Alaska, Part I

After a year and a half of planning and dreaming and saving, we finally made our trek across the country to go on our Alaskan cruise. We were lucky enough to go with all of our parents, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and several friends. The trip went by too fast, there wasn't enough time, and we're already talking about "when we go back to Alaska." It was a fantastic week and we're slowly recovering. The pets are all back home, the kids are back at school, and Jeremy is back to work. I'm drowning in laundry and slowing getting everything unpacked and reorganized. We still haven't caught up on our sleep...we had quickly adjusted to being 4 hours behind. It's definitely harder coming back the other way! I'm hoping this weekend allows us to completely get back to normal.

Our Alaskan adventure was full so I won't give you all the details at once. I'll divide it into bite-size pieces so I can add more pictures and keep each post at a decent length. I should warn you...the parts of Alaska we visited were in the rainforest (before researching this trip I had no idea that Alaska had anything remotely considered a rainforest). This means that most pictures were taken on rainy, cloudy, grey days. It seems most of them are studies in shades of blue and grey and I wish they better conveyed the beauty of our trip. Maybe next time I'll take a photographer with us :)

Day 1 and 2:

On Friday we were giddy with anticipation. I don't think any of us could wait to get on the road. Jeremy left work early to help me finish last minute details and we were packed and ready to go the minute the kids got home from school. We decided to head to Columbus to spend the night before our trip officially began. It was an hour and a half drive and so we decided it would be easier to spend the night at a hotel near the airport since we had to be there at 4am the next morning. Another benefit was there is a Target there...something we're sadly lacking in Athens. This allowed us to grab some last minute items before crashing early that night. (Even I went to bed by 9:30!!).

The luggage is packed and ready to go. I don't think we did too bad for a family of 4 leaving for 10 days...

Olivia is chillin' on the way to Columbus. It'll be the last day of wearing tank tops and shorts for awhile!

I'm not a big fan of flying and so the thought of a cross country trip was a little nerve wracking. Luckily, the kids take after Jeremy and so the 5 hour flight was something they were looking forward to.

What else is Noah going to do in an airport at 5am? Why eat breakfast when you have a DS?

We flew to Atlanta where by coincidence we were joined by 30 other people in our group. We almost missed our flight because our first flight was delayed and then our gate was switched on us. Hurrying through the airport with 2 sleepy kids and several carry-ons in tow, we made it with less than 5 minutes to spare. The kids were thrilled to find out that their Granny, Poppie, Uncle Jeff, Grammy and Papa were all on our plane. We didn't buy our tickets knowing this in advance, it just all fell together perfectly that way.

I played the in flight trivia, competing against the other passengers to keep my mind off the fact that we were a gazillion feet in the air. It made a huge difference. It's no secret that I'm a trivia playing fanatic :) And, then, somewhere over Montana the skies cleared enough for me to see land and a crazy thing happened...when I saw the views I suddenly began to think that maybe flying wasn't terrible. And then when I glimpsed Mt. Rainier in the distance I couldn't look away.

We arrived in Seattle exhausted but elated. Now our trip had officially begun! We were on the west coast (a first for the kids and I)! We took a shuttle through downtown Seattle to our hotel. It was located on Lake Union and the views from our balcony were spectacular...on one side was a view of the lake, on the other side we could see the Space Needle.

We didn't do much that day in Seattle. We were tired and lots of people in our group were still trickling in. Our friend, Pat, who shared our cabin with us on the ship, arrived at the hotel at the same time we did. Our friends, Heather, Erika, and Kristi came in later that evening. And my Mom, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother came in very late that night. We ran around greeting people, relaxing on our huge balcony and enjoying the sights and sounds of the city. We did hit the Space Needle for dinner which was wildly expensive (there's a $35 minimum charge per person no matter what you order. Of course, I didn't see anything on the menu except appetizers that cost less than that). The view was amazing, though. The restaurant turns so that you make a complete circle every 45 minutes. We could see downtown, Puget Sound, Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood and others that I couldn't name from our table. After dinner we headed up another 60 feet to the observation deck. The sun was going down and the air was getting chilly but it was beautiful up there. We hit the gift shop before heading back to our hotel. We were 3 hours behind (so eating dinner at 10pm to our body clocks) and getting very, very sleepy. Noah found a LEGO Space Needle that he just couldn't resist. Back to the hotel, the kids got in bed, and we sat outside in the dark, chatting until we couldn't stay awake any longer. I think we all fell asleep with thoughts of Alaska and the ship in our head...