Our Master Builder

It's been almost a month since the party and Thomas has just about worked his way through all of the Lego sets. Honestly, he probably would have built them all that day, but we made him pace himself. And the new and exciting toys may have been used for attitude adjustments once or twice (in the sense that the Legos got put in "time-out" a few times)...

It's been amazingly effective!

Henry is still a bit problematic with the Legos, so I made them a space to live that Henry was unable to get to - which means on top of the mantle. I'm not sure Matt was entirely thrilled that his new minimalist plant display was swarmed by Lego sets, but he hasn't said anything.

First set that Thomas completed was the road work set. Very fitting for Alaska road trips in the summer...!

Then the police helicopter set. He loves watching the police and robbers Lego cartoon on Netflix, so this is actually one of his favorite sets. I love the attention to detail Lego puts into their sets - the ATM even has little Lego bills to put in the slot. How adorable!

The fire helicopter and motorcycle set seems to be Henry's favorite set to play with. This means I've gotten pretty good at repairing this set because Henry is not good at playing gently with the Lego sets...

This set is Thomas' favorite so far (and Matt's!). We got a package from Amazon shortly after the party that had no information about who sent it. As soon as I opened it, I knew it had to be from Matt's friend Tom - he sent him the Playmobil motorcycle set for his birthday last year. He had no idea we had a Lego theme going for the birthday this year, Tom's just that good. :)

This one was the most complicated set Thomas got for his birthday, so we figured once he had a few sets under his belt that he could tackle this one. It was challenging, but he still did a great job following the instructions and painstakingly pieced it all together.

And it was a good reminder of how observant he is. Before he even opened the set he was telling Matt he wanted to do this one because the window opened at the bottom, not the top like the helicopters. We had no clue what he was talking about. But we finally figured out he noticed from the picture on the box that the canopy in the front of the submersible was hinged on the bottom and not the top like the helicopters.

This boy misses nothing!

Finally on to the sets that I bought him. I love the Lego movie and was so excited about the double decker couch set. The only thing is was missing is Wild Style!

Thankfully, she was in the second Lego Movie set I got. As was another Emmet! This was great news on the "sharing the Legos with the younger brother" front. But my favorite part of this set was the rainbow spectrum of the lego bricks included in the set.

But what else would you expect from a set called Cloud Cuckoo Palace?? This was by far the most difficult set to put together because it had so many tiny pieces. It was very decorative, which meant a lot of the pieces where flat circles and if you got them in the wrong spot, they were super hard to get back up. And if they were a row off, they would interfere with the structure of the palace. Argh!

But he's powering through it and concentrating extra hard (see that tongue?)! I think it's safe to say we have quite the Master Builder on our hands! :)

A Mommy-Daughter Day

Matt had plans on our Friday off, so I decided to take the boys to daycare and have a "Me" day. I was originally going to go see a movie by myself (which sounded super lame, honestly), but it was such a gorgeous day that I wanted to go spend time outside! I was going to hike Flattop, but then I had a debate with myself about how comfortable I was talking to myself the whole time to not surprise any bears. Which made me think about taking one of the dogs because at least then I was "the girl talking to her dog" and not "the girl talking to herself". 

Alas, the dogs are getting older and probably not up for a hike on Flattop. But the thought of hanging out seemed like the best idea I'd had. So I packed up the car at went to the dog park near the University. These two had no idea how much fun a day with momma was about to be!

Natalie caught on pretty quick once she saw the lake - we've only been here once before, but she clearly remembered it! I made one quick stop on the way over to buy tennis balls, so we were set for some ball fetching out of the lake. I even brought the ball flinger to throw them extra far for her. I was surprisingly prepared! :)

Eliza did her usual amnesia act and appeared to forget that she knows how to swim. It happens every time. She will run along the bank at Natalie and bark at her until she finally jumps in and then I have to take turns throwing the balls for them. I throw Natalie's much further - Eliza will give up and turn around if she feels like the water is getting too deep. 

She's not the bravest dog...

Though Natalie isn't a perfect retriever either. She kept getting distracted by other dogs jumping in the water and ended up abandoning a ball way out there. For some reason I thought throwing another ball near it would help, but she can't really retrieve both of them. Sigh...

On the next throw I got smart and chunked a rock next to the stranded ball. She happily went and got the "ball" she just saw splash. She doesn't suspect her momma of playing tricks on her. ;) 

After lots and lots of barking, Eliza finally got into the ball retrieving! 

Trust me when I tell you that as mangy as she looks in this picture, she smells surprisingly like what you would expect. We've been a little behind on giving them baths and even the boys are starting to comment on how stinky Eliza is. Poor girl - luckily for her, I picked up a bottle of dog shampoo at Target while I was grabbing tennis balls. (See? So much thinking ahead today!)

Dogs shaking water will always be funny! Especially when her beard is flying out so majestically... :) I couldn't get Natalie to shake while looking at the camera and from the side it's not quite as funny. Oh well - I'm used to a lack of cooperation on photo taking... 

