Off to another vacation...

After two days at home to rest and do laundry, we were off on our 2nd Sabbatical Trip.  This time we were headed to Wellsville, Utah to visit my family.  We left on July 21st (in the afternoon) and stayed the night in Boise.  The next morning in Boise was a leisurely one with swimming and reading and then a stop at Cabella's before hitting the road one more time to Wellsville.  We got to my parent's house at around 6:30--just in time for dinner!

 The kids eating blue cupcakes that Aunt Solviej made. 

 My niece Rachel plays volleyball in school and so her mom got her a volleyball net to play while she was here in Utah.  They had a friendly game going that night and Maggie joined in.  

 Maggie, Emily, Tad and Hayden

July 23rd

My sister Megan and her 3 kids flew in this morning to stay for a week.  My other sister Tiffany had already been here for a week or so already.  My brother Tad and his family had moved here about a month ago because he started a new job in Salt Lake and are living with my parents until they find a house.  And my sister Charee has been living with my parents for a couple of years while she goes to school.  She has less than a year to go!  So all 5 of us were there together for a couple of days.  

 kids playing in the dorm room

Every time that we are all together, my mom invites over cousins that live in Utah for a Cousins's Party and has dinner for everyone.  After Megan arrived, we went out to lunch at Cafe Rio, and then pretty much helped my mom in the kitchen for the rest of the day until the party started.  

Sydnee, Marshall, Jaycie, Emily and Remi

Tysha, Garrett, Bella, Megan, Me and Noah

Colin, Micah, Cora, Mailei and Paige

Rachel, Lydia, Karlie, Grant, John, Maggie, Hayden and Emily

Heidi, Maclyn, Katie, Bucky, Lincoln, Quade, Kort, and Myka.

Me, mom and Tysha

They always have the most beautiful clouds and skies over their house!!

We pretty much talked until it got dark and then everyone went home and we went to bed.

July 24th

My sisters Charee and Tiff, and my brother Tad, with most of their kids went on an all day 4 Wheel (Rhino/Razor--whatever you call them) trip up into Logan Canyon.  They left really early in the morning and then got back around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  This is a picture of them at the beginning of their ride.  When they got home, they were covered in head to toe dust.  It was quite funny.  They had a great time, though. 

Cute picture of my mom sitting in her rocker out on her front porch.

My family and Megan and her kids all went to the Pioneer Days parade in Wellsville at Willow Park.  It wasn't the best parade ever, but it was fun still.  Luckily we found a spot in the shade because it was hot!

Megan, Noah and me

Colin, and Paige with the other kids behind them

Cora, Emmett and Megan

Maggie and Lydia

Noah and Colin in their Mickey Mouse hats

Colin, Cora, Emmett and Paige behind them

After we got back home and had lunch, the other guys were back with my dad's Razor, so they all went for rides.  Paige and Grandpa

Maggie driving Garrett around

Garrett driving Bella

Garrett driving Colin

Garrett and Colin

At about 5:30, Megan and two of her kids, plus my whole family drove down to Ogden to go to the Pioneer Days Rodeo.  We've gone quite a few times, but Megan has never been.  Everyone else was too tired to go.  

They always start the rodeo by having these guys jump out of planes and they have flags strapped on to their feet.  The last one is always the American flag.  We all think it is so awesome!!  

These pictures are a little out of order, but it's all good.

All of us at the rodeo

I think this is so cute of Noah watching something at the other end of the arena.

Lydia took most of these at the rodeo.  I love this one of the sun behind the trees. 

I thought this one was pretty cool, too.

After the bull riding, they have these motorcycle guys do some stunts.  They did some backflips in the air, which was pretty awesome.  Then they ended the night with fireworks.  It's always a late night--we usually get home around 11:30, but we all really enjoy it!

July 25th

Today was a pretty leisurely day.  Giving baths, going to the store, reading, wrestling...

 All the kids love Hayden.  He's a junior this year--is that 17?  Anyways, he is one good kid and loves to play with and wrestle all the kids.  Here he's wrestling with Noah...

 Then the other boys joined in.  Colin and Emmett helping to hold him down.  

He is such a good sport.  I'm not sure what Noah is doing to Hayden's face...

 This is how the girls play.  They are so cute together!  Maielei, Cora and Bella

 Paige joined in, too.  

All of us, minus mom and dad went to lunch at a place called Rumbi--really yummy hawaiian food. 

