The New Year

2014 was a year of firsts:

• FP3 and I left the USA for the first time (Canada counts!).
• I moved more than an hour and 15 minutes away from my parents.  I went to the extreme by moving to Alaska.
• I rode on a ferry (for 3 days)
• I'm a stay at home mom (for now...)
• I visited the North Pole 
• My baby turned 1.
• I graduate with an MBA 
• I flew alone for the first time (OK Lil Man was with me, but I'm counting it)

It was a great year and I'm hoping 2015 is even better!  

Lil Man and I were able to travel back to Kansas for Christmas and it was great!  The question I was asked the most while we were there was "How do you like Alaska?"  Everybody thought I was crazy when I answered the question but its still true.  I love it!  As crazy as it sounds, I really do.  It is beautiful at all times of year.  EVEN when it is -33 outside.  Which it was earlier this week.  I even went outside to shovel (sweep) the sidewalk on Sunday when it was -24 (my eyelashes froze).  It really isn't as bad as it sounds.  

Anyway, my goal is to do a little better with my blog this year, to keep everybody updated on the happenings of Alaska. In the mean time, here are some of the pictures from our adventure to Kansas and back. 

 1:15am Alaska Time ready to take off for our very very first flight.

 Lil Man sporting his new beanie Grandma made for him.

 All rested up from our jet lag waiting to have lunch for Grandpa

 Spent some time in Manhattan with Cole, Amanda, and Eva.  Watched Cole share his favorite snowy past time with Eva.  Building a SNOWMAN!!

 We didn't have Lil Man's snow gear so we were only able to watch.

 Eva was just hit by snowball shrapnel after it bounced off the snowman.

Eva had a little more fun throwing snowballs at Mom and Dad than helping Dad build the snowman.

The final product!  

 Uncle Cole was having a great time entertaining the little ones!

 Eva wanted to hold Baby Floyd....He is almost as big as her!!!

 One of the best parts of being back in Kansas was lots of family willing and excited to watch Lil Man.  My amazing brother and sis-in-law were gracious enough to watch FP3 while I got to spend one of the evenings in Manhattan with this beautiful lady!!  Oh boy did we have fun catching up!  Spend time with another friend Lisa, but we did get any pictures taken (we never were that great at remembering to take pictures when we got together, right Lisa?)

 

Got to hang out with LOTS of family!  Some even drove 3 hours to see Lil Man (and maybe a little bit to see me) 

 Got to see Great Grandma Peggy.  She kept saying how beautiful Lil Man was.  

 Ready for Christmas Eve!  Somebody was not thrilled about posing in front of the Christmas Tree so he crawled away...

Christmas morning Grandma was helping FP3 open one of his presents.

 Studying the cow that came with one of his new tractors.  Some body's grandparents are making sure this boy knows his farm equipment.

 Cousins playing with the sticky window snowman Grandma had put up.

 Grandma with her grandchildren.  Somebody has a full lap! 

 The next generation all playing together nicely (at the beginning of the night...)

 FARKLE SPARKLE!!!  Spent a few nights playing Farkle!  My mom, was normally the winner, but June was able to beat her after a few glasses of  Hypnotic Sparkle so it needed to be documented! 

Now Aunt Amanda's lap is full!  

 Lil Man got to see Great Grandma Betty too!  

 So happy we got to see Great Grandma and Great Grandpa from Iowa.  We are thankful they are able to travel to Kansas every Christmas! 

 Lil man was exhausted after 4 Christmas in 5 days might have been a little too much for him.  But it was FUN!

 We met up with the Eilders for dinner the night before we left so we could say goodbye.  Lil Man LOVES his Uncle Cole!

 Awe cousins! 

 We had a wonderful time but we missed Daddy and it was good to get back home.

I'm not sure how, but we did not get any pictures of Lil Man with Grandpa or Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Eilders, I'm so sorry about that!  

Our adventure back from Alaska to Kansas to Alaska was great!  And very much a learning experience.  And three of the things I learned are:

1. Flying with a lap infant is the most uncomfortable way to fly EVER!  In the future this boy will have his own seat.  Of course possibly the next time we fly he will be required to have his own seat.  
2. Longer layovers are better when traveling with a one year old.  Short layovers are STRESSFUL!
3. I will NEVER again choose a connecting flight in Denver during the winter again!  They canceled my flight the night before we were supposed to fly and I spent over 2 hours on the phone with the airline getting a new flight before 2015.  (Yes I know it wasn't Denver's fault but those are my feelings on the situation)

Despite these lessons, I loved every minute with my family and I'm so happy we got to spend 2 and a half weeks in Kansas.  Thank you everybody so much for everything.  Especially my parents!  Mom and Day thank you for putting up with us, picking us up and dropping us off at the airport, even though the dropping off was a mess.  We love you!  

