Happy Halloween!

While we were at the dollar store perusing through the Halloween merchandise we gave Josh a few different options of what he could dress up as for Halloween and he chose a cowboy. Oh, he made his mama proud! We decided if he was going to be a cowboy, we'd better help him brush up on his skills. So we took him to Sheplers to ride the bull, and to the Halloween fun day at Bass Pro Shop where he got to try his hand at roping and stick bull riding.

How's my form?

Learnin' the ropes...literally!

Aw Mom, do I have to use the pink rope?

Let me go Dad, I'm ready!

Sweet! I get a s'more for winning?!

We decided he had learned well, and earned the right to dress in his cowboy garb for the ward Trunk or Treat party the week before Halloween. Unfortunately we forgot our camera, so these pictures from David's phone will have to suffice.

Josh had a great time handing out candy before going around to gather his own. After getting his first piece he wanted to eat it. Luckily, his mother was there to explain that there was much more gathering to do before the feasting could begin!

Mary also enjoyed the festivities dressed in her super tight 12 month pajamas and fairy wings. Are the pj's so tight on my 7 month old because they are cheapies from the dollar store, or because Mary is so chubby??? I don't know, but she sure is cute!

We carved our pumpkin for Family Home Evening a couple of days later.

We spent Halloween weekend in Thatcher with David's family, so Josh got to go trick or treating again at their ward's trunk or treat. Good thing, because he really had the "trick or treat" down pat. Joseph was also a cowboy, and those two little boys looked so cute together. We decided to put Mary in Josh's horse costume from two years ago to complete the ensemble.

Joseph says, "Don't worry ma'am. I'll save you!"

Nothing cuter than a horsie riding her daddy!

Alaska Trip Part 3: Skagway, Ketchikan, 2nd Sea Day, Coming Home

This is way late, but I'm finally finishing up my last installment of recording about our Alaska trip. Feel free to skip!

Sunday, 8/30 we docked for the day in Skagway, AK. Brandon & Jen looked up the information on church services in Skagway ahead of time, so they, David & I and some other members of our family went to church. It was interesting, because they have a lot of young adults (single and married) come up to work during the summer, so their branch swells to about 150 people during those few months. During the other months of the year there are only about 15 or so members. Crazy. Anyway, their church building is quite small, with pretty much only a small chapel and a few rooms/offices right off of the chapel.

I had a funny pumping experience there at church: It was time to pump again after Sacrament Meeting, but the bathroom there only had one stall in it, and I didn't want to monopolize it for the entire pumping session. So I asked one of the regulars if there was a classroom or somewhere else I could use, and she arranged for me to use the branch president's office, which was right off the front of the chapel room. Pumping in the president's office was weird enough in and of itself, but soon after I started I heard Sunday School begin, and was really hoping that everyone else couldn't hear my pump going. After I was finished I had to walk out of the office and come out into the front of the chapel from behind the Sunday School teacher (who everyone was facing), carrying my pumping backpack, and find my seat. It was pretty embarrassing for me, but David said no one was really even paying attention to me. He may have just been being nice to me, but I'll take it. Here is the little church:

After church Kayla, Brandon & Jennifer, and David & I continued our scavenger hunt for free stuff. We felt (okay, rationalized) that since we weren't "buying" anything we were okay to do that on Sunday. :)

A view of one of the streets of Skagway:

Kayla (Jeff was doing homework), Jennifer, Brandon, David and me:

Some huge mushrooms we saw growing by the creek:

A couple of salmon that were fighting. They were going at it for several minutes and it was fascinating to watch:

This little waterfall was so beautiful:

Brandon had to go really bad and couldn't wait to get back to the ship. Luckily, we came across this gazebo bathroom right off the highway :) :

More beautiful scenery:

Monday, 8/31 we docked at our last port, Ketchikan, AK. All of the towns were interesting, because you could tell a lot of their economy came from people on the cruise ships, but none more so than Ketchikan. The day we docked there there were three other cruise ships docked there as well.

After finishing up our treasure hunt for free stuff, David and I went on part of a walking tour in Ketchikan. One of the points of interest on the tour was this "street," that is actually wooden stairs (there were lots of those here). If you'll look closely, you can see the street sign where this street meets up with another street.

Here we are in front of "Dolly's," the most famous of the "establishments" on Creek Street, aka the Red Light District:

Gotta love this sign:

Another picture of fish. You have to look closely, but the two dark spots towards the bottom right are two salmon jumping up the rapids. It was seriously so fascinating (and quite frustrating) to watch all the fish work and work and work at swimming upstream, where they would lay their eggs, then guard the eggs for a couple of weeks until they eventually died. A little bit sad, but I couldn't help but be impressed with their selflessness. They give their lives for their kids!

Tuesday, 9/1 was another full day at sea, and luckily we didn't run into any storms this sea day. David and I played a little miniture golf and basketball there on the ship (those ships are seriously amazing!), went on a tour of the galley, and went to Kerry Summers' Elvis show. (Unfortuneately I didn't blog about this earlier, because I've already forgotten a lot of the details of what we did!)

The ship workers were so talented! Check out this detail (those are watermelons):

Elvis lives!

