The Big Trip Part IX

Day 9

Juneau

Juneau was probably the best part of our trip. We had a fabulous excursion with Gastineau Guiding. The trip was a hike to see the Mendenhall Glacier and a whale watching tour. Our guide Samantha was terrific, very informative and she interacted well with both the kids and the adults. The hike through the forest to see the glacier was nice.





We ended at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.






After the glacier, we headed to the boat to go whale watching. Be prepared for lots of photos!

After a bit of a boat ride, we saw our first whale. Very exciting, but it was pretty far away. Good thing for telephoto lenses.








After awhile the captain heard from other boats of a spot with 3-4 whales. We joined the other boats to see what was there. Sure enough, we soon saw multiple whales.












They were diving one after the other





















So cool. The last tail is the whale they call Spot. We stayed in here quite awhile. Our time was running short and Samantha said we could stay for them to come up one more time. The humpback whales come up to breathe every 10 minutes or so. Soon the whales came up next to a boat close to us.












At this point our time was up, but the whales were too close to our boat and the captain couldn't start the engines. We had to wait for the whales one more time. It turned out to be the best sighting ever. The whales came to the surface and circled around our boat. A juvenile whale flipped on its side and lifted its pectoral fin for us.












After swimming around the boat, the whales turned right toward our boat and dove underneath us.














It really was an amazing experience. They were so close to the boat, a matter of feet. The lens on my camera was almost too tight. I'm a little disappointed that the pictures are cut off a little bit. I basically set my camera, held the button and then lifted up my head to watch with my eyes instead of through the viewfinder. Just going through these photos brings back the excitement. A has video of it and you can hear the guide in the background shouting about she can't believe it and she does this multiple times a week.

Definitely, it was a worth while tour. We'll never be able to go whale watching again because nothing can top that trip.

The Big Trip Part VIII

Day 8

Skagway

This is a cute little town leftover from the Gold Rush days. We got off the boat early and walked around.






Since we had time before our excursion, DH took a break to get a little work done.


The cousins joined us on this trip on the old railroad and gold panning.
















There was suppose to be another tour of a gold dredge after the gold panning. We somehow missed that part of the tour. There might have been beer/root beer involved.

The Big Trip Part VII

Day 7

Tracy Arm

We spent the day on the boat going up a passage of Tracy Arm Fjord to the Sawyer Glacier.  It was pretty amazing scenery. The veranda outside our room was quite nice for watching everything go by.


There were huge rushing waterfalls everywhere.








I found myself talking so many pictures. The rocks, the cliffs, the mountains, all beautiful.




We saw lots of small icebergs. They were amazingly blue. And on one, we saw a mama seal with her pup.






The glacial water was a strange, almost teal blue.


After several hours, we finally saw the glacier.


It was a cool sight, so massive, but crazy to think of how big it used to be just a few short years ago.






It was a good day of scenery for the whole family. I'm so glad we were all able to go on this trip.

The Big Trip Part VI

Day 6

The Character Breakfast

This was a Disney Cruise but we didn't participate in many of the typical Disney activities on the cruise. They had character meet-ups multiple times a day but there were always long lines. We attended the character breakfast the second day of the cruise and got all of that out of the way.


The waitress Shani made everyone napkin hats.






Not sure what this one was suppose to be, a pirate with big earrings??


The boys didn't like their Goofy ears. Boys at another table had Peter Pan hats, luckily Shani knew how to make those too


We saw more characters








The characters were fun, too bad the breakfast wasn't that great. If there was one thing I would improve on a Disney cruise, it would definitely be the breakfast.

Finishing up the closet

Last fall, I re-organized our wrapping paper in the hall closet. I wanted to use the space to hold linens. We're suppose to start renovating the kids' baths so I really needed to finish the closet. Months later, it still looked like this.


This afternoon I swung by Lowe's and had them cut a couple of shelves. I got the boys to help me paint the shelves.


I shouldn't have done that because we all argued and complained the whole time. It did get done but I didn't have any great motherly moment during the process.

After I debated on how far apart to hang the shelves. I measured and re-measured. I spent time drawing level lines. Finally, I was ready for DH's help.  He cut the 1x2 into pieces and hung them on the wall for me.


Closet complete!



I have shelves. I have to wait a day or two for the paint to finish drying. The boys' painting efforts are still a bit tacky. By the time the contractor is ready, my linens will be safe from construction dust in the hall closet.

Shower 2.0 (almost) complete

The last shower post was on July 4th. We started the shower renovation the week before. I think the contractor took our being out of town and not really pressing the issue as a sign that he could take his time. There was delay after delay before we left on The Big Trip and the tile guy finally started on Wednesday before we left on Thursday. When we got home 12 days later, it was mostly complete. The tile was done, the walls were drywalled and painted. It looked good but we couldn't use it because the shower fixtures hadn't been put back together. The contractor said something was wrong and the plumber had to come back to figure it out. There was talk of having to cut out the wall on the other side to fix it. Ugh. There were a few other things, trim work, hanging hooks and towel holders.  He said it would be done any day.

I've learned that any day is a good week in contractor speak. The plumber came by the day after we got home. He was suppose to return that afternoon with a missing part. (Good thing it was a part not a cut through the wall issue.) Details finishing guy was suppose to come the next day. No sign of them at all

Finally, plumber guy came the next Wednesday, details guy came on Thursday.  At long last, we have a working shower.




It's hard to photograph a shower.

There is still an issue the grout color on the shower floor. You can kind of see it in the first photo. It is different colors in different areas. It makes the shower floor look dirty. He's suppose to come look at this week, which means the week after. Then at some point we're suppose to start work on the kids' baths. Hopefully, after a talk with the contractor, it won't take another 6-7 weeks to complete that job.