A Bit Of Trivia.

Now you, too, can impress your friends and be the life of the party. Here's a bit of trivia for ya!

There is only one US State capital that cannot be driven to. You can only get there by plane or boat. Where is it?

Juneau, Alaska.

And here's a bonus. Juneau has a very low rate of car thefts. Why? Because you can't get out of town in a car!

Diamonds and Juneau.

AKA Monday and Tuesday...

On Monday we were at sea. Daniel and I and a couple other family members went to a shopping thingy. We thought we were going into a dealio where they talk about where to shop and what you'll find in Juneau and Skagway, etc, etc. But it was all about diamonds. Diamonds. Our plan for Juneau was to take a whale watching excursion. We were set.

This is Monday night dinner in the fancy restaurant.

Anyhoo...Back to the diamonds...So Daniel offers to ditch the whale watching for a diamond.

Say what?!

You got it mister.

Can you tell who most of the siblings are in these pictures? Look at the teeth and the chins.

So I agreed. And that was great because we saw tons of whales without the excursion. But I'll get to those another day!

I went to bed happy.
Juneau was our first port. We docked and got the heck off. Along with 10,000 other shipmates. Better to wait an hour.
We tried to gather for a family picture.
It didn't happen.
But Daniel did get me walking back to him.
The weather looked like it should be cold. But we walked quite a way to the town and removed the sweatshirts accordingly.
The rest of the day was beautiful!!!
Hello ship.
A shot from afar.

We ran into this guy in town.

Don't worry, he's stuffed.

This was on our way up to the tram.

We took the tram up up and up.

Here's the ship from the tram.

Lots of ship pictures for some reason.

We met a family from close by where we live.

Actually, lots of Utah Mormons go cruising. We met many.

Isn't it beautiful?! I'd stop uploading the ship pics if it weren't for the scenery around it!

GORGEOUS!!!

Everything smelled so good and the air was so clean.

I don't think we appreciated it until our last port.

Up on the mountain, we met this guy. He isn't stuffed.

He was injured and won't be released back into the wild. So we took his picture.

He wouldn't smile.

We watched a movie about a tribe of people who have been in Alaska for quite some time.

The language is dying, but we met a couple of young bucks who spoke it and one who even sang to us in the language using a drum.

It's called Tlingit.

Here's an example...I gu.aa yax x'wan! -Be brave

I may have to do a whole post about it!

And here's Daniel with another bald eagle. This one is definitely stuffed.

In town we looked at diamonds. There is a new cut called the Crown of Light. 90 facets. Gorgeous and sparkly.

Talking to a diamond dealer in Alaska ports is like talking to a used car salesman.

Brutal!

We decided on a beautiful ring with a blue diamond surrounded by white diamonds. Boy was is splendid.

We talked the guy down quite a bit but then decided to call my sister in law Annie. She deals with diamonds.

She took all the emotion out of it. She said they send all the junk diamonds to Alaska for people like us.

DanG!!!

So we left and will start looking here with Annie's help.

Thanks Annie!

We did find a really cool store called Del Sol. They have all kinds of stuff that changes color in sunlight. I got nail polish and then t-shirts for the kids. I don't think Isaac's taken his off. I will take pictures and post them soon!

This little guy welcomed us home one night.

We enjoyed shows like you wouldn't believe. We ate food like it was going out of style. We took the stairs at every floor so we could eat again!

And again...

Finally!

Since last Sunday, June 6, at 1:oo pm PST, I have been constantly eating. Eating. Eating. And then there was the eating. Did I tell you how much eating was involved?

Tonight, over one week later, June 15, at 6:30 pm MST, I was finally hungry.

I forgot what hunger felt like.

I didn't like it.

Oh What A Sunday!

Well, it's Tuesday. Now that I have a clock in front me and 2 calendars to refer to, I should be able to keep up on life. Um. If someone would please STOP ROCKING THE SHIP! I could probably get things done. The laundry is done finally. We had mac and cheese for dinner last night. It's tough having to make my own meals again. But I'm getting used to normal life again. Just in time to blog about it and realize I may have forgotten some specifics. But I'll do my best according to the pictures. This will be an ongoing quest to get all this done! Stay with me. I hope you won't be disappointed!

We took a plane to Seattle. Daniel's brother Richard and his wife Mary Alice went with us and grandma and grandpa, who will heretofore be referred to as mom and dad, flew in the day before. Every one else drove. One group Saturday day and a second group Saturday night.

