Cute Cowboys!

After our day at the zoo, we headed over to Dallas to spend time with Matt's parents. There is always something fun from Grannie waiting for the boys when we come to visit and today was no exception! She made them the most adorable cowboy outfits and got them hats & bandannas to complete the look.

Most adorable little cowboys ever!!! And you might notice they also have horses...

Grannie made the horses out of pool noodles! They are the cutest googlie-eyed horses ever! I decided such awesome horses needed names, so I encouraged the boys to pick out names for them. Thomas names his horse Chocolate Milk - which is in line with what I used to name animals growing up, like our bull AJ (short for Apple Jacks). 

But Henry...

Henry decided to name his Jennifer. Not sure if I am flattered or worried given the way he was throwing Jennifer around. Given that mischievous little grin, I am going to go with flattered.

Thanks for such awesome get-ups, Grannie. I love my little cowboys!!!

Fort Worth Zoo

Today is Nonni's birthday, so we decided to hang out with her and Grandpa all day. Since we got rained out of visiting the zoo on our last trip and the boys love going to the Alaskan zoo with their Nonni, we figured it was a great activity for her birthday!

I have spent the last few weeks pumping the boys up for how much fun the zoo was going to be. I love our Alaskan zoo, but it's fairly small and limited to pretty much just arctic animals. I just knew the variety of animals at the Fort Worth zoo was going to blow their little minds!

I don't know why I was surprised they wanted to go to the snake & reptile exhibit first - they are two little boys, after all... And they were even up to petting the snake! So they have to be cajoled into petting a furry goat at the fair, but a slithering snake? No problem!

I feel like we were in this exhibit forever looking at snakes. Probably because the lighting was so challenging and I was playing around with my settings trying to get decent photos. Reflective cases are a bit hard to work around...!

We finally made it back outside and started wandering around. We opted for the stroller rental because it is a lot of walking and I wanted to maximize what the boys got to see. The fact that it provided a little extra shade for my two pale little guys was a nice bonus! The kangaroos were also all about the shade - it was a hot day! And shout out to the kangaroos - they were always one of my favorites because they are my highschool mascot. Go Roos!

This boy *loves* maps. Paper maps, digital maps and big maps on signs. He was so excited about how this giant map, but was quick to point out the water park was missing from this map because it's a fairly new addition. How is he so observant?!?

Giraffes - so pretty and graceful until you see them trying to eat. Poor guy was really having a hard time grazing. I guess that's what happens when you blow through all the low hanging leaves. ;)

Doesn't Nonni look like she is having the best birthday ever?? She was helping Henry feed the fish in the pond. He had the right concept, but is aim was not so great...

Lunch time! I think I was more excited about the Burger King crowns than my kids were, but they wore them anyhow. And for the record, Thomas' obsession with eating raw onions hasn't gone away yet. Poor Nonni was on the receiving end of the "Smell my breath!" over and over again. Good thing Nonni is a loving person!

We headed over to see the primates after lunch since it was mostly indoors and it was getting hot outside! Henry was not at all interested in standing at the window to see the Bonobos (I think I spent my childhood thinking they were Chimpanzees). This was good planning on his part, some other little boy came over and was standing next to Thomas when this Bonobo suddenly whipped around and smacked the glass super hard. The boys both screamed a little - Thomas is still giggling about it in this photo, Henry was super glad to be far, far back. Ha!

Of course, their dad is not one to be upstaged by a primate, so he had them shrieking and laughing by steering their cart every which direction - including a little bit of off roading.  

We finally made it over to the water park that is inside the zoo. They pretty much kept asking about the water park as soon as we arrived, but I made them wait until we saw all the fun animals because I figured they would be out of energy once they ran all over this place. And I was right - they had such a blast playing with everything. They both even managed to go down water slides all by themselves - though I didn't get any photos since I was obviously keeping a close eye on them. 

They had these water toys you could buy to spray your friends and this giant wall of knobs and faucets to refill the toys. I didn't buy them the toys since they would have a very limited use in Alaska, but they were more excited about spraying water with the wall of knobs. Simple pleasures...!

Overall, they had a blast despite the huge difference in temperature from home! And Nonni seemed more than happy to spend her birthday hanging out with all of us.

Happy birthday, Nonni! We love you whole bunches!

