Funny Face

Mary has this new funny face that she learned to make. It cracks me up!

She also loves to blow raspberries:

Boys Will Be Boys

Do these look like the legs of a little boy who has been having lots of fun, or what?

Alaska Trip Part 2: 1st Sea Day, Sitka, Juneau

After sleeping in a MUCH more comfortable bed on the ship Wed. night (8/26) we awoke really early Thurs. morning and braved the cold for a spectacular view of College Fjord, and specifically Harvard Glacier. (All of the glaciers in this fjord are named after colleges: Yale, Harvard, etc.) All of the glaciers were beautiful, and it's amazing how big they are. Here is some of the beautiful scenery we saw that morning:

Yeah, I know we look pretty goofy, but it was COLD!

After leaving the glacier I made myself go and work out for a bit (I knew I was going to need it with how much food I was planning on eating throughout the cruise), then we got ready for breakfast and met down in the dining room to surprise my mom with the matching shirts Tyler & Jen designed.

Here's the gang (Doug & Jenn and Mindy & Chad weren't able to come). Under "Flake" it says "Cruisin' since 1959":

The was our first "Sea Day", and later that morning Fun For Less had a variety show for our group with Kerry Summers. Kerry does a variety show, where he does a little magic, ventriloquism, and some other fun stuff. My bro-in-law Dean got called up to participate as Dolly Parton. It was pretty funny and Dean was a good sport. Kerry is also an Elvis impersonator, and later on in the week he put on an Elvis show for us. The most awesome part about it is that he has Elvis-like hair...and it's not a wig! He wears it like that all the time. The poor fellow was assigned to our table in the dining room for dinner, so we got to know him better than most...nice guy.

Our family hung out in the karaoke lounge for a lot of the rest of the day, and many of them even participated. I missed a lot of it, though, while I was up in our room *pumping.

Later that evening is when the real "fun" started. We hit a storm while at open sea, the likes of which was the worst that even most of the crew had ever seen, and many of them even got sick. The boat got rocking pretty hard, and a few members of our family were too sick to even come down to dinner. I got a headache from it, and David was feeling a little nauseous, but we got dressed up and went down. We were doing okay until someone ordered fish and David caught a whiff of it, and almost lost his lunch, so we left without eating. We ended up sitting in the middle of the boat for a couple of hours or so, as it seemed to not be as rough there. Later we finally felt hungry and not too afraid of up-chucking so we scavenged some food. David and I were pretty much fine after that and slept pretty well, but the storm lasted through much of the night.

The storm delayed our arrival in Sitka the next morning, but we were very happy to have the rocking over with! Sitka was a "tendered port," which means that the boat didn't dock, rather little boats (tenders) took us to shore. Sitka is a pretty little town that was originally inhabited by the Tlingit Indians, then later by the Russians, so there were lots of influences from both of those peoples there. There is a national park with a Totem Pole Trail, that David and I went to.

The tender boats coming back to take another group into town:

While at this little dock area I saw a sign on a little message board there advertising/requesting transportation to the Seattle area in exchange for sailor-type work on a boat. The notable thing about it was that the requestors were 2 girls.

We were lucky that our trip was after the worst of the mosquito season in Alaska. Apparently they get really big there. David took this picture of a bug, which I think is a mosquito, on the window of one of the shops there in Sitka (this picture is not cropped...it was that big):

This is what Alaskans wear when they want to feel sexy in the winter. We saw these in several shops!


This is St. Michael's Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church, rebuilt from a fire that destroyed it in 1966. A story was told to us that during the fire one man lifted a chandelier out of the building in order to save it, but after the church was rebuilt it took several men to be able to carry it back in. That was some adrenalin rush!


One of the many totem poles we saw in Sitka:

On Saturday we docked in Juneau, the capital of AK, where we were grateful that we brought our umbrellas, since it rained on us all day long. After getting off the ship David and I, along with several other family members, booked a little bus ride up to Mendenhall Glacier where we saw...

this...

and this...

and this!

Just kidding.

But we did see this little bear cub up in the tree (if you look at the little black blob in the middle of the picture, that's him).

Up at the glacier there is a national park that has "trails" up on stilts so that us nosey tourists can go and look at the salmon swimming in the streams (there was a lot) and the bears eating the salmon, without disturbing the bears and without the bears disturbing us. I really wanted to see another bear, but the little cub up in the tree was the best view I got. I did, however, see lots of fish-remains that the bears left behind, along with some bear poop. :) (We took a picture of it, but I'll spare you.) Some of the other family members who came up a little later got to see a mama bear feeding on some salmon...lucky!

These rocks used to be covered by the glacial ice, which smoothed them. I think it's pretty interesting how the glaciers are literally rivers of ice that advance and retract.

