Jerrica's Sweet 16th Birthday

Sorry I missed your birthday Jerrica. I hope I made it up to you while we were at Boondock's. Just a warning to all drivers in the salt lake Valley.... She got her permit. Clear the roads!!!!

There is my neice in all her beauty! She Turned 16 while I was in Alaska and I feel horrible I wasn't there.
That is me, I know that I look amazing in this picture so please do not copy it!Now I understand why they made her get a learners permit before the actual driver's licence! She needs more help driving! she can't even drive a go cart!
So I decided to take bella on the bumper boats even though she was a hair to short to ride. The kid said she could go on if I put a life jacket on her.
She liked it, She screamed when I made her get out. But the life jacket was bugging her.

Anyway Happy birthday Jerrica! You are amazing! I am so glad you are not doing the same things I was doing at 16! I am glad you have your head on right, you are such a good girl. KEEP IT THAT WAY!

Juneau Alaska

Juneau was probably my most favorite place we went. It was lots of fun!

Is there something behind me?
We took this tram to the top of the mountain. Worth every penny. Just wish we would have thought of it earlier.
view of where the tram goes
see how little the ship looks from the top
before we took the tram we trekked through the city very early in the morning to get breakfast and trade a fire patch with their fire department. The fire department was pretty far....We should have taken a cab.

Once we got off the little tram there was a little resturant and gift shop. We decided to go hiking. We ended up hiking 1.8 miles up the mountain.
Here are some pictures from the hike. We actually saw a real black bear. We had to view it through binoculars so I felt comfortable enough that it was far away. To bad I didn't have a real camera that could zoom that far.

Don't you worry your pretty little heads, I still have more pictures to save for another day!

Skagway highlights

So a disappointing day. but not totally wasted.

We had a fishing trip booked but the wind was so out of control they would not allow the boats to leave the dock. This is where our fishing trip was supposed to leave from.

But, we made the most of it and had fun as always!

We wanted to take the train as an alternative to fishing but it had already departed once we learned we had nothing to do. So we decided to go shopping and check out the sites!!

Potty out side?

Sure why not?!??!

Fire house in skagway. James traded his badge to them

Girls in the window tried to get us to go see some sort of a show.... we passed!
Kinda cool rock painting

Sweet little teddy bear

The red onion used to be a brothel, we went in and tried to have lunch but it was way over crowded so we went to a pizza/italian/maxian food resurant called Northern Highlights it was actually pretty good but $$$ Pricey

I was a little tempted to call Adriann to ask her what we should do. She knows skagway like the back of her hand.

We felt a little lost because the fishing trip was ruined. It was still an amazing town to go see.

Icy straight point highlights

Not much to say about this little town, population 860. It was just a small fishing town. There was a zip line which is pretty much the actual only thing to do but we decided take a shuttle into town to see where the locals lived and do a little shopping.

Totum poles are very popular and a big part of their culture their
On the way to the town every one was raving about how cool the lumber jack show was so I got excited to see how amazing this man was.... We learned it was just a man running on a log. He would run for about 2.4 seconds and then fall off, Luckily he stayed on long enough for us to snap a photo.
The ship was to big to dock so they tendered and we took these little boats to the dock. It was actually nice we sat on top of the boat.

The locals gave us a cedar wood chip and told us to throw it in the fire and make a wish


Took a walk through a forrest

View from the small boat as we head to the dock

The highlight of the city was the beer, fish and the lumberjack show!

Back to reality

We are home from Alaska!! We got back saturday and no bella didn't hold a grudge like I thought she would, she still loved me even after we abondoned her for a week. There are alot of picutres to go through so this may take a few posts to go through the highlights of the trip. The pictures below are of Hubbard Glacier. It was amazing!!! We had really good weather even though you may think that it's rainny and over cast, its actually a good thing becuase that gave the glacier the best colors and allowed for huge pieces of the glacier to fall. We would know when a piece was about to fall because you would hear a loud thundering and then it would fall and make a huge splash. Most of the time we didnt get it on camera but we did get a few.
Click on the picture for better view

Good bye Ozzie

We had a horrible tragedy happen in our family. I'm sorry that you lost your baby Jana and V.I. We will all miss Ozzie. He was such a funny dog. I have never meet a dog that was a vegitarian. He was so quirky and a one of a kind.

R.I.P. Oz! We will all miss you little buddy.

7 years gone by already?

Do you remember where you where when the first plane hit? What about the second?

I was just getting out of bed, late for school once again. I was surprised that my mom wasn't yelling at me to hurry up and get ready. I walked into the living room to see her just glued to the T.V. I could immediately tell that something was wrong. That day was like no other, it was not a typicall tuesday and I could tell by the look in my mom’s eyes. I asked what was wrong and she said that a plane hit one of the towers and it was most likely just an accident. She told me to run to school and she loved me and would call me later. I started watching the T.V. for a little while, I remember perfectly what I saw that morning. I saw images with one of the two towers burning intensely. That image was unimaginable, and horrifying and forever burned into my head.

When all of a sudden another plane hit…. I was numb. It was only about 17 minutes after the first one hit and I knew it was no accident at all. The nightmare images seemed not to have happened in reality, but in a movie very well directed.

I could not imagine something like that would happen, not even with one plane mind you but with 4 planes.

I still had to run off to school and everyone was so chaotic and confused.

I wonder how many men or women called in sick that day and are now still living. I wonder what would have happened if the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 didn’t sacrifice their life instead of fulfilling the diabolical plan? Was it a conspiracy

There are so many questions and so many what ifs. All I know is that it was a tragic day and it could have been worse.

What if one of those firefighters that died, was my husband?The after math

A perfect system has proved to be very imperfect. The heart of America was deeply bleeding and it is not known if this wound is ever going to heal or at least to become a big scar.I have never seen so many strangers pull together. Didnt matter what prejudice you had against someone or if you didn't like what they believed in. Everyone pulled together and comforted each other.

It feels like it was just a few years ago but I have come a realization that my neices, nephews and my own daughter probably won't realize the impact those 4 planes actually had. (God forbide) They will never have to feel that uncomfortable feeling of not knowing the future of our country.

This is the most dramatic terrorist attack that has ever happened…around 4000 people died including those from the hijacked planes… material losses of billions, human losses: priceless… September 11th 2001 will be seen in the future as a day of radical changes, a day...Just another tuesday that forever changed our lives and our childrens futures.