 Tiffany and her boys were leaving today, so we got a sibling picture.  

 And a grandkid picture.  Emmett and Karlie are the only ones missing, I think.  

After they left, Megan, Solviej and I sat on the porch visiting.  Garrett took Maggie to Smith and Edwards (a store in Ogden) and Maggie got herself some cowgirl boots and a cowgirl hat.  

 She's such a cutie!

 After dinner, the kids usually go outside and play.  They came in soon after for a creamie because it was so hot out there.  I love Emmett's sweaty, dirty face.  He was playing hard!

They went back outside to play and pretty soon after, Noah came in crying.  I guess he got stung by a bee twice--once on his back and once on his forehead.  We put some lavendar on it and gave him some medicine and he was fine. 

We got the kids in bed and then made lunches because the next day we were heading to Bear Lake for the day!

Ferries, Trains and Cars...Oh My! (Or 3 Days Getting Home)

 July 16th

 Ugh!  I am not a morning person--so I was really dreading this day.  We had to wake up at 3:30 to catch the ferry at 4.  I don't sleep well when I know I have to wake up early.  We stayed up talking with Savann and Alex until about 11, so we were pretty tired.  I could actually hear the ferry coming into town during my very light sleep.  

 Either Garrett or Alex must've been up then too because they took this picture of the ferry as it passed in front of their house.  It looked pretty with all of it's lights on, though. Savann and Alex were crazy and got up with us to help us take all of our luggage to the ferry terminal.  

When Garrett's family moved from Idaho to Alaska, they took the ferry up so that they could bring their cars to the island.  Living here during his teenage years, Garrett rode the ferry a lot when they had to go to different islands/towns during sports competitions or school functions like debate.  He and I rode the ferry up to Petersburg  the second summer that we came up here to live.  So, it was really important to Garrett that the kids experience the ferry at some point during our trip.  

This is us boarding the ferry that morning.  I hung back to take the picture, so there are other people in the picture.  

 Crazy how light it was at 4 am!!

 This is on the ferry checking into our "cabins".  We had to get 2 rooms and they weren't close to each other at all.  Maggie, Noah and I took one room and Garrett, Lydia, Paige and Bella took the other room.  Look how tired Noah looks.  After we got into our rooms, we put our stuff away and went and walked around.  We knew it would be a little while until the kids were ready to go back to sleep.  

 Looking out into Petersburg.  

 We left the kids in their jammies.

 One last picture in Petersburg...

I took Maggie and Noah back to our room right away, so we could get some sleep.  It took a little while, but eventually we all drifted off.  We were still sleeping around 10:45 when someone knocked at our door.  It was Lydia.  Apparently, they had a little party in their room, then slept a little bit, got up and headed to the restaurant for breakfast.  Since breakfast was closed at this point, they brought us their leftovers to eat.  

 After eating, we headed outside to find the rest of the gang sitting on a bench and watching the water.  

After awhile, we went inside and played some cards and had some snacks.  Playing slap jack or war.

At the front of the ferry, looking out into the ocean.  At this point, we were pulling into Ketchikan, so we were also watching float planes taking off and landing.  I think Lydia was pretty bored. When we finally docked, we got off to walk around and to get some lunch.  

This is a view of the Columbia ferry --the one we were on.  

Here's a little info about the Columbia, from the Internet.  

The Columbia has been the flagship vessel for the Alaska ferry system for over thirty six years as a mainline ferry, which means it serves the largest of the inside passage communities such as Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, and Sitka, Haines and Skagway. The M/V COLUMBIA is the largest vessel of the Marine Highway fleet. Launched by Lockheed Shipbuilding in Seattle in 1974, the Columbia is 418 feet long, with capacity for 625 passengers and 134 vehicles (20' lengths). It is also the fastest vessel, operating at a service speed of 17.3 knots. Its 91 total cabins include 60 four-berth units, nine 3-berth units, and 22 two- berth units. The Columbia boasts both a fine dining room and a cafeteria.

The Columbia’s amenities include a hot-food cafeteria; dining room; cocktail lounge and bar; solarium; forward, aft, theatre, laundry services; gift shop. Year Built: 1974 Length (ft.): 418 Service Speed (kn): 17.3 Passenger Capacity: 600 Staterooms- 4 berth: 44 Staterooms- 2 berth: 56 ADA Staterooms- 2b: 3 Total Staterooms: 103 Total Berths: 294 Vehicle Quantity: 134

After lunch and before we boarded again...