Annual Trek to Texas!

It's that time again - we are headed to Texas! We've been counting down the days and the boys couldn't be happier to be headed down south to see their grandparents and all the aunts, uncles and cousins (related or assumed)! 

I thought we would try something new this year and take an overnight flight. Of course, there aren't any this time of year without a layover (or twice the cost on American), so we picked the best one we could with a long enough layover in Seattle to eat and wear them out.

In the end, the second leg was pretty awful because Henry couldn't stay asleep and kept waking his brother up. I managed to keep him from waking the whole plane up, but none of us really got much sleep by the time we landed in DFW at 6am.

Oh well, we tried... 

Thank goodness, we could hand off the boys to my parents as soon as we got to their house, so Matt and I could crash for the morning. Then eat and take another nap with the boys by the time they finally got tired. After we were all mostly human again, we headed off to the park to get a little bit of fun time in. 

It was mostly a waste of a day for us, but Henry and Thomas didn't seem to mind at all. 

Riding on a plane, seeing your grandparents and playing in a park all in the same 24 hour period is plenty of excitement for them. I wish I had their boundless energy, but I'll settle with being happy we survived the trip down once more! :)

State Fair

This year, I moved out Texas trip a bit earlier to coincide with the Labor day weekend, so the only state fair visit we were getting this year was in Alaska. Unfortunately, the schedule moving meant we only had one Friday to choose from and Matt wouldn't be able to join us thanks to his busy hunting schedule (and work, obviously). I figured the boys were getting big enough that the three of us could split food and still get a reasonable sampling of fair food awesomeness!

I purposely wore them out this morning* so they would fall asleep in the car well prior to their usual nap time. This had the added benefit that we got to the fair right at lunch time. Nothing like corn nuggets and cheese curds to start the day off right! I also wizened up this year and brought bowls along for them so they didn't have to deal with unwieldy paper plates and boats. Plus they could keep eating while being pulled around in their trusty wagon! 

Of course, the most important thing for boys to see at the fair is the lumberjack show. It is the highlight of their day. Thomas was seriously stressing out about making it to the show on time and kept pointing the show area on the map. You show that kid a location on the map one time and he does not forget it! (I think the map may be his second favorite part of the fair...)

Also, the day turned out to be gorgeous and sunny, so we were totally over dressed. Henry kept complaining he was hot while we were sitting there, but refused to leave to go find a t-shirts. I finally had him stand behind me so he could sorta be in the shade. Thomas was hot, but not going to miss his show to remedy the situation.

Most of the lumberjack activities involve actually chopping or sawing wood in some manner, but those honestly don't look very exciting in photographs. But the lumberjacks trying to knock each other into the water? That turned out some awesome expressions! And just like wrestling, it's totally over dramatized and stages, but still hilarious.

The log rolling was my favorite - even with it being staged, I would not have the balance to run on a log and still manage to kick water at the other guy. So kudos to you, lumberjacks!

After the show, we wandered around to find some indoor activities. We found a craft station to make lollipop spiders. Henry needed a little bit of help from the volunteers, but Thomas managed to make his spider by himself! But Henry did turn his hat backwards all by himself - he's naturally that rad. ;)

Finally my favorite part - the barnyard animals! This farmer pulled out one of the newly hatched baby chickens for the boys to see. They seemed impressed, but didn't want to touch the little chick... It's times like this I feel my kids are missing out on not having I ton of farm animals like I did growing up. :(

On to the petting zoo! I tried to convince the boys to feed the little animals, but that was a firm "nope". 

They would try to pet the goats while I was feeding them though. In their slight defense, these goats are intense trying to get food from the people in the enclosure. If you even act like you have food they are all about you!

Henry checking out the goat house and trying to convince the goats to go in their house. Ha - not while there is food around! 

After walking around the barn, that little taste of freedom meant they no longer wanted to ride in the wagon. I let them pull it around for a little while, but managed to convince them we would get to the rides a *lot* faster if they would let me pull them. (You can probably tell by their footwear what weather I was expecting...)

Ride time! Henry is still short enough that I have to ride the rides with him, but the two of them decided they wanted to ride in the front of the dump truck. I wasn't sure if that was ok, but the ride operator told me it was fine to ride in the truck in front of them and just keep an eye on them. Perfect for photos!!

