lunch and got some gelato, so yummy!

Getting ready to sail out for our dinner cruise.

Here's the boat that took us. 

We rode out to Fox Island and ate dinner.  It was so beautiful it seemed surreal.   

The Rivers and Ocean water was that beautiful turquoise color from the glacier run off. 

After dinner on Fox Island. 

Every time we were out on the ocean we saw some sea otters.  They are so cute!

 Here is the house that Brenden and Jared helped build.  All of this in three weeks!

 On our way back to Anchorage we stopped at Portage Glacier.  There was this large iceberg from the glacier and it was really pretty!

It was a overcast and rainy day but still so pretty!

We met my cousins at Applebees for lunch. It was nice to see my Uncle who I haven't seen in years!  Also my other cousin Angie who just had a baby 3 day earlier!   On our way to the airport we found Knight's Taxidermy which is from the show Mounted in Alaska!  But they were closed, Darn! Of course we had to peek at what was inside (which wasn't much).

We had a red eye flight with a four hour lay over in Seattle which really was not fun!

But my sweet sister came and picked us up and took us out to eat in the middle of the night!  She's the Best!

See the space needle at 2 a.m.!

This is Eva's cute little sad face.  I was soaking her infected toe after we got to Vegas. 

My mom met us in Vegas with the kids and we stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights and helped my brother pack and get ready to move and also played with the kids their last two days of summer! 

Then we finally made it home just in time for school to start!

Alaska was so pretty and fishing there was Awesome!  I would love to go back some day but it was a little too cold for me.  Even in August!