Natalie would probably have been happy to keep fetching floating tennis balls all day, but I eventually called it quits so I didn't completely wear her out. She was getting a little slower on the swimming and I was imagining how sore my muscles would be after such an intense work-out. You'll thank me later for making you stop, Natalie. I promise!

Since they were both sopping wet, I decided to finish off the trail and let them dry off a little before getting back in my car. Plus I wanted to find this sign! I love this sign and how absurd it looks in the middle of summer. I think it's there because a stream feeds into the lake (pond) at this point and would make the ice thinner in the winter.

But not nearly as thin as it is right now. Ha!

There are a ton of ducks in the lake and for the most part, they don't seem to care about the multitude of dogs jumping in the water nearby. This guy was keeping an eye on us as we walked by, but the dogs were tired enough they listened to me when I told them to stay out of the water. 

I did not, however, see any of the angry beavers mentioned on a nearby sign. We don't let the girls jump in the lake on that side though - just in case!

Back to the car! Thankfully the blanket prevented them from getting their wet dog smell all over my seats. Oh and Eliza did her usual face plant and roll in the dirt as soon as she was fully wet. She chose to do it on an incline and ending up rolling down the hill to maximize the dirt coverage. A guy nearby started laughing about it and I assured him it was completely normal behavior. (Thus the dog shampoo!)

Overall, they look like they have had the best time ever and nothing could ever make this day not be the most awesome day.

Well...

At least until I gave the baths as soon as we got home. They weren't too excited about that.

All clean and poofy! They both still need a serious brushing, but they don't smell anymore. Yay! Since it was such a nice day outside, I let them hang out on the back porch and dry in the sun. 

I had a great time hanging out with these two and hopefully they know I feel bad that they don't get nearly as much fun time as the used to. Poor furry kids have to put up with the human kids taking up so much of their parent's time. I

t's rough being a dog. 

Just not today. Today was an awesome day to be a dog. :)

Where Did May Go??

I could have sworn that I *just* posted about Thomas turning 4, but then suddenly it's almost the end of May. I have no idea what happened! I mean, maybe the week after the party was pure laziness and a bit of zoning out after all that effort that went into throwing a good birthday party...

I know the following weekend was beautiful because I have the photos to prove it! Look at all that sunshine and my rad little man chilling out during bubble time.

And I vaguely recall making sure that we made Thomas write Thank You cards to all of his friends. (Sorry family - I swear we will get to you all soon!) His writing has gotten so much better, but he still has a bit of trouble with letter sizing. But I think people should be able to get the point of the cards. Oh and apparently his scribbling all over the place while coloring can be mostly fixed if you tell him that he is coloring it for a friend. Then he's all about staying inside the lines!

Mother's Day - I very much remember that! Matt decided to spoil me by making me dinner *and* cooking my favorite thing to eat - lamb! He's not generally interested in eating lamb, so I usually only get it when we eat out at nice restaurants. And then I generally embarrass him by gnawing all of the meat off the bones (sorry polite people in Juneau who may have witnessed that!). 

So I was super excited about this lamb dinner! And you know the sous vide got pressed into service, because it is amazing at making perfect dinners. :)

To be truthfully honest, part of my "checking out" for the month has to do with that little device sitting next to my phone. My mother's day present (apart from the awesome lamb and starbucks latte) was a Kindle. I have avoided getting a Kindle for a very specific reason that Matt apparently wasn't aware of...

Hello, my name is Jennifer and I am a book addict. 

Seriously, I have so much trouble putting it down. I was googling to see if I could enable parental controls to lock myself out after a set time amount. And all these people online were being all judgy and telling inquiring parents to "Just take the Kindle away from them - you're the parent!". Ummm - but what if the parent is the problem...? 

I did manage to put it down long enough to eat the super awesome dinner Matt threw together. Look, he even made grilled peaches! I didn't even realize they had made it up to Alaska already. Woo!

But what else has been distracting me from blogging?

I feel like I didn't read all last weekend... 

Why was that?

Oh that's right! We decided that Henry was ready to give up his diapers and followed the same (slightly insane) plan we did with Thomas and threw all the diapers away and went straight to underwear. Needless to say, most of my free time that weekend was chasing Henry around the house with the carpet cleaner...

He's actually picked it up like a champ! And I don't feel bad for the above photo because he's not actually going to the bathroom in said photo. I know this because he insists he is "too little" for the big potty. This is completely untrue, but I'll let him stick with that illusion for now. ;)

Last weekend was not quite as stressful as the first weekend of big boy undies, but was super rainy and dreary. So I I decided that Henry deserved for his very own cape since he is obviously such a super little man. I am by no means a seamstress and it took me two runs to the fabric store to buy the correct amount of fabric, but I finally managed to power through and throw together a reasonable match to Thomas' awesome cape. Brittney made the cape Christmas of 2014 for both him and his birthday bud, Wallace.

I did my best to match the cape, but you can see it's a little different. Chalk it up to creative differences or lack of pre-planning, but Henry doesn't seem to mind the differences. He loves being a "super"! Since I was holding my sister's sewing machine hostage, I also made him a new sheet since his UK sourced crib won't take US sized sheets. It seemed more exciting to make him a Star Wars sheet instead of paying through the nose to ship one from the UK. I will do my best to get photos of it before he outgrows the bed.

