Camera pictures from Alaska

I'm trying to write as many posts as I did in 2018 and I only have a few more days to hit my goal. I was looking through some of the posts that I started to write this year and never finished and discovered all of these Alaska pictures. I'd made a photo book for the Pauley grandparents to thank them for the trip and I guess I never got around to blogging about it.  So here are some of the highlights for blog posterity.

We left Seattle on a Sunday afternoon and cruised all day Monday.  The weather was usually in the low 60's or upper 50's and it felt great to us after a hot July in Cheyenne. While on the ship we spent a lot of time watching for whales and we got to see so many!  It was really cool.  

Glenn whale watching and Reina modeling.

It wasn't quite 60 degrees the morning that Will and I sat on the deck and read books and watched for whales.  Glad we had our cold weather gear! 

I took many photos with my Canon but these are the phone camera versions.  Our first stop was in Juneau where we had most of the day to explore Alaska's capitol.  We found a small city museum that had a little area for kids to explore and they loved it, even the tween.

Will pretending to process fish - he even put on the apron.  Well, he was using the fish as a weapon to cut other fish but he was having fun.  

Sun setting as we left Juneau

It looks like these are all of the camera pics that I saved.  We also visited Ketchikan, Sitka, Victoria BC and I feel like there's someplace else that I'm forgetting.  It was a terrific opportunity to see such a beautiful part of our planet and spend lots of quality time with family. 

While just about everybody else on the ship was viewing the Hubbard Glacier, these two monsters were swimming.  Yes the pool was heated but the air was not warm.  They didn't care.  

Reason #350 why this isn't a food blog

While finishing up dinner tonight, Glenn pointed out that just about everything in the soup pot was something that we had harvested.  With the exception of one Yukon gold potato, the carrots, onions, purple potatoes, tomatoes and moose meat were either from our garden or from Glenn's recent hunt.  Okay, the salt and spices were from the cupboard because we aren't that hardcore (yet?). 

Moose stew - by all accounts, it was delicious!  My food photography on the other hand.... 

This year, we had a lot of gardening ventures happening.  Besides our shared plot at the community garden, we also carved out more space in our backyard for a raised bed.  We had pots of peppers and tomatoes, too.  The community garden was one of the best ones we've had.  We had more cucumbers than we could handle, spaghetti squash, potatoes, beans, peppers, peas and tomatoes.  Oh and beets!  At home, we grew pumpkins, more cucumbers, beets, onions, carrots, two cabbages and one magnificent kohlrabi.  Our summer started off extra chilly but we had good moisture and heat as the summer wore on.  We finally hard our first frost last week, so the season is officially done.  

Pie pumpkins - I think they are called Connecticut field pumpkins?  They went crazy in our small spot.  Any that grew outside of the fence became victims of our curious chickens.  

I didn't thin the carrots and so I ended up with a bowl of pinky-sized carrots.  They are really sweet and crunchy but have a slightly-disturbing finger vibe. 

 I should clarify that while the gardening season is done outside, inside the house, we are still working away.  Vicky and I picked these tomatoes (and more!) a few days before the frost and brought them in to try to ripen.  Vicky has at least half this much at her house.  These are more tomatoes than we've ever grown but we needed just a few more weeks to get them ripe.  I checked on mine today and some are starting to ripen but I'm also looking at recipes for green tomato pickles.  Yum? 

Skiing!

The monsters and I headed up to Snowy Range Ski Area for a day of skiing on this three-day weekend.  I combined all of my birthday money (thanks parents and parents-in-law!), bought us all new ski gloves, packed some lunch and headed over the hill.  Glenn still doesn't ski but we have hopes to drag him along next time.  For the last few years, the kiddos and I have managed to squeeze in a ski day or two and Will and Reina are turning into such great skiers.  I wish we had the time and the unlimited ski passes to go more often.  Today was a little windy and chilly at times but we had a lot of fun.  Will skied down a few black runs by himself and spent a chunk of time skiing on this own because he and I had different definitions of what "meet mom at the bottom of the hill" means.  (He thinks you wait about 30 seconds and when no one appears, you take the next lift up and just ski.)  Reina and I tackled some new runs - or at least some new-to-Reina runs and we made it to the bottom of the mountain each time with no crashes and smiles on our faces. Seriously, these two are getting better each time we go and I know it won't be long before they leave me in the dust, or at least take a few easy runs with mom for old time's sake.  

