Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Fairbanks and more

This past week Jeff's parents, grandparents, and youngest brother, Tyler came to visit us. We did lots of things in just a week, maybe that's why time flew by so quickly. For 3 days we drove to Fairbanks and stayed there. We went to North Pole to see Santa's house, visited the famous Pioneer Park, drove to Chena hot springs, and canoed down the Chena river. Santa's house was a ton of fun. On the way there we sang Christmas songs. The kids sat on Santa's lap, saw his reindeer, sat on his sled, and saw lots of Christmas decorations and toys at his house. Saturday morning the kids loved Pioneer park. They played at the park, rode the train and carousel, went to the aviation museum, and looked in the different stores. That afternoon we drove to Chena hot springs (hour drive from Fairbanks) and went to the ice art museum and the natural hot springs. The next morning me, Jeff, Sydney, and Tyler rented a canoe and paddled down the Chena river. We all freaked out when we saw something moving in the water. It was a beaver. It flapped it's tail and went under water. I'll admit I was a little freaked out it was gonna chew thru the canoe and bite me. We drove home after. Fairbanks is about a 6 hour drive from our house. Seriously the best (non-complaining person) traveler was Levi. He was so good. On July 4th, we went to a parade in Chugiak. Today we drove to Girdwood. Me, Jeff, and Sydney hiked up Alyeska (a ski resort 30 minutes south of Anchorage). It's a 2.2 mile hike up this black diamond mountain. The rest of the crew took the tram up. It was an awesome hike. It was challenging but fun. Sydney walked about 2.1 miles up. Jeff carried Sydney just a little bit. She is a champion. I was impressed that she didn't complain and many times was running up the mountain. It's crazy how much energy kids have. We saw a couple piles of bear poo, but luckily didn't run into any bears. We enjoyed the view from the top, admiring all 7 glaciers and some hang gliders taking off. After we went to the AK wildlife conservation center to see some bears, elk, caribou, owls, bison, musk ox, and eagles. We had a wonderful time with family. We saw a moose in our backyard and a moose and calf on the way to hike Mt. Baldy. I always wish for family to see wildlife when they come to visit so that was also cool. We had an amazing week and have tons of pictures to show for it.
Thursday
Mt. Baldy hike and temple


Friday
On the way to fairbanks we stopped in Cantwell. Love this picture of Levi in front of the train tracks.
North pole, Alaska. Me and the girls loved visiting Santa Claus house.



Saturday
Chena hot springs

Ice art museum. They gave everyone a winter coat. They keep the place at 22 degrees. It's the world's largest year around ice art museum.

Rowing down the river.
Tuesday
Beluga point

Alyeska. Yay we made it to the top.
Wildlife Conservation Center

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow what a great trip!!!! There is so much to do and see in beautiful Alaska! What wonderful memories of family everyone will have. love and miss you guys!

trimarie said...

Thanks for the great pictures! Hopefully, we can come and see some of these great sites ourselves some day. Including, all of you!