Food Fun

Compared to the last few weeks, this weekend was positively lazy and laid-back - not a bad thing, honestly! We had some friends over yesterday to celebrate National Bratwurst day - I have had Bratwurst in all three meals today thanks to my over-buying... (Biscuits and gravy with bratwurst meat is amazing, by the way!) But my only goal for today was that I wanted to make some baby food for Henry and store it up.

I made baby food for Thomas, but I never accumulated a stock pile, so it was interspersed with store bought tubs, then those amazing pouches when we were traveling. Those things are even better once the kiddo is old enough to hold it on their own! So when I saw that they made a contraption to do your own squeeze pouches I was intrigued. And when I found one on clearance at Target last winter, I bought it! Woo!

I tried to buy a mix of vegetables to roast for the baby food, but apparently I mostly bought orange and yellow vegetables. I guess I am a little biased against the green ones... Though I did have peas! And I refrained from adding any fruit to the vegetable pouches, though bananas did get their own pouches (technically, also yellow!).

This is the contraption! It works pretty darn well and Thomas was such a great helper. He mostly just grabbed the pouches and slid them into the rig, but that was exciting enough for him. The basics of the squeeze station are sliding the pouch into the rail, screwing on a cylinder to the top of the pouch, fill cylinder with puree, using the plunger to push it in the pouch and then capping it off. Obviously these aren't shelf stable like the commercial ones, but even having to store them in the freezer is better than nothing!

Just in case you were curious how he was able to reach the counter... He's been super obsessed with helping lately and will run to go get his step stool so he can be a part of the action. A warning for anyone who visits, he has a tendency to throw it down on toes - I warned Matt today and he got his foot out of the way just in time.

The peas were the second batch since the root vegetables were all still roasting. Thomas was pretty excited about the color and even though I told him they were peas, he insisted on referring to them as "green". Then he wanted one after I put them all in the freezer. He's not a fan of peas usually, so I told him he wouldn't like them. But after he kept yelling "green!" and trying to break in to the freezer, I relented. Turns out if he makes them, he likes them. Guess there is something to all those parenting websites after all:

Unfortunately, the fact that I bought this thing months ago meant that while I had intended to order more bags for it, I never remembered. Or more correctly, I *thought* I had. So once I filled up the 12 that came with it, I was awash in puree with nowhere to store it. Ordering new bags online was out of the question - by the time they came in, the purees would be past their prime. 

I looked online at all the available retailers in Anchorage and saw that they were in stock at Babies-r-Us! Whew! Except, they weren't really here. I found the empty shelf where they should have been and an employee to reassure me that no, they were really not there. Grrrr...

Then I had the brilliant thought! Since they lied on their website, maybe Target was accidentally lying as well and they were in stock over there! Haha - no... I did wander around aimlessly until I found something to use instead and while it's not exciting as the pouches, it is still pretty perfect:

I may have gone a little overboard with the food...

But since we are on the subject of food being out of control, I should mention that the raspberries are once again going crazy up here. Luckily my dear friend Brittney has way more than she can eat and offered to let us come steal some. Woo!

Look at those beautiful berries!

Last year, Thomas wasn't too sure about the raspberries at first, but this year he didn't hesitate to start popping them in his mouth. We did prefer to help him pick them off though, there were already some that had started to turn and I didn't think he'd get over putting a moldy one in his mouth... I wouldn't!

He soon decided that it was just easier to grab raspberries out of our container instead of waiting to get one. Brittney was trying to get him to say raspberry (instead of calling them strawberries), so she was using them as rewards for the correct word. He got the game on the first go around, but kept defaulting back. Why work for your straw/raspberry if you can just grab it?

Henry was there as well, though not partaking of the raspberry fun. He was chilling on blanket enjoying the beautiful Alaskan afternoon. I'm trying to decide if I should puree a few for him or just eat them all myself. That makes me sound like a bad mom, huh?

But look at this kid! I am going to have to fight for my fair share as it is! We were in the house for 30 seconds before he was trying to rip the lid off the raspberry container. Then he said "all done" and 2 minutes later was at them again. When I finally told him to grab his last one, he stuffed a handful in his mouth.

*sigh*

I can't say he doesn't have good taste, but now I have to share my free raspberries. Such a rough life! :)

Photography Club

I've mentioned the photography club at work previously on the blog, but haven't said much else about it. I hadn't made it to any of the actual shooting events (though I did take photos at the picnic on behalf on the club), so I was excited for the first lunchtime outing!

