Homecoming 2011

After having such a fun vacation it was hard to jump back into the business of my life, but whether we wanted to or not, we jumped with both feet because the next week was Homecoming for Hurricane High School. The kids dressed up nearly everyday for spirit week and I was surprised when Austin decided to dress up for pajama day. He and Jake Nielson, and Kris Wilson dressed up the cowboy way.

 They are funny guys.  Friday and Saturday were the two busiest days of the week with the homecoming parade and game, and the dance.  Because Austin is the president of the FFA he was very busy.  Their officer team decided to be involved in all the activities this year as well as with lighting the H the night of the game, which the FFA does every year.  They outdid themselves with the float, and lots of people wanted to ride with them, which was really good for membership recruitment. 

This is Chris Wilson and Clint Gubler in the bucket, I'm not sure who the farthest one is, or who the
girl is.  KC, Clint's sister is sitting on the hood in her Volleyball shirt.  Austin would raise them and lower them
while they were driving the parade.  It was very funny!

Austin was pretty happy to be surrounded by girls, and cheerleaders too!  This is KC Gubler on the hood,
the cheerleader standing are Shelly Stirland and Tonda (she clogs with Mady but I don't know her last name),
Natalie Bjelland is sitting on the right fender, and I don't know the girl on the left. 

To light the H the FFA had to gather #10 cans, get diesel donated from Interstate Rock, and
sawdust from Woodcarver Cabinets.  They cleaned the H earlier in the week, and set out the cans and filled them
with sawdust earlier in the afternoon on Friday.  During the football game they filled the cans with diesel
and at halftime they lit them on fire.  It was really cool to see the H forming, and then to see the little 12 on the side for the 2012 graduating class. Way to go Austin for putting it all together!!

Austin and McCarty Amy, Jake Nielson and Jessica Stratton.  Jake and Jessica rolled their four wheeler into a barbed wire fence during their day date and spent the afternoon in the instacare.  Jessica ended up with 6 stitches in her wrist and both had a lot of scratches.  I was so glad they were OK and still able to go to the dance!

Darringer Scow and Keisha Howard.  Both look very nice!

This is Chris Wilson and his date (to the left of him) and in front is Coy

Gubler and his date (to the right of him).  I wish I could remember the girls names.

They were funny because they didn't know how to eat a fancy place setting, but

we helped them out with which fork to use and what to do with the cloth napkin.

The whole evening was very fun.  I was grateful to all the moms who helped put the dinner together at the last minute.  We had apricot chicken and vegetables (me), Britta Nielson brought salad, Chris's mom Liz bought the chicken and vegetables, Coy's mom Marvene brought desert and drinks, and Darringers mom Cindy did the appetizer, all of which was really yummy!!!  Doug put the lights up for me around the veranda.  I was hoping for a single string of white Christmas lights, but he didn't want to dig that deep into the light box so he found three strands of icicle lights that only half of each strand worked.  He kind of threw them up around each table and it looked hideous in the daylight, but at night it seemed OK.  For not having a lot of notice, it turned out really well.  Chris's mom and dad also took their pictures in our back yard.  I hope to get copies of them soon. 

Alaska!!! #4

Friday and Saturday of our trip we stayed on the ship and the ship took us to some wonderful places.  On Friday we went into Glacier Bay, a national park that has beautiful glaciers and used to be the home of the Native Americans who now live on Huna.  (I think they are called the Tlingit).  We had a national park ranger narrate our passage through the park, letting us know when he spotted animals, glaciers, or whatever.  There are only 5 growing glaciers in Alaska and we got to see 2 of them.  They are constantly moving and progressing and they pop or crack, which sounds like a gun, and moan which sounds like thunder.  We were also able to witness the glacier calving, which means large pieces of ice crack and fall into the ocean.  It makes a very loud sound when this happens that you can only experience by being there.  It was very cold, but very interesting.  It was amazing to know that a whole population of people lived there at one time. 

The glacier looks small from here, but it is three times the height of our ship! 

Six seal lions were resting on their backs and floated passed the ship on a large piece
of ice.  They were really fun to watch.

The glacier from a little closer.  It is unreal to hear the sounds it made as it moved towards the
ocean.  The pops sounded like gun shots and thunder.  When it calved, even the slightest
breaks off the ice, made huge waves in the very still water.

Doug and I in front of the glacier.  Why do I always close my eyes when I have a picture
taken?  There wasn't even a flash this time.  lol

This is a picture of a growing glacier.  The ship wasn't allowed to go up into the channel, but it was
neat to see it from the binoculars.  The water was so still and peaceful.

Our cute little cabin stewards left us this cute monkey hanging from the lamp.
Everyday we got something different that was fun.  They  were really good to us!!

Twenty minutes before this shot this was a huge block of ice.  Now it is a standing fish.  It
was really fun to watch him carve it with chisels and files.

Finally I got to go dancing!!  Doug and I went up to the "Crows nest" and this is me doing
the Macarana with a group of other lady's.  This cruise was mostly elderly people so the men were
watching from the surrounding chairs and the women were line dancing.  At ten o'clock when the real dancing began
the room cleared except for only a few of us because it was bedtime for the elderly.  Doug and I had a great time anyway! 

Sunday morning we disembarked the ship in Seward and headed on a bus to Anchorage. 

It was sad to leave the ship and all the new friends we had made, and the fact that I never had to make my bed, clean my room, or cook for myself.  The bus stopped several times along the way to stretch and the scenery was amazing.  We have lots of pictures to share, but I narrowed it down to just a few. 

