vacation Thursday (Aug 18): Skagway

I woke up too early, but around my normal time of a bit before 5am. Today we were in Skagway. Today

the weather was beautiful! It had originally called for a light rain, but there was no rain, no clouds, and

even a bit of sun.

Due to a recent mountain slide, we had to go ashore via tender. We’re one of the lucky Princess cruises

that still gets to stop in Skagway; most of them for the month have been rerouted to Sika. (I’m sure

there’s nice things there too though.) We were going on a train ride up a mountain where the gold rush

path was. The train was right by the pier, so it was a quick hop-on. It was beautiful...so here's a picture overload.

Back of the train

Saw-tooth mountains

Into a tunnel!

At the turn-around in British Columbia

Another glacier

So while the port side of the train was definitely more beautiful with wide landscapes and soaring mountains, the port side on the way back was still very interesting.  All the rain caused lots of little waterfalls, and it turns out that I love waterfalls.  We probably saw one at least every minute or two.

We took a brief stop in town for more shirts, picked up some rocks from a creek for our rock -loving son, and walked back to the boat. After lunch we rested, but there were several helicopters making the

rounds to deliver cargo. One looked like two bombs. One looked like a giant roll of toilet paper. One

was a shopping bag with a box in it. Needless to say, we couldn’t come up with any reason that

helicopters should be used instead of trucks, but I’m sure there was one.

Rock slide area that caused us to use the tenders:

We had dinner at a different table that was right next to a window as we were leaving Skagway. Our

table is usually quite good, but it isn’t right next to a window. It was weird though because Ben and I

couldn’t see the same things at the same time due to the thickness of the window, the curtains, and the

table location. I’d say, “look at this cool waterfall!” and by the time he could see it it was out of my

view. It made for some difficult conversations, to say the least. Anyway, we wanted a table by the

window because we were in a fjord. (A fjord has steeper sides than a valley and has seawater and glacial water.)  The sides were pretty steep at the beginning but became normal mountains after an hour or so. After dinner we sat on our balcony to continue watching the scenery and reading. We saw one glacier, and even saw one of the officers taking pictures of it. It made us wonder if we had really good weather and that the mountain peaks were normally covered in fog.

We didn't get many (any?) room pictures, so this might be the best.

After dinner we sat on our balcony for a bit with blankets until it got too cold.

Both of us took some pictures through binoculars, but it's rather tricky.

The bridge took a small portion of our view away.  We were a bit annoyed, but nothing we can do about it.

We did try to see the northern lights again, but it was cloudy. 

In other news, today was the day the quilt show started!  I got a few pictures of my quilt.

Friday: upkeep

I brought Ben's car in for an oil change.

We found out we need to buy a new garage door.  (If we want windows, it will take 9 weeks.  Probably worth the wait, but oof.  Also, insulated or not?  While it would be better energy wise, it's also significantly more expensive and we've been pretty happy with our current non-insulated one.  It would especially be expensive because we'd have to get two new doors.)

Isaac and Ben went to Magic tonight.  Joshua and I pulled out a brick box.  Here he's making a ring while blind folded.  Er, while Grey Beared.

vacation Wednesday (Aug 17): Juneau

Today was an odd day, full of disappointments but still a good day in the end. We did not get to go into

Endicott arm for a few hours, and we were hoping to see whales and ice bergs there. I was especially

excited about the ice bergs, but it was too cloudy and the captain decided it wasn’t safe. So we went to

Juneau a bit early. There was a light rain most of the morning.

Due to all the rain there were a bunch of cool waterfalls.

Juneau:

Ben and I decided to have an early lunch. (We had woken up early because the time change is not

working well for us and because we were hoping to see stuff in Endicott arm.) Early lunch was 10:30, as most people were just finishing breakfast. Anyway, we went into town. Unbeknownst to me, Ben had

found a quilt store! So I got some Alaskan fabric and I’m pretty excited to use it. We then stopped by a

toy store and got a few things, including the tumbled rocks for Isaac that you see at all toy stores. Isaac

just really likes rocks. Oh, well, the day before we did the penny presser for Joshua. We also got a

magnetic puzzle that I think will be fun. We stopped by a t-shirt store and were very happy with the

selection so we got everyone something. As we were packing we realized Ben has a lack of long sleeved t-shirts so he was going to pick something out whether he wanted to or not. (He wanted to. I didn’t have to push very hard.)

At this point it was raining harder. We got ready for our helicopter ride hoping that it would still go, but

found out it was canceled from a random person on the boat. They were going to get a refund at the

desk, but the line was really long. We decided instead to go confirm it was canceled for ourselves.