We had planned out our meal plan for the day before we came to the fair and I planned our route accordingly, but somehow I forgot where the mini-donuts were. The boys could not be persuaded to eat an elephant ear instead, so we had to wander around until we found the donuts. Thankfully, the boys were appreciative enough of my efforts that I didn't grumble too much about pulling a super heavy wagon in the heat. (Just a little grumbling, I promise! Mostly under my breath, too!)

But as usual, all good things must come to an end and it came shortly after the donuts. A mix of sugar, heat and pure excitement all combined to a little bit of a toddler melt down. Thankfully the (best) wagon (ever) has seatbelts in case you have to strap your kid in to get them safely back to the car. And Henry was mostly recovered before we left, so we had time to stop and grab kettle corn for the drive home. It's the little things in life... :)

*Thank you bounce house for enabling me to wear these two out almost any time it is really necessary. I don't know how we would survive without it - especially in the middle of winter!

Job well done! :)

Final Soccer Game

Thomas enjoyed the first session of soccer so much that we signed him up for the second round as well. Henry started tumbling again as well, so the week nights have been a little bit stressful. But I did remember to pack the camera for Thomas' final soccer game!

The first session had eight teams for the 4/5 year olds, but second session had only two. Thomas didn't seem to mind playing the same team every week and he got to switch to the blue team. For the record, the red team had a much better supplier for socks. The blue socks were the bane of my existence every time I had to get him dressed. (And I *could* have bought new ones, but since Sports Authority went out of business, we pretty much lost our only sports supplier in town!)

Of course, the last game had to feature rain. We may not have been the best soccer parents and skipped several games when it was raining too hard. The league plays rain or shine, but we figured our four year old didn't need to know that. But since it was his last game, we made him go. He was obviously super thrilled about that...

Oh and our coach had to bow out a few games ago because she had a baby! The first time she was missing, no one was helping the kids, so I tried to coach them based on what I remember her doing and I was awful! According to the super helpful kids, I wasn't telling them what to do well enough and my own kid kept running off to the playground. I was so grateful when another dad showed up and saved me. 

I am many things - soccer coach I am not.

Thomas finally got into playing once he realized the rain wasn't holding anyone else back. 

Henry wants so badly to be playing with the big kids that he tries to help Thomas get his ball every time it goes out of bounds. Thomas doesn't seem to appreciate the help... 

It's hard being the younger sibling, Henry. You have all of my sympathies!

Line up for the last game! It looks like Thomas is the only one standing at attention. Matt can probably take credit for that. :)

The chaos of little kids chasing the ball hasn't really changed much from the first session. Thomas does great at keeping up with the pack and he does a little bit better when he has the ball to actually kick is most of the time. Woo - progress!

Henry of course, hates sitting on the sidelines. Usually we go play at the playground next to the field, but since everything was soaked I didn't think that was a good idea today. So we went exploring to find the moose statue at the front of the school. Since we had just seen the moose in the yard, he was even more excited about them. He kept giving them hugs and tried to kiss them (I did intervene on that one!).

Other than being a logistical pain some nights, it was a great soccer season this year and hopefully we can get both kids playing next year! Go soccer!

Dinner Guests

It's rare that we have company over for dinner during the week because kids and work and all that jazz, but we made an exception today! Two of my good friends, Chris & Kelly, are moving away  and I wanted to have them over before I left on a long trip to Texas and missed the chance to properly say goodbye. 

As it turns out, they weren't the only guests to show up for dinner! 

We were standing around chatting when we noticed this adorable moose calf chowing down on some greenery in the back yard. There haven't been hardly any moose sightings in the back yard this year, so it was super exciting! And he didn't seem too bothered by me taking photos from the safety of the porch. Though he is quite clearly keeping an eye on me...

Matt missed seeing the baby calf because the little guy wandered off shortly after the photos were taken and Matt hadn't quite made it home yet. 

But a few hours later, Daddy Moose showed up to say hi! I honestly don't think we have ever had a bull moose wander into the yard. I have no idea if single dad's exist in the moose world, but that was the consensus from the four of us. 

He just walked over the fence like it was no big deal. This was also the point Matt suggested I should come back inside. Don't worry - I was headed that way! Thank goodness for good zoom lenses that keep you at a relatively safe distance... ;)

Daddy Moose hung around the yard for a little while as well to enjoy our greenery. I was worried that he was going to step on the kid's sandbox, but he thoughtfully steered clear!

