I love where we live!

Not only do we LOVE living in Colorado, I just absolutely love where in Colorado we live. For those of you who haven't visited us (I encourage you to do so), we live in what most Denver-metro people call "the middle of nowhere," in a small community called Roxborough. It's technically part of Littleton, but it is about 10 minutes south. It's sandwiched right between two beautiful state parks-- Roxborough and Chatfield. It's nestled along the Platte River amongst the foothills, quarry, and near red-rock formations locally called Arrowheads. It's basically one of the most beautiful settings I could think to live! While we do have a 10 minute drive to reach all the restaurants and shops of Littleton and Highlands Ranch, we only have to step outside our front door and we have access to 100 of miles of trails. With 300+ days of sunshine each year, we have a great opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. [Wow, I sound like a rep from CO tourism!].
On Thursday evening, we recieved a few inches of snow that on Friday morning luckily had not melted yet. With the beautiful blue skies welcoming in the day, Dave took the camera with him on his way into work and snapped a few photos. The picture above is taken from the road we live off of looking down the Platte River with the foothills in the distance. I'm glad he did that as by early afternoon, the snow was all gone! We've been trying to gather a picture from this spot of each season similar to what we did with the Arrowheads. Below you can see the picture we took of the Platte in the fall. Now we just need to get a nice spring and summer picture.

Trading the Shoes for boots

Dave's entire family to include his mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, our nephew and niece all flew out to Colorado this past week for a ski trip. Dave's mom and dad flew out a few days early to spend time with us in Littleton and while I had to work the whole time, they had the chance to go to the Denver Mint and to play lots of Wii. I think they had a really good time together.

On Thursday, I had to travel down south for work to give a presentation so I missed the arrival of our niece and nephew (Caroline's first airplane ride!) but it sounds as though it was fairly uneventful. It had begun to snow in the front range about the time we packed the bags to head to Breckenridge-- a precursor for what was to come I suppose! Dave's parent's were extremely generous in renting out a ski-in/ski-out lodge between Peaks 8 and 9 off the Snowflake lift. It was a gorgeous 2-story condo! After settling in on Thursday evening, we headed out to Breck's quaint downtown area for dinner at the Empire Burger. Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to put Jack (3) and Caroline (1) down for bed so that Brian, Ania, Dave and I could go out for drinks after dinner. We don't get very many opportunities to see them, so it was really nice to spend some time just catching up.
Friday morning welcomed us with quite a bit fresh new snow. We all took Jack for his full-day of ski school prior to hitting the slopes. I've never seen a kid so excited to learn to ski! Breckenridge's program sounds pretty nice-- for the 3 year olds, they spend 1 hour one-on-one outside on the slopes in the morning followed by lunch, crafts, and games. They end the afternoon with group time on the slopes.

Jack heading to ski school!

From the sounds of it, Jack had an absolute blast skiing. He kept telling me how much he loved the magic carpets (these are the little carpet-like devices that transport children to the top of the little hill). Brian and Ania were even able to capture video of him skiing. Since he's too young to have the muscle to do the pizza-wedge, it'll be a bit longer before they teach him to do turns and stops. I'm so glad he enjoyed it though! The rest of us had a great morning skiing Peak 9 before eating lunch back at our lodge (it sure was nice to avoid the $40 on-mountain lunch price!). In the afternoon, Dave and I headed over to Peaks 7 and 8.

While we waited for a seat at Erics Downstairs for dinner, we enjoyed a few shops and a few games of pinball with Jack. We capped the evening off with dessert at a local ice cream shop (yumm!).

Jack and I playing pinball

Snow again welcomed us the following morning (I'm now reading they totaled 25 inches this past weekend and I believe it!) and we couldn't wait to show Brian and Ania Peak 7. I think they really enjoyed this peak the best. The conditions were great and it was one of the best times I've had skiing in a very long time!