Reina/mom selfie at lunch break.  

Will eating lunch and trying to watch the AFC playoff game over my shoulder.  

Will chilling (ha ha) at the end of the afternoon.  He took a hard route down to the bottom and was ready to be down.  

Reina decided to take the last lift up for one more run after Will and I were done.  

Someone keeping herself occupied on the long drive home.  

The Great American Eclipse 2017

On Sunday, we packed up the camper and headed northwest with a bunch of friends to a ranch near Casper, WY for the eclipse on Monday.  Full disclosure, I was lukewarm about the idea. I was worried about leaving the pets at home (they couldn't come to the ranch but they had Aunt Vicky checking on them frequently). I was also concerned about traffic because news reports indicated that Wyoming's population could possibly double from all of the people coming to see the eclipse.  I just felt uneasy but we headed out of town.  Spoiler alert?  I'm so very glad we got to see the eclipse.

After we unpacked and set up the camper, we headed to Miracle Mile, a great fishing spot on the North Platte. Some of the kiddos fished.  Our two just stuck their feet in the water.  

It was a little chilly.  

Glenn offered Will $20 if he'd submerge himself.  Pay up Dad.  

Reina preferred a submerge-less experience. 

Will warming up in the truck afterward.  

A juvenile pelican that didn't get that close - thanks zoom lens.  Glenn said he was a juvenile and I usually believe everything he says that's bird related.  

Shorts drying on the fenceline because someone (me) only packed Will one extra set of clothes. I forgot about the water factor.  No swimsuits either.  

The view from our camper.  We were camping on a ranch that's now owned by a corporation and all of the buildings except the main house are currently unused.  It was a peaceful place.  

Boys exploring a little creek that ran through the ranch yard.  We'd been warned about rattlesnakes but luckily we didn't see or hear any all weekend.  

I got to see an owl!  Two of them actually but I couldn't get them both to pose for the picture.  Glenn says this is a juvenile great horned owl.  All I know is that its giving me a very judgmental look.  And I'd like to snuggle it.  

Kids and parents fishing and catching crawdads.  

Day #2 and it's time for the eclipse!  We had to travel a few miles from the camping spot to completely be in the path of totality.  We pulled off the road on some BLM land and set up a temporary viewing area.  I took this picture right as the moon touched a sliver of the sun.  It would be another 80 minutes until totality.  

Smile!  With those glasses on, you can't see a thing except for the sun. 

Will passed the time playing a little football.   

Reina got comfortable.  

After we stopped,more cars and trucks started pulling in.  You can see some cows enjoying the spectacle too.  

The kids would take a break, put their glasses on, check out the sun and then go back to their game.  This one involved a soccer ball, points and a lot of yelling.  

A herd of horses were in the pasture we picked and that resulted in the Great Stampede of 2017.  Some of the kids jogged down the road to check out the horses, the horses decided to come up and see why the small humans were running, the small humans got scared of the horses running towards them and then chaos ensued.  No one was stampeded, there were lots of giggles and one barefoot kid.  Reina was just happy to have all of the horses hanging out.  

Getting closer to totality. It's a little hard to tell in this picture but the light was starting to change.  As the eclipse got closer, the light became more diffused and almost green. It was a weird thing to watch.  

Totality!  I didn't try to take any pictures of the sun with my camera until this point because I was worried about the lens.  It was such a strange sensation to peer through the glasses and see the fun partially covered, mostly covered and then this.  

Here's my zoomed in shot.  

Where we parked, totality lasted about a minute and a half.  All of the stress leading up to that weekend, the worries about traffic, etc., evaporated in that 90 seconds.  I keep using words like strange and weird but it so eerie to be standing outside at 11:42 a.m. on a Monday in the middle of August and have the temperature drop 10 degrees, the crickets start chirping and the world go silent for just a minute.  Glenn said later that it looked like dusk, except the sun was still high in the sky.  We all marveled at those few seconds, waited for the sun to come peeking back out, piled everyone back in the car and headed home.  We lucked out.  No traffic to speak of on our drive home, pets and house waiting for us and a great way to wrap up Summer 2017. I just might have to go see another eclipse in my lifetime.  