The rest of our day in Juneau was spent browsing around the shops and collecting free stuff. When we boarded the ship they gave each passenger little coupon books that included several freebies that you could collect at various shops in the port cities. One of the deal-ie-o's was a charm bracelet that you collected one charm each at several different shops in the cities. There were also coupons we got for loose "gems," little necklaces, etc. Being the cheapo that I am, we got all sorts of free stuff. I'm sure those stores (all of them fancy jewelry stores) rolled their eyes at us when we would come to collect our freebies and not even want to look at their expensive wares, but oh well. David and I, Brandon and Jennifer, and Kayla (and sometimes Jeff if he wasn't doing homework) had fun on our little treasure hunts. If anyone has a good idea for all of my loose cheapo gems, let me know!

*Ahh pumping...it seemed like I was doing that the whole time practically! When we were off the ship I carried my supplies around in my trusty backpack to be used every 3-4 hours or so. I tell you what, I got pretty good at sitting in bathroom stalls in the airports, visitor centers, restaurants--pretty much everywhere we went--to take care of business. Only to dump all that precious liquid down the drain when I was finished. It was kind of annoying to have to leave the crowd so often, and I know I missed out on some fun stuff, but it was all worth it to be able to go on the cruise and then come home and still be able to feed Mary! She started nursing again like a champ, but I had to go through the pain of starting nursing all over again! Oh well...things are much better now.

Alaska Trip: Anchorage, Talkeetna, Embarkation

For Christmas last year my wonderful mother paid for each of us kids (and spouses) to go on a 10 day trip to Alaska, including a 7 day cruise. Fun, fun! I must admit that I was pretty nervous to leave the kids (especially Mary) for that long, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology (i.e., the breast pump), I was able to prepare. David's dad, Ralph, earned Grandpa of the Year honors for coming to our house, with Joseph, and taking great care of Josh and Mary for us while we were gone. Two of my siblings and their spouses weren't able to come, but we had 22 of us that did go...not to shabby!

Me, Celeste and Pam waiting to board

We flew from Phoenix to Anchorage on Monday 8/24. David and I flew on the same flight as several other family members, so that was fun. We got settled into our hotel, the Howard Johnson, got some dinner (I ate reindeer sausage) and walked around downtown Anchorage for a bit that evening, then slept on a mattress about as soft as our tile floor.

My mom booked the trip through a group called “Fun For Less,” which is run by LDS people, and most of their “guests” are LDS as well. On Tuesday we had a little excursion scheduled with them, which included a bus ride to Talkeetna. During the bus ride the tour director had everyone come to the front of the bus and introduce themselves. Pretty much everyone else in the group besides our family was older, so they would be telling about their families and missions and how much they enjoy traveling with Fun For Less. It was actually pretty fun to hear about these other peoples’ lives, but it sounded an awful lot like some testimony meetings I’ve been in. I dared Travis to start with “I’d like to bare my testimony…” when it was his turn. Crystal beat him to it, though (and she didn’t even hear me!). Our family got a good chuckle out of it, hopefully it wasn’t too sacrilegious.

On our way to Talkeetna we were able to get a good view of Mt. McKinley (aka Denali to the locals) from a hundred or so miles away. Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America, and since it creates its own weather system, only about 20-30% of the tourists actually get to see it, as it is usually covered by clouds (this is according to our bus driver, btw). We felt pretty lucky! I love the brilliant white behind the clouds!

We got on a jet boat that took us for a ride on a couple of rivers (I’ve already forgotten their names). We saw a bald eagle (the first of a few throughout the trip), an eagle’s nest, and some of the others on the boat even saw a bear scamper away from the river as we drove by.

Then we got to go on a nice little nature walk and got to see how the hunters/trapers/gold panners/etc. lived back in the day (which for Alaska, was only around 100 years ago or so).

Here is a tiny one-room cabin where they would live. Notice the sod roof, and several different commonly trapped animal pelts.

Here's the "cache". This is where they would store all their pelts and food to keep it away from live animals. If you'll look closely you'll see stove-pipe at the top of the poles. These are to keep rodents and other climbers from climbing up the poles and getting into the loot.

An inside view of the cabin.

David pretending to be a trapper.

A beaver trap...the beaver would gnaw on the skinny pole and whack!...you've got yourself a beaver!


Brandon, David and me playing with not-so-teddy bears

Our guide even carried a shotgun in case we ran into bears (it is slung over her shoulder--you can barely see the barrel in front of the beaver trap) ...


After our jet boat ride

Mom and me

After the boat ride we went to the Talkeetna Lodge for lunch, and it had the most beautiful views. Pretty much everywhere we went was beautiful, but this was especially so (not the best picture of me...oh well)

After lunch we boarded the bus again and headed for Wasilla to the Iditarod headquarters. The Iditarod is a big sled dog race going over 1,000 miles from Willow, AK to Nome. I don't know if it was the race on the movie Iron Will, but it's like that. Anyway, we got to ride in a little cart pulled by real race dogs (we had to do the cart with wheels since there's no slow), then watched a movie about the race.

Celeste, Jeff, me and David ready for our turn.

They even had some cute puppies.

Penny and David trying their hand at the sled.

