Alaska

We took a trip up to Alaska with Hank's parents at the end of July. It was so much fun! The scenery is amazing. Wildflowers grow everywhere up there, and Fireweed (above) was our favorite. We bought some seeds in a little souvenir shop to try out at home. Hopefully they grow in Idaho! It was a great trip because we got to see a little bit of Alaska and we stayed with Hank's grandparents, so we got to spend a lot of time with them. They are great people and we sure appreciate the great grandparents they are! Hank's sister Brandy also came up for a few days, so it turned out to be a nice little family reunion.



Hank's grandparents live on the Kenia River, so we got to do a lot of fishing for salmon. I only had the patience to catch one (which is kind of sad, because fishing in Alaska is probably the easiest fishing in the world!) but Hank and the rest of the men folk caught quite a few.



We spent a morning down in Homer halibut fishing. The big one we are posing with was actually caught by Papa, but I guess it's sort of a combined effort! We caught 10 fish, which was our limit, in just a few hours. Good thing too, because I found out that I don't do well on small boats out on the ocean. It was the only time I actually got sick through the whole first trimester of my pregnancy, so I didn't complain! We were able to bring home 150 lbs of halibut and salmon, and it has been so good! It is definitely worth those airline tickets!

Hank's grandparents bought tickets for us to go on a glacier tour. It was amazing! The glacier was so blue, and it calved twice right after we got there. It was quite an experience. We saw a lot of wildlife on the boat ride as well. We saw a yearling humpback whale, sea lions, puffins, a bald eagle and several other types of birds. It was such fun trip!!

We also got to see several moose while we were in Alaska. I only had my camera for this guy. He was right off the rode so we got a good look at him. They sure are strange looking creatures!