Victoria, British Columbia Day 7

I promised that this would be the last day for pictures from our cruise, and it's true! The following pictures are from our last port, Victoria in British Columbia. It's really a beautiful place. If you wish to see more pictures from this day, GO HERE.

Two boys in front of the parliament building. Ignore that camera up there, to the right. Who is that guy? Oh, it's Kevin. We travel with no less than 3 cameras, well 5 if you count our cell phone cameras.

View of the bay. There were a ton of people out and about.

The Empress Hotel. Don't you love all of that ivy?

Semi-long distance view of The Empress, at sunset.

We took a ride on a horse-drawn carriage-well, we PAID for a ride on a horse-drawn carriage. None of us had ever done that. It was cool. I want to go to New York, and ride one there now! The horse's name was/is Nicholas. I have a very blurry picture of him-actually, WE are kind of blurry in this picture. He was cute though. We rode the carriage back to the ship.

Word of the Day: Fair. The boys and I met some friends at the county fair today. It was so frickin' hot. We stayed for 3 1/2 hours and saw mostly everything, but not all. We may go back in the evening some time. We all enjoyed the pigs. They really have the cutest tails. The boys also loved the rabbits. I have to admit that they were pretty adorable.

Ketchikan, Alaska Day 6

I promise, tomorrow will be the last of my Alaska pictures. This is another double-wide post for you, of days 5 and 6. The following pictures are from day 6, Ketchikan. The next post is from day 5 of the glacier. The Word of the Day is at the bottom of the next post. As with the other posts, if you wish to view more pictures from our Ketchikan stop, GO HERE.

We went to see a lumberjack show in Ketchikan. It was really a lot of fun. They scaled trees, chopped logs close to their feet, competed in cutting pieces of of logs, threw axes, did some carving, and of course, my favorite, log rolling. I think it's amazing that these guys can stay on the same log, and not fall off for quite awhile.

Here are the boys posing with the lumberjacks. The gray team is "Team USA," and the plaid team is "Team Canada." Some of these guys have been on TV, in real lumberjack competitions, and are national champions. They were all really good. Check out Quinn's pose. Surprised?

Dolly's House (the one to the right) was a house of...evening activities, shall we say. You can take a tour, but you have to go through with a "lady of the evening." We didn't go in. It's tiny. We got the idea from outside. This house is on Creek Street, which borders the river. The river houses many salmon during salmon season. In fact, Ketchikan is known as the salmon capital of the world.

Ketchikan is such a cute little city. It was my favorite port. Such charm. We saw lots of eagles here on our last Alaska cruise, but this time, I only saw one.

The view of the city, from the ship.

The next post has pictures of our second sea day, the day we cruised near the glacier. They are my favorite pictures.

Endicott Arm, Day 5

Day 5 of our cruise was the most spectacular. We saw a glacier, and lots of icebergs that broke off of the glacier. I absolutely loved the colors of the icebergs: crisp white to shades of blue. They were so pretty! If you want to see the rest of the pictures from this day, GO HERE.

Doesn't this look like an otter pop? Look at the blue of this iceberg!

As we got closer to the glacier, we encountered more icebergs. I took LOTS of pictures of them as I was pretty fascinated with them.

Dawes Glacier. We were 3 miles from the glacier, but it seemed so close. I had gone to the front of the ship to get a view of the glacier, but the people were hogging the railings, and were three deep. Nobody would shift out. I was looking at the glacier between heads and shoulders, when part of it fell away (calving). It was amazing, but do you know that the dumb woman at the FRONT of the railing, missed the whole thing?! She did. She wasn't even looking at it-hogging the front, but not looking at it! Unbelievable! Served her right. I left as she was loudly complaining that she missed it. My mom taught me that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Harbor seals on an iceberg. They were everywhere! These "snacks" for killer whales were safe among the icebergs. The killer whales won't come into the area, because it's too hard for them to navigate out, so the seals are safe.

Quinn was fascinated with the hot tubs. Kevin took both boys down a couple of times. It was freezing outside, but the hot tubs and pools were nice.

Word for the Day: Cleaning. I sorted my Southern Living order, and then upon seeing all of my newly acquired items, I decided I needed to clean out my kitchen cabinets. I'm still working on that. My house is a complete mess.

Double Post Day!

