Alaska Cruise...

I got to get away with my man for our ten year anniversary (and my birthday, as long as the anniversary was six months ago and we left on the trip two days after my birthday). We went to Alaska, the Inner Passage, our ports were Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway. When Chris presented this idea I was not that enthusiastic because after all, we already living in cold, rainy and green all year and in May of all months, I want an escape to somewhere tropical! I knew we would love getting away together and the trip was planned with some good friends Aaron and Lori Stafford which was great...I just wasn't sure I wanted to visit Alaska over Mexico or Costa Rica or somewhere...outside the cold and rainy part of the world.

WE HAD A GREAT TIME and we HAD GREAT, SUNNY weather!

Here we are on formal night one of the nights on the boat. I get the tradition of formality on a cruise, but preferred on the Carnival cruise never having to do the formal thing. Many people did do it, but we didn't and we were still allowed to eat. This was a more formal feel for sure and it was maybe a little bit fun, but a lot of hassle. From left to right: chris, me, Lori Stafford, Aaron Stafford, Rebeckah and Mike Schneider.

I loved Ketchikan. It was our first port and we went ziplining there. It was such a good experience, but no pics to really show for the ziplining part...

Chris did some rock climbing after our zipping experience. The ziplinging was impressive. We probably went on like 8-12 different zips and we went really fast on some, over the water on one, and just all through this beautiful, forrested lot.

 Chris and I found "our place on the boat. It was looking over the indoor pool area (the pools on this boat were soooooo big and warm and there were MANY of them...so much more what you envision than our Carnival boat. Anyway, we would sit on these chaise lounge chairs for hours relaxing. Chris would read Dave Barry and I was knitting for a special little baby boy. I also slept and watched the scenery and made friends with a few nice people. It was so nice relaxing!!! 

 

Chris didn't want his picture taken...but I got him!  

 

Here we are in Juneau, our second port. We arrived and there was a lot of low fog and we were thinking it would probably rain, but we didn't have any rain on our whale watching tour or at the Mendenhal Glacier...it started to sprinkle as we were leaving the glacier en route to the boat. We saw lots of whales, it was fun and you always wish you could get a little closer. 

 

 

 

The Mendenhal Glacier was beautiful and quiet and just something I'd never seen in person before.  

Between Juneau and Skagway we had a lot of amazing scenery as we cruised through the Tracy Arm Fjord, a narrow interior passageway. I didn't take any pictures, but we sat by the windows in the dining room for quite awhile watching the waterfalls and chunks of glacier ice and eagles and seals swimming by. These were taken with Chris' iphone through the window. :)
Skagway was our final destination. We had gorgeous, sunny, short sleeved weather and the place was just breathtaking. During the cruise I kept thinking about how familiar much of the beauty was being from the northwest. Of course we don't have all that uninhabited space or the mountains that are on top of you covered in snow or the ice floating around...there was lots for our eyes to appreciate...but imagine an Alaska cruise if you were from Arizona or something. Every green tree would be a shock to your system. We floated the Taiya river while we were there, it was sunny and warm and relaxing and beautiful. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great sunset the evening we pulled out of Skagway.  

We had another day at sea full of relaxing and an outdoor movie and I slept in until after noon that day (we didn't have a window in our room...I don't know how it is possible that I slept that much, but I did).  

Our last port was Victoria, BC. We got off the boat and it was sunny and warm, but cooling off...we didn't get to the port until 7pm. We took a nice bus tour of Victoria and then I was freezing and craving a hot tub and so Chris and I went back to the boat. Victoria is a lovely city, we had taken the same bus tour a year ago, but enjoyed being on the bus and seeing it all again.  

Chris let me put a bright big kiss on his neck. I guess the humiliation was worth getting the extra attention from me? I don't know, but he was sporting that kiss all night.  

 

We were ready to come home by the end of the trip. We had thoroughly gotten away from "it all" and we still haven't quite come down from it. I still feel rejuvenated and more patient and appreciative of my daily role as a SAHM. As we were walking back to the ship in Victoria, I told Chris that even though we probably should not have gone on such a nice vacation and we really might not be able to afford to do it again for another five years...it's just so worth it, we need to do it even if we are broke for a few months leading up to it and a few months after. It's just kind of essential.

We are so indebted to my parents for having the kids the entire time. They were so well taken care of and although they were thrilled to see us (especially Betsey who kept saying "mommy on boat?" "daddy all gone?" while we were away), there were tears and pleadings not to take them home once it was time to leave Oma and Opa's house. That says it all...THANK YOU!! 

Heroine's Club...