But it was raining...

The focus of the shoot was the basics of aperture, ISO and shutter speed, so those of us in attendance decided we could just do close ups of the flowers in the atrium.

I liked the orange ones because they were *so* vibrant! But after taking a few I noticed something weird... These flowers were fake! I felt so robbed! I suggested we could shoot some real flowers outside under the safety of the awning - it wasn't raining that hard...

Of course, I had my rain coat on thinking we were going out, so I couldn't resist getting close to the flowers anyhow. And I managed to find a bee having her lunch!

Ok, I know this is blurry... But the cute fuzzy bee turned on me! I was super close trying to focus on the bee and it flew right at me. The only reason I have even a blurry photo is probably because my finger twitched as I was running away.

Bees and I do *not* mix...

Back to shooting flowers after the bee was safely gone. As the other shooters crouched under the awning, I braved the misting rain to get some close-up photos of some of the bigger flowers. Anchorage may not have a long summer, but they plant vibrant flowers to make up for it - I love all the colors!

Of course, there is nothing wrong with some pastels and creams to offset all of the colors. And you can see here I am obviously shooting on the low end of my aperture - my background is all blurry. This was intentional, the side of the building isn't that exciting...

The point of the day was to vary up the aperture and I wasn't doing a good job of that. Crazy, considering I used to give Theresa a hard time for always shooting wide open. It wasn't like I didn't think of it, but in my head I didn't care if the background of the flowers was blurry. Of course, it didn't occur to me that a shallow depth of field doesn't just affect what is *behind* my focus point - thus the blurry purple flowers in the front.

Photo fail! While I normally would have just deleted the photo, I am leaving it as a reminder to pay attention to what your (my!) shooting parameters are!

Someone came up with the idea to try and catch a water drop falling off a leaf. This was as close as I got - they would drop as soon as I pulled the camera away from my eye. Argh!

I did notice that my 35 prime lens certainly has a limit on how close it can focus - and it's not as close as I thought it should be. Maybe I need to invest in a macro lens. Or maybe rent one to see if I like it first... Theresa has rented lenses before and she seemed to think it was a worthwhile venture.

One thing I didn't get to do was to try any puddle photography. I had read an article about it the other day and kept wanting to try it. Unfortunately that only works once it stops raining and the puddles are still. Instead I just have big fat clusters of rain water on the roof of a car...

But I thought those were pretty neat looking too - hey, you have to take what you can get when your city is in the middle of an abundance of rainy days. :)

Tunnels for Thomas!

I mentioned the other day that Thomas had become obsessed with tunnels due to my awesome tunnel building skills. But I didn't really explain why I believe they are so awesome. So here is the photographic proof of my awesomeness:

Check out that awesome couch cushion tunnel! The last one was actually better - it had a full 90 degree turn and incorporated his Elmo couch, but the front room gets a little hot in the afternoon and I thought more room might be nice. So a lazy turn it is!

Here's the little guy going through the tunnel. He's very insistent there be a door on the far end, so I try to leave enough gaps that it's not too dark in the tunnel. 

But even though he demands a door, he rarely makes it that far... I get convinced he'll go all the way and suddenly a toddler comes crashing out the side!

As if that destruction was not enough, he then gets to work pulling down the sides of the tunnel as well...

Until it looks like the tunnel was hit by a mighty earthquake! Then, he looks around and yells "uh-oh tunnel!!" like he has no idea what happened. Ha! But his mommy dutifully picks up the cushions and builds it up again. We do this build up / tear down cycle until momma runs out of energy - I don't think Thomas ever runs out of energy...!

Anchorage Museum

It is mom's last weekend here and she has been wanting to take Thomas to the museum all week. It didn't end up working out, so we decided to all go on Saturday instead - which meant I got to go (which made me super happy, I love museums!). 

Of course, it also meant Henry go to go as well - he didn't seem as excited as everyone else.

One of the armless statues outside the museum. Thomas saw it and immediately said "Moose!", he's getting good at his animal identification!

I didn't get to see most of the museum, we beelined straight for the back where the kids section was. First thing we found was one of the super awesome and complicated ball moving machines. I'm honestly not sure if Thomas or I was more excited. I love watching these things!

This one had a spinning table you could roll things across and see how it affected their path. Thomas just liked playing with the balls. I was a little concerned with the flat discs - they had a tendency to fly off the center and I was so worried one was going to smash some little fingers. "/

I can't remember what these things are called, but Thomas was fascinated by the ball hovering in the air stream. I think it was at this point it occurred to me that most of these things were big kid concepts...