Brian and Ania at Peak 7

By early afternoon we had to head back in to check out of our lodge and hit the road. It couldn't have been better timing as I had begun to feel really weak and queasy. The long catwalk back to the lodge was too much exertion for me and Dave ended up having to pull me. Shortly after making it back to the lodge, what I assume was altitude sickness commenced as I spent the next few hours over a toilet. Interestingly enough at almost the exact same time, Bob called saying Diane had gotten sick shopping downtown. We realized we needed to expedite the process of getting off the mountain and back down to a mile-high. Needless to say, it was not an enjoyable car ride as Diane and I had to utilize our throw-up buckets numerous times in the car. Of course, being that it was a Saturday, we hit lots of (nearly 3 hrs) traffic getting home. Turns out, Dave (the driver of the non-sickies car) also began getting sick before reaching Georgetown. I'm not sure what caused all 3 of us to suddenly get sick at about the exact same time, but I suspect it was the altitude. (Coincidentally enough, Bob plotted data from NOAA and pointed out that a very low pressure system bottomed out to 29.6 pbar at the nearly exact time Diane and I started to get sick). It's too bad that the 3 of us spent the entire evening and following day in bed. I felt like such horrible hosts! We're all doing better now, but it's definitely a trip we'll remember in many (completely opposite) ways.
It seems like Jack and Caroline do so much growing up between the times we get to see them and we miss them lots. We're so glad everyone could come out and we hope they will return soon!

I also want to thank our friends Daniel and Charity who kindly watched our dogs over the weekend so we could enjoy the time with family. Here's a picture of our girls that their "sitters" took (aren't they cute!):

Violette Kumm (Grandma)

Violette Muriel Kumm

Violette Muriel Kumm, 77, of 3592 County Road Q, town of Seneca, died Wednesday afternoon surrounded by her family, Feb. 17, 2010.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21, at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Wisconsin Rapids. The Rev. Timothy Wenger will officiate. Burial will be in Restlawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Violette was born Jan. 11, 1933, in Junction City, to Harold and Corrine Roselia Koch. She married Allen H. Kumm on Sept. 1, 1952, at Bethany Lutheran in Sigel.

Violette worked in data processing and invoicing at Nekoosa Edwards Paper Company and later Georgia Pacific.

Violette enjoyed square dancing, round dancing, casinos, traveling and loved to cook. She enjoyed taking care of the family and always put them above all other things. Violette was a faithful member of St. Luke's Lutheran Church.

Violette is survived by her husband, Allen; two sons, Randall (Deb) of Wisconsin Rapids, and Gary (Sue) of Neenah; two daughters, Mary (Daniel) Nimtz of Rochester, Minn., and Sandra (Larry) Truchinski of Wisconsin Rapids; six grandchildren, Jeremiah Kumm, Lucas (Jessica) Kumm, Jennifer Kumm, Amy (Davis) Ciotola, Elizabeth (David) Shoemaker, and Michael Nimtz; one stepgrandchild, Cherity (David) Ysquierdo; one great-grandchild, Colton Kumm; three great-stepgrandchildren, Cienna Young, Quiana Young, and Izabella Ysquierdo; three brothers, Norman (Rebecca) Koch of Vermont, John (Sharon) Koch of Wisconsin Rapids, and James (Judy) Koch of Washington; and one sister, Helen (Harvey) Overturf of Eagle River. She is preceded in death by her parents; one son, David; and two brothers, Allen and Glenn Koch.

Friends may call from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday at Taylor, Vollert and Jennings Funeral Home in Wisconsin Rapids and from 1 p.m. until time of services Sunday at the church.

The family would like to extend a thank you to the dialysis center for the care they gave her.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Neither Dave nor I are very huge on Valentine's Day but we thought we'd use today as a good excuse to spoil the dogs (as if they weren't already extremely spoiled!). Both Dave and I had the idea to make eachother breakfast (in bed), so we decided instead to make pancakes together. We even added butterscotch chips to them (who would've thought that'd be a good combo?). We saved one pancake that we split in half for the girls. Yes, I know, we're horrible, but we couldn't resist! And really, it's a pretty benign set of ingredients. We should've video-taped it because it was hilarious how Belle scarfed hers down and Sequoia treated it like it was a hot potato. Sequoia is always hesitant with new foods.
Today was a pretty lazy day spent cleaning the house and watching the Olympics. Dave's boss turned 40 today and his wife threw him a surprise party. The highlight was watching all the children smother blue frosting over their faces, arms, and clothes. It's always funny when it's not your kid I guess!

Happy (belated) Birthday Charity!

We got to celebrate Charity's birthday (a few days late) with her and Daniel at Red Robin. We always love having dinner with them. It's even more fun when someone gets embarrassed (ie, sung to).