Speaking of his bed - we took the rails off of it a few weeks and he hasn't fallen out of it once! 

I told you he was Super! :)

Thomas Turns 4!

Even though we had Thomas' birthday party yesterday, today is officially when he turns 4. So we just decided to continue celebrating all weekend! 

He got to pick the breakfast for his birthday and he requested pancakes, eggs & sausage. Which seemed too normal for such a special day, so I added sprinkles and whipped cream! Thomas seemed a little unsure of how to eat his pancake when it had whipped cream piled on top...

Henry just went ahead and ate the whipped cream in one bite to make it easier. Also, Henry is in the fire truck pajamas that Thomas refused to give up before he turned 4. But he promised that he wouldn't need them once he was 4. And he has been checking the labels on all of his PJ's to see which ones he can keep once he is 4 and which ones he won't need anymore. 

More presents! I made him wait until today to open his presents from us. Well mostly made him wait - those are brand new "4" pajamas he is sporting this morning!

Or all day. Don't judge! We love pajamas around here!

Lego sets from the Lego Movie. Total score in the post-Christmas clearance aisle. I love post-Christmas clearance. Especially when I can remember I bought presents 5 months later... :)

The pajamas were clearance too! Woo-woo!

Nonni had this giant bag of awesomeness sitting on the table this morning. I made poor Thomas wait until after breakfast to open it because I was worried he wouldn't eat breakfast if I didn't make him wait. I was pretty sure there were more Legos in there since Thomas made Nonni take a photo of the very specific set he wanted back when we were in Texas last year. She did not disappoint!

Matt promised Thomas he would help him build his first Lego set this morning. Except Thomas didn't really need any help. He followed the instructions and put it all together by himself! Matt had to push one or two pieces together a little bit tighter, but otherwise the whole thing was built without parental intervention. 

That is a little boy who is very proud of his Lego building ability! I have to admit Matt and I were both a little bit shocked. Either Lego directions are just super easy to follow or we have a mini-engineer on our hands here. 

Henry didn't seem to mind that he wasn't getting to play with the Legos - he found his dinosaur masks again and was pretending to be a ferocious dinosaur. You can just barely see the tip of his dinosaur tail behind him. Poor Nonni got attacked several times while she was washing dishes. 

When Matt went over to help Sam work on his motorcycle, Nonni sat down to "help" Thomas with the Lego set she gave him. Except he didn't need any help with this one either. She was obviously having fun hanging out chatting with him anyhow. 

Helicopter Legos completed! You can also see the other favorite birthday present in the background - a Millenium Falcon play set with Han Solo, Chewie, R2-D2 and C-3P0. Henry wanted to play with it so badly last night, but Thomas wasn't sharing. Today Henry got to play with it as much as he wanted while his big brother was distracted by the Legos. As a side note - Henry calls them Han Dolo, Wookie, R2-DuTu and "Huh?" 

I also may have bought him Wall-E because it is one of my favorite cartoons. We all sat down to watch it together and I bet you can guess who was most excited about that! I had every intention of working on my blog while they were watching, but I ended up giving up and watching it too. I love Wall-E!

Henry isn't quite up to full length movies yet, so he ended up playing with Thomas' new Legos while the rest of us watched. Luckily, this was mostly cool with Thomas once we showed him that anything Henry broke off could be repaired. 

Since it was Thomas' official birthday today I had this great idea to make him another cake. Theresa had made Wallace a train cake for his birthday this week and I remembered that I had bought a train baking pan and not used it yet. What a perfect opportunity!!

Except it was a disaster. I figured since my cake was so amazing yesterday, I should show that I still have total fails from time to time. I don't know if it was a lack of grease or trying to unmold them before they cooled enough, but I completely tore the cake to shreds. Stupid train cake!

I ended up getting a halfway decent set out the second time, but they still ripped a little and I was so mad about them I didn't bother to ice them.

Thankfully, the boys are more than happy with a ugly train cake since it came with sprinkles, syrup and ice cream. Blue Bell Ice Cream even! Nonni got it up here this time with no trouble, unlike Henry's ice cream last year. She gave me a hard time for not pulling it out yesterday, but I was *not* sharing the Blue Bell ice cream with people who wouldn't full appreciate it!

Now *that* is the face of someone who appreciates the ice cream! ;)

Happy Birthday, little man! I can't believe you are already 4 - the years are going by much too fast! Hope you had a great birthday and I can't wait to see what the next year brings. Love you!

Thomas' Birthday Party!

Thomas is turning 4 this year, so we decided to throw him an official party and invited *all* of his classmates over to celebrate. We figured he was old enough to appreciate having a party with friends and only needed to settle on a theme. He has been asking for "big boy" Legos for quite some time now and I promised him he could start using them when he was 4, so we went with a Lego theme!

Why 4? Because the Lego Junior sets are labeled as 4-7 and he can read well enough to get that he should be allowed to use them when he is 4. Turns out they are the same size as the rest of the big boy Legos, they just have slightly easier projects to build. So we were all in for tiny Legos! (My feet may never forgive me...)