And then I found the younger kid part! Whew! Playing with boats in water is much more toddler friendly than flying disks and crashing balls. Thomas was side-eyeing another kid in this photo, I swear he was having fun otherwise!

Especially when he found the plane! This boy loves planes almost as much as choo-choos - he cranes his neck up to the sky every time he hears one fly overhead (which is often up here!)

He's well on his way to being a pilot, he is pulling back on the yoke to take off. That's like 5% of the way there, right??

Meanwhile, Henry was off playing with an abacus. "Don't mind me, just going to do some complex math with these beads...."

And then Thomas found the trains! He was super excited! I was pretty excited, but these trains were not so impressive. No matter how slowly and carefully you pushed them, they would just fly right off the track.

Which led to the Great Tunnel Derailment of 2014... Whoops! You can see the guilty party's hand in the upper right corner. ; )

Henry moved on from the abacus to hanging out with his Nonni. She looks pretty happy with that change. :)

Thomas and I had much more luck with the blocks and balls. I wanted to make a path from the very top down, but he was very insistent on being the one to drop the balls in - who am I to argue with the toddler in the toddler section??

The bubble section was a pretty big hit as well! Look at him holding up the big bubble rings like a champ. He even managed to get a few bubbles to break free - which is impressive considering he's not got a huge lung capacity. 

This platform was the best! It had a moat of bubble juice that you would stand in the center and pulled a ring up to encircle the people on the platform. I honestly kinda sucked at getting it up very far, but Aunt Heather was awesome at it. Thomas thought it was super cool - he was all excited about blowing bubbles out the side...

Until he realized he could pop it! Then it was a bit of a struggle for Heather to get it up very high before he popped it - ha!

The last section was more of the big kid stuff, but he didn't seem to care. Sure this demonstration was trying to show how magma moved, but he just thought it looked neat. 

This one we had trouble to make work - it's a pressure sensitive pad that you were supposed to jump in the air and it would record your jump, then play it back in slow motion. I think we only got it to work for Thomas once, but he thought it was pretty darn cool! 

And last, but not least - a demonstration of how earthquakes can liquify geologic formations and cause very bad damage during earthquakes (like the 1964 one here!). It was basically a shake table that would "sink" two houses in tiny glass beads. He didn't seem to care about the science behind it, but he loved pushing the button that made it shake. Maybe a future geologist, but more likely an engineer... :)

Hobbies

The other day at work, a friend and I were discussing how there just aren't enough days in a week or hours in a day to do all the things we want. This is not news to anyone, I'm sure - where do the hours go?? But the interesting part was discussing our differing hobbies and how everyone is passionate about something, varied as these interests may be.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that baking is one of my great passions. Obviously french toast doesn't count as baking, but I do love breakfast as much as I like baking. And apparently you aren't supposed to feed your family non-stop baked goods, so I have decided to love cooking as well as baking (if I must!)

And for those with amazing recall skills, you might just recognize that raspberry jam as the one mom and I made last year from Brittney's surplus of raspberries!

But back to the point of hobbies - what hobbies are enjoyed by the other people sharing this house?

Ah, Biraffee... Henry is still obsessed with his stuffed giraffe. As I am typing, he is trying to cram a giraffe foot in his mouth. Sure, he has other toys he likes, but Biraffee is by far his favorite!

And Thomas? Fittingly obsessed with Thomas! More like any train honestly, but these shoes - he loves! You can see they are starting to show some wear and they are honestly getting too small, but he would rather wear his "choo-choo" shoes than the ones that fit. So, like any reasonable parent, I went and bought him another pair of the same shoes in a bigger size. Thank goodness they still had the choo-choo shoes!

If the front of the shoes wear out as fast as the soles, does that mean he falls that often? Poor guy is apparently blessed with my coordination... "/

Matt's current hobby? His DR-650! It's been his hobby of choice for a while honestly - ever since his 3 week, off-road, cross-country adventure with Tom a few years back. But he's been working on it quite a bit lately and taking it on a few Alaskan road trips (I owe you guys a blog on his behalf, he got some pretty awesome photos on the last one!). His motorcycle didn't really fit into the theme of photos, but I figured the key was a good substitute!

