Beautiful Day!

Today was the best day we've seen yet! You could see every mountain peak including Mount Edgecombe, the volcano!
The kids and I ventured down to the beach where lots of kids were swimming in the water! It was 55 degrees outside and the water was probably somewhere near 35 (only my guess). The sun was beautiful though! We watched as Lance took off from the air station.
Lance flew yesterday and today, the 2 most beautiful days we've had! He grins from ear to ear with excitement when he describes the flying views! I hope to be able to take a float plane one of these days!

Nature Day

So, You know from reading my Blog that I've really wanted to see a bear, right? Well, in Sitka, they have this place called Fortress of the Bear, where they have 2 brother brown bears that they rescued and have in captivity, so I couldn't wait any longer to see a bear, so I spent the $10 and brought the kids to see them!
When we were driving there, Sophia fell asleep so I drove up a little mountain and came across these bald eagles!


Seeing the bears made me and the kids happy! But it was just like seeing them in the zoo. I think seeing one in the wold will be much more of an experience!





After Lance got home from work, the skies were bluest we've seen so we decided to drive up Harbor Mountain Road to catch the view!

Brett loves chocolate!

We enjoyed them so much that i made a whole nother batch, this time doubling the recipe, so I froze them all for breakfasts and snacks later in the week!

Yummy pancakes!

A friend introduced me to this fantastic recipe and I couldn't wait to make it so I promised Sophia last night that we would make the special pancakes with chocolate chips in them, this morning! Thanks Clarissa!

Chocolate Chip Pancakes
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
1 large egg
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup chocolate chips
butter (for greasing skillet)

mix together flours, wheat germ, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
In another bowl wisk together the apple sauce, yogurt, vanilla, milk, egg, honey, syrup, and blue berries. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones just until blended. If the batter is too thick, add a little more milk. Add the chocolate chips and blend gently.
Butter a large skillet over medium heat. The skillet will get hotter over time so durn down the heat if it starts to smoke.
Drop small laddles of batter onto the skillet in batches Try to get chocolate chips and blueberries in every pancake! When bubbles begin to rise on the edge of the pancake, carefully flip them over. Continue to cook 2-3 more minutes or until the pancake is set.
(from The Sneaky Chef, Missy Lapine)

You can serve them with maple syrup but they really don't even need it! We were devouring them as soon as they were cool enough to eat!

Yesterday we made another one of Clarissa's delicious (and healthy!) recipes for Breakfast Cookies . Sophia was so excited we were making cookies for Breakfast!

Day 21, We're Home!

The announcement came on at 2:30 that we were 30 minutes away from Juneau so Lance and I got up and finished packing up the few things we had left in the room. For some reason, maybe it was a new ship pilot, but it seemed to take forever to get the boat docked. I was watching out my window and the deck hand literally laid down on the dock waiting. We finally got off the boat at 3:30. The sun was already up! Sophia stayed asleep during the transfer, but Brett was wide awake as soon as we stepped out the door of our cabin room. When I was putting him in his car seat, he got upset and all of a sudden sounded like a seal barking. I couldn't believe it, 3 weeks of traveling and he gets sick on the last day. He wouldn't go to sleep so once we were out in the parking lot, I rocked him to sleep and laid him down next to Sophia in the top bed in the motor home. We drove up the street in the motor home to a beautiful glacier. It was 4 in the morning and so peaceful. It was the perfect setting, just where you'd imagine finding a bear, first thing in the morning, quiet stream running into the ocean, trees all around....still no bears. So we took some pictures and drove back to the ferry terminal to get a little bit of sleep.

8 o'clock came very fast, both the kids awake now, we loaded onto the fast ferry to Sitka!! The last 4 hours of our journey, we were almost home!

We were sitting in the front of the boat when we heard our name announced over the intercom to go to the Solarium deck so we grabbed the camera and headed to the back. Immediately upon opening the door, the United States Coast Guard H60 Jayhawk was staring at us in the face. It must have been 50 feet off the stern. It was awesome!!

Grinning ear to ear, Lance asked if we could go up on the bridge and talk to the ship captain so they called him and he let us come. They loved the Coast Guard fly by! Lance talked to the captain, who was younger that he was, for a while, until the kids were getting into everything and we decided we'd better head back down stairs.