And a Lego party definitely needs a Lego cake! The little Lego figurines are toys, but the bricks are made out of candy. I bought a candy mold thinking it would be easy-peasy to make Lego decorations. It required a little bit more time and effort than I expected to make them look perfect, but the end result was well worth it. Thomas loved his Lego cake! 

Since it was a Lego theme, I figured we had to have a bunch of the smaller Legos to play with. I went to Target to buy a big set and was a little bit shocked at the price. So I turned to Amazon - which was the same price... Torn on buying him a ton of Legos and not spending a ton of money, I may have been lured to the dark side and bought him a giant bag of knock-off Legos. The reviews from all of the other (cheap) parents said they worked perfectly with the actual Legos and the only difference was the missing "LEGO" stamped on the top. Considering it was less than half the price, I decided it was worth the gamble to have a bunch for party time.

And for the record, they are awesome, they fit together perfectly and they even work with a different brand of Flego (my new name for Fake Legos!) base plates. One of my coworkers was trying to give me a hard time about buying Flegos. It did not work, I feel absolutely no shame. ;)

Also this photo is pre-party, I gave him the Flegos at breakfast. I am usually totally cool with wearing pj's all day on the weekend, but maybe not when we have lots of guests coming over. 

Finally it was party time! I lost track of time and barely got Thomas up from his nap before his first friend arrived, so he was a little out of sorts at first. But once two friends arrived, he was ready to party! Of course, the boys all ignored my bucket of big boy legos to play with Duplos. Figures...

Then the kids found the costume rack and the party got really wild! There were all kinds of costumed kids running around! Of course Thomas chose the train engineer costume. :)

But we had all kinds of rocket ships, dinosaurs and Superheroes running around. Lottie was chilling with Brittney & Nonni in the middle of the living room and suddenly she was being circled by all kinds of excitement. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to mind - she's apparently ready to hang with the big kids!

Henry joined in the fun with his penguin costume. Can I just say that he is the most adorable penguin ever? Or maybe the penguin costume is just my favorite - Thomas is pretty darn adorable in it as well!

Then we had two dinosaurs and they were roaring full blast! I think the look on Aunt Heather's face says it all - these boys were loud dinosaurs! Abby was roaring as well - though she didn't have a tail. She's got the dino walk down though!

Abby was also the only one to take advantage of all the cool Lego coloring pages I printed out. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the sit down coloring wasn't as exciting as the trains, cars, grocery store, Legos and costumes...

Then we moved the party outside to make sure we wore the kids out before giving them cake and sending them home - ha! I aired the bounce house up and told Thomas to go tell his friends to come outside. I'm not sure he told any of them before taking off to bounce...

In his defense, this was the first time it's been warm enough to take the bounce house outside and it looks much more exciting in the yard!

But his friends figured it out and soon everyone was outside! Matt finished up the super awesome sand box just in time for the party and it was actually more popular than the bounce house - if you can imagine such a thing. Of course, he did do a pretty amazing job on the sandbox! And it has benches to sit on while the kids play. I told him if he can add a cup holder on the side, it will be momma's hang-out all summer!

Not one to miss out on making the party as exciting as possible, I busted out the Bubble Tornado! These poor kids didn't know where to focus their excitement! There were bubbles blowing everywhere!

So much going on at once! Little Lottie is getting in on the bubble action! Thomas is trying to figure out the big bubble wand and there's a dinosaur headed toward the jump house!

The big bubbles were a little tricky, so I ended up having to take over the bubble wand. But they were amazing when I got them to work. Look at those giant things!!!

I think it was at this point Matt noticed one of our new neighbors standing at the fence. He's five and looked so incredibly sad he wasn't part of the action. So we invited him over! (If you look closely in the big bubble, you can see him crouched by the fence at the back)

Finally it was food time - we even managed to get all the kids inside without any tears! I had moved the little tables to one side of the dining room so they could all sit together. And it was strategically as far from the carpet as possible. You're welcome, Matt!

Cake time!!! Aunt Heather had to do a last minute run to the store because I totally forgot to buy a "4"  candle for the top of the cake. Whoops! And you can see the most important part of the cake - the "THOMAS" on the side. When I was showing him Lego cakes, one happened to have his name and he was only interested in the cake that said Thomas. Which is the only reason I found Lego font to make a print-out and cut that thing out by hand. That is love!

Thomas was a little overwhelmed by the lit cake and everyone singing Happy Birthday to him. It was actually pretty impressive how boisterous it was - and sounded so in tune since we had so many different people contributing!

You can also see that Matt is wearing a name tag - I am horrible at names and had the genius idea of having name tags for the parents. It worked great and no one seemed to think it was too weird!

He may have been overwhelmed by the singing, but he was certainly ready to blow his candles out! He almost got all of them in one shot, but it's pretty hard to blow out 13 lit candles. The 4 was not lit because the wick was buried in the wax. What do you expect for a last minute run to the grocery store...?

