Boat Day

 

 

 

Last Saturday we got to take a family boat day courtesy of our friends the Gho family, who graciously asked us to "boat sit" while they took a family trip to Fairbanks. I have to admit I was kind of nervous about how Sydney would do on a boat all day but it was a lot of fun! After stopping to get some fish guts from the cannery for bait, we headed out from Amalga Harbor. Andy dropped some halibut line at Halibut Cove and then we drove over to Shelter Island where we could see a rather large pod of whales nearby - most likely feeding due to the large cloud of birds above them. The last picture above is there solely so you can see how to spot the whales. I can count 8 simultaneous spouts in the above pic (you can see the puffs of water they're shooting), however I think this particular pod probably had like 20 or so whales. It was so awesome to get so close to the whales. I was surprised by how close they got to the boats as well. There were 10 or so boats all around them following them along the shore of Shelter Island. Please turn your volume of for the whales so you can get the full effect of how close they were and all around us in the boat. I was really happy when I found out the camera caught the sound of their spouts. (PS... I talked during the video because I was excited, however I think it makes it more real as well, so I don't generally try to be quiet :)) After the whales we drove over to Aaron Island to let Sydney run around and play. We had a picnic lunch, played in the sand and watched the seabirds for a while. After we went back and pulled up the halibut line which had a 16 lb Halibut on it, Andy's first, and then we headed home. We all got sunburned; I didn't even know that was possible in Juneau! But it was a fun day. Andy took the boat out again this Saturday with some guys from the ward and caught 6 pink salmon and a cod. I did have him give those away this time though as our freezer is getting full, and he's the only one who will eat them.  I never knew I married a fisherman... I guess that's Alaska for you.

Halfway

As of Saturday we are halfway through this pregnancy. My ultrasound this morning revealed that we are having a healthy, average size, very active little boy. Throughout the whole ultrasound he was kicking the tech's tool and wiggling around. Apparently he is completely stretched out with his legs and arms fully extended as well. He better enjoy it because my short body wont allow for that much longer :). Sydney was excited when we told her we were going to see the baby in mama's belly, but she didn't seem to care when we said it was a baby brother. She just kept asking when she got to see the baby; I guess she couldn't see what we were seeing on the screen. I can't blame her! As far as how I'm feeling, most days I feel good. I have to monitor my sleep, level of exercise, and what I'm eating a ton more than I had to with Sydney, but most days I can feel when I'm starting to get sick or a headache and curb it before it gets too bad. My major complaints are swelling and heartburn at this point. I'm excited to start looking around for names. Enjoy the pics.

This pic was taken about a week ago. I'm carrying higher than I did with Sydney I think.

The Baby is looking kind of up in this profile pic. 

Arm

Leg 

Baby Boy

Helicopter Glacier Tour

This past week we found out that as a perk of Andy's job we get a steep discount on tours with some other local operators, so we decided to take advantage and go on the Temsco Glacier Tour. We were surprised to find out that they had room for us the very first day we called, especially since it was a beautiful sunny day. Sydney was pretty excited to ride in a helicopter and loves hiking to the glacier-the best of both worlds! After a safety briefing, they gave us glacier boots to wear and even had some yaktraks for the bottom of Sydney's shoes to help her walk around on the ice. She got to sit in between Andy and the pilot on the ride up and down, and even though she doesn't look excited, she was! It was kind of a tight fit, but she wasn't scared at all. While on the glacier we walked around taking pictures/ and they told us about it.

A few fun facts about the Mendenhall Glacier:
The Juneau Icefield, located in the Coast Mountain Range, North America's fifth largest icefield, blankets over 1,500 square miles of land, and stretches nearly 85 miles north to south and 45 miles east to west. It feeds 38 large glaciers, including the Mendenhall Glacier. (Which is why there are no roads to Canada - just a mere 30 miles from Juneau...see picture below)

The four peaks you see in the distance are called Devil's Paw and the other side of this mountain is in British Columbia.

The Mendenhall Glacier is 12 miles long and 1-1/2 miles wide where it stretches across the Mendenhall Valley. Its ice can be 400 to 800 feet deep.

Why is the ice blue? Glacial ice appears blue because it absorbs all colors of the visible light spectrum except blue, which it transmits.