We grabbed some food and then went back to the front to watch as we entered the narrow passages through the islands. The captain said they saw a bear yesterday through there so I was ready to see it, searching all over the place. No bears but a lot of bald eagles. They are everywhere! Its really neat. The weather is about 59 degrees and over cast. We had a lot of sun this morning but the cloud cover quickly came in as the day went on.

(Sophia and our first look of Sitka in the background!)

We arrived in Sitka at about 12:45 and had a crew of guys from the air station there to meet along with our host family, the Krueger's. Sean drove with Lance to show him where to go and we made our way the 4 miles into town to find our apartment we're renting.

We have this cute little 2 bedroom apartment downtown, owned by a super nice couple who are so accommodating. They moved the desk out of the kids room so we could fit the pack'n play in since we wouldn't need it and then suggested they could take the box spring off Sophia's bed in case she falls off, she wouldn't have as far to go. Then, as I was getting things organized into or rooms, Lance was outside trying to figure out a way to get the Jetta out of the trailer and Jack offered to help him so he ran to his shop to construct a ramp to get it out!

Throughout the day Brett's cough got much better. Just sounds like a regular cold and runny nose.

The Kruegers invited us over for dinner so we went to their beautiful house with the beautiful ocean/mountain view to relax for our first evening in Sitka!

The kids both fell asleep on the way home so Lance and I took a joy ride around town, got home to put the kids to bed and started unloading all the groceries we'd stocked up on! Lance did all the hard work, hauling all the bags up the 20 steps to our apartment, I just had to put them all away. It was fun to lay it all out on the counters and see all the food!

We went to bed at 10:30 and it was still practically light as day out!

Day 20

Last night was pretty miserable on my part as far as sleeping goes. We must have been on the “open ocean” again, unannounced because we were swaying all over the place. I couldn't sleep because I kept imagining the motor home toppling over down on the car deck. Brett started stirring so I was worried he was going to fall out of the lower bunk even over all the pillows and blankets we had piled up to prevent such a thing, so I went down to sleep with him which was a big mistake. I always get stuck in the corner not wanting to move, afraid I'd wake the baby, so one or both of my arms falls asleep. No fun. Everyone else seemed to sleep great until the loud speaker announcement came on to let everyone know we were in Ketchikan.

We had planned on getting up and going on a small tour of Ketchikan, Alaska because we were told we would be in port for a few hours. What we didn't know was that it was from 7:00 to 8:30. Lance was so set on going on the town that when we were awoken with the time schedule, we woke the kids up grabbed some cereal bars and headed off the boat in the rain. Me and the kids were still groggy so Lance grabbed the first cab at the gate and had him take us around for the next 30 minutes. The man was really nice, Lance kept telling him he looked like Santa Claus. He drove us around giving us a little bit of history of the town and we stopped at some totem poles and he took our picture. It was a rather expensive 30 minutes, but it was worth it.

We made it back to the boat right on time but of course it didn't pull out of the harbor for another 45 minutes.

Sophia decided she wasn't going to eat anything for breakfast so that of course led to another great hissy fit. She was so tired, I have to give her that. She wanted to go back to sleep when Daddy wanted to get the tour of Ketchikan. After about an hour of screaming, she took about a 2 hour nap giving me some rest as well. Brett fell asleep for Lance too so he was able to get started on his next book for his grad school program. Between the time he left Brett in the room and talking to some other Coasties, I think he read 1 page! Oops!

We went to the restaurant on board again, this time for lunch buffet.

I was feeling rather gross from not having showered first thing, because we went ashore and weren't allowed to shower when we were in port. I was afraid I was starting to look like some of the other characters on the boat. Eeek! So Lance gave me some time to get cleaned up and write some overdue thank you cards.

Brett and Lance were both due for their naps next so they laid down while Sophia and I went to one of the observation decks to watch a movie on my computer. Brett also slept for a good hour and a half, giving Lance a chance to shower as well!

When they came up to the deck, we stayed and watched out the windows because we were going through some beautiful narrow passages. I was still searching for the bear I've yet to see! No bears, but we saw about 5 or 6 bald eagles, perched and soaring. So majestic. The “Bald Eagle Van” guy was very excited!