The kids chowed down on the Lego cake! Some of them liked the Legos better, some of them preferred the cake. Either way, there was pretty much no sound coming from the table for the next few minutes. Which is how you can tell they approve of the cake! :)

Present time! I am usually a "You don't have to bring presents" kind of person, but he seemed so excited about the presents at the parties he has attended that I figured he deserved a chance to open presents with his friends as well. You can see the spectators were equally as interested in what was underneath all the colorful paper!

Overall, it was a great party! I was a little stressed in the days leading up to it, but thankfully not all 16 of his classmates showed up and everyone who came had a blast. There were amazingly no tears and no melt-downs. They just played and played and played until it was cake time and then most of them even said good-bye without too much of a fuss. Win-win-win situation! Happy Almost Birthday Thomas, I can't believe you'll be 4 tomorrow! Love you whole bunches!

And don't think I have forgotten about Henry. Dear Henry was creeping on the sidelines trying to see what presents he could make off with. Lucky for him, Brittney gave Thomas several dinosaur themed presents and one of them was a pack of dinosaur masks. Henry loved the masks! He was roaring and trying to tackle me once I put one on him. Henry did such a good job the whole party hanging with the big boys* and not worrying about all the attention being on his brother. Best little brother, ever! :)

*Ok, in all honesty, he was as big as some of the "big" boys. That might be why he wasn't at all worried about running around with them. Love you, my big-little man!

Whale Watching With Nonni

Last month, when I was making plans for my mom's impending arrival, it occurred to me that this time two years ago we had gone whale watching and it was a great time. So I thought it would be fun to take her out and see some awesome whale action!

We decided to just drive to Seward for the whale watching tour, so it was a bit of a long day in the car. So the boys were pretty excited once we got on the boat and they didn't have to be strapped into their seats any longer. Plus they gave us a map of the route and Thomas loves maps these days. Nonni and the boys are checking out of path and what marine life we should be looking for. 

Speaking of marine life - we got such nice views of the whales last time that I decided to rent a more powerful zoom lens from the photography store in town to play with and hopefully get some awesome photos. I had no idea how large this lens was going to be! Here's the comparison of my 18-200mm lens next to this 80-400mm. It even has a mount to attach it to the tripod instead of the camera! I didn't end up doing that, but I can see where it might have made life easier. I figured the boat wasn't exactly staying still either, so the gains would be minimal. 

I packed the boys backpacks full of toys and snacks for the day. We were sitting down for about 2 minutes before they started pulling out all of their trains and construction vehicles. Apart from Henry trying to mimic a bulldozer backing up, it was a fairly quiet way to keep them entertained...!

Off we went into Resurrection Bay! There are pretty much always otters right outside the harbor and today was no exception. Except today, I could zoom in and see their adorable faces! This guy was grooming himself while keeping an eye on us. Apparently they have to groom themselves quite a bit to make sure their fur stays aligned to keep them warm. 

Our boat captain stopped for us to get a closer look at a bald eagle. He was up hiding in a tree when we first spotted him, but he swooped down for us to get a better look. 

Apparently some seagulls were mad about his appearance though, because they chased him away. Seagulls don't care if he's the national bird, they don't like eagles! But it was fun to watch him landing so majestically. I can see why such a gorgeous bird would have inspired our forefathers to make eagles a national icon. 

Haha - or maybe not. He looks about as ridiculous soaking wet as I do. Well certainly as grumpy about it as I would be. :)

It was a pretty awful day weather-wise. It was sunny and bright yesterday, but we got none of that today. It was windy and rainy and just blah for photo taking. Though the sun nicely came out once we were on the drive back home. (Figures...)

The tour goes on through rain or shine, but there is no guarantee that you will actually see a whale on the Gray Whale Tour. Thankfully, there is plenty of marine life that make Resurrection Bay their home and don't just migrate through. And even the seagulls look more exciting when you can zoom in on them! This time I noticed that they are actually hanging out together in pairs, which just seems super endearing! (Even with all the bird poo on the rocks.)

The Stellar Sea Lions were hanging out on their usual rock. They were so happy to see us that they started yelling at us! The boat captain assured us that we weren't making them mad, it was just how they communicated. 

I think the sea lion on the right is just as grumpy about the weather as I was. You know he would have preferred sunshine! 

See the nice gentle seas? Yeah, me either. I see sea sickness in my future... We hadn't made it out to the mouth of the bay yet and last time that part made me a little queasy and it was super calm compared to today. It was about this time that I decided to go ahead and take another sea sickness while I was still feeling ok...

I wasn't the only one who wasn't feeling great - the captain started out into the bay and the waves were pretty rough. He explained that the height of the waves wasn't as much of a problem as the steepness. We hit one particular one and the people standing outside actually went up into the air when we dropped down the other side of the wave. Which is when the captain reminded everyone it would be a good idea to hold on!

After poking out into the bay, the captain decided everyone would be more comfortable if we just went to the other side of the bay instead of out into the ocean. No one disagreed!

Lucky for us, we found a Harbor Seal just chilling out when we made it safely across. Harbor Seals are apparently a lot less into boat visitors than the seal lions. She was giving us some serious side-eye when we passed by. 

