"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"

Friday, August 27, 2010

Rolling, rolling, rolling



shes got it! she rolls and then is so mad she's back on her tummy!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

What She's Doing Now

-Attempting to roll from the back to the tummy. (Tummy to back no prob)



-Growing bigger and bigger and more beautiful everyday!



-Playing and jumping in her new jumper (thanks Jake and Maria!)-her legs are already
so strong even before the jumper!







-Staying busy traveling around her gym



-Learning how to go to bed early (7:30 and not stay up until midnight with the grown-ups) with a routine including a reading of Goodnight Moon.




-Loving her Daddy




-Having more tub time and fixating on her hands.
"my precious!"-It's very serious with some time to laugh! :)





-Discovering the wonders of a pacifier.



-And meeting Jazmine




Staying busy!

While Mom and Dad were Away...


...Miss Audrey got to play with her Nana and Pappa. She had such a great time and my parents just fell in love with my easy-going-daughter, I didn't think they were going to give her back!

From what I am told, she was such a good influence on the little kids my sister fosters, AND she had my dad wrapped around her finger by the first day!
Pappa's Golf watching buddy

They also discovered that she LOVES taking baths.



And she of course gave Nana and Pappa a break by sleeping through the night.


There really were just smiles all around (even though Mommy and Daddy terribly missed her!)




Lyle and I didn't fly in until Saturday night at 11 and so we had just accepted the fact that she would be asleep and we'd have to wait 'til the morning to see her. We got off the plane and walked around a sign and my mom was standing there with our sweet baby in her arms! It was such a welcomed surprise!

Even now, my mom calls and tells me how much she misses Audrey. I'm glad she had so much fun and was well taken care of!

P.S. It'll be a few days before I can finish the final towns for the cruise. I have to wait for the last of the pictures to come from Wes.

Alaskan Cruise-Day 5-Sitka, Alaska



This was Sitka. It was my favorite place and where Lyle and I went whale watching. It was such a pretty little town, very quiet and welcoming, but the pictures I got of it got mixed up into Wes' so I will have to continue on and come back to Sitka.

The night after being in Sitka, we were told that we might be able to see the Aurora Borealis. If we could see it, it would be between 11 and midnight and many of the group fell asleep, but Lyle and Grandma and I made it up. We never saw it but what we did see that was cool was another cruise ship all lit up and you could hear the ocean moving below us but couldn't see it and it was pretty un-nerving but this video was pretty cool to get.

Alaskan Cruise-Day 4-Glacier Bay

This place was just as amazing! It's a bay full of glaciers and the only way to access it is by boat. You have to have a permit to go inside and we had to pick up a ranger at the visitor center and they gave us a play by play of the area and then the other part of being able to be in there was we had to sit in front of certain glaciers for an hour and have nothing else going on on the ship so that all attention was turned to the glaciers.
Glacier Bay is "comprised of 3.3 million acres of mountains, glaciers, forests and waterways...it is one of the world's largest protected natural areas". Millions of years ago, Glacier bay was one big glacier but is now many smaller glaciers. They say that the glaciers have retreated but not necessarily because of greenhouse effect. It's mostly because they're sitting on water that is constantly moving and changing. Some of the glaciers in Glacier Bay are actually advancing!
Our first glacier to see was the Reid Glacier.



Then Lamplugh (pronounced lam-ploo)






Around this point,

they call Jawdrop Point because it opens up to the John Hopkins Glacier and the view is GORGEOUS!! We couldn't go into the area and get closer because the area was well known as a birthing ground for seals so bigger ships couldn't go in but it was still amazing!

John Hopkins Glacier




Marjerie Glacier was the coolest because it was constantly changing and even while we were there, a few pieces fell off into the water and it was like thunder!



You can see the dirty water coming out of the bottom. It's a mud river from the glacier. From rivers like this, sediment is carried out and because it stays in the water for so long for miles, the water looks very tropical.
this iceberg was covered in little birds.
Right by Marjerie (in one of the pictures to the far right it looks like mud and rock but it's the Grand Pacific Glacier and a few miles behind it is the Canadian Border. This one is not white and blue like the others because of all the mud other things that have flowed down over it.

In that area (Marjerie and Grand Pacific) the Puffin birds like to hang out. We got a picture of them but they are so small (they are smaller than I thought the bird was-and they weren't far from the boat so they weren't small because of distance) that you can only see two black dots in the water, but that is them!

We also saw a sea lion but only the head. It kept watching us but going in and out of the water.

The ranger said that Glacier Bay gets about 50 days of the whole year that the sky is clear and it's sunny and we were lucky enough to have one of those beautiful days!

As we sailed out of the bay, we saw many different pods of whale and some even put on a show for us by jumping out of the water. And then quite literally we sailed off into the sunset headed for Sitka, Alaska!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Alaskan Cruise-Day 3-Juneau, Alaska

5:00AM-I wake up and happen to glance out our window (we had great ocean views) and caught the first glimpse of Alaskan Mountains!
BEAUTIES!
At this point I was SO excited to see LAND (none the day before) AND to see Alaska that I couldn't go back to sleep. I tried to bribe Lyle to get up and join me but he was too tired (remember I went to bed early from being sick and they all stayed up) so I went out on the back deck to sight see and watch the sun rise-GORGEOUS!




It was also while I was out this morning that I saw my first whale! It was beautiful to watch and I could even tell it was an Orca because of it's tall, black dorsal fin.

Around noon we pulled into our first port of the trip-Juneau, Alaska (tourist trap, but beautiful all the same!)

Dave and Lyle both want to claim that I saw a moose but I don't count it!







We did most of our shopping there and then the second half was spent on our first excursion to Mendenhall Glacier and a Salmon Bake.

the glacier was huge and beautiful!


the waterfall in the back in runoff-not from the glacier but from the snow in the mountains.







Off to the side of the park was a walk that went along the salmon run. These salmon were HUGE and bright red.


Lyle n I decided to go on the 3/4 mile walk because they said you could possibly see bear. Pretty cool! About two minutes in, just as I was thinking I wasn't comfortable being in the open with possible bear in the area, about 15 feet ahead of us three bear cubs walk out in front of us. We both freeze not knowing where the mother was (I was shaking and trying to talk Lyle in to turning back) and not far behind, the mother followed. She looked at us and then continued on across our path and down to the river. I was so shook up at this point but Lyle made me continue on and then do the walk AGAIN! The second time around we saw another bear but further away-thankfully! I didn't know if I could handle another encounter!


If you look close you can see the bear face.

Later, Wes and Katryna were on the same walkway and caught video of the mother bear catching fish for the babies.


We then headed to a Salmonbake where the locals grilled so amazing tasting salmon and we then there was a simple walk that took you to a little waterfall where some mining took place.














After a long and beautiful day, we got back on the ship and went back to our rooms to find this towel animal there to greet us.