My Grandma

My grandma is caring.
My grandma is a wonderful mother.
My grandma is always there.
My grandma is an excellent listener.
My grandma has a great memory.
My grandma loves purple.
My grandma is generous.
My grandma is my friend.
My grandma loves Jesus!

And while it may only be a few days before she sees Jesus face to face, I know that He is excited to have her home. I know that He will take care of her and I know that she will finally be happy, healthy, and comfortable.

Today I had a chance to talk with grandma about Heaven. She is so excited to see Jesus! She only wishes that she could somehow give us a message of how perfect it is once she's there. I know that she is ready to leave this Earth behind and to be with her son. It's going to be hard on the rest of us as we lose someone so special and so dear to us, but isn't it a comforting fact knowing that she is going somewhere so much better than here?!

May God give all of us strength in these final days as we prepare to say goodbye. I love my Grandma!

The Simple Things

Sometime it truly is the simple things that makes us the happiest. For Sequoia, her favorite toy is the ball. Combine that with the snow and you've got her on Cloud 9. Whenever we get snow, we like to put her outdoor-proof red ball out on the deck. She'll entertain herself for a very long time pouncing on the ball and throwing it over the deck. She'll go down the deck and fetch it, bring it back upstairs and repeat the pouncing and throwing over the deck bit. She'll do this dozens of times not tiring of it. It really cracks me up. I think I might be more entertained by it than her! After she had done this numerous times tonight, I decided to pull the camera out and record it. I just love how she looks at me when she's finished like "I did good, Mom!" Just precious--enjoy!

Underdog

I always enjoy cheering for the underdog. There's something about watching the dreams realized for the team who wasn't favored to win. I didn't have a dog in the fight for this year's Super Bowl, so why not root for the underdog? The Saints played really well and managed to pull out a solid win over the favored Colts. Dave and I enjoyed snacking on chips and ice cream-- I always love an excuse to avoid making a real meal and to pig out on junk food!
Speaking of underdogs, Dave woke up early today to run his first race of the 2010 season. Highlands Ranch hosted the Super Bowl 5K this snowy morning. While the course had a thin layer of slick snow on it (and most of the runners chose to stay off the trail and instead run on the grass!), Dave managed to come in 3rd place in his age group with a time of 20:05. As he's just getting back in the swing of things after taking several months off for his Achilles, this was a pretty solid run! I look forward to the rest of the season as he progresses towards his first triathlon this summer!
I'll leave you with some underdog-appropriate lyrics from Audio Adrenaline:

I'm in this race to win a prize
The odds against me
The world has plans for my demise
What they don't see Is that a winner is not judged by his small size
But by the substitute he picks to run the race...
And Mine's already won!

Taking the day off at Breck!

How nice it was to have the weekend off! We spent all of Saturday up in the mountains skiing at Breck. We remembered why we have always had a self-imposed rule of NOT going up on Saturdays as we spent hours in traffic. We were able to meet up with Kristin, one of Dave's co-op friends from Florida, and some of her friends. It was great to see her again and to finally get to meet her on the mountain! It snowed moderately all day and got a bit windy towards the end of the day, but we had a great time. Because of work, we've only gotten up there 5 times this year, but at $92 a lift ticket, we still have more than paid for our $400 season pass. We'll get up there one more time with Dave's family and that might be it depending on how work goes these next couple months.

TGIF!

It's been a very long time since a Friday felt so good. We wrapped up our week-long big review at work (a very successful one I might add) and were directed to take the entire weekend off. That's right-- 2 days off! We'll hit it hard beginning Monday but for now, we will enjoy a well deserved break. What was first on my list? A nap! I cleaned up the house a bit and then slept for a solid hour. It felt so great. Dave's busy cooking together a wonderful meal of spaghetti and I'm excited to sit down and enjoy a meal with him. It's been awhile!
We are going to head up to Breck tomorrow to ski-- we've got friends in town from Florida who will be up there and we've got a bunch of coworkers who are at the GN&Ski conference there. So it should be a fun day of skiing with friends. Sunday of course is the Super Bowl and while we don't have a real preference on who wins, we hope it's a good game. And no matter what, we'll enjoy relaxing on the couch together with a bunch of munchies.
And for an update on Grandma: she had a GREAT day yesterday. Mom says she had a blast with her cousin at a local Casino and just felt relaxed. Her dialysis is today (those are her hard days) so I hope to get a chance to talk with her tomorrow. I keep praying that God will give her strength.