Every night when we would come back to our room we were treated to an awesome towel animal and pillow mints. (Luckily, David didn't like the mints, so I got his!) Such luxury!

While on the galley tour, we saw the menu boards for dinner...

...and more importantly, dessert!

Those menu boards reminded me how very spoiled I had been for the past week. I ate A LOT on this trip, and thoroughly enjoyed it!

We also saw some wild life, from the ship. Here you can barely see the fin of a killer whale sticking up out of the water:

As mentioned in a previous post, our family hung out in the karaoke lounge a bit. My sister-in-law Jennifer (Tyler's wife), got recruited to be Madonna for the Carnival Legends show on Tuesday evening. She was a bit embarrassed that the song they made her sing was "Like a Virgin," and that the male dancers were wearing super short, tight shorts, but it was quite funny to watch. They also had other karaoke stars perform as Garth Brooks, Gloria Estafan, James Brown, Brittany Spears...quite entertaining.

David and me with our waiter (I've already forgotten his name!) and assistant waiter (Elnie?). These guys were great, I especially liked the singing/dancing numbers they would do during dinner. Elnie tried to get me to get up and dance on one of the nights, but I was too embarrassed. The waiter at the other table was able to get JenMarie up a couple of times, though!

Wednesday, 9/2 we woke up early (relatively) and disembarked in Vancouver, Canada, then hopped on a bus that took us to Seattle, WA, from where we flew home.

David and I were again on a flight with several other family members, and we were all lucky enough to be able to get on the earlier flight home, which meant that we got to board about an hour after getting to the airport, rather than waiting 3 more hours. I had a ton of fun, but I was definitely ready to get home. I was so excited to see my kids!

Who wouldn't be excited to see these two kiddos?

Thanks again to David's parents for taking such good care of Josh and Mary for us! Ralph definitely deserves Grandpa of the Year honors!

Locked Out!

Yesterday morning it was time to make bread again, so I took the wheat grinder out to our balcony to try to save our eardrums and started the process. A little later, I went out to check it and heard Josh slide the glass door shut behind me, but didn't think too much of it...until I tried to come back in and discovered that he had also locked it after shutting it. Great. Of course I didn't have my phone with me, I was just going to be out there for a second.

Me: "Josh, can you open the door for me?"

Josh: "Okay." Tries to open the door, but can't get it right away. "Mamy help you?" (Translation: Mama, do it for me?)

Me: I knock. "I can't do it Josh, please open the door."

Josh: Thinking it's pretty fun to play through the window with mom. "Mamy help you?"

Me: I try pulling on the door hard to see if I can get it past the lock. Nope. More begging and pleading with the same results. Hmmm...maybe I can get in through the the other sliding glass door to the kids room.

Josh had recently learned how to move the lock switch up and down, so we put poles in the tracks of both sliding glass doors to keep him from opening them. We live on the 3rd floor and with the climber that he is it's just too dangerous for him to get out there without our knowing about it. I had removed the pole in the living room door to come out, and I was hoping that somehow the pole in the kids' room wasn't in there. Nope, it was there. Rats. That door is unlocked at least, but the bottom of the door won't budge since the pole is there behind it. The top will come out an inch or so...maybe I could lift it off the track and up over the pole? I try for a minute or so and get my hand nice and scraped up. I can't do it with just my hands, but luckily, David's tools are out here. I try prying the bottom of the door up with a screwdriver, then a hammer. Nope. Back to the first door.

Me: I knock again. "Josh, will you please open the door for me?"

Josh: "Mamy help you?"

Me: "Josh, do you see the lock?" I trys pointing to the lock switch through the glass. "Go up, down, up, down."

Josh: Points at the glass by where I'm pointing.

Me: "No, over there." I try pointing again.

Josh: Sees his magnets and goes to play with them.

Clearly this isn't working. Thank goodness Mary is asleep (at least I hope she still is). Maybe I can shove a screwdriver into the key hole and get it to turn the lock. That's not working...maybe the needle nose pliers will work. The end of the pliers just broke off in the lock. Rats. At least I have my wheat and our water-filled soda bottles to survive on (always thinking of food). I bang on the door to get Josh's attention away from the TV and his magnets and try getting him to open the door again.

Me: "Josh do you want to ride your bike?"

Josh: "Yes, bike!"

Me: "Okay, open the door and come and get it."

Josh: Tries pulling on the door.

Me: "You have to unlock it."

Josh: "Mamy help you?"

I go back to the kids' room door. While trying to open it Josh comes into his room. Maybe he can move the pole from behind the door.

Me: "Josh, can you move the broom?"

Josh: Tries to move it. "Stuck. Mamy help you?

For the next several minutes I keep going back and forth between the two doors trying to figure out a way to get back in. More banging. I start yelling and pleading with Josh to open the door. No luck. My face is "glistening" with sweat and my shirt is starting to get wet.

After about 30 minutes or so one of the girls who lives below us calls out from her balcony asking if I need help. Realizing that I'm not going to get back in of my own accord, I ask her to call David to come home from work and let me in.

Finally, about 15 mintues later, my knight in shining armor comes and rescues me. I love David!

I go and check on Mary, she's sleeping. If she did wake up screaming I'll just pretend that she didn't. Thank goodness. What a morning!

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.