Glenn and Reina's Camping Trip

A few weeks ago, Glenn took Reina on her annual Dad/Daughter camping trip.  We finally had a weekend without baseball or any planned events so they scooted up to the mountains for a mini-backpacking trip. Glenn took a bunch of photos to document their adventure.  

Sword? Wand?  Softball bat? Who knows, but her form sure looks good.  

Taking a hiking break.  Tootsie was invited along on the trip because she does a good job off leash.  Trigger would've ended up in Idaho before Glenn could blink an eye.  Tootsie's off-leash skills don't always translate to her ability to pose for the camera.  

A close-up of our Outdoor Girl.  

Reina loves to fish, a fact that has been regularly documented on this blog.  This time around, she was miffed because Dad was the only one to catch anything.

Annual commemorative camping picture.  

Post-camping breakfast at a little diner in Centennial.  The pancakes were decorated with a face, Reina happily reported when she came home.  

So what did Will and I do while the other half of the family was camping?  We ran some errands, watched baseball, had dinner with grandparents and then grabbed ice cream cones on the way home, went to church and then watched some more baseball.  We also babysit my first nephew, Bailey the pug.  Bailey is a little old man dog but he had fun at our house.  Trigger was sulking because he didn't get to go camping and Coco was concerned by the addition of a senior pug just about her size.  Bailey lives with a cat so he'd wag his tail at Coco but she was having none of it.  I tried to get a few pictures of her giant puffiness and hissing whenever Bailey got too close but she usually scampered out of the room before I could snap a shot.

The summer marches on!

What we've been up to, April edition

I last blogged 16 days ago and honestly, I thought it was just yesterday.  This month has flown by.  Will is playing soccer and started track practices at school.  His first official school sport!  Mom is way too interested and not getting nearly enough details to satisfy her thirst.  I know that he's participating in three events in the track meet coming up next month.  I also know that I kiboshed his desire to get track shoes - - - for a sport that will last slight more than three weeks.  Will's also participating in 4-H shooting sports once a week.  He played goalie during last week's soccer game and while I worried about his beautiful face, he did a great job and seemed to really like playing back there.  This week's game was snowed out because it's April in Wyoming.  Wyoming weather this year is wildly unpredictable.  65 degrees and sunny one day and snowing the next.  We try to remind ourselves that summer is somewhere around the corner.  

Reina is getting ready for her dance recital in a few weeks and her piano recital one week after that.  She's also playing softball and enjoying it!  She's on an all-girls team and she was disgruntled that the team name is 'Pony Express.'  She thought they were named that because girls usually like ponies and she didn't think that was an accurate representation of girls' toughness. I explained the origin of the Pony Express and she's feeling better about the name.  I didn't mention that it's also the name of a local company that's sponsoring her team but details, details.  I can't wait to see her play.

Glenn is getting a little stir crazy in this time between fall hunting seasons and summer.  He's tried taking Will turkey hunting once or twice this month but either the turkeys or the weather haven't cooperated.  Last weekend, the weather cooperated and he and Reina went fishing on Sunday while Will and I stayed home and did chores and watched a Harry Potter movie that Reina can't watch yet. For the record, Will's read all of the Harry Potter books! I'm so proud of him!  Back to Glenn - he celebrated a birthday last Friday.  We had a few friends and a bunch of kids over and had a fun dinner party.

So Reina and Glenn fished and they came home with a cooler full.  Reina sure loves to fish.

What have I been up to?  Work, running people around to practices and lessons, reading some good books, knitting the same scarf that I started months ago, going to an exercise class a few times a week that makes me so sore that I need ibuprofen,  trying to start some plants in the basement to get a head start on gardening season and watching Netflix every once in a while with Glenn. Good stuff.

Will knows the password to my phone so each day I find a new wallpaper picture.  Here are some of my favorites.

A mom and daughter selfie taking in my messy office.

Bring on Spring!!  