Turn out the lights

.... the party is over. Obama made it official today-- the entire Constellation program has been canceled:

"So this budget cancels the Constellation Program, including the Ares I and V rockets and the Orion crew exploration vehicle. NASA intends to work with the Congress to make this transition smooth and effective, working responsibly on behalf of the Taxpayers." - NASA Administrator Bolden.

For those less familiar, Orion is the Apollo-looking capsule that was to take humans to the ISS after Shuttle is retired and further, on to the moon and even mars in decades to come. It was to launch aboard the Ares vehicles. Rumors began last week as to much of the Constellation program being restructured and most had come to believe that Ares I/V would be killed (which honestly, would've been a smart decision in and of itself), but I'm not really sure anyone saw EVERYTHING being canceled, namely Orion. NASA has been in need of a overhaul for some time now, but it's unfortunate it comes with the ending of David's program. Time will show if this holds up in Congress and what role LM will play (if any) in a private/commercial route to the ISS.
The future of space exploration is uncertain with this new budget, but what is certain is that this is the start of a rough time for Dave and his team.

There will be a day

"There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more, we'll see Jesus face to face
But until that day, we'll hold on to you always"

Friday night's concert at our church was AWESOME. Jason Gray opened the evening with great acoustic guitar, singing, and comedy. Chasen took the stage after Jason (he suggested they merge and call themselves Chasen Gray, hehe!). You'd recognize a few of Chasen's songs: "On and On" and "Drown" are my favorites. I guess I never realized "Drown" was by them although I have no clue who I thought sung it. Continuing the evening, the Afters played a fairly long set. They are one of my favorite bands. I think we've seen them half a dozen times, but I could never get sick of them. They ended with one of my favorites: "Beautiful Love." This set of theirs had more worship songs than it did of their originals, but that was still enjoyable. Ending the evening off was the headliner-- Jeremy Camp. We've seen him 3 times now and his show is always MAGICAL. Jeremy's goal is to write music that speaks to Jesus rather than that speaks to his audience. In doing that, I think he really brings the audience closer to Jesus. It's really an amazing feeling. I can't describe the feeling I get worshiping the Lord through vocals (even if I'm absolutely horrible at it!). I'm so glad that I was able to sneak out of work for a few hours to make it to this show. We're hoping we can head down to the 'Springs for MercyMe's Rockin Worship Roadshow this spring, too. David Crowder*Band is joining them this year! Woot!

Prayers for Grandma

I just got word from my mom that my grandma is not doing well. She's been struggling with reoccurring issues with fluid around her lungs. The past few times they have been successful in removing the fluids and through dialysis and food have gotten her all-better. They are having a much more difficult time this go-around. The doctor had discussions with her about hospice care and my mom drove up to see her today and to bring in her pastor. They ran many tests and have concluded that she has congestive heart failure. They will try dialysis and a needle procedure tomorrow, but we must all pray for whatever is God's will.
I love my grandmother very much and wish that I could be there in person to help her fight through this. I know that she is in the best hand's because I know my God always comforts & protects. I pray that His strength will give her strength in the coming days and weeks.

Stressed for success

Well we are down to the final stretch for our major review at work and it shows! Folks are dressed in their best outfits for dress rehearsals, many are utilizing the cot in our area, and even more can no longer keep track of the number of meals they have missed. I came on pretty late in this whole process (I guess you could say I am lucky to only have to give up a resemblance of a life for a few weeks?) and as such, have little time to get a large amount of things working. I guess I also have had less practice and conditioning of my body to handle the 17 hour work nights with little or no sleep. My coworker posed a really interesting question today-- if you are so stressed with work that you can't sleep because you are constantly solving problems and running through issues in your head, shouldn't you get paid for that? A few questions I've been asking myself lately: Is it sad when you feel guilty for leaving work after a 13 hour day? Is it funny that people call leaving at dinner time a "half-day?" In any event, I look forward to next week as we are sure to leave our customer in awestruck-induced silence. Go us!

SQUIRREL!