What a gorgeous guy! And Matt must have cleaned the windows recently because the photos turned out crystal clear in spite of being shot from indoors. (Safety first!)

A proper dinner party with Alaska wildlife to send our dear friends off to the lower 48. We are going to miss you guys terribly! :)

Katmai Trip - Fishing With The Bears

We aren't the biggest fishermen in the world, but our friends recommended getting a fishing guide while we were there and fishing the Brooks River. The river runs between Lake Brooks and Naknek Lake (the camp is on the shore of the Naknek). I can't find the actual length of the river, but I'm guessing it's maybe a mile and a half? We booked a full day of fishing and the plan was to spend the morning on the upper part of the river, then fish downstream of the falls after lunch. 

After our campsite breakfast, one of the camp employees very nicely drove us up to the start of the river and with the plan to walk back toward camp while fishing. It was so windy this morning that all of the boat fishing trips got cancelled and the wind was making white caps on the lake. The same lake that was feeding the Brooks River... 

I don't know how the current is when there isn't a lot of rain and wind, but to me it was going very strong and I was super uncomfortable for the first part of the day. I had my camera in a dry bag in my bakpack and never once thought it was safe to pull it out. At one point, I tripped and fell in the middle of the river, but out dear guide, Nick, managed to catch me before I went under. That certainly didn't help my sense of security...

Matt apparently was not having any issues with the current and immediately caught a fish. And I had to carefully make my way down to him to get a photo of him with his salmon. He looks pretty proud of catching the first fish, huh?

And the second fish, and the third fish, etc. I think he only caught the one salmon and the rest were Rainbow Trout. I didn't catch anything in the upper part of the river, but I was much more concerned about staying upright than fishing. Even the guide thought the water was a little too high in a few places. We had to get out of the river and walk through the forest to get around a really sketchy part. 

After lunch at the lodge, we were ready to get back at it! We ran into Tiffany and Stephanie at lunch and they were all kinds of excited from fishing the lower falls. I figured I didn't care so much about fish, but I was ready to see the bears! We hiked up to the falls platforms and got in the water a little bit downstream of the falls. 

Matt was ready to start fishing again, but I was much more excited about taking photos of the bears! It's a different view than you get from an elevated platform and I was having a blast watching them! Also, Matt's practice fly rod has paid off, he certainly looked like he knew what he was doing. I, on the other hand, have never used a fly rod in my life. I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly, but the fish obviously weren't too impressed by my technique...

Not that I didn't already know this, but the bears were much better at fishing than me! (The birds and I might be on the same skill level.) 

Turns out, I am much braver with my Canon Powershot than I was with my big Nikon. I have less of an emotional attachment to my little camera and the zoom on it was actually super impressive! The photo quality is a little less, but overall the little guy did a great job. I ended up with a collection of photos from the Nikon, the Canon and our phones. I'll let you try to figure out which photo was shot with which camera. ;)

I saw this big guy start meandering our way from the falls and I was definitely keeping an eye on how close he was getting. He caught this fish as he was walking downstream and I thought he was close enough that we should probably move back to the other side of the river. In case it's not super obvious, we are standing right in the middle of the river while fishing!

Anyhow, I say "Bear" just in time to hear Matt yell "Fish on!". Not the best time to be catching fish, honey! Luckily, we were able to move to the other side of the river and the fish stayed on the line in the water. We pulled him out to let him go once the bear had moved on. Crisis averted!

I may not have a fish, but I did want a photo of me with the bear behind me! Priorities... :) 

After we had been fishing for awhile, another bear wandered up from downstream. We backed up again, but this bear definitely got more attention because (according to our guide) she is a troublemaker. How so?

She has two cubs and she has a bad habit of leaving the cubs on the side of the river while she goes in to the river to fish (sometimes pretty far away). The cubs can be hard to see if they aren't moving, so sometimes people end up walking between momma bear and the cubs, which makes momma bear super unhappy. She has never been aggressive toward anyone, but she will run back to the cubs and freak the humans out.

Thankfully, we knew they were there and could steer clear of them!

I think that look on Matt's face is "She's still far enough behind me, right?"

She was by far the most successful bear I have seen so far at catching fish. She would catch one or two for every one she would bring back for the cubs to eat. The two of them would get all excited and start fighting over who got the first first. Siblings...

They were mostly waiting patiently beside the river, but momma would wander back and convince them to walk in the river. As soon as she was far enough out though, they seemed to prefer to be back on the bank. Or maybe they just didn't like me taking photos of them? That's some serious side-eye the cub is throwing my way. 

They were cute enough that I braved pulling out the Nikon. You can barely see Momma Bear on the bank (right above the tip of my lens). I'm not going to lie, I was much more interested in photos than fishing. Our guide figured that out pretty quick and nicely offered to hold my fishing pole so I could snap pictures. :)

But I did fish some and I finally caught one! Matt didn't believe me when I kept saying that I didn't care if I caught one and he said the size of the smile on my face in this photo proved him right. Ok, I was pretty happy to catch a fish - especially since it was the first catch with a fly rod. Wooo! 

We finally decided to head back to camp. Nick said we could either go back to the platform and hike down the road or we could walk down the river to camp. Well that's not a hard choice at all - let's go for the fun route! There were a few spots that were a little high, but the current was much calmer than it was on the upper river. Having never used waders until moving to Alaska, the novelty of walking in the water with them on has not worn off! 

After fishing, I told Matt the only thing that could make the vacation even more perfect was a spot at the fireplace in the lodge to hang out for a while after dinner. It had been full every night, but today there were two spots waiting for us! A perfect ending to a great trip!

Sunday morning, we woke up later than we planned (sleeping in is awesome!!), but we still managed to have time to make our camp biscuits & gravy, pack up our gear and make it to the pre-flight weigh-in by the requested time. We had just enough time to buy postcards for the boys before it was time to board our float plane. Perfect timing!

It was an awesome trip and I highly recommend taking a trip to Katmai if you are ever in Alaska (or come up here for it)! Thanks again to Heather for watching the boys so we could go. Can't wait to go back!

Katmai Trip - Valley of 10,000 Smokes

For day two at Katmai we booked a bus trip out to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes - which is pretty much the only place the road goes from Katmai. I was pretty excited to check out the geologic aftermath from one of the largest eruptions in the 20th century (1912 to be exact!). After a leisurely breakfast at the lodge, we headed down the trail to meet up with the bus. We had to make sure to leave a little bit of extra time after all the warnings of bear closures. 

Sure enough - it was closed because a bear was taking a swim! We actually walked up in time to hear the Park Ranger telling everybody that this was Holly (Bear 435), one of the more famous bears at Katmai. She adopted an abandoned bear cub while she had her own younger bear cub - pretty unheard of in the bear world! She apparently decided both of the cubs were old enough this year to strike out on their own and was enjoying a leisurely swim in Brooks Lake all by herself. 

I honestly didn't realize bears would swim around so long for fun. It reinforces the fact that I think bears act like big, overgrown dogs. Who may try to kill you in most circumstances...

There were so many people walking around camp with *gigantic* lenses on their camera, I was having a bit of lens envy. I've really only ever seen people taking photos of birds with those kinds of magnifications, but the birds were getting absolutely no attention here. So I took some photos of the ducks that were swimming by all slowly trying to strike up some interest. Poor guys just don't stand a chance to be noticed with the bears around! 

And since I was zooming in on the ducks, I also happened to notice this bee feasting on the fireweed. My first thought was that I should follow him back to his hive and steal some honey - fireweed honey would be the best! Then I remembered the last bee I took a photo of tried to attack me and I decided I had enough of the nature photography for a now...!

Once we made it safely across the bridge, we headed off on our tour. Each tour has a park ranger that rides along and narrates different stops along the way. Our tour guide kept telling us how lucky we were because the first tour she was assigned to was completely fogged in. She said she was standing in this spot describing the mountains and forests that no one could even see. What a way to start a new job!

Our awesomely rugged tour bus. The drive out has three river crossings and the bus handled them like a champ. Definitely not your ordinary school bus. Plus there were seat belts! Is that a thing yet in school buses or just because we were fording streams?