We didn't leave Anchorage to drive to Whittier, where we would board the cruise ship, until around noon on Wed., so we had all that morning to walk around and see more of downtown Anchorage and do some more souvenir shopping.

Do we look like tourists?


Admiring one of the HUGE cabbages they have growing in the flower beds around the city. On the plane ride there I read that they can grow really big vegetables, etc. because during the summer they have so much daylight. At the state fair they have almost 80 lb. cabbages!

According to one of our bus drivers, the visitor's center has the only roof in town that has to be mowed.

On our way to Whittier our bus driver told us about how during the earthquake in 1964 this ground lowerd significantly so these trees were under the ocean water for some time and became petrified. When people later tried to cut them down their saw blades would break, so they just left them standing there.

Some more beautiful scenery on a little stop between Anchorage and Whittier.

Between Anchorage and Whittier there is a 2.5 mile tunnel only wide enough for one way of traffic at a time. On the top of the hour the north-bound traffic goes while all the south-bound traffic waits in lines, then at half past the hour it's the south-bound vehicles' turn. Throughout the tunnel there are 8 safe houses interspersed with provisions in case of an emergency.

We finally made it to Whittier and boraded the Carnival Spirit, our home away from home. (This is a picture we took at a different port.) That thing is HUGE!!! We spent the rest of the evening eating dinner, unpacking and generally exploring the ship.

Potty Training

This past Sunday after church and nap time we decided to start potty training Josh. When we got back from Alaska (more to come on that later) Ralph (David's dad) said that he thought Josh was probably ready since he would often take off his diaper and knock on the bathroom door. I've been thinking that I would start after we got back from our trip, so we decided to do it...it would be so nice not to have to buy diapers for two kids!

Well, four hours and six pair of underwear later it was finally time to put him in a diaper for bed. Thank goodness! Luckily none of his accidents were #2, but still! At first I set the timer for 30 minutes, but apparently that was too long. So we tried 20 minutes, then 15. He never once told me that he needed to go, it was always from the timer going off. Once, literally 5 minutes after going in the potty after the buzzer went off, he left a big puddle on the floor. Seriously? And, I've found that it's really not handy when the timer goes off while I'm feeding Mary.

We tried again Monday morning, but then we were out and about the rest of the day (after naptime) and yesterday so we haven't tried it again yet.

So, to all you potty training veterans out there...is he just not ready yet, or do I need to give it a few more days before giving up?

Here's Josh sporting his new "Elmo" underwear:

Cute Girl

Mary is growing like a weed! A while back I mentioned to someone that Mary had been eating a lot lately and they responded with "She must be going through a growth spurt". I think she has been in one continuous growth "spurt" since she was born, because she is getting big so fast!

Mary is about 4 1/2 months old now and is starting to grow out of many of her 6 month clothes and into her 9 month clothes. I even got a white 18 month onesie out of Josh's drawer a couple of weeks ago because she had grown out of her undershirts and it totally fit her! Granted, there's no way it would have actually fit Josh (and he still wears lots of 18 month and even some 12 month clothes), but still. She still has the cutest chubby cheeks that I just want to kiss all day long, and they go perfectly with the rolls on her legs, arms and belly. (Too bad my rolls aren't considered cute!) She has pretty blue eyes that I think are going to stay blue.

I'm curious to see how much Mary weighs now. At around 3 1/2 months I took her to the doctor because she had kind of a croupy cough (it got better quickly) and she was 16# 6 oz. then. Her "4 month" appointment will be this week, since I could get Josh's 2 year apointment at the same time. I was getting out their immunization records last night so I wouldn't forget to take them with me to the appointment and mentioned to David how both Josh and Mary will be getting a few shots each. David asked me if it was such a good idea to have both of their appointments at the same time if they were both going to be getting shots, and now I'm starting to question it myself! Hopefully they'll both do okay, but if not, at least I get it over with, right?

She rolled over for the first time while we were in Snowflake for the 24th Celebration, but David and I both missed it since we were at my HS reunion. Oh well. She is quite interested in toys these days, she will now reach for them and bring them to her mouth. Her favorite things to play with, however, are her feet. She giggles quite readily now and it's so fun...I really like this stage!

Mary can sleep through the night and does it about 25% of the time, maybe. The other nights she usually just wakes up once. We finally moved her out of our room into Josh's room and they've done just fine with each other, thank goodness.

We started feeding her rice cereal at 4 months and she's doing great with it, and she'll also take a bottle pretty well. It helps that she gets one almost every Wed. night while I'm at mutual.

Mary has a sweet personality and is pretty mellow (at least in comparison to Josh, but that's not too hard) most of the time. Either that, or I am just more immune to crying now than I was with Josh--probably a little of both. She definitely lets you know when she is mad, though...she can escalate from nothing to a cry pretty fast! She puts up with Josh's "loves" quite well, and has come through so far (knock on wood) with only temporary bite marks from him. I guess she'll be tough, right? Check out these teeth marks on her elbow in the first pic and her right cheek in the second.

Here are a few more cute pictures of my sweet baby girl: