Ketchikan, Alaska

Ketchikan was our last port of call on our cruise, although it wasn't supposed to be! was originally settled as a fishing camp. It has a little river that runs right through it, and I didn't see a single salmon. It is a beautiful city though. The houses along the creek are built on wooden pilings, completely over water. We even got to see "Hello, Dolly's" house! I guess there were a lot of brothel's in this town, and "Dolly" had one of the originals. We didn't have an excursion here but just walked the town and did some shopping. The sunset out the night before was absolutely amazing. The colors shifted so quickly that I couldn't stop taking pictures because each one was so different.

Skagway, Alaska

Skagway is a tiny little town approximately a 20 by 5 block area. It has approximately 800 people that live there; however, many students come up for the summer to work. The town at one time had a population of about 20,000. This was during the big Klondike Gold Rush. We went on a four hour train ride up the White Pass Yukon Rail. The scenery was amazing. There wasn't much else to do in Skagway other than to shop, but it was a fun little town to shop in. I am realizing that most of my pictures for this train ride were taken on my father-in-laws camera. It has much better capabilities than mine, so I stole it for this ride. I will have to post them once I find where we saved them on the computer!

Juneau, Alaska

The sign says: Delicate-Please do not pet furs

I bet you all can guess what our favorite joke of the day was....So our first little town in Alaska was Juneau. The cute little capital of Alaska. No sightings of Sarah Palin, but we did see the Governor's Mansion. Juneau is the largest land city in America covering over 3, 100 acres of land. But only 30,000 people live there. The only way in and out of Juneau is by BOAT or PLANE, the longest road in the area being 47 miles long. It usually only gets into the 60-70's and rains most of the time. Juneau was founded during the great Alaskan gold rush but not a lot of gold was ever found. It survives today mostly by tourism. We were told that for fun the teens like to pour rum in the streets to see the bears come for a special treat and get a little buzz. We visited Mendenhall Glacier. I think the pictures say it best!

Embarkation Day

My computer is not liking blogger right now so these are the only pictures I can get on today.

Where to even begin! Brett and I recently returned from a 7-day Alaskan cruise. We had such a great time. We went with Brett's parents and 2 of his brothers and their wives (no, they each don't have more than one). We also left our kids at home with my mom, and brother and his wife-a big shout out: THANKS! It was so relaxing and divine. Alaska truly is majestic. Our port of call was out of Seattle. We left early that morning and headed straight for the ship to check in and of course have our first meal of the trip. We couldn't miss out on an opportunity to eat. We had the mandatory muster drill and headed again to our first meal in the dining room where I got the princess love boat for dessert. I have decided there are so many great pictures I am going to have to do a day by day and that still won't even cover it all!

A Teaser

The Buzzzzz

A couple of weeks ago we went to a Bees Game. Brett's aunty and uncle had some extra tickets and so we headed out with them. It was such a blast and the kids were spoiled rotten! Let's just say "Smitty" has a few conncetions. We went up to a suite and were visted by Bear and Bumble. The girls freaked out to say the least when Bear started spraying silly string. They weren't quite as afraid as Bumble and we even got the little one to blow him a kiss. We topped it all off with a heaping dish of ice cream and headed out for the night, way passed my bed time.