One of my friends at work, Tiffany, happened to book a trip to Katmai at the same time we did. Which also happened on our Juneau trip in April! I feel like I rarely see Tiffany in Anchorage, but we like to vacation in the same spots apparently - I should ask her where "we" are going next! :)

Now that is a huge pile of volcanic ash! Novarupta, the volcano that formed/erupted in 1912, spewed out lava and ash for days. The ash is solidified now and is up to 700' thick in places. The ash layer and lava engulfed the rivers turned them to steam - which created thousands of steaming fumeroles, thus the name! It took decades for the mass to cool down, but unfortunately, there is no longer any smoke. But they still kept the Valley of 10,000 Smokes moniker. :)

In that same amount of time, the rivers have managed to carve their way back down through the volcanic rocks and create some pretty cool gorges. We hiked down to the valley floor to find the "waterfall" - which was basically a roaring river dumping out into a calmer stream. More of a hydraulic jump than a waterfall if you ask me...!

Look at all that ash! And I have no idea why it weathered the way it did at the top, but it looked like a giant Hershey Kiss to me. Or I was hungry from the hike down and wanted chocolate. Who knows?

Our friends even took a picture of us at the waterfall! It's rare we get a photo together these days. Plus we looked much happier here than the sweaty mess we had become on the hike back up to the visitor's center. The sun actually came out and warmed this valley up quite a bit! 

(As a side note - did I mention we are going to Texas in a few weeks? I'm going to melt!)

Tiffany and Stephanie tried to walk up and down with us, but we were a little too slow for them. These two are hiking champs! Thankfully, they were happy enough to hang out with us at the bottom and top. Sorry we're so out of shape, ladies! 

We actually spent a lot of time at the river. The way the water was roaring in the air was almost hypnotic. Matt kept shooting slow motion videos trying to see what was actually happening at slower speeds. I kept zooming in and trying to freeze the foaming water. It looked so neat!

Then I was trying to figure out how to capture the flowing water without a tripod. I managed to get a decent image while holding the camera as still as I could. 1/6th of a second sounds pretty fast until you are trying to hold a heavy camera steady! Luckily I managed to get one that was in focus. Woo!

(Please excuse my photography nerdiness...)

On the hike back up, the fireweed was lit up in the sun and definitely made the hill look like it was on fire. It also made me worry that summer is wrapping up - these things only go red when fall is approaching. It's too soon! :(

Overall, the tour day was awesome! I wasn't sure how it would compare to hanging out and watching the bears, but being able to hike though such cool geology definitely won me over. And we still got to see the bears when we got back to camp. Next up - fishing with the bears tomorrow!

Not sure how ready I am for that...!

Katmai Trip - The Falls

Thanks to my sister generously offering to watch the boys for a long weekend, Matt and I finally got to go to Katmai - aka the park with all of the bears! We have been wanting to go pretty much since we moved here, but it's not the most little kid friendly park... Needless to say, I have been brimming with excitement since we booked the tickets! Camping! Bears! Fishing!

And...

My first ride on a float plane! I think you can fly straight from Anchorage, but we used our miles to fly to King Salmon, then hopped on Katmai Air for the flight over to Brooks Camp. Katmai is SW from Anchorage, down on the Alaska peninsula, but there aren't any roads into the Katmai area. So float plane and boat are the only options to get there!

The plane was only half full, so I asked the pilot if the passenger seat up front was open. He said yes, but no cameras were allowed up there. Well I was no longer interested in the seat, so Matt took it instead. I didn't get that many great photos on the flight anyhow because of the weather, but I wanted to have the option to take photos!

Finally made it to Brooks Camp! There is a lodge at Katmai run by the same people who run Katmai Air, but we opted for the *much* cheaper option of staying at the campground. It's about a 1/3 mile down a trail and is surrounded by an electrical fence. When you first arrive at Katmai, they have you watch a safety video on how to behave and what to do if a bear approaches closer than the recommended 50 yard safe distance. They also made sure to point out that the fence around the campground is bear "resistant", not bear "proof". Got it!

We walked down to camp, set up our tent and dropped all of our extra food and gear in the storage buildings in the campground. They ask they you walk around with no food or drinks apart from a bottle of water, so we have to put away all of our snacks. In the time it took to set-up and then head back to the lodge, these signs had been put up on the trail halfway back to the lodge. We both went a little bit on high alert after that!