But we finally saw whales! Not the anticipated Gray Whales, but Killer Whales are pretty fun to see as well! The weather has obviously not improved at all, so the photos weren't terribly exciting, but I wanted to prove we *did* actually see some whales. 

Mom seemed pretty happy about the Orcas! She hadn't ventured out for any of the other marine life, which was mostly because she was playing with the boys and they were currently both napping. In spite of the perfectly awful weather, we all had fun. It would have been more fun to see the Gray Whales, but it was fun to just hang out with some of my favorite people. :)

A Hike With Momma!

Even though my mom comes to visit fairly often, it's pretty rare that I get "alone" time with her. It's hard to grab one-on-one time when there are grandkids in the equation, so I decided to take a vacation day to hang out with her. I was trying to think of something fun to do that would also allow us time to catch up on life. And I somehow managed to talk her into going on a hike with me!

She was pretty hesitant about the fact I kept saying "hiking", so I promised to take her to a trail that was nice & flat. I originally was thinking Eklutna Lake because I remembered it being pretty flat, but it dawned on me that I hadn't been back to Eagle River Nature Center since our big backpacking trip in 2008. I thought she would appreciate all my stories about backpacking more if she saw the place we ended up! So ERNC, it was!

It is bear country and the bears are starting to be active, so we dutifully read the bear interaction signs at the visitors center and I brought along the bear spray. Of course as soon as we started down the trail we ran into a pair of ladies walking dogs that had seen a momma bear and cubs on their trail. They helpfully showed us where the bears were and we went in the opposite direction!

Yes, I know bears can travel, but we live in Alaska and bears being around is a bit of a fact of life. You can be sure that I never let more than a second or two pass without making noise though! We definitely got all of our catching up in - though at a higher volume than usual. ;)

Otherwise, it was a lovely day! It had forecasted rain, but we lucked out on the weather. It was a little cloudy, but otherwise a beautiful day! You can see the snow is melting away and the green is slowly working it's way up the mountain. It's a little behind the rest of the country, but spring is definitely here!

We stopped at the beaver pond overlook, but didn't really see any beaver dams. I think the pond is leftover from old beaver activity. The sign said there was a dam below the overlook, so I walked down to take a look. Either I am the worst dam spotter ever (ha!) or they have been overgrown. Mom decided to stay on the trail and not go trailblazing with her daughter. Such a rule follower!

We went down the southern part of the Albert Loop Trail with the goal of making it over to Eagle River. The path is pretty well maintained for early spring, with several bridge crossings and only a few muddy spots. 

Mom patiently waited for me every time I stopped to get random, but interesting nature photos. Though in hindsight, she may have only been patiently waiting because we were in bear country. Hmmm... I'll just pretend it's because she loves my photography so much. ;)

We ended up not quite making it to the river. The loop had a cutoff from previous years due to erosion on the trail and we ended up paralleling the river for longer than we expected. We got a later start than expected and I didn't want to wait too long to head back, so we gave up once we realized the "river" we thought we had spotted in the distance was just a pond. :(

When we looked later, we were so close to the river! But we didn't know that from the very simplistic map of the trail system. I fail as a geologist for not bringing a better map. That's what happens when I don't get any field time for several years, apparently!

Either way, it was a great day hanging out with my momma! She might ask a few more questions before she agrees to any more hikes with her daughters, but that's pretty reasonable I guess... I had a blast - got to go outside on a great day and hang out with one of my most favorite people. Win-win! :)

A Bubble Tornado!

I'd like to pretend that I'm not always jumping on the bandwagon or copying the latest trends. But when your bestie posts photos of her kid's new bubble machine and how much her kids love it - it kinda makes you want to go on Amazon and order it for your kids. Especially once you find out it was a gift from another friend who also has one for her kids. That's enough of a testimonial for me - bubble machine ordered!

Since we don't have the fancy schmancy 2-day shipping we used to enjoy in Texas, I'm always surprised when I get a package. I have a tendency to forget about them because they take so long to get here. But not the bubble machine - I was keeping a close eye on when this baby was arriving!

I convinced myself that I was only buying it for Thomas' upcoming birthday party, but decided we had to try it out to make sure it was as awesome as everyone was claiming. There are several versions (Tornado, Hurricane & Typhoon), but Theresa claimed this one was the best.

As you might be able to tell, Thomas was pretty excited about it once I turned it on!

Henry was still finishing up his dinner when we started playing with it, so after letting it go for a minute, we decided we should wait for him so it didn't run out of bubble juice. Henry doesn't look too enthused about being outside when it is his scheduled bath time. Thomas is trying to turn on the bubble machine to wow his brother. 

"Look at all the bubbles Henry!!!"

Can you tell how much Thomas likes it?? Also, this thing spits out sooooo many bubbles! It was a little windy outside, so it did a much better job once we got it closer to the house and blocked some of the wind. 

Henry was surprisingly a little cautious about the bubbles.

At first...

