Falling in Love

As I was getting the pictures ready for this post, I had an amazing thought. For the first time, I really feel like I'm falling in love.... with Juneau. I was fiddling around with making a book for Sydney of all the places we've seen this summer on Shutterfly at the same time and looking back at all the amazing scenery and things we've been able to do. I think I'm falling in love... Andy was way ahead of me and has loved it from almost day one. Now if we could only figure out how to live comfortably in such an expensive place :). But despite its price, the rain (which once we found out indoor things to do doesn't really bother me), and the challenges we still face of being in a new place, I do love this place... I'm getting hooked. My friend Gina told me when we first moved here that things will get hard and then you'll get a beautiful clear nice day, and you'll get out and be hooked all over again. I have missed Hawaii incredibly since the day we left and although the air and water definitely aren't as warm... I love love love the ocean. I love the mountains, I love the salty sea air, I love the sunsets (now that we have them :)) and I'm starting to love this place; it reminds me of Hawaii. Enough with my ramblings though, I'll give you a sampling of the pictures I'm looking at that invoked such feelings!

This past week has been a mixture of pouring down rain and beautiful clear skies... the first day we ventured down the Rainforest Trail through a wooded, wet temperate rain forest until we reached the beach. We planned it to be there at an extremely low tide so Sydney could find and "squish" lots of anemones. We headed back through the forest just as the sun was beginning to set in order to lessen our chances of any bear encounters. They are coming out earlier now...we saw one on the corner of our street at 8:15 the other night when Vic and Maxine were here!

This second outing proved to be a challenging workout for my pregnant self... but it guess it wasn't actually that hard because Andy was carrying Sydney and said it wasn't :/. Dang. The leaves are definitely in transition here in Juneau and in another week I think this hike would be breathtaking. For now we walked the first part through the forest where the ground was covered in fallen leaves and then broke out of the trees into a canyon where lots of waterfalls dotted the mountainside and emptied into the canyon below. This biggest of the falls was our destination - Ebner Falls. I don't know what it is about this time of year but it seems like a lot of the pools beneath the waterfalls now have crystal clear water in them which makes them even more stunning. And as always... a picture can never ever do the real thing justice... so come visit :-D