Erin and her family still live in Alaska. As much as I wish she lived closer, it is really awesome to be able to visit Alaska and have room and board included. The few hotels we did stay in while visiting were $250/night.
The drive out of Anchorage is just a highway along the coastline, with the mountains across the ocean, and waterfalls everywhere.
Once out of Anchorage and onto the Kenai Peninsula it’s all along the Kenai River, which is this amazing turquoise. If you watch Gold Rush you know what Quartz Creek is. We wanted to go visit the gold miners we’ve followed for many years on TLC!
On the 26th we went on a hike, then salmon fishing in the Kenai River (didn’t catch anything).
Eli and Cameron, best buddies.
My mom was certain dryer sheets were going to protect her from the mosquitos. After the hike we noticed she probably had 15 mosquitos stuck in her hair. She said later that night she could feel all of the bites. Guess that didn’t work. How many dryer sheets can you find on her?
Salmon waiting at the bottom of the waterfall getting up the energy to start the huge jump up the waterfall to the lake further up.
Can you imagine having to swim up this??
Getting ready for fishing.
Halle “fishing.”
Isn’t he handsome??
Eli was so sad he wasn’t in the water fishing. He finally got a turn, which I don’t seem to have a picture of.
The 27th was more of a relaxing, swat the mosquitos away type of day. I cannot explain how horrible the mosquitos were. They would just swarm you. We would use mosquito repellent spray (which most of the stores were out of), plus mosquito repellent bracelets, plus the dryer sheets. Figuring at least one of them would help.
See that thing in Jared’s left hand? That was his best friend. He loved the zapping sound of the mosquitos as they hit the electric racket. We have one on its way in the mail right now.
After day 1 Eli had 16, yes, 16 mosquito bites, JUST on his head. And YES we sprayed his head! The poor kid. You can’t see them in the picture, but the kid looked like he had chickenpox.
The 28th was another play outside/swat the mosquitos day.
We would just follow Eli around and constantly wave the swatter around his head and it would just ZAP ZAP ZAP.
They opened a new park by Erin’s house that was REALLY fun.
I was ready to get off this tire swing, but then Brenden got on and wouldn’t let me stop spinning. I was SO dizzy and was really close to barfing.
My mom is awesome.
Cameron did something to his foot. Xrays couldn’t see the break because it was likely under his growth plate. They put a cast on it because he would not walk at all for days.
Brenden stayed on the tire swing by himself and then started dry heaving. As far as I know he didn’t actually throw up, but I didn’t watch. He was so sick.
This snake teeter totter thing was so much fun. My mom could not jump up to push the other side down. She finally got off, then couldn’t get her side back down.
Another outdoorsy day on the 29th. The kids played at a park while Erin tortured me at a body pump class. After the body pump class we then mountain biked. I was really sore the next day.
After biking my family went to Cooks Inlet. Ignore my horrible outfit. I didn’t change after working out.
After Cooks Inlet we headed back to Erin’s for a hot dog and s’more roast.
Cosmo, Erin’s dog.
The 30th was Halle’s 7th birthday. It was Sunday, and Halle was so excited to go to Erin’s ward and have a welcome AND birthday song sung to her. Erin and I worked hard on a rainbow/checker/My Little Pony (unicorn) cake. It was a lot of fun to make.
After church and some lunch (Brenden’s special grilled cheese as requested by Halle), it was apparently nap time for mom and dad.
Ethan’s birthday is in July, but he got to open his presents from my parents on Halle’s birthday. They were Thomas train tracks that required water, so he had to play on the tile with towels under the tracks.
Halle opened her gifts. This paper says that she gets to go halibut fishing with Jared and me.
Erin and Doug got her this new backpack, matching lunch box, and LOTS of trinkets and hair stuff. She was SO excited. She still carries this backpack everywhere.
And I’ll stop here for now. We were in Alaska another 5 days after this.