I've been working insane hours recently and as such, I have been missing out on some pretty entertaining happenings in the Shoemaker household. Sidenote: when I say entertaining, you must place it through the livin-the-Shoemaker-suburban-life- filter. Saturday afternoon while I was at work, Dave and the girls were playing in the backyard. Along came Ephram the Squirrel. Ephram apparently did not enjoy the two unusually large sized Squirrels (ok, so a 50lb squirrel would be more than a little unusual) chasing him, so he did what he was taught best and "kept to the high branches." He climbed to the top of one of our trees and began to bawk at our girls. I've never heard of a squirrel making loud noises, so it's good that my husband captured video of the event or I may not have bought this story. I guess the girls were pretty amused as this whole charade continued for well over a half hour. Sequoia, smart as they come, decided to use her front legs to shake the tree hoping Mr. Squirrel would tumble.

As you can see, it gets pretty exciting around here. [Still bummed to be missing these fun times].

The Dog IQ Test

Tonight we were reading some pretty funny stories on a husky website our friend Charity sent us and came across the "Dog IQ Test." The test is simple: you show your dog a treat and then you lie it on the floor and place a washcloth over it. Dogs intelligence can then be judged by dogs reaction.

We decided to give it a try and needless to say, we were not at all surprised by their reactions.
Sequoia: Sniffs. Looks to Mom. Sniffs some more. Looks to Dad. Didn't hear the word "No;" proceeds to uncover treat with nose. Total elapsed time: 30 seconds.
Belle: Sniffs. Looks at Mom. Continues looking at mom becoming more and more dejected. Less than a minute later, lies down beside rag.
1 minute later: Dave releases Sequoia. She immediately runs for rag, pushes it aside and gobbles Belle's treat.
5 minutes later: Sequoia is sniffing under each of the dog beds, pillows, and blankets in the living room. Finds nothing; returns to washclothes-- finds nothing. Proceeds to sleep peacefully on bed knowing that she is not missing out an undiscovered treat.

Can't say we are at all surprised by the results, but absolutely hilarious nonetheless.

A rough week

It has sure been a rough week for us. For almost a week after Dave's parents left, Sequoia had had pretty bad diarrhea. This past Sunday, it turned to vomiting as well. What was most scary was that the vomit actually looked like diarrhea. We immediately took her to the vet but they couldn't seem to pinpoint what was wrong (do they ever?!). They ruled out a few things and she tested negative to any virus, so they figured it was probably a GI-issue. Huskies are notorious for having sensitive stomachs, so there is merit to this hypothesis. They gave her some medications that for the first day, she couldn't even keep down. Between this and the skipping of meals, I was pretty stressed out. Speaking of meds, we are also currently dogsitting our neighbors 3 dogs, 2 of which also need meds and follow a pretty strict schedule. Work for me is at a very busy point, so needless to say the week has been stressful. I feel inadequate caring for my sick puppy because of the time I've got to devote to work and dogsitting. A couple of days ago while Belle was playing with the dogs we are sitting, one of them bit her in the muzzle. It instantly turned black and swelled up like a giant baseball. Now I have two injured or sick dogs. Poor girls!
I'm wishing I had more energy to tackle all this and to enjoy the upcoming 4 day weekend, but between the ragweed season beginning and being around dogs that make me sneeze, I managed to come down with what I assume is a nasty sinus infection. It's been getting worse and worse all week and today it rendered me useless for most of the day. I had to leave work at 11 am because I was in tears (not crying) from the pain in my sinuses. At least I got to spend some quality time with my girls.
Wow, I feel like this entire blog was one giant complaint, but it's just been an exhausting and trying week. I'm hoping the weekend is different!

Run David Run!

Yesterday, Dave ran in the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half-Marathon. While it starts at more than 8000 feet, it's a gradual downhill all the way into Idaho Springs. We got up at 5 am to make it to the start line in time. I watched Chris and Dave at the start and then hopped in the car wondering how I would kill the next 1.5 hours. Well, by the time I got out of the Georgetown parking lot and parked in Idaho Springs, I was barely back in time to see the first place finisher. The town was so small, it couldn't handle the 2000-some runners and their families/cheerleaders. I ended up parking about a mile away from the finish-line (sorry Dave!). Dave finished strong and with excess energy at about 1:34. His official time is slightly higher because he took a bathroom break at mile 5 that of course the race didn't pause his time for (but his GPS did). I'm proud of him! That's a super fast pace! It's pretty close to a Boston qualifying time, so hopefully he can get in excellent shape for the Denver Marathon in October and keep that same pace! I like being his cheerleader, although it's a bit frustrating that you only get to see him for a few seconds and the start and finishing lines. Not quite like watching him play soccer!

