Since Matt was supposed to be gone for a few weekends, I had made plans to go to Talkeetna with the kids and just hang out. I figured we would miss Matt less if we weren't just hanging out at the house. But since he was back home early, he came with us!
We hadn't stayed in the cabin for a few years, so I was pretty excited about going back. Plus you can have dogs in the cabin, so the girls got to join in on the family trip. Not for the photo though... Matt can't exactly hold a dog leash right now, so they were stuck inside for photo time.
After breakfast, we wandered down to the river to see if Denali was out (though you can tell there really wasn't much of a chance of that based on the weather...). I was going to let them throw rocks in the river, but it was much higher than usual and I didn't want them getting close to the bank at all!
Luckily there was a nice beachy area just to the left!
Much less scary to let them throw rocks in where the water is gentle. Unfortunately, the girls were not at all impressed by the fact I wouldn't let them in the water. Sorry girls - you have not proven yourself very competent with currents, so it's not happening!
We randomly picked the weekend of Denali's 100th anniversary to be in Talkeetna - which happens to have the ranger station that is the home base for all mountaineering adventures to Denali. A park ranger found us throwing rocks in the river and told us to stop by since they had all kinds of activities for kids.
The boys had a blast with several of the activities, including these rad "100" glasses! But the best park where the park badges they were handing out. We've collected several of these and they are always plastic, but not today! Since it was such a momentous occasion, they had badges laser engraved out of birch. They were only for the celebration and the kids thought they were the coolest thing.
Happy Birthday Denali! :)