It's good to be a girl

My kids crack me up.  They are awesome and I love them!

Delaney made a kite at school.  And she flew it on this very windy day.  It was so high!

Can you see the kite in this picture? It is out there!  It was so much fun and she was so pleased with her kite. 

 And Rylee is the queen of selfies.  I find hundreds of them on my phone.  Some look like this.

And some look like variations of this!

And one afternoon the girls made a ton of water balloons.

 And they threw some.

And played with them. 

 And dropped them off the roof.

They are so awesome!

Cruise Trip: The End

 We arrived in Port on Friday morning and waited around till it was our turn to get off. We took a taxi to the airport with Andy and Kera and Deborah and Ian.  We ditched them there and went off to get a rental car, since our flight did not leave till 1am.  We had a lovely time stopping at Walmart and enjoying lunch at Panda Express. Then we went to the Seattle Temple to do a session.  We linked up with Adam and Savannah and Jonathan and Kristy and went to dinner with them before we had to say final goodbyes.  And then we got on our flight back home, via Taiwan.

It's the Seattle Temple!  

And I was there! 

And here, I have made it safely back to Okinawa.  I'm so thrilled to be DONE traveling!

It was an amazing trip. Not because we went to Alaska and saw some gorgeous country, but because I got to spend time with my family.  And we could have gone anywhere and it would have been amazing.Because they are amazing!

Cruise Trip: Victoria, British Columbia

Thursday evening we got off the ship in Victoria, British Columbia.  We did not have any shore excursion planned, and just went out to see what we could see. We left with most of my siblings and after miles and miles of walking, they gradually all split off and went their own way.  We spent a little biota time using the McDonald's wifi to catch up on things before we meandered back to the ship in the dark.It was fun, and one of the two days I hit over 30,000 steps on my FitBit!

Look at me! I'm in Canada!

And a selfie with Dan.  We are both still disappointed that Canada does not stamp your passport. 

We walked the shoreline.  Doesn't Jonathan look all manly and pensive on the driftwood? 

 Miranda also enjoyed exploring the rocks.

And it was gloriously beautiful!

I was there!  It was so great!

We wandered around a gorgeous garden and admired many flowers and vegetation.  I don't know what kind of flowers these are, but they were amazing.

And good to hide in.

 There were lots of ducks to be admired.

 And adorable little baby ducklings!

 These cuties hopped out of the water right next to me and it was epic!

Did I mention that we wandered for hours around the city?  It was cool and we eventually ended up at China Town, which was very cool! And apparently I did not take many photos. Oops!  It was a fun time though!

Cruise Trip: Shipboard Fun

The ship was nice.  It was great to get to hang out with family and to chat and play games with them. That was the best part.

The food was another great part.  This was the Beef Wellington.  It was tasty.

The Baked Alaska was delicious!

I don't remember what this was, but it was pretty good. 

 My brother in Law is awesome and wore this spectacular suit.

Selfie with my dad!! 

Selfie with my sister.

We participated in the ship's Egg Drop competition.  The rules required half the egg to be exposed and you had to drop 2 eggs down 4 stories.  We nestled two eggs into two separate kleenex boxes, then nestled the boxes into this larger box.  We decorated it and entered the competition. 

Somewhere in this photo is the box, dropping from the 7th floor down to the 3rd floor.  One of our eggs barely cracked, but it was enough to slide us into second place.  It was still a lot of fun to participate in. And they gave all 15 of our group a T shirt as our prize.

Cruise Trip: Skagway

 On Wednesday we stopped in Skagway.  I went on a train ride up to Canada and it was lovely.  So beautiful!

See, I was there!  

The window glad is awful, but you can see the train curving around. We were in the very last car, and it was pretty cool.

an and I at the Alaska/Canada border.

We met back up with some of the others in town.  I like Kera! 

We meandered through Skagway and hunted down souvenirs. 

It was a pretty town and I enjoyed it. 

Miranda and I went back for a train photo. 

And I got a selfie with the ship before we got back on.

Cruise Trip: Juneau

Jet lag still had me awake by 4:30am, so I was done with my run by the time my dad came out!

We sailed through some gorgeous country.

The captain went up a fjord towards a glacier and it was amazing.  The water started to look like this, with ice chunks everywhere.

Mom and Dad, with the glacier (that you can't see!) in the background.

Once off the ship, this group went on a long and apparently amazing hike. 

I took a bus up to the Glacier museum and saw the Mendenhall Glacier here.   

Then we went whale watching.  Before we saw any whales, we saw this bald eagle! 

We saw a couple different humpback whales. 

It was a lot of fun, and we had an awesome guide.

We also saw these sea lions taking a snooze.