In other news-- we leave for MN and WI later this week. I'm excited to see family and to have a little break from work. This past week was a long one-- I had more than 50 hours in by Thursday. Travel will do that I guess. So, we are definitely excited for travel that is vacation. We plan to watch my mom play in the Member-Member, head up to the 2nd day of the PGA championship, see Dave's brother and our niece and nephew, and finally make our way to WI for my cousin's wedding. Should be a fun trip!

Where did the time go?

How has it been 3 weeks since my last post? I guess it comes with the territory of summer. It's been pretty hot the last couple weeks-- we've already hit 90s. Yikes. It makes it difficult to do long hikes or walks with the girls as they just can't handle the heat. Boy, how I wish we had a large yard with grass for the girls to get some of their energy out in. I keep saying that someday we should take them to a dog park.
We've had a pretty fun last couple weeks. I've gone to a few Scrapmanias and have gotten a lot of the Alaska trip done. Dave and I have done Waterton a couple times (I bike of course while Dave runs). Dave's marathon training is in full-swing: he completes a 12 or 13 mile run each weekend and this past Weds, he "ran" Mt. Falcon. It's a 2000-some foot climb up in a few miles. He's been pretty sore from that. We've also hung out with some friends and done some nice dinners out. We have decided that we will re-do our office loft for our anniversary gift. We had a designer create a layout for us. We're doing custom honey spice hickory cabinets from KraftMaid. We'll have custom printer/scanner pull-out drawers, a pull out garbage cabinet, and a few filing cabinets. We haven't picked counter-tops yet, but we are leaning towards finding the same granite used in our kitchen. The difference between Formica and Granite it was ~$200, so for that difference, it just makes sense to use granite. We'll have to see if we can find our exact color for a good price, though.
This week has been nice and relaxing. We hosted poker night on Thursday and Dave won! The pot was huge as there were 10 people who played. Dave took away $150! We spent most of Friday hanging around the house and grilling fajitas for dinner. We closed the night with a rented movie ("He's just not that into you"). Today was get things done around the house day. Tonight, we'll have our traditional dinner-out.

Happy 4th of July!

It's been a busy last two weeks of work and traveling to Colorado Springs, so I apologize for no updates. Not much here on the Shoemaker front other than that we are looking forward to our 3 day holiday weekend. We plan to take the girls to the fireworks again-- it went really well last year and it seems as though Sequoia is very interested in the sounds of the fireworks. We took the girls for a nice run/walk this morning, so hopefully they will be thoroughly tired when they meet Nasa. Nasa is a black lab seeing eye dog in training, so I hope our girls are on their best behaviors.

On the Nimtz front: my parents have listed their gorgeous home in Rochester. They have spent a lot of time, money, and effort in preparation for this. By the pictures, it looks as though they've done a very nice job! They've upgraded fixtures, hardware, put in granite, and done extensive work on the outside including all new painting, repairing the fence, & putting in a new pool liner. We are praying that the house sells and we look forward to someday showing them all the wonderful things this beautiful state of Colorado has to offer! Below is a view of their house and a link to their listing.

Virtual Tour and Listing Details

Came across this WAY cute video of Sequoia as a puppy. I just love the story this video tells; it really depicts her personality well. I can't believe she's already 1.5 years old. We are truly blessed to have Sequoia and Belle in our lives!

We're back from Alaska!

We are back in action from our 3 weeks of vacations. Our trip to Alaska was amazing! It truly is a remarkably beautiful state and it's expansiveness is indescribable. Every mile we touched was breathtaking... and we traveled 1000's of miles! The cruise was a really nice way of seeing a much larger chunk of Alaska than we would've had time for any other way. We took over 4000 pictures and I plan to scrapbook them soon, but you can enjoy our trip journal by scrolling down and reading about each day as it happened.

To see more of our pictures, follow the Pictures link below-- enjoy!

