Life Escalated

On Monday, we arrived at our first port, Ketchikan, Alaska. I think this was my favorite of the cities we visited. Ketchikan was absolutely beautiful.

Ketchikan is a rain forest. They get close to 140 inches of rain every year. It rained on us a tiny bit while we were there, but not enough to even get wet. All that rain means that everything is incredibly green and beautiful. Another interesting thing about Ketchikan is that it is on an island that is mostly solid granite. Our tour guide said that in most areas there is only a couple of inches of top soil. Because of this, most of the houses in Ketchikan are built right into the side of the mountain.

I loved the moss growing on the top of this building, and you can see how it is built right into the mountain.  Alot of the houses in Ketchikan were very colorful. I loved that.

The first thing we did in Ketchikan was go on a Duck Tour. It was not the most exciting thing, but we got to see and learn a lot about the city, so I really enjoyed it.

The kid’s got duck whistles that kept them entertained.

Kirk didn’t get a duck whistle, but still had a good time.

The tour took us around the city and then into the water.

It was fun to look at all the boats. Fishing and tourism are the two main industries there, so there are a lot of boats. People also use boats just to get around. There is another island right across the water from Ketchikan and many of the kids on that island go to school in Ketchikan. Our guide was telling us how the mom’s will “boatpool” there kids to school every day, sometimes in terrible weather and huge waves. It is such an interesting way of life.

The salmon weren’t spawning yet when we were there, so we didn’t see any salmon or bears, but we did see a lot of bald eagles.

This one is an immature bald eagle.

There are also a lot of float planes there. Everything they need has to be either boated or flown in.

After the tour, we went to the Lumberjack Show. It was cheesy and very touristy, but was still really entertaining.

After that, we had a little bit of time to wander around the city. But, by then the kid’s were tired, so before long we headed back to the boat.

One thing that Ketchikan is known for is having the largest collection of standing totems in the world. We actually didn’t have time to go to any of the areas that have a lot of totems, but we did see a few in town, like this eagle totem.

Another interesting tidbit about the town. Because it is built on rock, a lot of the houses are not accessible by roads. Instead, the city builds staircases to give access to the homes. The staircases are actually considered roads. If you look closely at this picture (click on it to make it bigger) you can see the street sign on the staircases. The city maintains the staircases and keeps them free from snow and debris.

I took this picture as we were leaving Ketchikan. I was amazed at how steep that road is.

It was a little sad to say goodbye to Ketchikan. All in all, we had a great day in a really wonderful city.

Last week, we went with Kirk’s parents on a cruise to Alaska.  It was absolutely amazing. We had a lot of great experiences and I took about 800 pictures (I promise I am not going to blog them all.) There is way to much to show and tell for one blog post, so I will be spreading this out over the next week or so.

Our cruise left from Seattle, so, bright and early Saturday morning (about 5:30), we headed to the airport. We had a great flight. Zoe was really excited to go on the airplane, but about 5 minutes after take-off she was ready to be done. She did really well though.

We didn’t get to do anything in Seattle, we just hopped on a shuttle that took us strait to the port. Once we got there, we were actually able to get on the ship in not too much time. We grabbled some lunch at the buffet and then spent some time exploring the ship.

I took lots of pictures as we sailed away.

My family really was happy, they just had the sun in their eyes. Speaking of sun, see those blue skies. You aren’t going to see many more of those in these cruise pictures.

The Seattle skyline. It truly is a beautiful city.

Rob hanging out on the ship. Let me tell you about those glass panels. They are all over the deck of the ship. I had never been on a cruise and I thought they were the stupidest thing ever (they made it really hard to get good pictures), until we actually started moving. Once I realized how windy it was on the boat when it was moving and how great of a job those glass panels did at blocking said wind, I was able to forgive them for ruining a few pictures.

Zoe on the ship. It took a couple of days before I was even able to convince Zoe that we were on a boat. She had been so excited to go on the boat, but it was so big when we boarded that she couldn’t really tell that it was a boat. Inside, it seemed like just another building. She kept looking out at the ocean and all the other boats in the water and asking me when we were going to go on a boat.

We spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday at sea. This was the view from the deck or out the windows most of the time. We could see land on both sides of the ship.  It was always cloudy and a little foggy. The seas were almost always glassy. It was really pretty, but really hard to get good pictures.

It was amazing how green everything was.

Zoe on day two. They painted her face at kid’s club. She was a cat. She thought it was wonderful. Just a side note, by this point in the cruise, it felt like every crew member already knew Zoe’s name. Everywhere we went, all we heard was “Zoe, how are you?”  That girl truly has a gift with people.

Robby on the ship.

More view from the ship. One thing that amazed us a lot about the landscape was how close the trees grow together. They are packed in there as tight as they can be.

Zoe and Grandpa playing on some of the kid’s stuff out on deck.

This thing was actually the top of a slide in the kid’s pool. We never actually used the pool (brrr!), although Zoe asked several times.

Robby playing shuffle-board. I find it funny that shuffle-board seems to only be played on cruise ships. Turns out, Robby is a pretty good shuffle-board player.

This picture is really blurry, but I had to post it anyway because I love the look on Zoe’s face. She thought shuffle-board was a great fun. Turns out, Kirk is not a very good shuffle-board player, when he is trying to hold a three-year old helper at the same time.

 

Last Friday, I decided to take the kids to the zoo.  We hadn’t been for a while.  It is one of those things that I plan to do every summer, but it is always so hot (I hate the zoo when it is hot).  So this year, we went early, when it was nice and cool.

I thought that Zoe would love the zoo.  Unfortunately, she had a bit of a rough day. As soon as we got to the zoo, she started complaining that her ear hurt. She had a bit of a cold and I think that her ear just needed to pop, but it made her pretty miserable. A couple of hours into the zoo she snapped out of it though and had a good time.

Our favorite part of the zoo was the bird show. We sat in the front row and got some amazing views of a lot of really neat birds.

 

 

 

The last couple of weeks have been kind of busy.

Robby finished off the third grade.  He had his end of the year program, which was really fun (I forgot to put the memory card in my camera, so no pictures.)  He had a great year.  He found out this year that he really enjoys writing. He truly loves school and is always a little sad when it ends.

He loved Mrs. McQuivey.  She was a lot of fun.

I really want to make this summer fun, especially for Robby, so I have been trying to find different fun things for us to do everyday.  One day we made sand art.  They had a good time and were pretty proud of their creations.

Last Saturday we did the Art City 5k.  This race has become a bit of a tradition for our family. We have ran it (ok, usually walked it) for the past 5 years or so. We have fun. We go nice and slow, pushing our little umbrella stroller, but it is still just fun to do it together as a family. Robby decided we were too slow this year and ran without us. He finished about ten minutes before the rest of us did. I was proud of him for working so hard.

The last couple of weeks, Robby has had tennis camp. He has really enjoyed it and is improving a lot.

While Robby is at tennis, Zoe and I just hang out at the park. Zoe is such a social butterfly. She doesn’t usually spend any time on the actual playground, she is too busy talking to all the other parents there watching tennis. She did manage to find a little bit of time to run around and get some energy out.