Ketchikan

Our first glimpse of Alaska was Ketchikan. With plans to meet the fam at 9:45am, we realized we had a whole 3 hours we could use to explore on land before meeting them! (At this point in the cruise, we were still on Minnesota time, often waking up at 5:45!). So off we went for a morning jog. Or at least what was planned to be a quick little morning jog...little did we know we would be climbing a mountain. Literally.



Ketchikan looked magical first thing in the morning with the fog just rolling away, the water like glass, and the quiet streets.





Pretty soon we had jogged through the whole town, so we started exploring beyond the city streets. We came across a totem pole park, and a beautiful stream. I noticed signs pointing to a hiking spot, so I started charging up the hill to see what the trail head looked like. On our way up, I spotted the biggest slug I have ever seen! I tried to pick him up, but he was too slimy. Gross!








We found the trail head and saw that it was only 3 miles to the summit; 1 mile to the first lookout. Piece of cake, right? Um, yeah right! This could have been the hardest hike I have ever done. It was straight up- crazy switchbacks- and took us over an hour to go 1 mile!! We came to a spot where we could see out over the water and it was just gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous . I wanted to see more.

I know, its not the best photo of us ...


the view






Well, while we were at the first lookout, someone told us that we weren't actually at the first lookout, it was just 1/4 mile further. So of course I told Ryan that we had to keep going. After another hour we realized that we in fact had seen the first look out, and that we didn't have time to make it to the 2nd lookout. I knew we were close but our bodies were too exhausted to keep going (no food or water for 3 hours of exercise) and Ryan's mom had already called us wondering where we were. We had no choice but to head down the mountain. Since it had taken so long to climb up, we had to run down the mountain, and again, with no water or food, our poor exhausted bodies couldn't go too fast! haha. We were quite the site. Once we got to the trail head we still had a mile or so to go to get back on the ship. I was so so sore, it was pathetic. We hurried and ate lunch, just in time to meet the family at the dock to go on our first excursion: zip-lining in the forest!

Zip-lining was so much fun!! We did a few ropes course activities at first, like rock climbing, etc. And then we went on a series of 7-8 different zip lines. It was awesome!!




I didn't take my camera with me on the zip lines, so there are only a few photos from this excursion.



After zip-lining we took a quick stroll through town before getting back on the ship. My favorite place was Creek Street--- these cute little shops all lined up along the creek. So quaint!








Alaskans love their popcorn-- we saw tons of these little places in the Alaskan towns. Yummy.



Once we got back on the boat and started looking over the town, I realized where/what we had hiked. Deer Mountain. Had I known what I was climbing, I may not have been so adamant about climbing the whole thing!

Ketchikan


Here she is: Deer Mountain

All Aboard!

Our cruise started on a gorgeous day porting out of Seattle. It was fun to explore the ship and have all the anticipation build for this great vacation, and to explore "the last frontier"-- Alaska.





Oh, see my gorgeous flowers in the picture above? Ryan bought them for me at Pike's Place--so we could put them up in our room. Seriously, the best idea ever--so sweet of my hubbie!!! They attracted tons of attention from everyone before we even got on the ship :) As soon as we got to our cabin we were given a vase to put them in. The peonies smelled amazing all week!


That first night we held FHE. Ryan and I were elected to host/teach the lesson. We conducted FHE as we normally do on Monday nights-- with a primary song and all. It was really fun to share that experience as a family with the Merrills. I guess if I hadn't been so worried about teaching a lesson I would have taken some photos ... sorry, folks.

Monday was a sea day. Which means, we were at sea all day. The weather outside was cold and rainy, so we stayed in the ship all day. I took this as an opportunity to read, The Help , which is most definitely one of my favorite books I have read recently.

That evening was our first formal night. I love getting dressed up! This was one of my favorite parts about the cruise. Everyone all gussied up and going to a nice formal dinner, and then to a show. We had a blast!





At dinner Ty was showing off his new toy ... and Ryan had no problems testing it out at the dinner table. Boys will be boys!


After the dinner and the show we were walking through the ship and heard some great music. We were happy to find a dance floor and an amazing band playing! Ryan quickly swept me off my feet and we started dancing. I love spontaneous moments like that with my husband! After a few more songs Tom and Jeralyn joined us on the dance floor. After a few more songs we decided to go find our crooner friend, Arni (who we met on the bus from Seattle). He totally remembered us, and announced to the crowd we were his friends from the bus and we were on our honeymoon! He asked us what our wedding song was, which is Can't help falling in love with you and he sang us our wedding song. It was so romantic to dance with my husband to the same song we danced to on our wedding day, almost 1 year later. This became one of our favorite memories from the trip.

Let's Start at the beginning. Seattle.

I decided I had better start at the beginning of our trip; which was an early (6am) flight to Seattle. We got to Seattle city center by 9:30am, which meant a full day was available to being complete tourists. Of course we started with the Market, which I found to be completely enchanting--however, I do have to say, I am still waiting for a market to top what I found while living in London. Nothing can quite compare to Portobello Market or Borough Markets I found in London.

Anyway, I love love Pike's Market and we had a blast sampling foods and eating anything our hearts' desired.















Of course I was completely obsessed with all of the flowers.



After circling Pike's a few times we decided it was time to explore. We headed toward the City Library, which turns out to be the coolest library I have ever seen! The whole thing is glass so there are some really great views from the inside.


Next we decided to get out of the city center and go up to the Queen Ann neighborhood. We had some great Thai food and enjoying seeing where people like to live in Seattle. This neighborhood is up on a big hill-- one of the city's biggest, so we started looking for the old mansions that were built there. Luckily it didn't take us too long too find one ...