Pictures

Denali - The High One

The train to Denali was very long and while it was beautiful, the 9 hour ride (delayed slightly due to broken tracks) found Dave and I taking lots of naps. Once we arrived in Denali, we settled into our McKinley Chalet lodge before we went out exploring the area. We went to Glitter Gulch and purchased some very over priced groceries as we knew they would have no food in the park for us as we hiked the next day.The following morning we took the 2nd bus into the park (think alarm clock at 5 am!) all the way to the Eielson visitor center-- 60-some miles into the park. We stopped many times to snap photos of nearby caribou, moose, and grizzlies. We were lucky to have so many grizzlies near the road; we even got to enjoy a sow and her cub for awhile!


When we reached Eielson, we were disappointed to see that Denali (McKinley) was not "out." Hidden in clouds, we were told not to be upset because only about 15% of people get to see the mountain on any given visit. We ate our picnic up here and headed back down on another bus.

We decided to get off near Polychrome Pass to do some hiking. Since there really are no trails anywhere in the park, most people just hike wherever. We attempted to follow a hiking guide but quickly released we weren't great with these directions. After pretty much scaling a huge cliff, we made it to this ridgeline that offered a gorgeous panoramic view of the area. We made it to what we felt was the summit and couldn't really figure out any way to make it much further, so we hiked back down. We didn't encounter any wildlife, but did see some bear scat-- so I guess we consider ourselves lucky?

We went back to the road to wait for a bus down, but as we sat there waiting, we decided why not take one more trip back up to Eielson. The weather had seemed to get better out, and we had more than 10 hours before the sun would set. Boy am I glad we did this! Apparently the 2nd time is a charm as we got to see Denali emerge from the clouds when we hit Stony Dome. It was so impressive! Being from Colorado, we are fairly used to seeing 14,000 ft peaks, but we are also accustomed to seeing them from over a mile high. At the VC, we were only a couple thousand feet above sea level looking at a mountain more than 20,000 ft tall! Truly amazing.

We took the last bus out of the park and spotted many more grizzlies on the way out for a grand total of 16 throughout the day! At one of our reststops, we got to watch a wolve devour an artic ground squirrel.


Towards the entrance to the park (and the nearby campgrounds), we came across our first angry bear. The grizzly was frustrated with the bus following him on the road so he began to snarl at us. Frustrated, he decided to charge the bus. After he realized the bus wasn't going anywhere, he angrily ran off. Dave and I commented on how we were lucky that the only mean bear we encountered was when we were on a bus. Scary to think that this bear was near the campgrounds. By the time we got off the bus, it was well past 10 pm and we were starving. We enjoyed some good pizza at a local joint and went straight to bed. Still can't believe that the sun was no where near setting by this point...

Our last day of vacation took us back into Denali National Park to check out the dog kennels, some visitor center area hikes, and to enjoy some delicious ice cream before we boarded the motorcoach for our evening ride back to Anchorage. Dave and I tried to spend most of the bus ride sleeping because we knew we wouldn't get much sleep during our red-eye flight. There was only 4 other people on the entire bus, so it was nice to have space to spread out. We made a stop in Talkeetna to enjoy the views of the south face of Denali. We had four hours to kill at the airport prior to our red-eye, so we tried to occupy the time shopping, eating and sleeping, but there really wasn't much to the ANC airport! By this point in the trip, we were exhausted and ready to head home to see our girls. I really think the trip was just the right lengh-- any shorter and we would've disappointed it ended so soon and any longer we would've been tired and anxious to be home.

Kenai Fjords NP

Our last morning on the ship was spent eating breakfast and waiting in the Rendevous lounge for our turn to disembark. It was sad that the cruise was ending, but I'm glad we had the land portion of our trip to look forward to. At this point, we just weren't ready to go home!
We started the morning in Seward off by hiking to Mile Zero-- the true start of the Iditarod. While they do a "fake" (for show) start in Anchorage, the real starting point is on the coast in Seward. As husky owners, we felt obligated to see the starting line!

We spent the day on a catamaran tour out of Seward into the Kenai Fjords National Park where we saw a pod of Orcas, lots of Dall's porpoises, and some humpback whales. It was neat how close they were to our boat! I was thinking a 6 hour tour would be a bit long, but every minute of it was spent enjoying the scenery or snapping photographs of all the wildlife.

We even got to see the Colgate glacier calve 100's of feet of ice into the ocean. It was as loud as thunder and enough current was generated to really rock our boat!

Following the catamaran tour, we boarded the Alaska Railroad for our journey to Anchorage. This has to be one of the most scenic train routes in the world! We got to enjoy it from the 2nd story glass-domed cart. Simply beautiful!