We checked one suitcase and were pretty proud of the fact that we would only check one. Well...that one suitcase weighed 80 pounds. You read me right. 80 pounds. 30 pounds over the limit. Hey! I needed shoes and clothes and stuff. We paid $50 for that dumb decision.
Isn't it pretty? The best part of flying is when they bring you a little cup of diet something. It's gone in 2 gulps and then it's time to throw the cup away because we are starting the descent. Into rainy Seattle. It was a forecast for the weather for the whole cruise. Rainy and cloudy at each port on the days we would be there. But landing was by far the best part!

We got mom and dad from their hotel and had a guy names Jama from Kenya drive us to the pier. Oh, beauty. We got on the ship finally and because the rooms weren't ready yet, stayed in the Crystal Atrium and entered a raffle. Then we went to eat. Oh. Can I just tell you how many french fries we ate? I can? Well, I can't. Too many fries to count! We went back to see if we won anything in the raffle. Daniel won a spot in the Blackjack Tournament. And a T shirt. Too small for Daniel, too big for Isaac. But it was cool!

We finally got to our stateroom. This is it before we asked our new friend Jenny to put the beds together. We're married, we can do that!

The ship wasn't even moving yet. What's up Daniel?

We left the pier early. Poor cruise ships still in dock. We would meet again at various places on the cruise. See the cloudy skies? Yep. Those were what we planned to see every day!

There's the Space Needle. Neat, huh?!

We went up on a top deck to see stuff. We met up with mom and dad and some other family members. Right after this picture it started to rain. Not just drizzly rain. Downright rain!

Mark took our picture. The Space Needle is back there somewhere.

It should be better seen in this picture. But the SN isn't what we were there for!

See the pool there on the lower deck? Uh uh. Way too cold to even think about it. But we did take our swim suits.

For dinner we met up with family and went to the Indigo. The wild mushroom quesadillas were to die for. I think I had about 5 of them. Over the course of the cruise. Yummalicious! Dad is currently planning to make some. I hope he does it when I'm there!

More to come soon. The house is rocking violently right now. I need a shower and then a quick visit to my friends at Maverick.

Then a Wolf Den meeting.

I sure hope the house stops rocking.

One Word.

Just one word to describe this last week:

SPECTACULAR!

Wait! Here's another word:

EXQUISITE!

Okay. One more:

GORGEOUS!

Alright, I need more than that:

We had the most incredible time. Alaska was absolutely a dream. The weather was fantastic the whole time. I want to live in Alaska!! More later when we're home....

Emergency Preparedness.

I cleaned out my van today. Someone else will be driving it soon and I don't want to be too embarrassed. Whatever! Let me tell you...I found enough food in there on the floor to survive for days. Then I cleaned out my purse. We could survive for weeks! These are just a few things I found...

*Mike N Ikes-loose, dirty, I would have eaten them if it weren't for the fuzz
*Popcorn-Squished but still buttery
*Gum-sometimes chewed, sometimes not...a choice
*Granola bars-still in wrappers but more like granola than bars
*Tic Tacs-a staple at church. And when stranded in a car
*A Twinkie-not squished, not unwrapped, bonus
*Chicken nuggets-from Wendy's. A meal in itself
*French fries-wow! what a meal
*Cinnamon bears-a little crunchy, weird
*Various and sundry crumbs-a shmorgishborg of flavors
*Fruit snacks-a must in every purse
*Suckers-most likely from the dentist
*Straw wrappers-to wrap around my finger to remind me to clean stuff out more often!
*Mints-from Cafe Rio. Why didn't I eat those?

So there you go. I won't even try to guess what some of the stuff was. I hope the guy who cleans out the vacuum container at the car wash enjoys the plenitude!

Something To Blog About.

Just before we left for our camping trip last Friday, Daniel went to grab something from the basement and found a broken light bulb. And not just any light bulb. Those bulbs that are supposed to be so much better for energy stuff. But are toxic if broken. It was broken. And all over the basement. I won't go into detail about how it happened, but these little thangs were involved. So there was an extensive discussion about the toxicity of the basement. They aren't allowed down there. On Tuesday, I found these thangs with their sweatshirts, a rag to go over their faces and gloves/grocery bags on their hands. They were cleaning it up. Such sweethearts.

If only they would get the rest of the basement cleaned up. Maybe we could start getting it finished!