Jennifer Jarrett, or if you grew up in Mill Creek like I did, Jennifer Bradbury did a homeschool book club for girls called "Heroine's Club" for the 2011/12 school year. It was all the way in Mill Creek (a 75 minute drive) by my folks' house and was held every other Friday. Friday. Worst traffic day. 2:30-4:00...Yes...nap time. Friday at nap time 75 minutes from home. Thankfully, it was Ruby and Alice's favorite thing we did with groups this year. They loooooved it. (If you are reading this thinking, "no they didn't" it is probably because you are either my mom or my sister-in-law, Heather. Once Heather's cute family relocated from E. WA and moved temporarily in with my folks, it was like separating mama bear from her cubs...my kids would rather stare at a blank wall with their cousins than go to Disneyland with their friends. Okay, probably not quite that dramatic...but they really, really love their cousins.)

Jennifer did a great job of planning fun activities for the kids. Each month was a different book...
October: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, November: Little House in the Big Woods, January: Charlotte’s Web, February: Heidi, March: A Little Princess, April: The Wizard of Oz, May: The Blue Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang (Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Goldilocks, and Snow White and Rose-red). The meetings started with the girls bringing a "focus item" that reminded them of the book or correlated somehow. They would share their item and talk about how it tied in with the book and then they would have a narration (report) given by one girl (Ruby did hers on Little House in the Big Woods" and Alice was on "Wizard of Oz". After that they would discuss a little more and then do an activity. They learned to finger knit, they made bread, they embroidered, visited an assisted living home with valentine's in hand, had a tea party, etc.

At the end of the year, the girls were in a play based on one of the fairy tales we read, "Twelve Dancing Princesses". It was cute and short and sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved reading with my girls and reading books with such interesting and inspiring heroines!

Cell Phone Randomness...

Chris takes so many interesting (not so much) pictures of things on his cell phone. I had to include this one.  

I travelled twice to UT for my good friend Monica's wedding. I ditched my driver's license in the Seattle airport and they sent it home. I didn't have my ID still when I was flying home...guess what a big deal that was? Not an issue at all. They didn't even care. I told them, "they told me to show you my Costco card" and they didn't ask who "they" were (SEATAC housekeeping lady)...they just glanced at it and sent me through. What if I were plotting something terrible!?
 

My friends and I gave Kelly a little shower for her third baby boy! We did a moustache theme and it was a lot of fun. We started at a spa for pedis and some got manis or massages...then to a good restaurant for delicious food and fun conversation. I was in charge of the decorations/theme with Kel's sister in law and we were happy how it came together.
 

 

 

I love my "sissies". That's what we call them...the "sissies." 

Shopping with Betsey can be kind of hard if she finds something she wants. Here she is hoarding some webkinz at Justice. That was fun.

Betsey got $5 from her Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Hamm for her birthday. She spent it all on the rides at our local mall. It was super cute and she was thrilled and it may have ruined her forever...I'll never let her do that many rides in one trip! :) She is lucky to have such wonderful great grandparents!

Sleeping with the enemy...

If I had a scale of 1-10 where 1 is enemy and 10 is bff...Betsey would fluctuate between 1 and 10 all day, sometimes even extreme enough to achieve enemy or bff status. Right before naptime, she is my enemy. Especially beause she won't walk her own body upstairs, she won't sleep in her crib and I have to give my free time to her nap. I have to say, sleeping with your kid is such a chance for them to redeem themselves! I just love how she wants to hold my hand while we fall asleep! I love watching her sleep and I love it when we wake up and chat together and play for a bit before joining the real world again. If we didn't share the same naptime, I'm pretty sure she'd never fully be able to redeem herself from enemy status.

 

 

Fieldtrip to the Post Office...

We started out on the city bus...it was something that Alice was asking me about, and she thought it sounded like great fun to ride a bus with friends like the public school children. She wouldn't ride a bus until High School if she did go to public school because we live so close to the schools. Anyway, I used to ride the bus home with my friend, Russ Brown in elementary school and I told her how special and fun that was. We decided to do it as a co-op one day on our way to a fieldtrip to the Post Office!

Mattie Guthrie, Ruby and Mikaili

In preparation for the trip the kids wrote letters to each other to mail from the post office.

You can see one of the co-op letters there with the child's writing on the envelope. So cute!

Our tour was lengthy (maybe too much so for our ages) and thorough. The guide was easy on the eyes to boot. :) 

Pigtails...

Spa Day in the Family Room. Ruby's idea...

My kids are not small thinkers when it comes to filling up an afternoon. It is exhausting to tow the line between letting them create and explore and mess make and just plain wishing I could flip on the TV and have a clean house. One of today's messes...a spa in our already messy family room.

Anyone think a tub full of water with a 2 year old splashing in it is a good idea for your carpeted family room? Anyone?

Apples work in a pinch if you don't have cucumbers (in this case, we had three cucumbers but they weren't consulting me!).

The only way we talked Betsey away from the foot soak was to promise her a massage on her own towel. Here she is awaiting her apple eye treatment.

Once Betsey's massage began, there was no moving onto Alice's massage...immediate squaking would result. 

 

Betsey is TWO!!!

