Tuesday Morning

Morning: It's amazing how much different you feel when you have had a good night's sleep, a two-hour nap the day before and you get your kitchen cleaned before 9:00 am.

Afternoon: It's amazing how much energy it takes to do so little... is it just being pregnant or is it just being a mom?

Monday Morning

Do you ever have Mondays where you wake up and are just overwhelmed? When the thought of facing the dishes, the toddler chucking food from his tray onto the floor, getting showered and dressed and trying to be productive is just too much to handle? Just wondering.

Oregon Coast

[Snippets from an unfinished blog draft about our trip to the Oregon Coast.]

told Jared we might be going home today. "I'm not going!" well that clinches it...

We went to the Newport aquarium, Camryn bit Michael, sat on time out. I told her "stop whining or no dessert." She didn't stop. She said "I don't want to go to the buffet"... but when we went to the buffet, Connie showed her that it had brownies. "Sorry Cam, you didn't stop whining"... then another 30 minutes of taking her out and insisting that no amount of whining or fussing was going to get her brownies.

Scooters, "Say sorry like you mean it" tantrum.. now camryn is happy as a lark...

Jared and transformers movie...

[Sorry, I don't remember what these last two sentence beginnings were all about!]

Alaska: Sunbathing

Sunbathing in Alaska. Enough said.

Cloudy Weather

Last week we hit a patch of cloudy weather in the middle of August. This should have been a bit of a relief after the record-breaking hot weather at the beginning of August, but it's still a bit depressing in the middle of August and everyone's mood seemed to take a hit. It didn't help that on Wednesday when we were supposed to go to park day and play in the fountains it rained. So we spent WAY too much time cooped up in the house, the kids seemed to fight even more than normal and I was even less patient in dealing with the fighting than normal.

One night that week as I was putting Jared to bed he said, "Mom, when I grow up, I want to find someone to marry who isn't as stern as you are." Ouch. I try not to let the kids get away with fighting, but I've never really thought of myself as stern. How do you take that? Hmmm....

Alaska: Ketchikan

Our next port in Alaska was the town of Ketchikan (or maybe it wasn't the next port... it's been two months since the cruise, so the order of ports is starting to get hazy). We arrived in port at 6:00 am and had to be back on the boat by 11:30... yeah, not exactly a long time to see everything. But we did our best to cram it all in. We went on a 6:30 am shore excursion to go sea kayaking in the ocean around the Eagle Islands. We got on a bus, drove out north of the town and piled on all of the requisite gear: rain slickers, life jackets, and a spray skirt. I'm not usually a huge morning person and the weather was overcast, but the kayaking was a blast. The water (not glacier run-off this time) was actually reasonably warm, although we mostly just got it on our hands/arms from paddling.

Despite the early hour, the kayaking trip was awesome! It was low tide (which in Alaska is a difference of 20 feet) so we saw lots of sea stars, sea cucumbers and other sea life. We even saw two bald eagles fighting in mid-air. When we got back we went to look around Ketchikan and saw that there were tickets still available for the last "The Great American Logger's Show" before we had to be back on the boat, so we went. We got to see Team USA vs. Team Canada compete in log-chopping, pole-climbing, and even log rolling (where they see who can stay up on a rolling log the longest while the other tries to splash water in their face or do anything besides touch them to get them to fall down). Yo-ho! (That's what they have you yell when your team scores). Then it was back on the boat.

Alaska: Skagway

One of my very favorite parts of our Alaska trip was our stop in Skagway. A lot of this probably had to do with the fact that it was a beautiful, gorgeous, sunny day which just made the scenery all the more beautiful. In general, the color scheme of Alaska reminded me of the winters here in the Northwest- grey skys and green tree-covered hills - except that in Alaska everything is 10x bigger-- instead of hills they have huge mountains and cliffs. Alaska also shares a trait with the Northwest that while it is pretty in its usual grey/green color scheme, when the sun decides to show its face it is just breathtaking.

We walked around Skagway a little bit and passed the usual slew of jewelry stores (in a teeny 10,000 person town?). Then we went on a shore excursion on the "White Pass Scenic Railway." The train line was built to take people to the Yukon in the gold rush. It was later used for cargo and now is used for tourists. We didn't go all the way to the Yukon-- although we did cross over into Canada (but I didn't get to use my passport). The scenery was absolutely exquisite: the pictures don't even begin to do it justice. There were huge towering snow-covered mountains, waterfalls and rivers, and trees everywhere, all shimmering in the sunlight (you can tell I have lived in the Northwest long enough that sunlight is a prized commodity in my book). =]

Dave and I kept going out on the platform to enjoy the air and the view and I inadvertently discovered why you hold your breath going through a tunnel: if you are out on a train platform, you HAVE to hold your breath when you go through a tunnel if you don't want to inhale smoke and train fumes.

During the trip, they had some narration about the history of the railway and the Yukon gold rush. As we went past a rocky canyon, they explained that in order to cross the border into Canada, a miner had to have a year's worth of supplies with him, so many of them had to go up and down that rocky canyon twenty or even thirty times to transport all of their goods. After enduring horrible hardship and harrowing terrain, the lucky prospector finally made it to Yukon Territory only to find out that all the claims had been staked already. (Note to self: Don't ever join a gold rush.)

After our excursion we walked around Skagway a bit more and bought some souvenirs, fudge and ice cream cones (Isn't it funny how every single tourist site in the universe has a place to buy fudge and ice cream cones? There must be some sight-seeing reflex that triggers a "need fudge... need ice cream" response.). We enjoyed the sun, took some pictures and then went back to the dock.

I took a picture of the ship docked to try to capture how enormous it really is. It holds 2500 people (and kind of looks kind of like the starship Enterprise to me). This picture isn't actually isn't our cruise ship -ours was docked behind it-, but it's one that is the exact same size/model. There were 3 or 4 cruise ships docked in Skagway while we are there... it probably doubled the population. Then it was back to our boat, to enjoy the endless supply of food and activities.