It's Good to Be Home

After over a month away, it is wonderful to be back in our own house.  The girls were obviously relived too, because we had almost no jet lag symptoms to deal with.  They were both eating and sleeping pretty regularly by the second day.  Elena has been sleeping through the night which she didn't do once the entire time we were gone, so I am a happier person now too.  Both girls have also been eating their fill of familiar food, so we have far fewer hungry/grouchy incidents.  I got a massage the day after we got back, and Jeff has had two so far.  We love living in Thailand.

The challenge now will be keeping Vivian busy.  Luckily, several of her friends are around and more should be showing up in the next week or so.  She's been really good about finding things to do, even if some are a bit out there.  The other day she decided she needed to be "fancy", so she put on a party dress.  Then she worked on building the tallest possible duplo tower.  She had to build it on the dining room table, so that Elena couldn't reach it, but then we were a bit afraid to move it at dinner time.

We managed to slide it to the side, and it lasted over night, but Vivian couldn't leave well enough alone, and when she was trying to add to it the next day, the whole thing came toppling down.

We have a couple weeks left before school starts, and Vivian will have gymnastics camp for three of those days, so I just have to come up with a few more things for her to do, and then we can get back into our regular school routine which will be nice.

We've also had fun meeting new people.  It's weird to be the "old" person, since I still feel like there's so much I don't know.  I guess it's like being a sophomore.  You know more than the freshman, but you're still a long ways from being a senior.  We're all excited to see what this next year will teach us.

Ketchikan

Ketchikan was our last stop in Alaska.  Our guide told us it gets the most rainfall of any town in North America, but on the day we visited, the sun was shining.  We split up for our morning adventures, Elena and I did a city and totem park tour with my mom, dad, and sister, while Jeff and Vivian went to a Native American village with his dad and stepmom.

Elena liked getting up close and personal with the totem poles.

We also got to see the workshop where the totem poles are made.

Meanwhile, Vivian was exploring the village,

and working on a totem pole creation of her own.

After lunch, we were all planning to meet up at the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show.  We discovered that waiting to get in presented a fun photo op with our ship in the background.

The lumberjacks chopped and climbed.

They threw axes through the air,

and encouraged audience participation.

It was a fun way to end our Alaska adventure.  That night we watched the sun set.

We had a fun day at sea, and then we were back in Vancouver.  We got off the ship bright and early in the morning and Disney provided a bus to the airport.  We had some wait time before we could check in.

We said a sad goodbye to my family, and they left for their flight back to Arlington.  This trip across the Pacific was MUCH easier, since I had Jeff to help with the girls, and we were all so excited to be heading home to Thailand after over a month away.

Juneau

We got lucky with the weather for the first part of our cruise, but in Juneau the rain finally caught up with us.  It didn't rain too hard though, and we had beautiful things to see, so we still had a wonderful day.  We had a double adventure planned, a rain forest and a glacier.  Disney, with its typical awesomeness, was ready for the rain, and they had free ponchos in kid and adult sizes that you could pick up on your way off the ship.

Our first stop was a rain forest park which had been set up on the edge of Tongass National Park.  The owners had cultivated certain plants and flowers, set up some water features, and built roads, so that visitors could ride through it on a "golf cart" which was closer to an ATV bus.  We enjoyed the ride.  It had a roof for cover, and our driver gave us a great narration through the drive up the hill.  We stopped at the top for photo ops.

Then we drove back down the hill, and had a hot chocolate break in the beautiful green house cafe.

After that, we got on our bus and went to the Mendenhall glacier.  Our guide dropped us off near the visitor center and gave us an hour to explore.  She recommended taking the one mile walking trail to Nugget Falls, so that's what we did.  By that point, it was Elena's nap time, but the walk helped her fall asleep, and we kept her dry with an extra Disney poncho.

Yes, she slept through the wind, the rain, and the roar of the waterfall.  The glacier was behind the waterfall.  You can see it in the left side of the picture.  We all agreed that the one in Tracy's Arm was much more impressive, and the waterfall was really the main attraction at this spot. 

The beach area allowed you to get close enough to the waterfall for it to spray you in the face.  Luckily, we were all in rain gear already, so we had no problems getting up close and personal with the waterfall.

Vivian had scorned her poncho for the walk, and by the end, she had decided she didn't need her hood either, so her hair was completely soaked, but she was happy.

She dried off in the visitors center where she had a lot of fun with the interactive exhibits.  She learned how glaciers were formed and got to touch a piece of 200 year old ice.

When we got back to the warmth of our room, we found an awesome towel animal waiting to greet us.

It was a beautiful Alaska day with a fun Disney finish.

Skagway

Our first port of call on the Disney cruise was Skagway, Alaska.  Our daily brochure told us that the population of Skagway was 800, and over 500,000 people visit on cruise ships annually.

It's a one street town.

Our ship looked good in its harbor.

We weren't the only cruise ship in town, but nature seemed to be okay with that and graced us with a rainbow which we saw at breakfast.

Disney has a partnership with many of the businesses in Skagway, and I had signed the four of us up for a visit to Liarsville, a kid friendly gold rush town, where you could pan for gold.  Judy thought that sounded pretty good, so she came with us too.

We got on a bus and drove through the town and then out of town to the camp.  When we got off the bus we were greeted by music, cookies, and warm apple cider.

Then we got to watch a puppet show telling the story of a man and his dog who went looking for gold, only to realize that the real treasure was at home.  It was cute.

At the end of the show, they taught us how to pan for gold, and then sent us off to try our luck.

They assured us that each pan was pre-loaded with gold flakes, but getting to them was not as easy as they made it look.  Luckily, Judy and Vivian managed to work together and get the gold out.