But we soon discovered the treasure in this journey was not the cool big homes, but THIS:










The most amazing view of the water and of the city. We were not the only one's to have discovered this awesome park, but we were so excited to have found the best picture spot of the city in all of Seattle (so we were told by a local).

(Ok, so the person who took our picture was clearly not the one to ask, but let's just say you have to be there to capture the beauty and romance of this park overlooking the city).



We even took a little break here and laid down on the grass for an amazing nap. An old dating tradition of ours to do...

By the time we got back into the city, it was time to meet Ryan's family and his long-time friend Nate and his family for dinner. It was so much fun to get to know one of Ryan's oldest friends and his family. (this is Nate training Ryan on how to be a good dad)


For our last night in Seattle we went exploring down to Pioneer Square. This is the old historic part of the city, with the old buildings dating back to the fire that burnt the city down. It was fun just to walk and explore some more, we took Ryan's mom, Jeralyn and brother, Ty with us.





Sunday morning we took a bus up to the University and went to church. It felt kind of weird to be in a singles ward...and we didn't miss it much :) It was freezing on Sunday morning so I hijacked Ryan's jacket. We went back to Pikes for a delicious lunch and for a sweet surprise---





After Pike's we changed our clothes and took a quick bus ride to the port for our cruise. Along the way we met some of the ship's musicians, who were really great and helped me with my bags. With my flowers in hand, they all assumed we were on our honeymoon...we tried to correct them, but this soon became a theme for us on the trip.

Goodbye Seattle, Hello Alaska!

I owe you.

I know, I totally owe you people an amazing post about Alaska, and our move, and selling our house(!), and our new place, and everything else that has happened in between. I promise, I will get there. Hopefully tomorrow (well to at least start), but for now, I am still pretty tired and still have a mess around me, so I will give you a little teaser of what's to come.

MIA

My apologies for not informing all of my blog-followers that I would be out of town for 9 days.... Ryan and I just got back from our vacation with the Merrills to Alaska!! I will do my best to get the AK posts up soon -- but with this week being MOVING week, I can make no promises.

We are packing the Truck and moving on Thursday ... wish me luck.

K.

I'm trying to be like Jesus

For the last 9 months Ryan and I have had the coolest calling ever. We have been team teachers in the primary in the Minnetonka Ward. The first few months we taught 8 four-year olds, or the sunbeam class. We loved coloring and playing make-believe (Noahs ark), and anything and everything else we could think of to keep their attention! They were so cute and as soon as we got our next assignment, we were wishing we had those little sunbeams once again. But pretty soon our new class stole our hearts, too.

The last 7 months we have been teaching the 9-10 year old class. With 9 children, and one of them having down-syndrome, its an understatement to say we had our hands full. They kept us on our toes, and we are so sad to be leaving them as we make the move to Chicago. We have learned so much and have loved teaching them the coolest Old Testament stories of Adam and Eve, Moses, Abraham and Isaac, Gideon, Samson, etc etc. We are still keeping up with our Old Testament family study though -- its so great to remember these amazing stories.

Here's probably the worst photo of Ryan and I. But the only photo we have of our class.


I tried to embed a video that Ryan sent to me for Valentines Day. But it didn't work :(

Froyo
I love Frozen Yogurt. My obsession of course started in California when you could find any little place that would allow you to pick out your flavor of yogurt and then dump on as many toppings as you want and then you pay by weight of your treat. When I moved to Provo, luckily the Froyo sensation followed me and I could still get some pretty good frozen yogurt whenever I wanted.

Froyo in Minnesota? Not so much. Its been pretty disappointing to not have a plethora of frozen yogurt places to choose from. My husband tells me its because its Dairy Queenland out here... too bad I'm not a DQ girl. So, what do I to feed the hunger for yummy frozen yogurt? COSTCO.

It's creamy and delicious and the best part? It's only $1.35 for a huge cup filled to the rim. Today I had some errands at Costco, so my lunched consisted of a few samples and then a full cup of Frozen Yogurt.


Yum.

Flowers make me smile.

You all probably know this already, but I love love LOVE flowers. They are so beautiful and can brighten my day in an instant. I am so grateful for the beautiful yard that my house has and all the flowers that were planted before me so that I could enjoy them!

It started with daffodils and tulips, and now we are mid-summer and I have hydrangia and day lily's and all sorts of other treats to enjoy. Here are a few of my lilies:


Even just getting to buy flowers to stage my house makes me smile.

My toe toes.

There is just something about getting a pedicure that is so amazing. I'm not sure if its the relaxing massage-chair you get to sit in, or the fact that you are getting pampered for an hour, or the result of perfectly painted toes, but the combination of these things is just magical. I don't treat myself to this too often, so each and every time I get a pedi, the magic returns.

The things you don't see

I am copying this idea from my cousin-in-law, Sheree. I like it. I like to post about the fun adventurous things we do, or the little things that make me smile, like the flowers in my yard, but there's a lot that goes on over here in Minnesota that you don't get to see.

Like me, on my hands and knees scrubbing my bathroom floor with bleach at 7am. Why, You might ask? Because we have a showing on our house at 9:30am, and I need my house to look sparkling clean, which is harder than it looks.

We have had our house on the market for 5 weeks now and it might as well be 5 months with the way I feel! The market is at an all time low, and even with lowering the price 3x we are still only averaging 1-2 showings a week. We pray every day that our house might sell, and I know this will all work out in due time. However, in the mean time, I am left to using the spare minutes of my day and any spare energy that I have to scrubbing the bathroom floors, and cleaning my baseboards, along with every other household cleaning chore you can think of.

Not always fun, but definitely necessary and hopefully the hard work will pay off so we can give away our little piece of paradise we have enjoyed for the past 10 months. It's a painful process but we find comfort in knowing Our Heavenly Father blessed us to live here, and now needs us somewhere else.