My baby Bets turned two on March 18th. Today is July 13th, and I have had these pics uploaded for ages but no text...and now of course I can't remember that much about Betsey four months ago...I mean, she seems the same to me now, I just know that four months really have held a lot of change. FAMILY LETTER TO THE RESCUE!!! What is the family letter? It is a monthly summary written by Chris or I for the Pierce (Porter) side of the family. Chris has a smallish family. On his dad's side of the family he has only one uncle, one deceased aunt and one aunt that we haven't met yet but has married into the family more recently. That's it. On his mom's side of the family there is just one Uncle, one aunt and four cousins. Anyway, we all write into the newsletter hopefully every month and it is really helpful at times like these if I was detailed enough in my account to the family (I really don't know if anyone really reads the family letter very carefully, but I write for my own journaling and for the grandparents and Nana at the very least. Wow, this is quite a tangent. Anyway, thanks to the family letter, there is a lot recorded by me about Betsey right at 2!!

Here it is... Wow, I just looked through the calendar and saw that the only big deal news from March is that Betsey turned TWO! She's been perfecting two for some time now, but it is now official. She's actually gotten a bit nicer recently now that we finally realized she isn't a baby and it's time to teach her what is right and what is wrong. :) She is talking a ton, I feel like every time she opens her mouth she is saying something I didn't know she could say. I love it. Even though her language development is typical, I have to write a list of her words here for record keeping sake...
Hodjou=hold you (hold me)
Hep you-help you (let me do it)
Mommy okay?=due to the miscarriage, my mom was taking care of me and the kids for a day and Betsey must have asked her this question 10 dozen times before lunch. So sweet.
pano=piano
pay=play
puzzle
baf=bath (she wants one at least three times per day)
nie nite=yes, she actually asks to go to bed when she's ready. It's amazing and she's accurate on her timing. meow meow, kitta, cat, kitty=she is obsessed with cats and these are the various names.

She isn't interested in television unless there are live animals on the show. She likes "Dogs with Jobs" and other animal shows. Right now, she is screeching "Meow meow" at the computer screen while a youtube video called "The Funniest Cat Video!" plays for the third time since I started this letter. She is very active when watching these videos, she talks to the cats and consoles them and laughs at them and imitates them. Right now, she has one hand pointing at the screen and the other is covering her mouth like she's surprised. Oh wait, it ended...and now the screaching is starting. She looooooooooooves cats.

Here's a list of words: slide, swing, sissy, Ruby, Alice "Aye Aye", cheese, cracker, fishy, bread, sandwich, cookie, candy, treat, please, thank you (which she likes to repeat over and over again), water, milk, bottle, bath, shower, wash, hair, eye, nose, mouth, teeth, hand, foot, shoe, boot, go, daddy work, Stone, dog, yeah, no, nope, button, colors, markers, brush, pretty, owie, better, fall down, bed, Betsey, kiss, hug, hat, hot, cold, cereal, potty, pooh pooh, diaper, wipes, yucky, mess, say it...and so much more, I just can't get it all down and I can't imagine even Betsey will care in 20 years to read more. :)

Betsey loves babies. Sometimes I wonder if she needs a break from all the carrying, blanketing, feeding and caring for her babies that goes on. She seriously doesn't give herself much of a break...sometimes she juggles as many as four babies all at one time. Guess who gets to dress them and undress them all day long? Me! :) She is very nurturing and sweet. She isn't very aware that Ruby, Alice and I have different roles in her life. She is with us all day every day and she sheds as many tears when they leave her as when I do. She often prefers one of them for comfort, which they love. Often Ruby will get Betsey out of bed in the morning while I take a shower, and she'll be happily fed and her diaper changed by the time I come downstairs.

We were so happy to have Oma and Opa, Robb and Heather and Braden and Amanda and their families down for Betsey's little family birthday party. Opa's birthday is just six days before Betsey's so we celebrated both of them together.

 

 

Somehow, Alice (helping Betsey) opened one of my dad's gifts on accident and was clearly disappointed.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daddy Daughter Valentine's Day Dance...

For Christmas, the girls gave Chris a ticket to a Daddy Daughter Valentine's Dance. The big evening arrived, stressed and over-scheduled and short on time as EVER...but we managed to get them dressed and all fancy in the few minutes we had and off they went. Betsey and I stayed home. The girls want to wear make up every day, so for limited special occasions, I let them wear a little extra something. They were super loving that! All reports were positive, they learned to dance the YMCA dance and others and there were good treats and they even came home with some horrible, massive stuffed something or other that I will donate to a local thrift store as soon as possible. :)

They doubled with our friends, the Stafford's. Aaron and Chris are work friends and because Aaron has three little girls, we've become family friends now too. I wish I had pics of them all together, but they live in Enumclaw.

Wow, don't I take so much pride in taking wonderful pics for our casual family use? Yowza. Notice we painted our house practically black. Now I just need to update the house numbers and the door knocker and door handle and I'll be in love with the exterior of the house!