Alaskan Adventure: Thunderbird Falls

It's been 7 years since I graduated high school (which seems ridiculous) and although I am not so great at keeping up with friends from those days, there are still those great friends that you just pick up with where you left off.

Thankfully...Katie is one of those friends :) Kates and I were always close throughout high school and while we definitely took separate paths in life, we've always been able to get together, chat and encourage each other wherever we are in life. I will always love and appreciate the kind of friendship we have.

What makes us even more bonded is our love for travel and through Katie's job at St. Jude's she gets that opportunity quite frequently... which entails travel to Alaska!

What are the chances we'd be in Alaska, at the same time?? I'm not sure but I'm glad it was in our favor :)

We picked Katie up for a hike at Thunderbird falls and she stayed on for dinner with the family. It was a beautiful day and the company made it that much better!

little nervous about the cliffs...

reunited and it feels so good!

Love this shot of my brother and his wife :)

The falls

Two old friends, catching up on life!

Thanks again for joining in on the family madness for a day Kates!!! Can't wait to see you in MN!

Alaskan Adventure: S'mores and Ice Cream

Basically there is nothing better than dessert after dinner. Especially when you're a little kid. Or when you're me and there are s'mores and ice cream involved.  

I love grabbing shots of the kids as they cram their mouths full of sweet stuff :)

Can you tell they are father and son?

Not a bad view to enjoy while chowing down on s'mores

The next evening entailed ice cream

I love how the simplest of treats can make kids so happy 

So much fun and so delicious:)

Alaskan Adventure: The Fish

One of the many activities people could take part in was fishing. They took a charter fishing boat out to get Halibut (where everyone got quite sea sick) and then on a different day they did some Salmon fishing.

The Halibut fishing was extremely successful and there was a TON of fish and it all needed to be vacuum packed and frozen for everyone to bring home with them.

This later became an excellent meal.

There was a bbq sugar or cracker crumb salmon to choose from or we had a spice rubbed halibut and my personal favorite was the buttered herb halibut

i.die.

It literally melted in your mouth. and coming from someone who usually doesn't enjoy fish, it was a nice surprise :)

Alaskan Adventure: Top of the Mountain

Clearly the busyness of Alaska got to me and blogging took a break :) But that doesn't mean there was a lack of picture taking... on the contrary.

When all was said and done we took over 950 pictures... in 10 days. 

And with that said, I'm sad to say that we are officially back in Denver :( Quite frankly I think we'd both rather be in Alaska still... I guess the pictures will have to do!

Last Wednesday a group of people went salmon fishing while the rest of us watched the kids and then took a gondola up the mountain side!

getting ready to ride the tram

The cabin we are staying in is in the middle of that little circle of cabins

And because we felt the need rebecca and I hiked up the little mountain behind the chalet

sisters, sisters... there were never such devoted sisters...

Making our way down again!

Gorgeous views and so much fun!

Have I mentioned how much I love Alaska?

More Alaska posts to come!

Alaskan Adventure: Day of the Kids

Today most of the adults headed out to go fishing for halibut while the rest of us were up to the task of watching all the kiddos.

It was a bit on the exhausting side, but any time I get with all the nieces and nephews is definitely time well spent.

We spent our day biking, wrestling, and playing at the park!

Sophia and Maddy Mae

Henry Man

Jack and Benny Boo

The girls swinging with Uncle Jon

Sammies playing in the sand

Henry Man going "down" the slide

It's slightly embarrassing when your 3 1/2 yr old nephew successfully makes it across the balance beam better than you do...

Uncle Jon was the robber and the kids were chasing him down

Mari making her way across the bars and Mason enjoying our bike ride.

I so enjoy being able to spend all of this time with the kids. It makes me a little sad that the time we get to spend together is so far and few between. But we're making it up for it with lot's and lot's of time together this vacation :)

I'm wondering what my odds would be of convincing all of my sibling to move to Colorado so this isn't such a rare occurrence...

Tomorrow... white water rafting!!