We still had a bunch of our food on board so we went to the cafeteria seating area and made up some of what we had left, for dinner. The kids both ate like champions! Lance and I were almost blown away!

We pulled into the last port of the day and decided we'd better get all our bags out of the room while we had the chance so we didn't have to worry about them tomorrow at 3 in the morning, with 2 sleeping kids. So Lance made a couple runs while I got organized with what we needed for the night.

We wanted to run the kids around a little bit so we went up to the solarium deck, outdoor exposure with heat lamps, and had Brett walking back and fourth between Lance and I while Sophia did hop scotch. I counted Brett taking 21 steps to me!

Bathed and dressed the kids went right to sleep, as did Lance and I because we knew tomorrow was going to be a long day, up at 2:40!

Brett's Walking!

Day 19

This morning was great waking up knowing we had nothing to do except hang out and relax. Sophia woke up first at 7:40 (we're on Alaska time now even though we are technically still in the Pacific Time Zone, since the boat is Alaska property). We hung out in our room and had some breakfast, showered, and got dressed in our lounge clothes. We wanted to get some laundry done because our pile of dirty clothes had far surpassed our piles of clean and some of us were down to our last pair of socks and underwear. Apparently lots more people had the same idea because the machines were in use all morning.

We went up to the observation deck to listen to a man talking about the passage ways we'd be traveling in throughout the day and to warn us of the upcoming “open ocean” portion we would soon be coming too. Sophia had fun walking around with a cup full of quarters we had for doing our laundry until she threw her first fit of the day because we wouldn't let her get a bag of pretzels from the vending machine since we had a huge bag in the room already. We went back to the room to relax a bit. The big swells of the open ocean lulled Brett right to sleep for a 2 hour morning nap while Sophia and Daddy watched a movie in her bed.

We ate lunch and Lance and Sophia went to go change out the laundry and spotted some dolphins off the bow of the boat. She came back to the room so excited and had to show me what she saw. But by the time we all got back out there, they had swam on.

We found a little kids play area and got to play for a little bit before Sophia threw her second fit of the day. I tried showing her how to make a rainbow out of the big cushions, and then another little girl took a cushion away from her collection which totally threw her off, literally kicking and screaming, she kicked the little girl in the face by accident, She was definitely in need of a nap!

After calming down, she finally went to sleep for almost 2 hours, waking up just in time for our second “open ocean” swells for the day. I tried to get Brett to take his second nap but he didn't want anything to do with it at the time.

We had a buffet dinner tonight in the restaurant on board. A bit over priced, but we packed all the rest of our meals so we decided to splurge for one meal!

After dinner we wanted to wear the kids out a bit so we went upstairs to the back deck to watch the views and run the kids around. Just as we were about to go back downstairs, Brett let go of my hand and took about 10 steps to some random guy! He's been getting better and better, taking more and more steps, but tonight he definitely was WALKING!

(video soon to follow!)

It was so awesome! Especially because he had to be compensating for the rocking of the boat!

The kids were out by about 8:45 so Lance and I took some time and started going through all the pictures from the past few weeks before hitting the rack ourselves.

Day 18

The kids didn't sleep in as late as usual this morning, 7:15, but it was a good thing because we had a busy day!

We got up and had the hot continental breakfast at the Holiday Inn. George took the cars to get oil changes and all the fluids flushed. My beast (the Yukon) worked her little tail off these past few weeks and the fluid levels apparently proved it! Towing 7000 pounds is no easy task, especially up and over all the mountain passes!

Lance took the kids swimming one more time, then we loaded up once again to head north. Only an hour away from Bellingham, we had one more shopping adventure at walmart to undertake.

George and Renee headed down to Seattle to grab their rental car and then on their way back through, reattached the trailer and met us at walmart.

On our way we stopped in at the ferry terminal to get our boarding passes because we knew it would have been crazy come 3 o'clock, when everyone is supposed to arrive. Next we went to a marine supply store to get Lance and I a pair of XtraTuf rain boots. Apparently an absolute necessity in Sitka. We were told "EVERYONE wears them! Young, old, rich, poor, dirty, clean, men, women..."