  

5th Leg - Canada and Alaska

I know I'm horrible! Here goes Alaska to Canada and back to Alaska...

We landed in Haines, AK on June 2.  It was about 2:00pm when we got off the Ferry and we made the decision to stay in Haines for the night and make our way through Canada the following day.  We found a hotel that was, not a normal hotel.  It was old military housing turned into a hotel.  However, this house was huge so it must have been the generals house or something.   Let's just say it was interesting.  The best part was the claw foot bath.

After checking in we went to a local restaurant and I had fish and chips for the first time ever.  I know that's kind of a ridiculous, but those of you who know me, know I'm super picky and trying something new is not easy.  However, I was sick of burgers and chicken from fast food restaurants so there you go.  They were delicious by the way.  After dinner we stopped at the Bald Eagle habitat (Thank Mom for mentioning it).  The habitat turned into a museum of wild animals, which we got into for free (Thank you Military).  We also got to see a bald eagle.  It was in is cage but it was AWESOME!  We didn't spend too much time there, just enough to wander around the stuffed wild animals and take a few pictures of the bald eagle and then back to our room.  It was early but we were tired, you know from all that ferry riding ;).

Our plan for the 3rd was to get up "early" and drive through Canada and spend the night in Tok, AK.  We finally got around and left the hotel around 9:00 (we planned for 8:00).  The Canadian border was only about 30 min away so we thought we were making great time even with leaving an hour later than we wanted.  However, it took us 2 hours to get across the border. Ugh!  It took us 2 hours because they couldn't find the paperwork for Floyd's gun (a 1911) that he had sent to the Canadians probably 2 to 3 weeks before we left Kansas.  They called and called and called and it took 2 HOURS to get to the right person to find out if they received the correct paperwork.  It took so long I took a nap! Not to mention it was raining all morning and cold.

When we finally got across the border.  We didn't have any hang ups.  However, the posted speed limit sign on the Alaskan Highway through Canada is 95....kph.  Its a good thing our truck can change to the metric system.  We found out later there are a lot of people get speeding tickets because they are going 95mph.  One thing that must be noted when driving through Canada on the Alaskan Highway be sure you see the orange flags flying because that indicates the road is horrible horrible horrible and you better slow down.  The only time we stopped was to get gas but there was a lot of beautiful country to see, including a bear.

We made it through the rough roads of Canada and back into Alaska and spent the night in Tok, AK.  We checked into our hotel and went to have a sit down dinner that turned into a to go dinner.  We were so tired but just all the traveling that we didn't grab the diaper back, but didn't realize it until we sat down and lil man decided it was time to poop.  The food was delicious tho.  It was called Fast Eddy's and I would definitely recommend anybody traveling through Tok to try it.

From Tok, we had 3 more hours to drive in the morning to make it to our final destination, Fairbanks/Ft Wainwright. Our trip on Jun 4 to our final destination was very uneventful but awesome to finally get there.  It was wonderful to know that we didn't have any more traveling to do.  But scary because neither of us really knew what we needed to do or where to go.  That first night we stayed in Fairbanks because our room on post was not reserved until the 5th.  We did a little exploring of downtown Fairbanks near where we were staying but really just kind of decompressed from our travels in our room.  Big Daddy BBQ was our dinner that night and it was AMAZING! Definitely another restaurant I would recommend.

Anyway, enough rambling.  Here are a lot of pictures:

 Just got off the Ferry driving into Haines, AK

 View from our hotel parking lot in Haines

 Bald Eagle Habitat

 The museum part of the habitat

 The real life bald eagle

 Lil Man unwinding from the Ferry

 My Dessert that was DELICIOUS at the restaurant in our hotel

 On the road to Canada

 Canada

 Beautiful Canada

 You guessed it...more Canada (there were a LOT of these pictures)

 Kluane Lake in Canada - This lake went on FOREVER

 Same Lake

 Close up of the same lake

 I took about a million pictures of this lake.  Can you tell it is the biggest/longest lake I've ever seen? 

