Josh's Big Boy Room

Fortunately and unfortunately, Josh is getting older and he had really out grown the baby theme in his room. My sister watched Josh for the weekend and Matt and I redecorated his room. We also purged a lot of toys and books that he had out grown. By the end of the weekend, Josh had a new room and we had our living room back. WooHoo!

Before

After

We decorated Josh's room with a dinosaur/Cars theme.

When he saw his room for the first time he said "I've never seen this room before."

Swim lessons good, Kid bad

So before we get to Josh's swim lessons, we are backing up to July 4th. We actually we celebrated on July 3rd by taking a trip to Dog n Suds for the car show. We all loved looking at the beautiful cars. After that we came home and set of our own fireworks.

Ohhh, Ahhh

Grandma and Grandpa joined us for the fun.

On July 10th, my sister and her family came down and surprised mom for her birthday. She was very surprised and we had a great time hanging out together.

On Friday July 16th, we took a day trip over to St. Louis. We first stopped at REI. That is a sporting goods store Matt and I have been wanting to go to for a long time. Then we headed to Fuddrucker's for lunch. (They have the best hamburgers!) After lunch we went to Grant Farms. It was such a fun time. For dinner we stopped at Del Taco. It's our favorite fast food Mexican place.

Budweiser's Clydesdale's

Josh was picked to help with one of the animal tricks.

That tickles!

Now on to swim lessons. Let me first say that Josh is doing a good job doing all the swimming things the lifeguards ask him to do, but there is a problem. He is wondering off and playing in the water when he is supposed to be at the side of pool. The lifeguards have to keep chasing him. He gets out of the water and runs around. Basically, it's terrible and not safe. So he lost most of his cars after the first day and the second day was a little better but he still kept wondering off. So he lost more toys. Hopefully, day three will be the charm.

This weekend Josh is going to his aunt's for the weekend. We are going to surprise him and redo his room while he is away. It's past time for a big boy room. Plus, we are going to purge some toys that he has out grown. On top of that Matt and I get a weekend to ourselves. WooHoo!!

Hail To The 49th State

This is only going to scratch the surface of our trip to Alaska. We took about 500 pictures so there are just a few on here.

We flew into a town called Cordova which is on the southeast side of Prince William Sound. We spent a day and a half there before we flew out on a float plane to our floating cabin in the middle of nowhere. Our goals: Solitude - check, beauty - check, halibut - semi check, salmon - NOPE. If the salmon would have been in it would have been an awesome trip. As it was, it was still a REALLY good trip.

Josh had a ball on the airplanes. He thought the take-offs and landings were great fun. Then, he loved it when the flight attendants would come by and ask him what drink he wanted and then give him a snack. We had several comments about how good he was on the plane as we got off.

Here it is - Cordova. Don't blink!

50 miles out of town, at the end of a dead-end dirt road, is Child's glacier and Million Dollar bridge. The bridge used to serve as a rail tressle for the logging industry in the 1900s but was destroyed in the '62 earthquake. It was semi-repaired but no longer is used commercially. The road ends at the bridge. In fact, no roads lead into or out of Cordova. The only way there is by plane or boat.

Child's glacier is really cool and pictures can not do it justice. It's 300 yards tall and looked like a mile wide. The river is 400 yards across. When a big chunk falls off, it sounds exactly like a big clap of thunder and the resulting tsunami can sometimes reach the shore and even wash over it. there are multiple signs warning of the dangers. Right before we left, two huge chunks fell off and it was just amazing.

For Jen and I, hole-in-the-wall local eateries are our favorite. Baja Taco here was one of a couple places you could have lunch in such a small town. The bus is actually the kitchen. Not much to look at but WOW was it good. We ordered a loaded nachos and the three of us could barely finish it.

On to the cabin. It actually floated in a secluded bay which a float plane flew us to.

For a cabin in the middle of nowhere on the water it was quite comfortable. It has a solar cell to power a couple lights and a water pump for the shower and sink. It was stocked full of food for us and the outfitters came out every day to check if we needed anything.

Oh, and the view was decent.

This was taken at midnight. It's about as dark as it got.

Sea otters were everywhere. A couple nights this one came right up to our dock to munch on the mussles underneath. They weren't very shy so we got super up close looks at them. We also saw lots of harbor seals, jellyfish, eagles, and dolphin circled our boat once looking at us.

Josh holding the halibut rod.

Rompin' with grandpa

The fishing was so-so. The salmon hadn't come in yet and the halibut were few and far between. Grandpa did catch this 60 pounder though.

Josh got to drive the boat.

Waiting to land...

Mom's big rockfish. Boy were they yummy!

On the way out, the pilot of the float plane was telling Josh what all the buttons and controlls were. At one point, he let go of the controlls and Josh was actually flying the plane.




Back in town, we had another day till we flew home so we took a drive up another dirt road to the middle of nowhere. Josh (along with us) enjoyed the bananna slugs.

If anyone ever asks if a bear does his business in the woods - say no. He does it in the middle of the road.