Unsurprisingly, it was. However, we also found out that we will just be refunded for the trip and don’t

need to visit the desk. We quickly pivoted and decided to take one of the shore excursions from the

booths right outside the boat…the ones not affiliated with the cruise line. It worked out wonderfully.

We debated between still going to the glacier and going whale watching and decided on whale

watching. We had about an hour before we needed to start going to the bus, so we went back to our

room, soaked. Well, kind of soaked. We had tried to bring water-proof stuff. Our pants were good, and

my shoes were good. My coat was just starting to leak and Ben’s coat was completely wet. We changed

a few things, especially since we knew the rain was supposed to let up soon.

On the way to the bus Ben’s umbrella and water-proof pants were able to keep him dry. Phew. It took

a while, but we eventually made it to the boat. The ride was fun. We saw the top of an orca. (He’s a

lonely, male orca looking for a pod.) We saw some porpoises, which are rather rare. We saw some

stellar sea otters. And, of course, we saw some whales. We actually saw a bunch of whales. Two were

sleeping, and they look like logs. They blow out every few minutes, sink briefly, and then look like a log again until they repeat the cycle. (This also showed me that the whale I thought I saw earlier was

absolutely not a whale. The spout wasn’t big enough.) There were several whales getting breaths (a

spout and shallow dive). They do this several times and then make a big dive down to feed. The last

one is when you see the tale flip. We didn’t see any jumping whales, but the time went by quickly. Oh,

the weather was really nice for this! It wasn’t sunny, but the rain had stopped completely.

Sleeping whale:

Whale spout.  They were much larger than I was expecting.

Whale tail!  After about four to five spouts/shallow dives they do a big dive and that's when you see the tail.

Whale spout:

         

The glacier that we were supposed to visit, looking like a road.

The bus driver on the way home was 100% a retired Ms. Frizzle. She had drove a school bus, had

interesting and scientific facts to share, but had grey hair. She talked about the glaciers and how the

ground is springing up at about 3” per year after the glacier left.  We got back to the boat, changed into normal clothes, ate at the buffet, and came back to the room. I proceeded to fall asleep (at about 7:30). I had set my alarm to check for Northern Lights though, because there was a chance today. The alarm went off and Ben asked me what it was for. I confidently said, “to check for tigers!” I immediately heard my mistake and changed it to northern lights. It was cloudy, so I stumbled my way through getting ready for bed (it was significantly harder than normal) and fell back asleep almost right away. Ben said he checked one more time and even though it was clear in a few places, there were no lights to be seen.

Thursday: rock climbing

 The boys had their first rock climbing class today.  They both enjoyed it.

Joshua pretty much only went up the pink path.  He apparently tried a few other paths but wasn't successful.  Honestly, I was excited he made it up one path; sometimes he gets a bit scared once he reaches a certain height.  (Once at the top they could go over the top to a pathway and ladder that would bring them back down.)

I saw Isaac do this yellowish path and then didn't see him for quite a while.  He was off behind a tower trying things, including one that tilted backwards a bit.

Isaac was especially happy afterwards, but said it was harder than he expected.  They climbed for 30-45 min, so I'm not surprised.

Wednesday: house work

I got quite a few things done today, but it got off to a rocky start.  I wanted to make a call, but they weren't open until 9am.  I tried making an appointment, but the voicemail I left didn't get returned.  I wanted to air some stuff out on the deck, but the deck was wet.

I finally found some things I could do, made my 9am phone call, and set out for my errands.  I would have liked to start the errands earlier, but my bike was in the car and I didn't want to get groceries and have the bike.  (Although I'm sure I could have made it work.)  Anyway, they were able to quickly fix the bike but not with enough time for me to get groceries and make it to a short meeting that I had.  

I ended up getting groceries right before picking up the kids from school.  They were out of strawberry cream cheese and had moved the location of the ice cream toppings and the canned fruit.  It took me a while to find the fruit.  (We were surprisingly low too.  I try to keep a good stock, but do tend to use it more in the winter so perhaps I just haven't thought about restocking.)

Yeah.  So several things got done.  Several things didn't get done.  Same old story over here.

Tuesday: work

I started classes again last week.  I didn't manage to post about it at all.  The classes are both all the way full...28 computers and 28 students.  There are the normal 'I don't know how to use my computer' problems, but I think we're slowly getting over those.  Today was the first interesting day of content, so that is always more fun to teach.

