We went to the glacier today and saw the black bear sow and cubs that have been hanging out there eating sockeyes.   The mama bear would catch the salmon, and then all three dug in.  We got to watch them a good 10 minutes or so before they caught another salmon and went under the trees.

Interestingly, I heard on the radio, they are more active when all the tourists are there than at other times.

My sister Karen and hubby John came up to visit last week, leaving this early am.   Now is the first spare second I have had to blog, so thought I would post some photos from this past week.

Karen, John and kids:

We went camping at the Methodist camp for 2 nights.  It was great, we stayed in the lodge, complete with industrial kitchen, huge dining area, and fireplace.   The mosquitos, however, were the worst I've ever seen since being here in Alaska.  Tristan killed so many he got a permanent tatoo:

We went hiking one morning:

John went hiking later by himself and saw a porcupine and some bear prints.   After camping we spent Friday out the road at Eagle Beach.  Here is John and kids playing on a sandbar, with the Chilkats in the distance.   We saw lots of eagles and several Canada geese at the beach.

Saturday we went fishing with no luck :(, and Sunday we went up on the tram after church.  Chase and Summer got to see SNOW and have a little snow ball fight!

Afterwards, we stopped at the glacier.  I stayed with sleeping children in the van, while Karen and John saw the glacier.... and a bear cub in a tree:

Then on Monday, Karen and John went on a whale watching cruise while I watched all the kids.   We went to the new playground in town:

Meanwhile, K&J saw sea lions, eagles, and lots of humpback whales on their cruise.   They even got to see a pod of humpbacks bubble net feeding :

The boys had a great time playing with their cousins, and it was so nice to visit my sister Karen after not seeing her for almost 2 years!   We even had great weather the entire week!  Praise God!

I couldn't help but think of the part in the movie, "What about Bob?" this past weekend when we went out on a sailboat ride.

Back in December, I was invited to a Love, Inc. (Love in the Name of Christ ministry) fundraiser and silent auction.   Love, Inc. is an incredible ministry in this area that collaborates with local churches to provide food, clothing, furniture, and support for those needing help.  

The fundraiser was a nice night, and I even put in a silent bid on a sailboat cruise - and won it!  So this past weekend, I redeemed my "donation" and we enjoyed four hours sailing in the Juneau/Gastineau channel with licensed skipper Eric and his wife Judy (who I might add are a wonderful Christian couple).   We had never met them until arriving on the dock on Sunday afternoon.   We enjoyed a hotdog/hamburger lunch aboard the Ebbtide, a 33' Morgan pilot house Motor Sailor.   Judy reminded of us the boys' grandma's far away, as she had some little ocean creatures puzzle books and activities for the boys while we waited for lunch to be served.  Eric showed us his gps and auto pilot system that make for easy travel for the two of them.

 Here's Eric and his wife Judy down below where the kitchen/sleeping quarters are.

 Captain Nathan:

 Tristan at the bow:

All the guys enjoying the fresh Alaskan sea air:

My little skipper:

The boys watching the sea gulls fly off as we headed towards downtown Juneau:

Days like this are far and few between, but this will remain a highlight of our Alaskan adventure.

Its been a while since I posted.  We stayed home and had a full Thanksgiving dinner right here just the fam.   I have come to the conclusion that potluck Thanksgivings are so much easier than fixing the entire meal by yourself.   And note to self- don't buy a 20 pound turkey when the largest roasting pan you have would nicely fit a 12 pound turkey.   Once we got the smoke cleared from the kitchen and ate, it was delicious, and I'll do the whole meal for my family again someday, especially since Nathan and each of my boys commented about how good the food was, and when we went around the table saying what we were thankful for, each of them commented about how thankful they were to have a mommy that was a good cook!  As Stinky used to say, "I'm a good cook, I know it." (insert laugh here).

Then on Friday we drove out to the Eagle River United Methodist camp, where we had rented a cabin for a couple nights.  After finding our way to the cabin in zero degree weather, trudging through knee-high snow and pulling our gear on tobaggans, we found our cabin.  We had a great time, roasting hotdogs in the wood stove, sledding, taking photos (hmmm... wonder who that was?), and playing games.  I am, of course, not competitive at all (sarcasm), and managed to win Junior Trivial pursuit and 2 games of Sorry.  I finally had to stop playing so someone else could win a game.

We also read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, the new book by one of my favorite authors for children, Kate DiCamillo.   It was a great book to read aloud to the kids.  Even Lukey paid attention to the entire book. 

We were also initiated in what happens to full coke cans when left in vehicles overnight, when it gets below zero.   Yes, we had to do some coke-ice scraping before getting back in the car on Sunday to go home. 