Off to walmart to spend another few hundred dollars, we were officially stocked and loaded!

18 days, 5000 miles, and 16 states later, we finally made it to Bellingham, Washington

We got to the ferry terminal at 3:05 and got in line with all the other cars, trucks and RV's destined for Alaska!

We pulled in next to this van from California who really must have loved Bald Eagles. From the photo, you don't even get a real feel for what it was like. Almost absurd the amount of eagles he had stuck to his van! In the hour we were standing there he probably had 30 people come over and talk to him and take pictures of his van. One sure way to meet people I guess!

The ferry was getting loaded very slowly. We were supposed to disembark at 6:00 and at 5:30 we were still sitting in the parking lot line. We had some delicious fish and chips (sweet potato fries) for dinner while we were waiting and finally boarded just after 6 o'clock. George and Renee were able to finagle some visitor passes and came on board with us. They helped us carry all of our stuff up from the car deck into our oh so spacious cabin! I say that, but it really is bigger than the space we've been living out of in the motor home. We have 2 bunk beds, a good size shower, bathroom, and closet with a big window on the starboard side, watching the beautiful mountainous sky line of Canada.

We waited still another hour until we actually pulled away from the dock as we waved goodbye to Papa and Grandma we took a self guided tour around the ship to get a bit familiarized. All different types of people on board for sure. A few Coast Guard families like ourselves, some native Alaskans, some fisherman, some foreigners, some hippies, and some tourists. Some people sleep in cabins like we are, some come aboard and set up their tents on the back decks, and those people trying to save a few extra bucks sleep on the floor, chairs, or bench seats scattered throughout the boat!

We were going to try to sit and watch a movie they were going to play but it wasn't working at first and by the time they did start it, it was 9:30, Pacific Time, 8:30 Alaska time, which is what the ship is operating by but we still haven't adjusted to that time zone yet, so we decided just to go get ready for bed.

Exhausted from another busy day, we all quickly passed out!

Day 17

The kids went to bed pretty late last night but did sleep in until 8:30 again. We of course were then slow going to start. We had the continental hot breakfast at the Holiday Inn and finally hit the road again at about 10 o'clock. We wanted to get out sooner because we had planned to do lots more shopping in the Seattle area. Oh well.

We left the hotel with a half tank of gas but for some reason, didn't fill up in town. We started hearing a strange whiny rumbling sound from under the motor home. It was faint but definitely a new sound. So an hour later, we are of course in the middle of no where in desperate need of fuel. Lance was again prepared to run completely out and ready to use the few gallons he had stored in the trailer. The needle was below the red "E" line, and we still had 12 miles until the next gas station. The sound from under the motor home was now at a loud screeching decibel. Lance was trying to figure out what it was that was making the sound and kept using big words which I had no idea what they were or what they meant. I just wanted to know if it was bad or just something we'd have to live with hearing!

God saved us again, and got us to the gas station. Lance shimmied himself under the motor home to find what he thought was the rear differential axial seal was leaking. He came out from underneath shaking his head and he just said "we're done!" I couldn't believe it. 5000 miles down and we were 4 hours away from Bellingham. So we sat there a minute to figure out what the heck we were going to do next.

I'm sitting there running through all the scenarios in my head, coming to the conclusion that we're just going to load all our stuff into the yukon and say good bye to the motor home. Just leave it there on the side of the road for all I care! Or George and Renee could stay behind with it to get it fixed and take it back to Florida with them if its fixable. All I knew is that we needed to get on that boat Friday night! We made it this far, we're not gonna miss it now!

George got underneath while Lance was trying to explain, "Do you see that hose with the fluid leaking out, that's bad!" but George was confused because what he saw was something totally different. So Lance got back under again to see what George was looking at and discovered it was not at all what he was originally thinking. Apparently its only the drive shaft bearing, not functioning properly and the leaking fluid is gasoline from a leaking hose! We're good to go!! (just a slow leak, nothing to worry about!) Lance of course had only considered the worst when he went looking so he was too quick to judge what might have been wrong.

Now we still don't really know what the problem is, so we're just praying we will actually make it up to Bellingham.