Upon arrival for our quick night in Anchorage, we were happy to find that we had been upgraded to the penthouse suite at the downtown Hilton. We had a wonderful view of McKinley at sunset (even though this was almost at midnight!). We had to be up early the next morning for our train to Denali, so we only had a chance to spend a little bit wondering around downtown Anchorage.

Glacier Bay

The following day was a crusing day through Glacier Bay and up to the Hubbard Glacier. We had to wake up very early and dress extremely warm, but it was worth it to see these massive amounts of ice calve into the ocean.

The blue color of some of the icebergs is truly incredible. Each piece of ice was like an intricate sculpture of crystal.

We spent most of the rest of the day sleeping, eating, and packing. Unfortunately, the cruise was about to end... but not before we got to enjoy one last (and my favorite) dinner of Filet Mignon.

ISP, and not the specific impulse ISP

Our last port in Alaska was Icy Strait Point. It was different than all the other ports in that it was small, quant, and only had one store-- we even had to tender in! We enjoyed hiking along the beach and through the rainforest as well as hiking up to the little fishing town of Hoonah. We saw so many bald eagles in this area!

There wasn't much in the way of excursions in ISP, so we decided to take kayaks out for some scenic sea kayaking. It was Dave and I's first kayak adventure and we really enjoyed ourselves. We saw 3 bald eagles devour a huge salmon and managed to successfully not fall out of the kayak into 40 deg water.

Since this port was a shorter day, we had our final formal evening onboard. We got dressed up to enjoy lobster and filet mignon and an evening show. The seas were rather rough and it was mind-boggling to see the water levels rise and fall in the dining room windows.

Skagway, hehe

The next day landed us in Skagway (insert childish Dave giggle here) where we decided to rent a car and drive into the Yukon territory of Canada. We decided on the car because we could go at our own place and go much further. The railroad/bus combo would've cost us $460 and would not have taken us all the way to Emerald Lake. We hit Canadian customs about 1/3 of the way into our trip and that's also when we began to see some wildlife!

We spotted our first two bears down on the railroad tracks where we were able to photograph them from a safe distance (and with a cliff separating us) until they got spooked by a maintainence cart. We lost them at this point and decided that Dave should hike around the bend to see where they went. I proceeded to walk the other direction on the shoulder of the road. For whatever reason, I picked my head up momentarily taking my eyes of the railroad tracks and to my surprise, the two bears had made their way onto the road-- not at all far from where I was! My first instinct was to scream "Bears!" to Dave and my second was to RUN back to the car. Now I know that is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do but I could not stop myself from running. Luckily I didn't have a far distance to the car and that the bears didn't seem hungry nor interested in me. We got back in the car and took pictures of the two from the safety of our vehicle. From this point to nearly Carcross, we spotted 7 black bears. I think we were extremely lucky to see this many, but had we seen none, this drive still would've topped my list for most scenic drives! It was 90-some miles of gorgeous reflective mountains and lakes. We had not a cloud in the sky and got to enjoy the serene scenery all to ourselves. I'm so glad we got away from the crowds and took this nice long drive into the Yukon territory!

We stopped in Carcross to get some Tollhouse ice cream sandwiches (a vacation tradition) and then followed the "Get Your Buns In Here" sign to a local cinnamon roll shop. Boy were they delicious! With full tummies, we made it to Emerald Lake and took a moment to take in the beauty that is this area! Since it took us some 4 hours to make it this far, we knew we had to make better time on the way back in order to not miss our boat.

Emerald Lake

"Juneau" Alaska is pretty?

The next port was Juneau where we took a morning helicopter ride thru the Juneau icefields and landed on a glacier where we met a team of 80 Alaskan huskies. Because our group was only us and 1 other couple, each couple got to have our own team of dogs. It was truly an awesome experience to be pulled through the mountains with a team of dogs. While it was nearly 80 up on the glacier, they had just gotten nearly 2 feet of fresh snow and the dogs looked tired pulling us!

It was by far Dave and I's favorite excursion of the trip! After grabbing lunch at the famous Red Dog Saloon, we took a bus to the Mendenhall glacier where we did a few hikes and got to touch our first pieces of glacier ice. After the long day in port, we deserved the wonderful 4-course meal that awaited for us back on ship.