Alaska: The End!

We finally made it to the final Alaska post!  Before the trip, 10 days sounded like kind of a lot to spend with kids way outside of their time zone and their comfort zone, but it ended up feeling like the perfect amount of time.  The girls were awesome and adventurous, and although I got a 5:30 wake up call almost every morning, they slept better than I anticipated.  Most nights.

Besides all of the big excursions we got to go on, we were also able to take advantage of all the local sights.  We all had our fill of fish tacos, we saw the brand new museum, went to the nearest glacier, and Ryan and I even got a couple of gym dates in.  One of which was followed by a rendezvous with Alycia and Colin at the Red Dog Saloon - home of the famous salmon chowder that Ryan has been telling me about for 10+ years.  Ask any trainer - cream cheese salmon dip, salmon chowder and bloody mary's are always a good choice for a post workout snack.  ;)  BUT, let me tell you, the chowder did not disappoint.

The trip was so amazing!  Here are some pictures from our sled dog excursion and glacier trip.  :)

- K

 

Evie loved Aunt Dodo.  Aunt Dodo is Ryan and Alycia's aunt that would always call them dodo birds when they were kids.  She became Aunt Dodo, and the name has stuck.  ;)

 

On our way to the sled dog adventure!

 

The sled dog camp was up in the mountains.  We learned about the dogs and how they train for their races.  And then Lyla raced across this bridge.  ;)

 

Sis has always been a bit more cautious than her big sis.  But she's a pretty good little daredevil pupil for Lyla most days.

 

We got to have the dogs pull us around a bit.  The girls loved it!

 

Lyla was in the cozy zone almost the whole time.  :)

 

It was cute to learn about the dogs and their personality traits.  These guys and gals really love to run!  As soon as they get people loaded up on the cart they all bark like crazy in anticipation.

 

The kids got to pet the dogs - the nice ones, anyways.

 

A couple of the girls had just had puppies and we got to hold and cuddle them.  The camp encourages people to hold them to socialize the pups early.  We didn't have any complaints.  :)

 

Sharing some hot chocolate.  :)

 

We went to a salmon hatchery one day, which was pretty cool.  I neglected to take any pictures of that, but afterwards we headed to lunch where Ryan had this monster.  He'd had his fill of fish tacos at this point.  ;)

 

I loaded up on cuddles from this tired little girl.

 

Another day we headed out to the Mendenhall glacier.  They had some paths you could hike around, and occasionally there would be bears found in the water.  No such luck this time, but we had fun exploring.

 

The wildflowers were amazing out there.

 

Evie wanted to go her own pace, so we ended up wandering around on our own mostly.

 

She had so much fun collecting rocks and sticks.  :)

 

Lots of rocks.

 

Look at that glacier peeking through!

 

We didn't get that close to it, but it was so cool to see!

 

I spy a cutie pie!

 

Organizing her collection.

 

When I saw her up there I had a serious heart attack.  And then I realized there was a big ledge on the other side and she wasn't actually to going to plummet 50 feet down.

 

Such a fun time!  I think we'll have to go back someday.