Alaska

Our good friends the Carters moved out to Alaska this Summer.  We were sad to see them go and decided that while Mark still worked at the airport we were going to make it out there to visit them.  There was a professional development day a week ago and we decided to use that time to make the trek out there.  Alaska is so far away from here.  It is crazy, I mean Alaska has its own timezone!

Jared, Lydia and I flew out of Charlottesville early Wednesday afternoon.   We flew to Atlanta, then to Minneapolis then to Anchorage.  We tired to make an earlier flight to Anchorage but didn't make it.  Luckily there was a later flight with plenty of seats.  Mark left later from Richmond.  He was delayed out of Richmond and had less than 20 minutes to make it on our Minneapolis flight.  I got all 4 of us checked in and fortunately we had a really nice desk agent.  I told her about his flight being delayed and after she looked it up she asked, "Can he run?" I said, "yes, he is tall and can and will run as fast as he can."  He was waiting for his bag that was gate checked and while doing that he was talking to other people waiting.  There were 2 people also trying to make the flight to Anchorage.  Mark told them that his wife was holding the plane for them.  One of them had a cart waiting for her.  She got her bag first and after Mark got his he started to run, came up to them and she told her driver to stop and gave him a ride.  We were already seated and waiting for him and then he was on the plane! It was great.

The Carter's are living on post so once we arrived and got our rental car they had to come meet us at the gate.  We felt bad making them come out so late.  It was around 11:30 when we arrived at post so for us it was like 3:30 in the morning!  Jared smartly slept for over 3 hours on the flight to Anchorage and Lydia finally slept for the last 40 minutes.  They both fell asleep in the car and then fell right to sleep at their house.

We spent the morning playing outside and visiting.  Then we headed over to Thunderbird Falls to go on a hike.  We really lucked out as Alaska was right in the middle of its Fall.  The trees were beautiful yellows.  On our hike we stopped by the stream and saw huge salmon right in the middle of it.  It was so cool.  The Falls were pretty and it was a perfect hike.  After our hike we stopped by Eklunta lake and it was so gorgeous.  Alaska is really a beautiful place! That night Mark and I went to the temple.  It was so generous of the Carters to watch Jared and Lydia while we went.

They were such a pretty color and so easy to see. 

The Lake was such a pretty color.  Very similar to Lake Louise. 

The next day our family drove over to Seward, Alaska. Its a cute little town on the water.  On our way we stopped to see some glaciers and visit the wildlife conservation center.  We had planned to take a 3.5 hour boat cruise out of Seward but when we go there we found out they were sold out.  It was disappointing but at the same time I don't really care for boats so it was okay with me.  We ended up going to the aquarium which had animals and hands on tanks and was a lovely way to spend some time.  It was rainy most of the time we were in there so it worked out well.  We walked around downtown and stopped to eat some clam chowder and halibut fishing chips.  They were both delicious.  After eating we found our way to the harbor to see if we could see some seals or otters since we missed the boat ride.  We did end up seeing 2 seals and called it good.  It was such a beautiful drive.

Glaciers:

Conservation Center: we saw bears, wolves, porcupines, elk, deer, reindeer, bison and moose.

Moose

Seward: 

We really wanted to see whales but had no luck. Good thing we took a picture here

Aquarium

These guys were huge!

Puffins! 

The next day Mark Jared and Josh went to the shooting range.  Josh is quite the gun collector.  Apparently he doesn't enjoy shooting that much but loves collecting.  Jared ha shot a BB gun before but that was it.  He thought it was great.  Kim and her girls and Lydia and I went to Beluga point to see if we could see any whales.  We didn't have any luck.  It was so cold and I think we were a little late in the season.  We gave it our best shot though.  We stopped bu a bird viewing area on the way home which was beautiful.

Man it was cold! 

Yet so pretty! 

We met up back at the house where the Carters made a delicious lunch for us.  Since Josh and Mark both served in Brazil they made black beans and rice with sausage.  This sausage was special because it had a little bit of reindeer meat in it.  When in Alaska... We sadly had to leave shortly after that.  We had planned to fly out later in the evening but all the flights looked bad so we left earlier.  We got out of Anchorage fine but then got stuck in Seattle.  We tried to make the 9:00-10:00 flights going to either Detroit, Minneapolis, or Atlanta and couldn't get on any of them.  The next flights were 12:00-1:00 same airports and we couldn't get seats on any of them either.  We looked at NY but it was bad too.  So we found the play place and tried to get a few hours of sleep.  It just didn't make sense to get a hotel for a few hours then be back for security and the 5:30 - 6:30 flights.  We all managed to sleep a little bit and then got on the 6:00 am flight to Detroit.  From there we made our way to Richmond landing in Virginia around 5:00 pm.  It was crazy how much time we gained coming out here from Alaska.  We were exhausted yet we do not regret going.  It was totally worth it.  The Carters are so fun and generous and Alaska was beautiful.  Mark talked to his supervisor about putting in his 2 weeks notice.  He Jared and Lydia are flying out to Utah for Conference this weekend and then I think he will put it in.  I was supposed to go as well but months ago I agreed to watch our neighbors pets and didn't feel I could back out on them.  I am disappointed but it will be fine.  I even had tickets to the Women's broadcast.  Oh well. Mark and Jared will go to a session of conference which I think will be cool for them.  We feel like we have had so many great adventures the past 6 months.  Its been awesome but Mark is ready to be done.  I don't blame him.  Lucky for us we have plenty of cool places we can visit within driving distance should we feel the need to go on an adventure again soon. Maybe Christmas?