After getting back on, we all hung out in our rooms, reading, watching movies and trying to nap.  

The view from our window

Bella taking pictures of herself on someone's idevice.  

Each of our rooms had the double bunkbeds.  They were really nice rooms.  When you travel on the ferry, you don't have to purchase a room.  You can bring sleeping bags and sleep on any chair, couch or bench that you can find.  It's kind of weird.  There's also a place on one of the decks where you can pitch tents and sleep out on the deck or bring a cot and sleep on there in a sleeping bag.  It is really chilly out there, so I wouldn't want to do that.  

Later that evening, we went to the cafe for dinner.  Most of the voyage for the 2 days is pretty calm.  You go through the 'inside passage' where there's land or islands on either side.  It's when you get out into the open ocean where the boat starts to swing and sway.  Right around this time that we headed for dinner was when we started out in the open ocean.  I get really sea sick, so I brought my last seasickness patch that I took on the cruise with me.  So, I was fine.  For the kids I brought some dramamine and I gave that to them when it started getting rocky.  Everyone seemed fine except Paige.  She wasn't feeling well at all.  I'm not sure if she ate anything or not.  After dinner, Garrett took her outside on the back of the boat.  It seems that is the best place to be if you feel sea sick.  

A beautiful view of the sun setting that night. 

He's such a good dad!

This is where people pitch their tents to sleep.

This is about 10 o'clock that night...when they came back in, we all went to bed.

July 17th

After getting up, we all ate breakfast in the dining room.  

They have a theater on board and throughout the day, they would show movies.  They were showing quite a few kids movies, so the kids watched Frozen after breakfast.  

 Lydia and Bella.  

 Garrett was somewhere reading, but I liked being out in the back since it was rocking a bit more.  So, most of the kids came with me

 Then we all went and watched Monsters University in the theater.  And then went and had lunch. Afterwards, we played more card games and read.  Next to the theater is a little kids area where they can build with big foamy blocks.  So, they played in there for a little while.  It was pretty much "hang out all day and do whatever you wanted."  

 It was really windy outside, cold and beautiful.

After dinner, they were letting people down to the car deck to get things out of their cars, or to care for their pets or to get any luggage from the luggage racks.  So we went down to get the rest of our luggage.  We only had a few bags with us in our rooms, since we knew there wouldn't be enough room in our rooms for ALL of our luggage.  (We must've had at least 8 suitcases)  So, we repacked, rearranged our luggage and got everyone to bed.  

 Down on the car deck bringing up our luggage.  I think they were watching all the dogs that were down there getting walked.  

July 18th

 Since we were landing in Bellingham this morning at 8, we really needed to be one of the first off because we had to catch our train to Portland at 8:30.  We got up at 6 and got everyone ready.  We didn't have time for breakfast.  They were letting the people off first who had trains to catch, so we had to be down on the car deck with all of our luggage at like 7:30.  That sounds like we had plenty of time, but really there was a time change in the night, so it was like we were getting up at 7, so we didn't really have that much time.  

Luckily, the train station was right across the street from the ferry terminal.  I wish I had a picture of us, but each of the kids was rolling a suitcase and I'm sure Garrett had a couple, plus we all had backpacks and stuff, so we were loaded down.  We all had to walk across the street rolling suitcases--I'm sure it was a pretty funny sight.  We made it in time and was able to get checked in.  Right before the train came, Garrett was able to buy us some muffins and waters for our breakfast.  

 Waiting for the train as we put tags on all our bags. 

 The Train!

 Finally settled and eating muffins!

 Lydia looking out the window

 At one of the stops, Paige and Garrett got off to take pictures.

 The train ride took about 7 hours.  We read, watched movies, I blogged.  Paige was so cute...she was watching a movie with headphones on and whenever a song came on, she would sing out loud...and I mean loud.  It was otherwise fairly quiet, but it was so funny!

 Lydia and Noah

 another view out the window

 I love these two pictures of Noah looking out the window.  

 Almost there and ready to get off!!

 Union Station in Portland!!  We made it!  We had our friend and neighbor Dave Carter drive our car to pick us up at the train station.  It was so hot back in Portland.  We had gotten used to the cooler weather of Alaska!

Getting our luggage and then we were headed home!!

It was a long 3 days, but kind of a relaxing way to travel!