 Canadian Reeses.  Just as good but the wrapper looked funny

 My big boy holding his own bottle.  

 Bear!! Floyd said "I could have beat that bear up, he was little"

I believe this is Alaska now

Definitely Alaska

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Leg 4 - The Ferry

On May 30, we boarded our Ferry in Bellingham, WA.  We got into Bellingham around 10:30am.  We didn't have the stage the vehicle (get in line) until 3:00p and we were set to depart at 6:00pm.  We had a lot of time to waste.  We reorganized our luggage to include the important stuff we needed to take up to our room and to make it easier to grab when we pulled onto the ship.  We went in search of a Target or Walmart to get formula for Lil Man, ended up finding a Walgreens first so we got a few things there with the formula.  We then travelled back to the port.  I did homework while my men got us lunch and hung out.  Around 2:00pm we drove the truck to the staging area.  

Once we were in line, we could leave the truck or stay with it but we had to be back with our vehicle at 3:00 to begin boarding.  So we decided to stay with the truck.  While we waited to board, we saw the police dogs go around sniffing vehicles and groups reuniting.  It is crazy that some of those people do this every year and every year they see the same people either that or are bound for the same locations.  Turns out we stayed with the truck for a really long time.  I don't think we actually pulled into the ferry until 5:00.  And yes I do mean into not onto because the vehicles were all under the ship.  There were all sorts of vehicles down there, buses, RVs, and motorcycles along with the normal cars and trucks.  

Once we got into the ferry we unloaded the necessary luggage and went up to find out our room assignment. 

The room was not what I expected.  It had 2 sets of bunk beds for the 3 of us, we had a sink, toilet/shower, and closet.  Those of you know how we pack know we had a lot of luggage for not a very big room (even though we condensed our stuff).  We got our bags in and decided to go walk around the boat for a little while before we left port.   The ship had observation decks all around the outside.  The top level of the ship was full of people that were camping out.  I'm serious!  These people had tents, sleeping bags.  Apparently, you don't have to purchase a room you can just camp out up top.  Let me tell you, I will NEVER do that, it was sooooo stinking cold and windy, I couldn't imagine it.  There were even families with little kids up there!  Inside, there was a room in the front that had windows at the front that you could just sit and watch as we sailed.  At the back of this room, they had 2 big screen tv's that had a map of where we were and where we were headed so we could track our progress.  There was a full service bar.  It was great, I had a Norm moment.  I only went into the bar 2x and the bartender new my name and drink by the second time I came in.  It was kinda awesome but then again it kinda made me feel like an alcoholic.  She even knew who I was when I walked in.  Of course Floyd was in there before me and said that his wife was going to be coming in shortly, so when I sat down she said "Are you Floyd's wife".  Then there was the cafeteria.  You would think as much as we spent on the dang ferry the food would be free, but it wasn't.  They did have some good food though.  And Floyd was LOVING the seafood. 

We boarded on Friday, May 30 and got off the ship on Monday, Jun 2.  During that time we had 4 stops before we got to our destination of Haines, AK.  We did have any stops until Sunday so there was a lot of scenery to take it.  It was so beautiful.  If an Alaskan Cruise has scenery like the what we saw on the ferry I would recommend it to anybody.  It was nothing like I have ever seen before.  On Sunday, Jun 1, we actually were able to get off the ship at our first stop in Ketchikan.  It is a cute town.  We had breakfast on land and then reboarded the ship.  Then next 3 stops, Wrangell, Petersburg, and Juneau were too short for us to get off the ship.  

We got to Haines June 2 early afternoon and decided to spend the evening in Haines and then get a fresh start in the morning to go through Canada.  That will be the next leg.  Our 3 day ferry ride was a lot of fun and was relaxing with scenery that would be hard to beat.  Here are some pictures.  

Our Ferry - M/V Malaspina 

 Driving into the Ferry

 Our room

 Getting ready to explore the boat

 Bellingham, WA

 Exploring the ferry

 Baby getting a lil tummy time 

 View from the back of the ship

 Very excited about being out in the wind

 Sitting in the observation room

 Flowers in Ketchikan.  This is the actual color.

 More flowers in Ketchikan 

 Ketchikan

 Chewing on some celery, thanks Dad!

 Me and baby hanging out in the room

 Dad and baby hanging out in the room

Dry land again, heading to find a hotel in Haines.