Soon he was just as excited as his older brother! You can tell by the fact he is levitating off the ground. ;)

Heck, even the adults weren't immune. Mom was playing with the bubbles and I was running through them when I wasn't trying to get photos. We're all kids at heart here!

Matt chased Thomas down and stuck him in the heart of the bubble stream. I never know how the little guy will react to such shenanigans, but he was squealing with laughter on this one. Whew! 

At some point Henry started to get concerned that there were too many bubbles. He started running up and down the driveway yelling "Too many! Too many!!" Maybe he was concerned that there was no way for him to chase them all down? I have no idea - it was pretty hysterical though!

Too many, indeed! There were so many bubbles!

The Bubble Tornado was definitely a hit - a huge hit! We all had a blast playing with it until the bubbles ran out. There's just something about bubbles that makes anyone feel like a kid again. Great recommendation from the Texas contingent, let me know what else we have been missing out on!

Weekend in Juneau

My mom decided that she was going to start coming up for the boy’s birthdays on an alternating basis - since she was here for Henry's last year, she booked a trip up here for Thomas’ birthday in May. We asked if she would mind coming a little bit early so Matt and I could take a short trip to Juneau and she agreed!

We ended up booking an early morning flight on Friday instead of Thursday night because it made sense at the time...? In retrospect, being able to sleep in on Friday would have been amazing. Instead, we got to Juneau super early and drove around aimlessly to check out the scenery. It is vastly different than Anchorage and I apparently missed the “it’s only sunny in Juneau 30% of the time” footnote. 

Luckily, it was only slightly rainy, so we still got some nice views from Douglas Island. In the background you can see Mendenhall Glacier - just below the cloud cover. You might be able to tell from the water that it was super windy outside!

The beach was absolutely covered in barnacles and mussels. I have no idea what the tidal range is for this area, but it’s obviously at least a few feet! And I tried to be super careful to not step on any of them, but I have to admit I might have smushed a few. I am so sorry, dear Barnacles!

We ran into a coworker in town who gave us a few suggestions on places to eat and suggested that we go to the capitol building. It was definitely not high on my list of places to go, but we ended up walking right up to it and decided to check it out.

As a side note, Juneau has quite a bit of artwork, but this slightly threatening bear was my favorite. :)

And randomly - a replica of the Liberty Bell! I wonder how many Liberty Bell replicas there are scattered around the country? I've seen the real one once or twice, but I am quite certain I have also seen a replica somewhere...

Well, I took a break to look up Liberty Bell replicas online and apparently 55 replicas were commissioned in 1950 and they reside near every state capital. Now you know! Not so random, after all!

We walked in the Capitol Building and were met with the nicest security guard ever who told us all about the different floors, gave us a self guided tour pamphlet and told us to have fun. We ran into him later and he again made sure we were enjoying ourselves. Having never had the chance to tour a capitol building, it was actually pretty neat to walk around and see government in action!

Well sorta in action - the legislatures were on break until 4pm. It's nearing the end of a somewhat contentious session, so apparently a break was needed. But I was amazed how much information you could glean for what was going on just by the conversations people were having in the stairwells! 

The next morning, we headed out to Mendenhall Glacier just outside of town to enjoy some time in nature. They had two paths from the parking lot to the main visitor's center - one along the road and one on boardwalks through the woods. Which one do you think we went with?? Nature walk!

There were a few trails to choose from, but I wanted the one that went down to the waterfall and had a view of the glacier. It was more of a walk than a true hike, but you couldn't beat the weather or the spectacular views!

There's Mendenhall! I was really hoping for a big chunk of ice to fall off, but no such luck. Oh well - it was still super pretty and impressive. :)

Matt wandered over to check out Nugget Falls while I was busy taking photos of the glacier. But don't worry, I wasn't going to forget about such a great photo opportunity as a waterfall!

As a side note - this is the only photo you can see the water color change in the lake (right at Matt's thigh level). Matt was asking me what I thought caused it and I told him I was pretty sure it was the fresh water from the falls mixing in to the glacial outwash. Even if I'm wrong, he seemed to buy it! 

Waterfall fun! When I was packing my camera bag, I kept adding more lenses and then more gadgets and toys. But I was especially excited about my ND filters - I hadn't used them since I got one stuck on my lens in Valdez, so I was super careful not to screw them on so tight this time...

Anyhow - I managed to get the settings adjusted so I could leave the shutter open for a full second. It may not sound like a lot, but it really did make the waterfall look completely different. So soft and flowy!

I even did a zoomed in to see how smooth I could get the water. I love the way it cascades over the rock in the center of the frame. It just seems so surreal. 

Meanwhile, Matt is patiently waiting for his wife to stop being such a photo nerd and finish taking photos. He's such a good sport! :)

Of course, he was entertaining himself by scouring the beach for footprints and managed to find this rather large track. Those claw marks look suspiciously like bear claws...! I may have talked super loud on the trek back to the car after finding that.

We decided to head north to the End of the Road (which is only ~40 miles north of Juneau), but I wanted to stop at a Catholic Shrine that one of my friends at work had told me about: The Shrine of St Therese. The actual chapel is out on this narrow spit of land and looked very pretty in the photos on-line. On the walk across the spit, all you can see is a narrow path leading into the trees.