They are standing on ice although it looks like water :)

Sydney's favorite part of being on the glacier was getting to taste the water. They said the glacier moves about 1 1/2 feet a day which causes all sorts of cracks in the ice and new rivers and holes to form and close daily. As a result, there were lots of rivers of melting ice running down to the lake below (See picture, the lake is the lake you see full of icebergs in previous posts). They said on a hot day like that (It was 30 degrees on the glacier, haha) they lose up to 100,000 gallons a minute, however most of it freezes back up into the glacier in the winter.

We had a fun time. Sydney was sad when we pulled her away from that freezing glacier water; she liked drinking it. It was an awesome experience and just one more reason everyone should come visit us in Alaska :).

Fishing Trip

Disclaimer: this post is mostly video. For those of you who just get this blog via email, you should log in to blogger to watch the videos.

We decided to go fishing as a family. We had fun. You should have been there. Amy is too scared to eat fish, and she thinks that they are slimy and disgusting, so I made her go fishing with me. So we drove to the end of the road, went on the rocky beach and started casting. Amy was sure that she wasn't going to catch anything, until...

She started freaking out saying oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it is so strong! I can't pull it in! It was hilarious. I ended up walking behind her and helping her hold the rod up while she was reeling. A nice lady was walking by and she took a video of us...

So then I made Amy show it off to the camera.

This is what Sydney was doing, getting soaked, having tons of fun.

Anyways, We caught 3 pink salmon that day.

Fourth of July

(To be legal since my camera couldn't do justice to the spectacular location with downtown in the background... Copied from http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_third_crow/182902286/sizes/m/in/photostream/)

This was Sydney's first time to see fireworks, and they were a hit. Here in Juneau since the sun doesn't set until about 11 PM, the fireworks go off at midnight the night of the 3rd so they'll still be doing them on the fourth. I was worried about waking Sydney up in the middle of the night, but we let her have her binky and blankie (which we never do) and I think that helped. Grandma and Grandpa Pack also provided a glow necklace and bracelet that added to the fun. The fireworks are set off over the harbor downtown and we stayed a decent distance away so that loudness wasn't bad at all. With the water and steep mountains on both sides, I guess its gets pretty loud. Anyway Sydney LOVED it. She talks about it everyday and doesn't understand that we aren't going to wake her up in the middle of the night every night to go see fireworks. The next morning we had to wake her up at 10 to make it to the parade downtown. She was exhausted! We had got her a little American flag to wave and she got to wear her patriotic necklaces from Grandma Pack. She was hit with everyone who saw her waving her flag, so we scored a ton of candy at the parade and we even left early because Sydney was so tired. We all took a long early nap and spent the afternoon making our own birthday cake for America and watching the fireworks from around the nation on TV. It was a really good day! I hope we can make that tradition in our family. I loved having a nice, relaxing day as a family :)

Pack Grandparents Visit

Last week my parents were here to visit! There are a ridiculous amount of pictures to show about all the fun things we go to do, and this is the absolute minimum I could post. We took my parents around to some places we'd been before and some new places. I'm really happy they got to see one nice, sunny warm day as last week was particularly rainy for Juneau. On our nice day Andy got his first experience with Alaskan fishing and has since fell in love. The salmon run has already began and you almost have a guarantee catch right now anywhere where a river runs into the ocean. Over the next month to month and half the salmon that have all gathered at the base of the rivers will start upstream to spawn. So right now its easy pickins as they gather at the mouths of the rivers... too bad I don't eat fish. Andy and my parents enjoyed fresh caught salmon all week long though.  In order from to bottom of the pictures, here are some of the things we got to do: Visit/fish at Echo Cove and Sunshine Cove, fish at Sheep Creek (where Andy caught a bunch of clams?), locate and hike to Suicide Falls (I thought Andy's expression is fitting :) given its morbid name... they need to change it I think), ride the tram to the top of Mount Roberts, visit the Shrine of St. Terese where Andy caught another fish, play at the pool, and Sydney's favorite play with Grandma! Other activities not pictured were visiting the glacier, a salmon bake, parks, shopping downtown, roasting marshmallows in your backyard, visiting DIPAC the fish hatchery, and watching the Fourth of July fireworks at midnight (for another post). We had a lot of fun with my parents here and were glad they could stay for so long and see our new world :). Sydney had loads of fun and likes to remember all the fun things we did together and talks about them all day. We miss them and are glad they were able to come. We love you Grandma and Grandpa Pack :)