Ketch-me-if-you-can

On the 3rd day, we hit our first port in Ketchikan where we took a 730 am departure aboard a seaplane to the Misty Fjords National Monument. The spectacular vistas of mountains, lakes, and fjords was breathtaking. We even got to land on a secluded mountain lake! You can only see the Misty Fjords by air and it's typically a very rainy place, so we were delighted that we had clear blue skies.

We spent the afternoon exploring the shops of Ketchikan before taking the hike up to the Totem Pole park.

Bon Voyage!

We departed for Alaska out of Vancouver in the early afternoon. It was my first cruise experience and Dave's 2nd (although his first was a Disney cruise as a little kid). We were excited for all of the ports we would visit and the delicious food we would eat. Upon checking into our room, we had to report to our muster stations for training and then we set sail for the Inside Passage. We waved goodbye to Vancouver and said hello to our home for the next week-- the Celebrity Millennium.

I was amazed with the facilities! There were restaurants and buffets on every deck; there were fancy gyms, pools, casinos, bingo halls, theaters, and auditoriums. It's like it's own little city on the sea. You can imagine my excitement finding that you could have any type of food you wanted at any hour of the day. And while the restaurants and buffets are closed from 2 to 5 am, the free room service operated 24 hrs/day! Our first full day on the ship was spent at sea, but we used it as a time to take in the beautiful sites of the Inside Passage from the top viewing deck and even found time for some Bingo. It was the first Formal night and we enjoyed dressing up for the fantastic four-course meal. After dinner, we enjoyed a show at the theater.

Our dinnermates: all of them were from New Jersey and one of the couples was even our age!

I can't imagine a better place to cruise-- you don't just see water from your room, you see beautiful fjords and mountains rising from the ocean floor. It made the day at sea magical!

Vancouver Bound!

We began our Alaskan adventure in the pacific northwest. We chose to fly into Seattle to visit with Lonnie before driving up to Vancouver in advance for our Alaskan cruise departure.
In Seattle, WA and met Lonnie in Kirkland for lunch. This sounds like an unusual combination, but I loved the peanut butter bacon cheeseburger I had for lunch! We then made the pretty drive thru to British Columbia. We checked into the Westin - Bayshore in Vancouver (a beautiful hotel on the waterfront!) and we put on our hiking gear and did the 6 mile loop around Stanley Park. It had really gorgeous views of the ocean, downtown Vancouver and the Lions Gate bridge. We capped off the evening with a romantic dinner atop the Vancouver Lookout which was a similar setting to the Space Needle. The restaurant revolved around a couple times throughout dinner and we got a birds-eye view of the beautiful sunset over Stanley Park. Our meals weren't very filling, so we spent the night exploring the famous Robson St and got some wonderful gelato there.

The next day we headed north to the Capilano Suspension Bridge where we had a ton of fun bouncing on the planks some 200 ft above the river, exploring the treetops adventure course, and taking in the amazing vistas. This was our favorite activity in Vancouver!

Dave had never been to Vancouver before and I think he really liked how modern and clean the city was! The last time I went, I didn't explore Capilano or Stanley and it was quite nice to see the more scenic side of the city!

Iowa

We just returned yesterday from spending Memorial Day weekend in Iowa. We went back to celebrate Jack's 3rd birthday, attend Scott and Jessie's wedding, and to meet our 4 month old niece, Caroline.
We spent Friday attending the rehearsal dinner and capped the evening off by playing with Jack and his train set. Saturday was a blast (literally!): we celebrated Jack's birthday with cake and presents and walked to the nearby park to launch his model rocket. We got him a model rocket and 3 class C engines. He had a great time doing the countdown and pushing the "go" button; although I'm not sure once the rocket was off the pad that he had any idea what was going on. I think Brian and Dave might've had more fun than him! Jack's absolutely adorable with countdowns... it goes something like this when he does the count: "10-9-8-7-6-Main Engine Ignition-5-4-3-2-1-Blastoff!" Jack has become a really fun kid; he's always happy and is extremely intelligent.
After time at the park, we headed to the wedding. It rained just after we left the house but had stopped by the time we needed to walk to the church. As soon as the ceremony started, it began to POUR. So hard in fact that it was difficult to hear the minister! By the time the ceremony had concluded, the rain had let up. The wedding was beautiful. In particular, we really liked the sand ceremony which used the analogy of two types of sand being combined into one but that each type is still distinct amongst the combination. It was similar to the heads and tail of a coin analogy used at our wedding. Both Jessie's dad and Scott gave emotional speeches that left very few dry eyes.
Dave and I had a really good time on the dance floor with Jack. He must've spent an hour dancing around with his glowsticks. We even taught him to "raise the roof." Towards the end of the reception, the fire alarm went off. As the fire trucks arrived, the captain found Jack wandering around the bushes with glowsticks hunting for frogs. He joined Jack with his giant flashlight and eventually invited Jack to join him on board the truck! He got to dress up in a firemans hat, sit in the drivers seat, and even sounded the horn! I think the day truly had to be one of Jack's favorite days!
We celebrated Jack's birthday (one more time) at Hickory Park in Ames. He was very tired from the previous day, but his eyes bugged out when they came out and sang to him with ice cream! Afterwards, Dave and I (with his parents) went around ISU's campus reminiscing of our good times there. The campus sure has changed alot! I can't believe it was the first time we made it back to ISU since I graduated 4 years ago! We enjoyed going back to the SSOL (now the SSCL)-- we owe our relationship to that place! It seems like just yesterday that we were working on cube satellites there together!We were lucky that our stop-over on the flights home was in Minneapolis and that my parents were to drive up to see us. We had 4 hours to kill, so we went to the Embassy Suites hotel and enjoyed a really nice brunch with my family. It was a short visit, but enjoyable nonetheless.