The entrance into the trees was marked by these pillars of rock. 

The chapel hiding in the trees of Shrine Island. It was a fairly small chapel, but it was just as beautiful in person as it had looked online. Plus my best friend, Theresa, is a Catholic, so the fact it was the Shrine of St. Therese made me like it even more.

There were markers scattered in a big ring around the chapel each telling part of the story of Jesus' crucifixion (this one is Resurrection since you can't read it). I don't know all of the icons or rituals of the Catholic church, but walking around and looking at the carvings on each of the sculptures still felt very meditative. It certainly didn't hurt to have such a breath-taking view behind the serene grounds of the chapel.

How can you not feel calm, peaceful and happy when you are out in nature looking at such awesome views? Juneau is a completely different environment from Anchorage and getting away to the small town for a weekend was a nice break from the recent hustle of life back home. 

Plus it didn't hurt to have some Matt & Jen time! Sometimes we get so wrapped up in work, kids and all of our hobbies that we don't take enough time to just enjoy each other. After 12 years of marriage, I still love heading out for a road trip with this guy. Driving around listening to all of our favorite songs with no destination? Perfect! Hiking to a waterfall or glacier? Anytime! Eating way too much food and passing out for a nap after lunch? We should do it more!

Which is why I saved this photo for last, even though it was from earlier in the trip. I took the tripod to get a photo of us and the remote just would not work in the bright light. So I ended up running from the camera to the photo spot. On the last attempt, Matt held out his arms and told me to jump! And I absolutely love how this photo turned out. We both have real smiles because it felt so silly, but sometimes a little bit of silly is what you need. 

I had a blast hanging out with you, Matt! Can't wait to do it again! :)

The Zoo Again! With a Guest Photographer...

When we went to the zoo last week, I ended up buying us a new zoo pass. We had one before and ended up letting our membership lapse. But since going 2.5 times pays for it, I figured it was worth getting it again. Especially since Nonni was coming up for a visit soon and she likes taking the boys there for music or story time during the week!

Since I took a bunch of photos last week, I wasn’t going to take any photos. Then it occurred to me that Thomas might want to take his camera and we could practice his photography skills. He was super excited about this plan! His camera is the one Matt and I bought right before we got married. It was a great camera then and is still a pretty good camera now - though you can certainly tell a difference between it and my fancy Nikon. (I would hope so though, considering the price difference!)

This visit they both got maps and Henry was trying to navigate around like his big brother did last week. He definitely needs some navigating practice! I let Thomas take most of the photos today, but I snapped this one of Henry to make sure the camera was working ok. And it was accidentally a pretty comical photo - I have no idea why that expression on his face is, but with the sunglasses, it’s hilarious. 

Back to Thomas photos! The moose wouldn’t cooperate for a good photo - he kept hiding behind this tree. I was really trying to work with Thomas on looking through the viewfinder. 

He always holds the camera up to his face like he is using it, but he has not gotten the concept of actually looking through it. So that was our focus today! (This photo is from last year, but this is his standard MO for holding the camera. That viewfinder is nowhere near his eye!) Also, that's his camera - and I just noticed that we never peeled the sticker off the front of it - ha! 

He actually managed to get a decent shot of the otters out of the water. They were again running all over the place, but they stayed in place long enough for Thomas to get a photo of them before they ran back in the water. He was honestly just as excited about the pipe in the lower left that shoots water out as he was about the otters…

We made it over to the wolf enclosure and one of the wolves was pacing the fence line. I pointed out the wolf and told Thomas he should take a photo! I am honestly not sure if he was aiming at the wolf and missed or if he was more excited about the pine cones, but there are definitely more pine cones than wolf in the final shot.

The musk ox enclosure is a little biased against short photographers. He managed to get a photo above the bars, but it was challenging. I think most of my photos from when I was a kid look like this. Once we get the looking through the viewfinder mastered, we’ll need to work on composure. So many things to learn!

It also makes me appreciate the fact that my parents bought me a camera when I was young and developed sooooo many rolls of film for me. All I have to do is download photos - I have it way easier! At to be 100% honest, I do clean up his photos a little bit in Lightroom, he still has that lean problem and I figured you all would get tired of tilting your head to see the photos...!)

I then had the brilliant idea of having him take a photo of Henry and I! Ha - he obviously needs a *little* more practice in aiming. In his defense, it might be hard to use the viewfinder with his glasses. Maybe?

Another family walked by us at this point and nicely offered to take a photo of all three of us. I thanked them, but told them I was actually trying to teach Thomas some photography skills. It just might be a longer process than I thought. ;)

His hands finally got chilly enough that he wanted to be able to stick them in his pockets, so he handed the camera back to me. I took one last photo of my two favorite people before we headed back to the car. (And you can clearly tell Henry wanted the camera here, but I'm not quite trusting enough of him yet to hand it over. Soon, Henry...!) All-in-all it was another great day at the zoo and another day closer to the warm & sunny Alaskan summer. Can't wait!