I have been watching the Bear Webcams online with Thomas the past few weeks to show him where we were going. He was pretty worried that we weren't taking any of the "red stuff" (bear spray) with us, but I managed to convince him we would be ok. Camp is back to the right in this photo. You have to cross this bridge which is not bear proof, then walk about a mile or so to the falls. This bridge gets "closed" quite frequently due to bear activity - they made sure to show us photos of bears on the bridge to ensure we know it's not a safe place to spot for photos.

We finally made it to the bear viewing platform (which is a safe place to stop and take photos!) and the first platform we went to was further downstream than the falls. But there was still a bear hanging out in the river fishing. I was pretty sure we spotted some cubs with this momma bear, but they were pretty well hidden by the time she wandered into a good photo spot. :)

Then we made it to the main falls platform. So many bears!!! They were all very focused on the fish in the river, though some of them were making more progress than others actually catching the fish...

Like this big ole guy in the corner staring down in the water with a longing look on his face. I didn't see him catch any fish while we were there. I'm honestly not sure I even saw him try to catch any fish. But he is obviously not in danger starving to death - he has clearly been feasting all summer! 

Speaking of which - the first weekend in August isn't considered the peak time to go to Katmai because the fish aren't running quite as much as earlier in July. But there were obviously still plenty of fish in the water and they were nonstop trying to jump up and over the falls. I would guess that more missed than made it while we were watching, but a few made it up! Also, since it wasn't the peak season, we didn't have to worry about waiting for a spot on the platform to watch the bears. I heard in peak season, it can be a 3 hour wait - crazy!

This guy was hanging by himself closer to the platform and he looked more like he was enjoying a day at the spa rather than trying to fatten up for winter. He was in the midst of foaming water up to his chin. He would look at us, then look at the water, then look back at us without a care in the world. 

I looked away from Mr. Relaxation to watch the other bears fishing, so I was shocked when I looked back and the "lazy" bear was walking off to chow down on a tasty salmon. 

I'm assuming he took the fish over to a gravel bar to enjoy his meal without having to worry about dropping it in the water. The sea gulls were hoping that he would drop a few pieces of fish that they could swoop in and steal. Steal after the bear left, of course, they were smart enough not to try and steal the fish *from* the bear...!

Also, I don't think the bear left them any scraps at all. Bears and I might agreed that salmon sushi is the best, but I draw the line at eating the bones and such. 

He wandered back to his jacuzzi pool to relax in the water. This time I kept an eye on him to see how he had snagged that fish. A few minutes later, he stuck his head into the water and emerged with another fish. Impressive!

This time he decided to go ahead and eat the salmon where he was - less of a crowd than eating near the birds! We watched him do the same fishing move several times while we were there and he only missed once that I saw. A very proficient fisherman... Fisherbear?

We finally got hungry enough that we decided to walk back to camp. After watching them in the water for so long, I was motivated enough to make plenty of noise on our hike back. I was "Hey Bear!"ing all the way back to camp. Though apparently some people that we met on the plane did the same on their walk back shortly after us and they had a bear walk out of the woods and saunter up the trail to within 6' of them before turning back to the woods.

Sooooooo the "Hey Bear" must not be a flawless method. Uh-oh...

Air Show

I have only been to an air show once when Matt and I were first dating. I don't remember that much about it, but I recall it being fun. We tried to go to one when living in Houston, but after sitting in traffic for over 2 hours just to get to the show exit, we turned around and went home. (The traffic was somehow even worse past the exit!)

But when we saw the Joint Air Force / Army base up here was putting on a show this weekend, we thought we should take the boys. Then we heard the traffic on Saturday was as bad as the Houston one and almost gave up. But we planned our trip so that we would get stuck in the traffic right at a good nap time for the boys. We were ready for the worst!

Except there was zero traffic! We were on base and walking amongst some very cool planes in no time. How awesome! (Except for the no nap part...)

One of the first planes inside the gate was a B-52 Bomber and they had the bottom door open to walk underneath the plane. The boys did not appreciate they were getting to walk in what would otherwise be a very bad place to be standing!

I have to confess that I am pretty bad at identifying planes, so I wasn't even sure this was a B-52 bomber. Luckily, I happened to catch the tail of the plane in another shot and was able to do some quick internet research. Turns out this exact plane is the *youngest* in the B-52 fleet and turned 50 a few years ago. All the articles I could find also mention it was sent to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, so I guess several of the planes on base travelled quite a ways to get there. Lucky for us!