The countdown begins!

We're officially down to 5 days until we begin our string of vacations totaling about 3 weeks off from work! I'm getting antsy to leave and am really in the need for some time off. We hit Iowa first beginning Friday for Scott and Jessie's wedding. We plan on celebrating Jack's birthday while we are out there, too. He turns 3 on Thursday. We got him a model rocket with shuttle gliders that we will (weather permitting) launch. I hope he enjoys it! We also get to meet Caroline for the first time. She got baptized today and we unfortunately couldn't be there to celebrate. It would've been difficult to fly out there today and then again on Friday.
We've got Charity and Daniel watching our girls for the weekend. Charity seems to be so great with dogs and really loves to spoil Belle, so I think the girls will like having them as babysitters! I'm glad we have such nice friends willing to watch them so they can be at home where it's comfortable for them. Anyone who has met Sequoia knows that she wouldn't survive a weekend at a boarding kennel. And based on our trip to MN, I'm not so sure Belle would do well at a different home either. They might be spoiled, huh?
We had a nice, calm weekend. Almost like the calm before the storm! We both worked this past off-Friday and I went to GNO at Scrapmania on Friday night. Saturday, we took the girls for a run/walk and spent the afternoon/evening hanging out with Charity and Daniel. We went to Red Robin (yummmm) and Coldstone. We also finally got to see their new home. After seeing their home, I'm now really focused on switching out all of our white trim, doors, and blinds to real wood (to match our hickory cabinets). It's a big task and it would be expensive (as well as not totally necessary), so I'm not sure we'll ever do it. But it's nice to imagine!
Back to the vacation thing-- I've decided that after returning from Iowa on Memorial Day, I'm going to take the 2 days off before we leave for Alaska. It seemed only fair to spend some quality time with them before we ditch them again for 2 weeks. I've got enough vacation racked up, so why not?

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

I wanted to write a dedicated post to wish my mom a happy mother's day. You truly are a huge blessing to me (and our family). You are more to me than a mom-- you are my best friend! I'm so lucky to have you in my life and blessed to have a role model like you. I only hope that I can someday be half the mom that you are. I don't say it enough, but I love you and I'm so thankful for you!

"A mother is a person who seeing there are only three pieces of pie for four people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."

Thanks Mom and Happy Mother's Day! I LOVE YOU!

Phew!

It's been a long last week. I spent the entire work week in Boston. We were going non-stop from sun-up til bedtime each day. I got home at about 2 am on Friday and still had to drag myself into work. Needless to say, I had to utilize a good chunk of Saturday catching up on sleep. It felt so good to be home, though. Dave had said that Belle stopped eating while I was gone. This surprises me because she hasn't skipped a meal in many months. Now that I'm home, she's eating again. Perhaps they are related? Flattering to think so in any event. The girls greeted me with the biggest hugs and kisses... especially considering it was 2 am! Sequoia was half asleep but still really wanted to jump on me. She tried with all her might but kept falling short or falling down. It was super precious!
Despite having left Dave alone with the girls all week, he still was willing to watch them again Friday night so that I could go hang out with the girls at Scrapmania. He's such a wonderful hubby. I think he's a huge part of the reason I enjoy scrapbooking so much-- it's fun to reminisce through all of our trips. We are planning another Scrapmania outing next Friday. It will be the last for me for many many weeks, so I'm hoping to get alot done so that I can begun the Alaska pages as soon as we return.
Dave's been having a rough time at work and I think the stress of that and not having me around to "distract" him is what has caused him to be sick all weekend. Once he's able to relax or come down from a high stress level, his body tends to shut down. I hope I did a good job of taking care of him and that he makes a speedy recovery. I hate seeing him so upset. I wish it were appropriate for me to walk into his work and put a certain person back in line. I sure would if I could! It bothers me that this individual cares so little about other people that this battle is probably not even affecting him... meanwhile, it's causing a ton of pain for Dave because he does care about people. I will keep praying for them.

A Flat Tire

Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged-- I suffered a quick flu earlier in the week. Dave did a great job tending to me; he even worked home to watch over me! No, I don't have swine flu. I'm actually a little annoyed with the amount of panic and attention it has gotten. I've seen the numbers and it seems to be spreading quickly, but the death rate seems fairly low especially given how many people die each year of the regular flu. I hope that all the traveling I'm about to do won't be impacted!

Today Dave and I went for a nice bike ride up the Platte River (well, Dave chose to run and I think he's crazy!). I just love this trail... at least until you get to the smelly area up near the old car junkyard. We picked the trail up just north of Chatfield and I was going fine until about 6 miles in (ironically not far past the smelly area) when my front tire decided to go flat. Let's just say it was a long, slow ride back to the car. I timed it well though because it was at about 0.5 miles left that there was no way the bike was going to grind metal any longer. I was happy that I only had to walk that far with the bike. Could've been much worse.

I've got to get packing done as I leave early in the morning for Boston. It looks like it's going to be a very wet week on the east coast. Luckily, I'll be spending most of the days inside anyway. I'm very excited to have some fresh east-coast seafood, though! Dave will be alone with the girls... I hope he doesn't spoil them too much!