Which brings me to my other hobby:

My camera! I have really gotten back into photography recently. Obviously mostly with the kiddos, but I just love playing with it. My grand-dad gave me his camera back when I was in high-school after I borrowed it for an art class project. He wasn't using it anymore and I loved that Canon! It's packed away in the house somewhere, I should really find it and take some photos of it.

But I distinctly remember years ago when digital cameras first got popular, I swore I would never leave my film camera behind...! Past me obviously never imagined how amazing these digital cameras would get.  Then Matt got me the Nikon for my 30th birthday and I really liked it. Then I joined the photography club at work and rekindled that long ago love for photography. Now with the internet there are so many websites that give you camera tips, photo ideas and photography projects you could spends years working through! I am already behind on the yearly photography books I do at the end of the year (2013, I am soooo sorry!), but what's another delay for a cool DIY project?

Which brings us to this! The photos in this post all look similar because I was playing with a DIY light-box. I managed to find the one moving box left in the house that was an appropriate size (though it really needed to be wider) and modify it to make a light-box for close up object photography. The whole thing took less than an hour to finish and I had a ton of fun playing with it. My upper and side lights (off for this photo) weren't quite the same shade of white, so it wasn't perfect - but I think the photos turned out great anyhow!

There is a slightly different version specifically for food photography, that might have to be my next project! I'll try not to get carried away, but the whole thing cost about $2 since I had the box already. Pretty hard to beat for what will probably be hours of fun! :) 

First Fishing Outing!

I somehow managed to skip posting about our fishing expedition! I mean, I am usually late on most of my posts, but I am very particular about doing things in order. So I missed this one and have decided to just post it late - we actually went fishing on the 31st of July for future recollection. :)

Matt went down to Bird Creek the previous week with some work friends and had a blast. After a last minute rush to buy waders on my lunch break, I was set to join in the fun after making dinner for mom and the kids. We made it before the tide came in, but it was still pretty crowded. We ended up being a tourist attraction for the people riding the train - I made sure to send a photo to my dad of the Chugach Explorer stopped to see us.  

Matt spent a good chunk of time replacing the lures I kept getting stuck on rocks. But he did think to pull out his phone and get a photo of me in action. Which is right when a fish hit my lure! What an awesomely timed opportunity!

And I managed to get her out of the water! It was a pink, so we didn't keep it. I was so proud of my first fish in Alaska - go me! Of course the next day I was reading up on ethical angling and you aren;t supposed to pull them out of the water or hold the by the gills if you aren't keeping them. I'm pleading ignorance - and she managed to wriggle free before I got the hook out of her mouth, so it couldn't have been too traumatic... right?

Matt caught a pink too, but I am not as good of a spouse and didn't manage to get a photo of it! I'm awful! I did manage to get a photo of him later after the tide came in and we have moved upstream to wade in and fish. 

I kept getting hits on the lure, but I just couldn't get them to stay on long enough to reel them in. But I finally got something on the line. I figured it was a twig because it was struggling on the reeling in. But no - I caught a rock! Haha - how on earth does someone catch a rock. Sam (Matt's coworker who was with us) decided that some people are obviously just made for a certain profession. Professional rock catcher, that's me! ;)

This was the spacing of the crowd. It actually was not as bad as I had feared. Most people were quite courteous with the fishing and if you did manage to catch someone else's line, someone would reel it in and free it. But they don't call it "Combat Fishing" for nothing - when we went the next night, I got hit in the arm with a lure after it fish on a taut line wriggled free.

Wear safety glasses people!

I only caught the one, but Sam managed to catch several pinks, a chum and a silver. He advised us against eating a pink, but thought the chum might be slightly better. It wasn't bad... but it was a pretty mild fish. The silver was less flavorful than the reds we have been eating, but it was still tasty!

Every time Matt has been fishing, the guides or friends have filleted the fish on the river. So we dutifully followed tradition and went about filleting the fish on the cleanest rock we could find. In the future, I think we will be doing some basic gutting at the river and do the detailed work at home. Especially after reading how bad it is to get the meat wet or get the slime from the outside of the fish on the meat - which is pretty hard to avoid when throwing everything in a bag to take home.

I was so excited about fishing trip #1 that I went out and bought a fishing vest so I could carry extra lures on me. I figured since I kept losing them, the least I could do was carry them. Probably because of that - I didn't lose a single one on Friday night!

