Kodiak, AK

We got to have a wonderful trip to Kodiak! We took the kids up on Monday and then J and I were supposed to leave Fri for an anniversary trip and the kids would come down with Granny and Papa the following Wed but J and I got fogged in so our weekend trip had to get cancelled but we saw some amazing sites, enjoyed some beautiful weather and still got a couple days on the end at home when we didn't have kids with us. It was such a great trip.

I took this at 10:30 at night to show some of my friends what it looks like at night.

Travel day! They do such a nice job traveling it is awesome!

We arrived and went on a little hike. The next day we walked out to Buskin beach and enjoyed the sun and water

This is the beach sand, it is amazing, so soft. And crazy that one area has rocky beach all over and the next has completely sandy one.

We definitely felt like we were on an island in the Pacific (just a bit more south than we actually were)

Paddle board!

Bath time

The next day Papa treated Jeremy, Granny and me to a flight-seeing trip. It was amazing to see the island from the air and land on an alpine lake, wander for a bit and then continue on. We saw goats, bear and deer, glaciers and such amazing scenery it was incredible. Thanks G and P for a wonderful anniversary present.

You can see the shadow of our plane at the very bottom of this pic.

So amazing I can't even describe it!

The sea lion pile! We saw a couple sea lions trying to join the heap and kept getting pushed back into the water. It was pretty funny.

Fishing and boat time

And even just a little catching!

Then the kids got to be in not one 4th of July parade but 2! They rode in Dr. Dave's really old car in the town parade and rode in a decorated boat in the Chiniak parade. Quite a fun day celebrating the 4th.

Picture through the window while driving home. The girls and Papa in the front, J and me in the back.

When the fog rolled in we went to Abercrombie and did a little more hiking and beaching

We got to see Granny in her bells performance

Then we hit an awesome farmer's market with pony rides and goat petting and all sorts of fun activities.

We had such a great trip in AK!

Visit to WA

With the kids year round school and having from Dec 21st to Feb 4th off of school I decided a trip to WA was in order. We left on Jan 3rd (when Jeremy had to head back to work) and then got back home on Jan 22nd so we enjoyed close to three weeks of vacation. The kids traveled really well and we had a few different stops built in and a hotel stay each night. Then we got a chance to visit with a lot of family and friends for our stay! It was so fun to see everyone and hang out and bonus - I got to teach at my old school for 6 days while Grandma and Gram had kid duty so it felt like a true vacation for me too. We were bummed Dad had to stay and work but it is a busy time. I didn't get very many pics of all the things we did, too busy having too much fun!

Our first hotel night on the way up. (I forgot swimsuits so we had to run out and grab some)

 First stop, Auntie Jenny's. Unfortunately our Seahawks lost but we still had fun cheering for our team.

 Blurry pics of the cheering cousisn

A canoe ride with Uncle

Some quiet relaxing time

We made it back to 'our' side right in time to see the twins get dedicated at church!

Arriving at Grandma's enjoying the bed!

Kate was 'helping' Gram read her new book. Telling all kinds of made up stories about the pictures she saw.

If you look carefully you can see Kate wrote her numbers 1-10 on the chalkboard

Gram and Lucy would enjoy morning yoga time.

So blessed to visit old neighbors Bob and Mary (the girls even got to have a sleep over there)

Lucy enjoyed visiting with the dogs at Bob and Mary's

Kate was quite decked out for a trip to the Lamb's house.

 More morning yoga, Kate joined in this time.

Our pool on the trip home (way nicer than the way up)!

At a friends house playing in the band!

So many incredible memories, if it wasn't so hard for me to teach a traditional schedule while kids were year round schedule I could do this forever and enjoy vacations in off times like Jan, May and Oct. We truly enjoyed ourselves and survived very well for the long car ride both ways.