Back on the highway once again, Lance and I had big plans to go shopping so we got to the hotel in Everett, Washington where we had everything we needed right there. We didn't want to go all the way up to Bellingham yet because they pretty much only have a walmart, and we needed other stores like, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, and Toys R Us. And because George and Renee will be renting a car from Seattle in the morning and it would have been a long haul to go back that way in the morning to get the car.

We unhooked the trailer from the Yukon and went on another shopping spree! We got to spend a small fortune on new goods for our new house, a few toys for the kids, and a few toys for Lance. We stopped back at the hotel to unload the 6 boxes of diapers and to grab some food at the hotel. All they had left was a bread stick, beer and wine. Lance ate the breadstick and had a beer and I had 2 glasses (small plastic cups) of wine and was feeling good having not eaten since breakfast! (Part of my diet plan having eaten way too much fast food these past few weeks! Haha! Not really, just sort of forgot to eat lunch with all the engine chaos!) Then we drove up to Bellingham to buy the Duallie BOB stroller I found on craigslist last week. I called the guy and he gratefully held the stroller for me until I made it into town! Now I had my toy too!

Back at the hotel, George and Renee had played in the pool with the kids, got them bathed and in their pjs, so all we had to do was put them in bed! What a blessing its been to have them along the way to help so much!

Another great day packed full of excitement!

Day 16

Brett slept until 8:30! And it was only because we started moving around the motor home to start getting ready that he woke up. He probably would have kept on sleeping.

We all showered and got ready and wanted to do some shopping before we left town. We discovered that there isn't any sales tax in Montana so we decided to do a lot of shopping!

We saw there was a TJ Maxx right by the campground so decided to make that our first stop. In the same parking lot was an REI so we went in there first. We got all kinds of new stuff!! I'm talking $800 worth of new stuff!! Alaska here we come!

Not a day without some excitement though...Lance was trying on new hiking boots and had Brett on the bench who then fell headfirst to the ground. Lance was right there to catch him so he barely hit the floor but because he snatched him up so quick, I think he mostly cried from getting startled. I hope. I went off to try on a new rain coat and apparently was gone for a long time because the next thing I knew there was an ambulance out front and people rushing too and from the back of the store. Another man was trying on some shoes and had a seizure right there. Lance called 911 because he saw him fall and hit his head pretty bad. They really must have gotten there fast because I didn't see or hear anything until they were wheeling him out. Everyone was so calm.

We never did make it into TJ Maxx.

We went to Walmart because Lance wanted Renee to buy the gun he wanted because she has a Maine drivers license. I grabbed 2 carts and made my way through the isles. I grabbed one whole cart full of boxes of diapers, toilet paper, paper towels and tissues. We were told these things are like 4 times as expensive up in Alaska so to load up!! I handed off that cart to George and filled another one full of dry goods to fill my pantry. I felt like supermarket sweep! $700 later, we were done at walmart and had some subs at Subway for lunch before hitting the road. We made out not having to pay sales tax!

Lance had his second class tonight which started at 6, Pacific Time, so he wanted to be sure we were somewhere with internet with plenty of time so we headed over a few mountains through Montana, Idaho and into Spokane, Washington. We were going to do another KOA but we decided to find a hotel instead that had a pool for the kids. And it worked out perfectly. Lance got to go sit in a conference room to listen to his lecture, while the kids ate dinner and got to swim in the pool to wear themselves out for the night! And I got to sit here and catch up on all my days!!

Day 14 & 15

We took our time getting ready once again, having breakfast, chatting, and doing more laundry. We were hoping the weather would have been nicer because Patrick was going to take us up in his airplane to get a better view of the parks. But unfortunately it was raining. That would have been awesome! Instead, we drove north into Great Teton National Park. Patrick rode with George and Renee and would stop every once and a while to tell us about the land and how the mountains were formed. He was once the Chief Naturalist of the park at one time.

We stopped and had lunch in the park where JC meet up with us so her and Patrick could head back home and we could continue on our journey. We continued right on up into Yellowstone National Park and pulled up to Old Faithful geyser 15 minutes before it was going to erupt. We couldn't have timed it more perfectly since we had no idea when it was going to erupt. I could tell Sophia was very concerned as we were waiting for the eruption. She kept asking me,"what is it doing?" and no matter what I told her she would keep on asking. I think she thought something was going to spray on her. So luckily as we watched from afar, her tension subsided.