I biked to karate after inflating a very flat tire.  It was a bit surprising since I had filled it on Saturday, but then when I got out of karate it was flat again.  Ben was able to pick me up and the bike is in the car.  Since it's already in I'll try to bring it to the shop tomorrow to be fixed.

Sunday: nap with Grey Bear

I put a bag of candy and a card in both boys' bed last week, which they were very excited about.  On Friday Joshua wrote a thank you along with a ticket to sleep with Grey Bear.  

There was some discussion about whether I should use my ticket at nap time or be nice to Ben and use it for overnight.  It felt like he wanted me to be nice, so I said I'd wait until bed time.

Bedtime comes closer and Joshua finds me and solemnly asks if I could wait until weekend naptimes so that he could have Grey Bear at bedtime.  No problem on my end, and Joshua was very relived.

Anyway, today was the naptime.  Grey Bear came with his own pillow and blanket.  It was dark so I didn't get a picture, but it was cute.

Saturday: donuts

This morning I asked the boys if they wanted to bike to donuts and after hemming and hawing they decided on no.  I mentioned I needed to tell Ben that we weren't going.  They immediately asked if Ben was going too and after a positive response they quickly changed their minds.  I guess I'm just not cool enough.

Turns out, no one got donuts though.  I got an almond pastry, Ben got a pig-in-a-blanket, Joshua a muffin and Isaac a cookie.

Friday: blood donation

I gave blood today.  It was a bit of an ordeal.  I've been having problems lately and keep thinking I should stop, but at the same time I have time and willingness to do it.

Anyway, my iron was fine.  This has been a problem in the past but the iron supplements help.

I also have small veins.  I tried to drink plenty of water ahead of time to make the process better.  The initial poke went fine so I was optimistic.  However, my blood kept stopped coming out.  They finally got the needle in the right place and it started flowing again.  It happened one more time but I was almost done so they just held the needle *just so* and filled the bag.  Then they started filling the tubes that they need for the testing and it stopped again.  As they were fiddling with it the needle popped out.  (This didn't hurt at all.)  But I started pooling blood.  One nurse (I had two by me at the time) clamped down on my arm so fast.  I didn't get any blood on my clothes, we didn't get any on the blood pressure cuff, it was surprisingly clean.

They had to put another needle in the other arm, but it was a smaller needle so my small veins didn't matter as much.  They just barely got the minimum amount (two tubes) and the blood started flowing better so they were able to get all five tubes in the end.

Wednesday: Operation: Clean the House

Well, after a summer pause I need to get started with Operation: Clean the House again.  But.

I have so many things on my to-do list.  I was about 30 items higher than normal at the beginning of the day, although I'll be the first to admit that several of those items are 15minutes or less.  Sometimes I need to do something small and it's just not a good time to do it.

Anyway, I got rid of most of my "try to do these today" items, which surprised me a bit as there were a whole bunch.  I'm going to spend next week trying to knock out a bunch more.  (This is really only two more days because of Labor Day, so we'll see how this goes.)

After that the plan is to spend just a little bit of time on all the rooms that I cleaned last year.  Not a ton, but enough to get them back organized again.

Then I'm going to start the master bathroom.  It's not super small, but not super big either, so it'll be a good way to get back in the swing of things.  I'd love to start it by the beginning of October, but I might be optimistic.  I still need to do things like get groceries after all.

Monday: back to school

 School started for the kids today!  Isaac's in 5th, Joshua's in 2nd.

The day seemed to go fine for them.  Then it was about time for pick-up, and the sky was rapidly getting dark.  I knew it was supposed to rain this afternoon, but I was hoping it'd hold off until pick-up was finished.  Well, I decided to go a bit early so that I could grab Joshua first if it was raining.  (He comes out about 5-10 minutes before Isaac.)  The rain caught up with me on the way to school, but it wasn't too bad.  It was a light rain when I got Joshua and then sat in the car a few minutes before going back up to get Isaac.  I did a poor job on the timing though, and it started to rain hard.  It was too windy for an umbrella, so the parents all got soaked.  To be fair, the kids all got soaked too.  But at least we were going home and could change.

I was looking through Joshua's homework and found this gem.  It's supposed to be "noisy".  "Nosey", while it would fit the writing prompt, is not what I saw either.  And once I saw it, as two words, there was no un-seeing it.  I had to get Joshua to read it to me so that I could understand.

Sunday: back to church

We finally went back to church today.  We've been joining a live-stream for the past 2.5 years and we've been in the church for assorted things, but have stayed away from big gatherings.  We know COVID is still a thing and will probably worship from home again in the future, but it was nice being at church.  Although let's face it, it is also nice to worship from home.