Unfortunately, we didn't catch a single fish the second night... But it was such a beautiful night, that I don't think either one of us even cared. And for the record, I'm looking off to the distance in the photo because Matt kept making fun of my attempts at smiling. It was a long week - cut the sleep-deprived woman a break! ;)

Henry's First Meal

I feel a bit behind schedule on getting Henry to start on solid foods. The advice I got changed a little from Thomas - instead of waiting until 6 months (which I didn't quite make), ideally you should start solids between 4 & 6 months. And we are getting close to 6 months - yikes!

As you can see, he wasn't all that impressed with his first tasting. He's been so interested in what we eat, but wasn't too sure that what he was getting was the same as the tasty waffles we were eating...

Haha - he made the best series of facial expressions! "Oh I want it!" went to "What is this??" to "Ummm... no..."

But he managed to get a little bit to actually stay in his mouth and then tried to steal the spoon from me. I think he'll get the hang of this eating business pretty soon and we can move on to more exciting things than baby cereal.

You're going to love food Henry, I guarantee it!

Happy 45th Birthday...

To the Alaska Zoo! One of our favorite places to go visit in Anchorage, so how could we resist a birthday party??

It's not really a huge zoo, so it's great for short visits when the weather is nice and we have no other plans. But you can see the wide assortment of animals. I think almost all of the animals here are injured and can't survive in the wild or transplants from other zoos. My favorites are the polar bears and they are in the midst of an enclosure upgrade - can't wait to see their finished digs!

The otters were in a particularly playful mood today! They were adding water to their pool and the otters seemed to think it made their home a water park. So much swimming and playing!

These two were wrestling all around the place - totally reminded me of Natalie and Eliza. Though with less teeth...

Thomas and Nonni were both equally excited with the playing otters. Especially when the water got turned off. One of the otters was checking out the water pipe when the water suddenly came back on... Hilarious! Wish I had gotten a photo of that reaction!

Given his bravery at the previous petting zoo experience, I thought we should try it out again. And Thomas walked over and started petting a goat! The goat didn't even seem to notice, but Thomas was pretty proud of himself. I thought it was adorable! :)

Henry already has his own personal zoo animal, so he didn't bother with staying awake at the zoo. This particular giraffe came from Aunt B, so we decided to name him Biraffee (Bee-raff-ee). Henry loves his Biraffee, he's always holding it or trying to eat it. 

After seeing the tigers, Thomas was crawling around on the deck like a tiger (I'm assuming) - weird because all the tigers were sleeping. He's been roaring like a tiger at me since Nonni took him to the zoo last week. But I couldn't get him to do it at the zoo! But give him one of my tiger slippers and I get attacked non-stop...

One of the Dall Sheep saw I had a camera with a zoom lens and decided to get in the modeling mood. Ha, he was hiding in the rocks at first then moseyed down to where he would be nicely framed by trees and blue sky. Who says animals aren't vain? ;)

And we finally made it to the party section. They had several bouncers, a live band, face painting, etc. Given the slide incident at the company party, I steered him away from the giant slide to the bounce house that also happened to have a short slide. He was more interested in sliding than bouncing, but couldn't get up the "rungs" by himself. So I got in and assisted him up to slide down.

The next time instead of pushing him up, I showed him where to put his feet and how to pull himself up. The next time he almost made it all by himself. 

Couldn't really convince him to slide down correctly though. Eh, whatever...

And then he didn't need my help anymore. He figured out the method pretty quick and went back several times to climb and slide all by himself. I was so proud!

But like a moth to flame, I couldn't keep him away from the giant slide. I thought he *might* be able to climb it himself, but that was a fail. So I ended up having to climb up with him, dodging hundreds of small children who had no patience for the toddler slowing things down - he would not let me help him up the stairs. I grabbed him to ride down with him and he was not happy - he started yelling his typical "my turn! my turn!" - which really just means "I do it my way, right now" in his book. So I tried to get him all psyched up by yelling on the way down. Which my mom thought made for a hysterical photo.

He was only partly swayed...

And I might have had to drag him away from the slide...

Happy 45th Birthday, Alaska Zoo! We love you and hope to spend many, many more visits with you!

Talkeetna Tuesday

I decided to take my first vacation day of the year (not counting the days I used for leave) since Tuesday was forecast to be a gorgeous day and my dad is threatening to not come back until next summer. And while I had to fast that morning to do a physical for insurance - I had great plans of making up for that later in the day at the Roadhouse!