We tried to make dinner reservations at the Old Faithful Inn but they couldn't get us in until 9:30 so there was no way that would have worked. What a magnificent building though! The entire thing was constructed of huge logs. It was easy to imagine Yellowstone's first visitors coming to marvel at all the amazing sights!

I wanted to see the Grand Prismatic Spring, but because it was so cold and windy, the steam took over everywhere and you could barely see anything. I wanted to see the aqua blue center with the orange rim.

We left there and started towards West Yellowstone through many herds of buffalo. They were all over the place, even in the middle of the street. I really wanted to see a bear, but no luck. We came across a heard where there was an elk in the middle of the field with her baby. A woman told us that the baby was just born that morning!! Its so amazing to see them in the wild, knowing that some zoo keeper wasn't watching and taking notes every time it stood up or to be sure it was nursing enough.

We pulled into the KOA but they were way over priced so we found another small town friendly campground to stay for the night. Neither Lance or I were very hungry, especially not for any fast food. We tried to get some salads at McDonald's but they had run out and their burgers were $1.50 more than what you would normally find. So we decided to go to the grocery store to get some milk and eat the cereal we already had!

The next morning, Lance was stressing about missing his first class last week so he stayed behind to listen to his lecture while we all walked to breakfast at a little diner down the street. It was neat because they had 3 real stuffed bears! Grandma had Sophia pose as Goldilocks for some cute pictures! (don't mind the sign that says 'please don't touch!') Once Lance was ready, we picked up some lunch at the grocery store and made our way back through the park. We left the trailer at one junction we were going to come back too to head north and George and Renee got in the motor home with us to go see the falls. We stopped at all the vista points along the Yellowstone Grand Canyon to see the lower falls and had our picnic lunch.

Next we went up the road to see the Upper Falls where we got to stand right at the top of the brink of the falls! Sophia was very excited to see the rainbow in the mist.

Next we headed towards the Mud Volcano and drove through the Hayden Valley. I was searching so hard to see a bear, but of course, only saw buffalo. The Mud Volcano smelled absolutely disgusting. I almost lost my lunch on the hike up the hill. Sophia kept on saying, “What does that smell like?” and made an “icky” face!

I could have lived without ever having seen the muddy sulfur caldrons! I would have much rather seen a bear!

It was time to leave Yellowstone National Park, but not before one last drive through the valley for another bear hunt. But no luck. I think because I was looking so hard, they were no where to be found.We drove past Mammoth Hot Springs but only got to take a picture from the car, which is not very exciting, because both kids were asleep and if we would have stopped chances are they would have woken up.

We wanted to make it as far as we could, to get a head start on the 900 miles to Bellingham, Washington. We looked at our KOA map and decided to go to Missoula, Montana, about a 5 hour drive. The kids both took about a 2 hour nap! I was almost going to bet that Brett was out for the night even though it was only 5 o'clock. But they both woke up. We made a stop at a walmart to pick up a few things for dinner and for Lance to buy a gun. But because he has a Florida drivers license the Montana state law said they couldn't sell him a gun. He was so bummed!

Lance rode with George in the Yukon so he could read his book for his class the next day, while Renee rode with me to entertain the kids and get them ready for bed. Once the sun set, Brett started getting anxious and would not settle down. Renee tried everything I thought would work to get him to stop crying and go to sleep but nothing helped. I pulled over to switch drivers and he went right to sleep. But only long enough for me to get Sophia's bed set up and to kiss her good night. He was so tired but something was up. He had a bad tummy ache. We didn't know if it was from drinking too much milk, or if the chicken he had from walmart was bad because George and Renee also had upset stomachs who also ate the chicken. He kept wanting to fall asleep but kept waking up so squirmy and fussy. I felt so bad for the little guy. So for the rest of the 2 hour drive, he was in and out of sleep with a bad tummy ache.

Once we settled into camp, at about 1 o'clock, he finally fell asleep, prayerfully for the whole night!