Elena and I had been touring around the camp, and Vivian excitedly ran over to show us her find.

Elena was not overly impressed.  Vivian celebrated her find with roasted marshmallows and more apple cider.  We also found a bear and had some fun posing for pictures.

It turns out we picked a great spot to hang out.  First Chip came by on his way out of the camp, and he and Viv had a little talk.

He tried to climb up a tree, and his handler had to pull him off, which was pretty funny.  Then, a few minutes later, Donald came sauntering into camp.  Vivian of course ran right up to him, hugged him, and started talking.  You could tell that his handler was trying to move him to the photo spot.

Donald wordlessly came up with a solution.  He took Vivian's hand and off they went.  We did our best to capture them in motion.

When they got to the photo spot, she was the first one to get her picture taken with Donald.

She ended up being more excited about her Donald encounter than her gold find.  The final fun stop was a salmon bake.

The salmon was delicious.  They also had mac and cheese and black olives, so Vivian was happy too.

When we got back to the ship, I took Elena to the nursery for nap time.  Jeff and Vivian went to a movie, and I had the afternoon to myself.  I wandered around the town and did some shopping, and then I found a comfy chair in the adults only area and read my book.  It was heavenly.

Happy Birthday Jeff!

When I asked Jeff what he wanted to do to celebrate his 40th birthday, he asked if we could go on a Disney cruise.  This is just one of the many reason I love him.  We started planning our Disney Alaska cruise a year ago.  On Jeff's birthday, we sailed into Tracy's Arm Fjord.  The final stop is Sawyer glacier which is an incredible destination, but the journey is also wonderful.  I love that we got a family picture in front of the blue glacier with Chip and Dale on Jeff's 40th birthday.

The day started off well as we entered the fjord.

We had lunch with a view of the fjord, and we spotted our first piece of blue ice.

We learned that the ice looks blue because the pressure exerted on it over the years compresses the crystal structure into one that reflects back blue light, making the ice look blue.  It's incredible in isolation and in larger quantities.

I don't know what effect, if any, it has on the color of the water, but the the water was beautifully clear and turquoise.  That combined with the mountains and waterfalls made for a jaw dropping day.

Jeff geared up with his camera and his Disney souvenir cup of mulled wine.

We were supposed to meet him at the front of the ship.  We didn't find him, but we found lots of other people.  Most of them were friendly though, and one man even took a picture of me and the girls with the glacier.

Luckily, we were all planning to meet back up for the most important event of the day, birthday cake!

Jeff's dad and stepmom had ordered a beautiful cake and put together a great slideshow retrospective of Jeff's life so far.  We had a lot of fun looking at pictures of little Jeff.

At dinner that night, the servers sang a rousing chorus of happy birthday, and we finished off the rest of the birthday cake.  We all worked to make the birthday memorable for Jeff, but the most memorable part was the incredible natural surroundings.

The Awesomeness of a Disney Cruise

Jeff, Vivian, and I did a three night Disney Bahama cruise four years ago, and we've been talking about doing another Disney cruise ever since.  We loved Alaska and thought it was absolutely beautiful, but most of the credit for our fabulous week goes to Disney.  What makes Disney special is their attention to detail and their attention to kids.

The ship was always being cleaned and maintained.

When we came back from dinner each night, we would find a fun towel animal, chocolates, and a brochure with all the activity choices for the next day.

Some of the creations got pretty complex which Vivian appreciated,

but Elena wasn't so sure about.

It was Elena's first cruise, and she settled right into the routine.  She lounged and read,

walked the decks,

and made sure everything was ship-shape.

She and Vivian spent a large part of their time in the kids' clubs.  Vivian had one that she could check in and out of with her RFID bracelet, and there was a nursery for Elena.

They also had a flex room that could be part of the kids club or open for families to come and hang out in together.

Adding to the fun, you could run into Disney characters when you were just walking around.

Some of them though, you had to get tickets for.  The tickets were free, but the princesses were in high demand.  I got tickets for the basic princess gathering pretty easily, and Vivian had a great time talking to each princess.  I actually thought the pictures I got from the conversations were cuter than the posed pictures.

I also got us tickets for a character breakfast. 

I wasn't sure how Elena was going to handle the big characters, but she ended up being really excited and liking them, even though the lighting was a bit spooky.

The hardest ticket to get though, was one for Anna and Elsa.  Their character meet was sold out.  Vivian had brought her Elsa dress on the cruise and kept asking where Elsa was.  I was really afraid that I was going to have a mommy fail moment.  I had some free time, and so I stopped by the guest services desk.  The man there told me that they had just had a cancellation, and they had a ticket available.  I almost jumped across the desk to hug him.  We had to rearrange a few things, but it was worth it for the smile on Vivian's face (Judy was pretty excited too ;-)

Yet another perk of being on a Disney cruise was free movies.  There is a movie theater in the ship, and they showed not only Disney movies, but also Marvel movies, since Disney owns Marvel.  Jeff and Vivian watched the new Avengers movie and Inside Out,

and Jeff and I got to watch Ant Man, since they had special opening weekend showings on the ship.  I don't think I've seen a big summer action movie on its opening weekend since I was college.

Even though the focus is on kids (and kids at heart), there were also special treats for grown ups.  On our first night we had a grown ups only dinner at the on board Italian restaurant.

They knew we were on the cruise to celebrate Jeff's birthday, so he got a special plate.

There was also a special adults only area with a pool, coffee shop, and comfy chairs.  We made good use of the chairs and coffee,

but it really wasn't pool weather.  Some brave souls tried, but the fact that the lifeguards were bundled up should have been a hint to avoid the pool.

Even if we decided to do nothing and just sit in the room, we had a great view.

We definitely picked the best way to explore Alaska.