Baker-Butler Bike Rodeo

Back in May, right before school ended the PTO sent out an email asking for people to volunteer to chair events for the upcoming year.  I don't go to many extra school events but the bike rodeo is one I do really like so I offered to organize it.  I met with the PTO president before school got out for the year and got the run down of the event.  Most of the event is planned via email over the Summer which was a great fit for me.  I scheduled to have the event the Friday after Labor day but sadly had to postpone it because the school was in a flash flood warning.  Nothing happened, just like all the other flash flood warnings (for which we are very grateful) but since it was issued it was a no go.  So it got postponed to the 28th.  I was pretty bummed about this as I just wanted to check that off my list.  It had been on my list for months and I couldn't wait to clean out my inbox!

The 28th turned out to be a much better day weather wise.  It would have been super hot and humid on the 7th.  All of the vendors were able to come on the 28th and we had enough volunteers.  Set up went well and there was a great turn out.  It really is a good community event.  I was concerned that it would be too dark as the sun sets at 7:00 this late in the month but the parking lot has lights and people just kept right on riding as it got darker.  I am really grateful it is over and that it went so well.  Lydia had one crash that I know of but eventually she bounced back.  Jared had at least 2 good crashes but he didn't seem to phased by them.  They had both been looking forward to the event for a long time since they knew I was working on it.  Sadly Lydia was pretty grumpy at the start of it too.  She was kind of off this weekend which I get.  I certainly have those days.  It was just a weird weekend as we had lots of fun events planned.  She seemed better today.  I think they both had a good time and I am happy it is over.  It went well enough (largely because the PTO president was so helpful!) that I would be willing to do it again next year.

Quick Lydia story:
Friday we stayed after school to play on the playground for a little bit.  Both kids had dropped their backpacks off on the picnic table.  When it was time to go I asked them to grab their bags and they both headed over.  Lydia sweetly grabbed her bag and Jared's bag and then carried them to the car.  Jared is super lucky to have such a considerate sister.

Also from the bike rodeo. I wanted a picture of her and she was being really grumpy so I told her that I was going to show her future boyfriend this picture and she all of a sudden found a great smile.  It was pretty comical and a great motivation.  She still refuses to ride her bike. I hope she can get over that soon.

A day of Harry Potter fun

About a month ago I saw an announcement about a Harry Potter day in Staunton.  I actually heard about it last year but since we had not yet done the Harry Potter thing I made a mental note to look for it again.  When I saw it this year I knew Jared would love to go.  We put it on the calendar and he and Lydia have looked forward to it all month.  It was really well done and amazing to hear about people who drove hours and hours to attend.  Staunton is a 45 minute drive for us but we met some people who came in from New York and Connecticut.  Lydia was actually kind of a grump most of the time we were there but overall we all had a fun time.  Mark does not care for Harry Potter much he has never read (or cared to read) the books but he was a good sport and Staunton does have a cute downtown.  We did have to wait longer than I thought we would to catch the shuttle to the event but it was a good time to see people's costumes and chat with people.  One person walked by dressed as a dementor and as he walked by us Jared called out "Expecto Patroneous!" and they guy ran away.  It was really fun.  He was a dementor and the person he was with dressed up as Harry's patroneous, a sparkly silver stag. It was super cute. They were my favorites.

The Chamber of Secrets. 

Book 2 is their favorite.  Well they have only read 1-3 so out of those it is their favorite. 

Our first stop was the train station to meet Harry and Hagrid as they came off the train.  It was nice to walk through the downtown area and see what they had done to make it feel Harry Potter-ish. 

On our way to Hufflepuff Village we stopped and got sorted.  Lydia and I were sorted into Hufflepuff, Jared was Gryffindor but he totally answered the question so he would be put in that house (red is not his favorite color!) and Mark was put into Ravenclaw.  This was Mark's first time being "sorted" in any manner.  Huffflepuff village which was located at Mary Baldwin College.  Their school colors are yellow and black so they were a natural fit to host Hufflepuff activities.  We tried our first ever Butterbeers and Lydia bought herself a snitch cupcake. 

We stopped by the Herbology classroom to complete a scavenger hunt (finding plants) and meet Ginny.  And then walked over to the arts and crafts area.  They practiced writing with a quill much harder than you would think and made snitch's. 

We met the four founders and stopped by a chocolate shop on our way back to the shuttle pick up spot.  The chocolate shop had lots of fun Harry Potter themed chocolates and were super busy.  Jared and Lydia each got a chocolate frog and Jared also got some of the beans of every flavor. 

Lydia ditched her robes about 30 minutes in. 

There were selfie spots all over the place but this was our favorite one.

It was a very well organized event and tons of people showed up.  I'm really not sure why Lydia was so grumpy so much of the day but they both want to go back again next year so we will have to look it up again.  It was fun to see everyone dressed up and the things they came up with.  They even had life size wizards chess.  It was a great day! Jared was in heaven.