It's your lucky day-or not! To make up for my lack of posting while on our cruise, I have decided to do some double-wide posts! The following pictures are from Juneau, Alaska, which we visited on Day 3 of our cruise. The next post is from Skagway, and that post contains my Word of the Day.

Here is the capital of Alaska, Juneau. It was kinda drizzly and cloudy when we got there.

Three heads of people, important to Alaska-oh wait, make that five!

The view of a cruise ship, docked in Juneau.

The Mt. Roberts Tramway. We didn't go up. We thought it would be foggy, and that we wouldn't be able to see anything. Our friends, also on the same cruise as us, had gone up and said they saw a lot. Oh well.

The little downtown area of Juneau.

If you want to see more Juneau pictures, GO HERE.

Buried in Laundry

I have done about 5 loads of laundry today, but I still have at least 4 to go! It's taking forever. In addition, I am trying to unpack for 3 of us. I hate unpacking. Last of all, I went to pick up my Southern Living order, and there are currently 5 HUGE boxes in my living room, waiting to be sorted. Oh well. It will get done. Anyway, Here are some pictures from Skagway, Alaska. We visited there on Day 4 of the cruise.

We had an excursion in Skagway. We rode the Whitepass Rail up the mountain, got off in Fraser, Canada. We boarded a bus there and went to Caribou Crossing, in the Canadian Yukon. We had BBQ lunch, then boarded the bus back to Skagway. We stopped in the little town of Carcross, on the way back. This picture is of the boys, aboard the train. The scenery from the high rails of the train was spectacular!

The Yukon sign.

At Caribou Crossing. Quinn is heading out to hike the wilderness of the mighty Yukon.

Back from the excursion, we had time to explore the little town. Here are the boys, in front of a train...YIKES!

This is a zoomed in view of Skagway, from the ship. It was a cute little town. If you want to see more pictures from Skagway, GO HERE.

Word of the Day: Sleep. We all got to sleep in our own beds! It was fabulous. I slept until 10:00! I had not done that for almost two weeks! It was nice. Hoping to do the same tomorrow.

We are HOME!

So we are finally home! It was a really long driving day. We were not going to be home until tomorrow, but when we got to Portland last night, we decided that we wanted to be home, so we drove all the way today. It took us almost 11 hours. We are all happy to be home, and that we'll be sleeping in our own, NON ROCKING beds. I am still sorting the pictures. I have to upload them to Flickr, and I think I have some still on my cameras. I will work on that tomorrow, along with the laundry and unpacking. Why is it no fun at all to unpack? It sucks actually. Anyway, I have LOTS of pictures. Here are some of the room, in case you wanted to see that.

The boys in their bunk beds. These two beds came out of the ceiling. Our room steward, Garry, would put the beds down, ready our bed, leave chocolates on all of the pillows, and have the room all ready for bed-reading lights on, drapes shut, when we got back from dinner, every night. I will miss that.

Here's what the room looked like when we came back from dinner. Kevin and I slept on the bottom, and the ladders went to Riley and Quinn's beds. The chocolate seems to be missing. I think I see the culprit back there. Quinn LOVED the fact that Garry left chocolate on his pillow EVERY night.

The boys on our balcony. We got upgraded. We paid for a room with just a window, but the day before we sailed, the cruiseline called and told us of the upgrade. It was AWESOME! If you go on the Alaska cruise, make sure you 1. Do Princess (they are the best) and 2. Purchase the balcony room-it is soooo worth it.

Our "day" room. The beds are back in the ceiling. It was kind of hard to move around, with them down. Oh, and did I mention that we didn't see dark until we got to Victoria? Alaska has sunlight most of the day/night in the summer. It was freaky weird. Sun would set near 10 pm, but it wouldn't really get pitch black. The sun would come up near 4 am.

The view down from our balcony.

Word of the Day: Home. There's no place like home. Tune in tomorrow for more Alaska pictures, and links to even more Alaska pictures!

Here I Am, Finally

Wow! Sorry I have been lagging on my blog posts. Internet has been sketchy, but we are finally on our way home, where the Internet is connected! We are spending the night in Portland, and have decided to power drive home tomorrow. We are all exhausted. Here are some random pictures. I will post better ones when I get home.




Creek Street in Ketchikan.




The Parliament Building in Victoria, Canada.




The same building, at night.

Word of the Day: Tired. I can't believe how tired I am. I think the boys are wiped out too. I also have a cold, which is not helping my energy level.