Thomas did pretty good at lunch, though we did have to do some toddler/baby swapping at one point because he wanted to go look at something on the wall *right* *that* *second* - toddlers aren't known for patience... But the staff at the Roadhouse is so awesome, they brought him a choo-choo book to read while we waited for our food. 

I can't remember who it was, but someone told me next time I was in Talkeetna to keep walking down the main road until I reached the river because Denali is so close and it is a great view if it is a clear day. Yeah - no kidding! What a beautiful day to take off!

Grandpa was showing Thomas how to skip rocks. Thomas loves rocks, so he was all about any activity involving them! And I think he is pointing at the awesome mountain across the river. :)

Tried to get a photo of me and the boys with Denali. Nope - this was the best I got. Ha, it's like herding cats sometimes... And he is totally blocking the view of the mountain!

Nonni had the better idea - trap him so he can't get away! And they aren't blocking the mountain. My mom was pretty excited about the view - Denali has a tendency to hide from her every time she visits...!

After a nice lunch and stroll around Talkeetna, we headed back south and then cut across Hatcher Pass. We drove it a short way from Independence Mine the other day, but the washboards were pretty rough, so we turned around. One of Matt's coworkers swore that it was smooth just past where we turned around, so the parents and I risked it. And it was a great drive, smooth for a dirt road and great scenery!

It was a bit muddy though... "/

Getting close to the Mine, we noticed there were several old mine tailings up on the hillside. Pretty easy to spot with the big rock piles - this one still had some framing around the entrance - though admittedly a little hard to see in this photo.

This building had no red last week - I guess they are doing some sprucing up at the mine. Which meant we had to go right instead of left, so I managed to convince my parents to go up the hill we skipped last time. 

It was totally worth it, the cool mining equipment was up there! Thomas loved the train (of course!) that was sized appropriately for both mines and toddlers. I didn't see any signs forbidding it, so I let him pretend to be the conductor. A captain and a conductor in one week - busy guy!

How do you know where the train went? "Follow the tracks!"

I know, cheesy joke, but that's what I thought when Thomas was checking out the rails. :)

Nice view of the mine ruins from above. And the sad state of the old tracks coming out of the mine. 

Thomas was a little disappointed that this train didn't move. And that it wouldn't go in the "tunnel"! They have just the very front of the mine shaft open and it is soooooo cold right past the opening. Apparently it was a steady 38 degrees in the mine year round. That's not pleasant working conditions. Brrrr!

And I would like to point out that I didn't get as much of the creepy vibe this time with the sun out and shining. Though we weren't below in the building ruins, so maybe that made a difference too? 

Whatever the perceived level of creepiness, my parents had a great day and it was well worth burning a day off. So hard to work on a sunny Alaskan summer day anyhow!

Choo-choo Ride to Seward

Since my dad suffered through the coldest Thanksgiving ever to see us last year, I thought I would try to make up for it by cramming as much stuff as possible into the week he is staying here. The obvious first choice was a train ride and we had heard nothing but rave reviews for the Coastal Classic - the one from Anchorage to Seward. Since I was only sending them on it one way (it gets back at 10:45 PM!), I decided to send them Gold Star - and let them take Thomas along.

I know Dad loves train and all, but he might have been more excited that I was letting the grandparents have alone time with Thomas than anything. And Thomas is totally into trains right now, so I figured he would be excited enough to not throw any surprise fits on my parents. 

Honestly, I am not sure who was more excited about the choo-choo, Dad or Thomas. Mom was obviously in charge of taking photos since I wasn't along for the ride. I was driving down to Seward with Henry to ensure we had wheels in Seward and to avoid having to ride the train back. Love is getting up at 5 in the morning on your day off to take people to the train...

Dad was pretty impressed with all of the turns and switchbacks on the train - necessary to get up some of the hills with limited amount of running room. There were multiple times where the train was doubling back on itself enough to get some photos of - impressive as short as the train was!

Thomas was such a trooper, but he finally crashed at the end. Apparently my dad makes a great pillow. :)

I managed to time it almost perfectly, I managed to get to Seward right before the train arrived. And can I just say, I love the colors of the Alaska railroad. I mean, I know they are also the state flag colors, but the colors just look so good roaming through the Alaska wilds - or on a cloudy morning in Seward.

The railroad trio arrives! Don't they look like they had a good time?

We managed to get into our room a little early with the grand plan of getting Thomas a nap on time. Yeah, apparently if he has a super short nap sometime in the morning he's not interested in sleeping at all. So we instead we hung out for awhile and plotted what to do the rest of the weekend - also known as Nonni got in some extra snuggle time!