Jeremy and Bobette being cozy on the bus.  Jeremy was more than ready to get home. 

Finally on the plane.  Five hours later we will be in Las Vegas!! (We flew into Vegas at 11:00 Sunday night).

Our parting shot of Alaska from the window of the airplane was of the glaciers of College Fjord.  They
are beautiful from any angle. 

What an amazing trip we had.  I find myself daydreaming about it frequently and having a hard time getting back into the swing of things again.  We didn't get our land legs back for a few days, so we were swaying or loosing our balance everywhere we went.  It was worth it though.  Definitely the vacation of a lifetime! 

Alaska #3

Wednesday we ported in Juneau where it was raining and raining and raining. We had hoped to take a float plane up and see Alaska from the skies and possibly fly over some of the glaciers, but because of the rain and fog we wouldn't have been able to see anything so we signed up for a whale watching adventure instead. It turned out to be a great day for whale watching because the naturalist told us that the whales like to play in the rain.

There are only a few humpback whales left in Juneau this time of year, and we were very privileged to see this guy and a mom and her baby.  You can see its hump in this picture.

When the whales dive deep they will flick their tails out of the water.  It was about 20 minutes before we saw him again and he spouted about 30 feet in front of the boat.  It scared me because Doug and I we standing on the bow (the front) of the boat in the rain waiting for him to surface.  It was really neat.  The captain of our boat and our naturalist who taught us about the whales were both return missionaries working up there for the season.  It was fun to be in such good hands. 

In Skagway we took the short train ride into Canada on the historic White Pass Train line.  The cars are all old time and occasionally the old steam engines pull the train, although now they have diesel engines that pull us over the original tracks made back when the Yukon gold rush was in full steam.  Skagway was the only sea port for the gold miners. 
The following pictures are of our ride up the pass to Canada.

Bobette and Jeremy, Doug, Lynne and Cliff waiting for the train to pull out.

Bobette, me and Jeremy walking to a less populated car. 

We were in a car near the back so we could see the rest of the train as it progressed up the beautiful mountain.  Alaska in September is beautiful with all of the color changes.  I couldn't get enough of it!

This is another train crossing an old bridge and entering into a tunnel above us.  We went through it a few minutes later.

At a short stop in Canada before we headed back down to Skagway.  This is our very nice conductor.  The narrator for our train ride was also a return missionary from Orem Utah. 

This is a beautiful picture of a bridge that is not in use anymore, but was the original track.  I love all of the colors!

Doug and I standing in front of the plaque and statue of the earliest prospectors
 looking toward the hills in hopes of gold. 

This is a snowplow they use to clear the track in the winter.  They said they used it last winter because
of the need to keep the track open to haul the ore down to the dock for the increasing mining now going on
in the Yukons.  It hadn't been used for years prior but it still worked!! 

Doug standing on one of the first steam engines now on a side track.  In WWII they had to bury
many of the engines to hide them from the Japanese.  This one they dug up to use as parts for another
engine they were trying to fix.  They left it on the side track.  Doug was fascinated and climbed all over it!! 

Seeing Alaska in the fall with all the changing leaves and colors was so enlightening.  Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and seeing the beautiful country of Canada and Alaska has made it even more so.  Both cities are a must see!!

Alaska!!!! #2

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we were able to port and go exploring inland in different cities. We had planned to do excursions at each port, two we had purchased before-hand and one we purchased as we got off the boat. This is when the high adventure fun began.

We docked in Ketchikan early on Tuesday Morning and since we didn't need to
meet our zip lining group until 10, Doug and I went shopping.  We got ourselves matching jackets
that kept us really warm during our adventure (inspired by Bobette and Jeremy who bought matching
jackets first.)

We had looked forward to our excursion of the day for months.  We were going zip lining through the tops of the
Ketchikan forest!  This is the vehicle that took us up to the top of the mountain where we began.  The road was VERY steep most of the way. Doug loved the truck. 

Getting geared up.   We wore harnesses similar to repellling.

We are standing outside the cabin listening to the instructions on how to zip.  We especially love
our little hats. 

Looking down from the platform in the tree tops.  There were 9 zip lines going from tree to tree on this excursion,
and 3 suspension bridges.  It was a little unnerving at first, but we felt safe with two separate lines attached at all times.

Bobette and I waiting our turn to do the next zip.

Walking across the first suspension bridge.  When you looked down you can see a stream
where alot of bear come to fish.  We didn't see a bear under this bridge, but we did see a lot of
dead salmon as a result of them. 

Here we are having the time of our lives!!

This is what it looks like watching our guide Kira go from one platform to another.  This was the longest
zip of the nine and we got going really fast.  I thought I was going to hit the tree so I slowed myself down,
but did it too soon and had to pull myself up to the platform backwards.  I was sore for days in my arms. 





My parting shot as I came through the trees courtesy of the  zip line company.  Woohoo!!



Doug's parting shot coming through the trees.  Nothing crazy from him, just fun!

Our zip line group from the upper left:  Richard and Tracy (we only just met them), Jeremy Green, and Doug.
Bottom left:  Garrett (our zip line guide), Jessica, Kira (our other zip guide), Bobette Green and Me. 

We LOVED zip lining in Ketchikan and spending time shopping there. Because it was the end of the season most of the shops had all the merchandise on sale for 50 to 75% off.  It was fun to shop when you can afford to pay those prices!!