Spring Break 2017

More than a week ago, the kids and I arrived back in town from our Spring Break trip. This year, Glenn stayed home to work and watch dogs, cat and chicken girls, and the kids and I headed southwest for a visit to Arizona with my parents.  It already feels like the trip was a month ago but I'll try to capture as many memories as I can.  

We left on a Saturday and Grandma H drove with us while Pop-Pop battled a bad cold and stayed back in Cheyenne for an extra day.  We had new movies on the Kindles, a book on tape, the last Harry Potter book for Will and more pop songs than either Grandma or I wanted to listen to.  The kids are pretty good travelers and we made it all of the way to Gallup, NM for the night.  The next morning, we headed into Arizona.  Our first stop was the Painted Desert.  It was a bit of a last minute decision but I'm so glad we drove through it.  

Future senior picture?  Will at our first stop at the Painted Desert.  Well, our first stop after the gift shop.  

Reina, a cupcake and the Painted Desert.  

Happy to be on vacation!  

This was one of my favorite stops. The rock was filled with pictographs and my favorite was the bird and frog that you can see there.  

A pueblo foundation in the Painted Desert.  Reina really liked all of the 'old stuff' and maybe we have a future archaeologist on our hands.  

I think this was called Newspaper Rock?  It was filled with pictographs. The scale is hard to determine here but the boulder was gigantic. I used my zoom lens but it was filled with drawings.  

Petrified wood!  

Reina and a giant piece of petrified wood.  

A cool petrified stump.

After the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, we drove for a few more miles and stopped at Walnut Creek (Canyon?) Cliff Dwellings.  After a slightly steep hike, we were able to walk through actual cliff houses from somewhere around 1300-1400. This stop made a big impression on kiddos and adults alike.  The kids were impressed at how old everything was and I couldn't stop thinking about teaching a toddler to walk on a cliffside.  Eek!

After our many side excursions, we rolled into Phoenix on Sunday evening.  We stayed at a fun resort that night and kids spent time in the pool on Monday.  Later that day, we traveled across town to our hotel in Scottsdale and Grandma and Pop-pop's condo across the park.

On Tuesday, we headed to Salt River Fields to watch spring training and the Rockies!  We sat in the grassy area overlooking the outfield and it was a gorgeous day for baseball.  Will even got an autograph from Rockies outfielder, Carlos Gonzales.

The view from our seats, with the zoom lens.  

Will and Dinger and Reina!  

Will (second from left) hoping for a toss from the outfield.  

On Wednesday, we visited the Museum of Music in Phoenix.  Will was nonplussed by some of the exhibits but he really enjoyed the room where you could try out a bunch of instruments.  Reina could've spent all day at the museum.

Will probably needed these Elvis glasses, right? 

We didn't leave the gift shop of the museum empty-handed.  Reina had her eye on a $56 ukulele but I said it was too expensive so when I noticed a $10 harmonica, I said "how about this?"  Her eyes lit up and that's how I ended up with an 8 yr-old, a harmonica and a 14-hour drive home.  

After the Museum of Music, we spent a few hours at Top Golf and the most important thing to remember from that excursion is that I WON.

On Thursday, the kids had time for one more swim, we gave Pop-pop and Grandma lots of hugs and then we pointed the car north and started home.  We stopped at Homolovi State Park in Arizona and saw more pueblo sites.

Obviously, you can't take any artifacts out of the park and there are pottery shards everywhere.  Someone has placed different pieces on rocks and it's a very cool way to see all of the different types.  

It was a little windy up at the top.  

More shards and a turquoise bead.  

The weather in Cheyenne was supposed to turn to snow on Friday so the kids and I kept a steady pace home.  We made it to Santa Fe on Thursday night and had one last night in a hotel.  Friday morning, we grabbed a donut and I drove them around the old plaza in Santa Fe - one of my favorite spots in the West.  Then we headed north.  The kids did a terrific job.  We didn't have any snow until we crossed the state line into Wyoming.  Will thanked me for the trip and told me that he'd never forget it.  Not a bad sentiment to hear on the last day of a long car trip.  Glenn and the dogs and the cat were happy to see us and I was delighted to have a few extra days to get cleaned up before it was time to head back to work and school.  We can't wait for our next adventure!