There was a C-17 flying around doing demonstrations and I am 100% sure that it was an Alaskan one, we have met several C-17 pilots up here. Plus it has an Elmendorf banner painted on the tail! ;)

On to the helicopters! We had to get a photo of Thomas in the pilot seat of a Blackhawk since he is named after a Blackhawk pilot. He wasn't too sure about sitting up there with all of the instrumentation, but he gave us a big thumbs up anyhow!

Henry, on the other hand, couldn't be bother to look at the camera because he was ready to grab the controls and start flying. Could these two be any more different? 

I couldn't get a decent photo of the exterior of the Blackhawk because so many people were crowded around it to get photos sitting inside. But I did snap a photo of the Apache sitting next to it so you could see the skis on this landing gear - the Blackhawk had them as well. These helicopters are obviously set up for flying in Alaskan terrain!

I saw an ice cream truck and thought the boys would love one of those character ice creams on a stick that you always see. Except they were all sold out of everything except these popsicles. They didn't seem to mind too much that they weren't a cartoon character. I was kinda bummed though - those thing always looked fun to me as a kid!

Next we headed over to the C-5 Galaxy transport plane. I was thinking we would just pull the wagon through the plane, but the ramp was a little steep. So Matt hung back with the wagon while the boys and I walked through! I had been explaining to Thomas the other day that there was a plane so big another plane could fit inside of it and he didn't believe me. I was pretty excited to show him I wasn't making it up!

The downside to those popsicles we gave them? They looked like little goth boys! Ha - it was dark enough in the plane I didn't get a great photo, but the dark lips were funny enough to share even with some blur. Plus Thomas looked so concerned about sitting in the plane - I think he wanted to get through the giant plane as soon as possible!

I would also like to point out I managed to get them to both wear plane themed shirts! I had zero success in trying to convince Henry to not wear his new Star Wars swim trunks. Whatever - not a battle worth fighting... 

As I got the boys settled back in the wagon, the loudspeaker made an announcement about the next aircraft, which neither Matt nor I really paid attention to. Matt asked if we should put the headphones on the boys and I figured we didn't need to yet since I knew the Blue Angels were last. Matt decided to just go ahead and put them on anyhow.

Thank goodness! The next thing we knew, this aircraft was screaming into take-off and roaring up into the sky. Matt and I had our hands clamped over our ears and I had to yell above the noise "Good call, honey!" We scrambled to put our ear plugs in while this monster aircraft was not right above us. What the heck is that thing?!?

Turns out, that thing is a F-22 Raptor *and* my new favorite aircraft. This thing was amazing!!! It was loud and fast and doing things that I've never seen an aircraft do. It's a stealth aircraft, but it was not exactly flying in "stealth mode" today - it was in full blown show off mode!

Before it landed, the Raptor did a few circles with a World War II era bomber, the P-51 Mustang. It was so neat to see how much things have changed in the past few decades with aircraft. The Mustang sounded almost distinguished compared to the angry and intimidating roar of the Raptor. Also I was a little amazed that the Raptor could pace the Mustang without falling out of the sky - I had assumed it had to go as close to Mach speed as possible. ;)

Last, but not least, the Blue Angels took to the skies! They were flying five F-18 Hornets at the show today, so four were in a fairly constant diamond formation and the fifth one was doing the solo runs by himself. 

Thomas was super excited about the Blue Angels, the base is just north of town and they had been practicing their maneuvers over the city the last few days. They did a few runs that were visible from the daycare and all Thomas could talk about was how these planes were flying straight at each other, then went straight up like a volcano (with accompanying hand motions). He was in awe as the planes did their numerous fly-bys as such close distances. 

The solo plane kept getting me though! The Raptor had stayed relatively close to the base with his maneuvers, but the Angels went far enough away you would lose track of them. Then all of a sudden this super loud plane was zooming over your head with no warning. Thankfully, they keep it below Mach 1 by staying at ~700mph or less. :)

Overall, the show was awesome and the boys made it through almost the whole thing before we started losing the youngest one. Not bad for accidentally skipping his nap time! The only downside is that the Arctic Thunder show is only once every 2 years. :(

Can't wait for 2018!