Of course those plans got derailed about five minutes after we got in the car and Thomas was fast asleep. So instead, I decided we should take a drive so Thomas could get a decent nap in. He happened to wake up right around when we got to Moose Pass and their tiny fudge shop. Thomas was *not* impressed with "Morris the Talking Moose". However, all of us were impressed with the fudge - yum!

The next morning we decided to take a trip to Exit Glacier. Mom, Thomas and I went last year, but due to my not warning my mom of our plans - she didn't have hiking appropriate footwear. This time we were ready to head toward the glacier. And dad volunteered to carry the heavier of the two boys, so we were set!

True to his form, Thomas fell asleep as soon as we got partway there. This obviously made him much harder to carry up the hills, but Dad never complained. I offered to switch kiddos since I am pretty used to carry the boys, but he trucked him up the hill anyhow. That's what granddads are good at. :)

Supposedly this trail was going to lead up to the edge of the glacier, but this was as close as it got. But it was still pretty cool! Especially when you came over the last hill, the wind coming off of the glacier was super cold - it was nature's air conditioning. Henry wasn't super impressed about the chill, so we didn't stay there too long.

Thomas managed to wake up just in time to see the glacier up close. He may not look impressed in this photo, but he did seem to think it was cool!

Thomas decided he would prefer to spend some time walking back down the hill. It made for a slower trek down, but it sure is nice that he can go for longer distances these days. 

Then off to the Seward Sea Life Center (after another failed nap time...) - Thomas really seems to enjoy this place - though each time he's most excited about something different. This time he was hard to pry away from the boat at the entrance. Maybe the little guy wants to be a captain?

Henry was happy as always. Nothing seems to upset this guy. Love it!

He loves the birds and was super excited about the ducks this time. The ducks jumped out of the water to say hi - the lady next to Thomas ran away from the ducks but he was just excited they were closer. :)

Look at the beautiful Seward scenery behind my super happy parents. What a perfect day!

Woody the Sea Lion was in typical form, doing his laps around the enclosure. I played around with the camera for quite a while trying to get a good photo of him as he flew by. Not bad, if I do say so myself! I think he was so excited because he just had a little baby - who is currently unnamed but according to my member emails is doing great!

Thomas was obsessed with the scale right next to Woody. Its a little display to see if you can reach Woody's weight with a group of people - 1200 pounds I think. Several groups would try to reach it and they always had an extra toddler trying to help them out. I'm not sure why he was so excited - I think he saw another little kid jump on the scale and thought that would be super cool to do over and over again. Toddlers!

He also spent a lot of time watching Woody do laps. Woody is so big, how could a toddler not be impressed?

And before we could leave, we *had* to go back to the boat. Who am I to deny the little captain his time at the helm??

The place we were staying had a super random wolf skin in the room. Which I thought was pretty odd, but my parents thought would make for an "interesting" photo. Thomas was not too thrilled about the "dog" skin. That was about the best facial expression I could get out of him!

Henry could care less though - like I said, nothing fazes this guy. He was just happy people were interacting with him. Love that smile! (The wolf still creeps me out though.)

On the way back from Seward, we detoured through the Whittier tunnel since my dad loves trains so much. We all thought it was cool when we went through it last year, so I figured he would love it even more. Thomas just recently became obsessed with tunnels (due to my awesome tunnel building skills with couch cushions the other day). He apparently told mom and dad to "go back!" after every tunnel the train went through. So the tunnel was also a hit in his book. And of course, I timed it just perfectly so dad could see another train. Go me!

And one last stop in Girdwood for lunch before heading home. Of course, he didn't touch his grilled cheese even though he usually loves them. That's fine, I traded part of my sandwich for his. I still love grilled cheese!

Home again! Nonni and Grandpa brought Thomas a belated birthday present that is a super cool car tent. They, of course, have not set up tents much recently and had a heck of a time trying to figure out the poles. Instead of helping, I decided to giggle and take photos. Hey, we all grow older - we don't always grow up. ; )

I did end up stepping in at the end and helping the finish it up. Thomas really liked playing in his new tent. Especially after Grandpa put his Elmo couch in there. That boy loves his cars and Elmo!

Last, but not least - I couldn't let my year anniversary pass by without some sort of small celebration, so I made myself a brownie cake. Can you believe it's been a year already? I sure can't!