Here's a few pics from our weekend:

This is Morgan and Tristan walking out on the frozen Eagle River:

Our cabin:

Next time we have visitors, we want to rent this cabin again, as it sleeps up to 14, and has a full kitchen.  If you don't mind pumping water by hand, boiling it, and walking to the outhouse in the middle of the night, its almost like staying in a motel!  Honestly, we loved it and it will go down in history as one of our best memories as a family.

We went fishing today after church.   I prayed that God would let me catch a fish today and He answered:

I had to rephrase my prayer after this catch (don't ask me what this little baby halibut was doing in fresh water), as I was thinking of a little bit larger fish - specifically a king salmon.  And again, He answered:

Now that's more like it!  My king was not real bright (his skin color - not IQ), transitioning into spawning colors, but we are going to smoke all the meat, so it should be yummy.   We didn't weigh it, but my guess is maybe close to 20 pounds.  We got about 9 pounds of fillets off of it.  I am totally exhausted - pulling in this fish took alot of energy.  I did it all myself though.  I was tempted to let Nathan take over, but realized I had to do it myself - what kind of Alaskan woman would I be if I gave in?

Luke and I watched a bald eagle being released back into the wild by the Raptor Center on Sunday.  I have more photos on my Juneau blog. The eagle in the tree is the one that was released.  It was so interesting that the other eagles came out right away and started trying to attack it.  They are very territorial.  I was finally able to take a few pictures of eagles that don't look like dots on the screen.

Note the color of sky - "overcast" - I haven't seen blue sky since Easter.  Ugggh!  Hopefully June will be nice, and I'll see the sun 20 hours a day!

We took our first cruise to Berner's Bay today with the Audubon club of Juneau. We hadn't done anything like this since moving here, so decided to join the locals for some sight-seeing.  It was really nice, overcast but no rain.   We saw bald eagles, gulls, pipers, oystercatchers, loons, ducks, sea stars, harbor seals, sea lions, dall's porpoises, humpback whales, and the hi-light was seeing a pod of orcas (killer whales) right by the boat.   It was fantastic, it was like being at Sea World, only better.   My photos absolutely didn't do this day justice, but oh well.  Here's a photo of some 400 or so sea lions:

Here we are:

Here's one of the photos of the 5 or 6 orcas that kept playing around the boat:

Here's an Alaskan lighthouse on Sentinel island:

Nathan and I took a little cruise like this out of Seward back in 96, and it was nice, but we really saw much more marine life this time.  I think even the hosts were surprised at how many animals we saw, but since I had specifically prayed about seeing lots of wildlife, including whales, I wasn't surprised, just thankful for answered prayer.

Nathan got a holiday today - "Seward's Day".  From Wikipedia:

Seward's Day is a legal holiday in the U.S. state of Alaska. It falls on the last Monday in March and commemorates the signing of the Alaska Purchase treaty on March 30, 1867. It is named for then-Secretary of State William H. Seward, who negotiated the purchase from Russia.

It should not be confused with Alaska Day, which marks the formal transfer of control over Alaska from Russia to the United States.

Nathan got Alaska day off back in October.  We're loving these Alaskan holidays.  So we treated it as a holiday, and went out for a stroll.  Went to the picnic area at local beach.  We saw lots of porpoises, lots of ducks, and then saw some very strange bubbles, we soon discovered what was making them, as two scuba divers emerged.  The local dogs thought they were great:

Then walked to the point, where the boys examined all the finds:

A rainbow appeared in the distance:

We ended our adventure with a little climbing at the "jungle gym":

Well, we got about 9-10 inches of snow on Sunday, the day before the first day of "Spring".  It warmed up to 45 degrees on Tuesday, felt really warm after last weeks temps.  Here's a clip of Nathan and the boys' snowball fight:

.

We had a wonderful day today.  Woke up early, sun was shining.  We headed out for a little hike.  We were surprised at how much snow was on the trail, it must stay colder over there.  Nathan and the boys got into a snowball fight.

Then we went over to skaters cabin, and walked around the lake.  The boys liked ice "skating".

And then Daddy decided to send Lukey sliding...

Sometimes the newspapers here have headlines that you wouldn’t see elsewhere, like the one we had last summer:  Bear opens garage door, saunters into family kitchen, Bruin exits through living-room window.  Apparently he got a whiff of some bar-b-q ribs and decided to help himself to the garbage when the wife of the house discovered him.  The scary part is that he followed her to the bedroom, where she and the husband had to brace the door while he pushed on it repeatedly before getting bored.  He made his escape before the cops arrived.

Tristan and I did see a black bear last summer, but thankfully it was about 10 yards away, scurrying along on a trail, and not eating ribs in the kitchen.