Crusin' to AK- Juneau

One of our favorite days was when we cruised to Juneau, the Capital of AK. It was a gorgeous, warm day and we took advantage of it by going on a whale watching adventure. To see the whales dive was incredible! I'll try to post a video of that but until then I thought I would share some of our pics!

This is the Governor's Mansion.... Sarah Palin's house at the time but she resigned while we were on our trip.

I frantically tried to get a picture of the whales!

Capri-suns were all the rage as we boated around.

This is Mendenhall Glacier-- right outside of Juneau.

Crusin' to Alaska- Day 1 and 2

This summer we had the wonderful opportunity to go on a cruise to Alaska! We absolutely loved it! But things did not get off to the best start... we got all the way to the airport and had to turn around to come back home. Flight to Seattle was canceled. Good thing we had planned an extra day at the beginning.

Finally on our plane to Seattle...

Our great seats....

We were so excited to finally get to Seattle and to get on the Ms. Zaandam-- our Holland America boat for the next seven days.

Muster drill tradition.... scary faces.

A beautiful day to sail away....

We'll miss you Emily!

The guest of honor! Emily is leaving BHS to be an elementary counselor at another school in our district. We are going to miss her so much! Not just because we'll be one counselor down, but also because of her warm smile, caring spirit, and tireless work ethic. We decided to have a party in her honor at Linda's house and we all had a blast!

Lots of fun things for Em's new office...

...including a picture of Adam Lambert!!!

We tried very hard to get a group picture with all eyes open and all smiles:

Going to Carolina....

Since both of our families our still in NC, we always get to visit everyone at once! In early June, we drove out for a week and a half visit. Of course, Jonathan loves to drive so we took the Superbee and got to his parents' house in Murphy in a little over 24 hours. Check out the view!

Of course, we hung out a lot with Jack, their Jack Russell.

Jonathan's dad...

After a great few days, including a family reunion at "the old homeplace" in Tennessee, seeing Jonathan's brother, Tim, and riding on a mini-train in an older gentleman's backyard, we headed to Charlotte to see friends. We always love to see my friend Gabby, who now has a sweet little girl named Jaclyn!

We then went to Greensboro to see my parents and my Aunt Emily. We took a trip to the mattress store to buy new mattresses! Does not happen very often in my family! Aunt Emily was testing them out:

Lots of fun times back at the house with all the dogs around! Here is my aunt with Dallas and George W. Yes, that is their names =)

My mom with their dog, Dixie. (Do you sense a trend that we are in the South?)

We did get a visit in with my friend Katie who I worked with at QLC and went to college with...

And then it was back to Murphy, and then back to NC. Such a fun trip seeing family and friends.

frying the turkey

For over a year Jonathan has talked about getting a turkey fryer. I was completely against it... i can't say that i'm the biggest fan of fried foods and though I had always heard good things, the idea of the turkey exploding seemed to be fresh in my mind after watching youtube. So of course jonathan brought back a turkey fryer from one of his trips to a walmart in an isolated CO town. Apparently there was a great deal going on. We were already planning on going to our friends' house for Thanksgiving and this would be the perfect opportunity. And with us frying the turkey at someone else's house, we wouldn't have to worry about *our* backyard catching on fire. How nice of us =) So on Thanksgiving this year we went to the Nelsons' and ended up having a wonderful time frying the turkey, frying potato chips and spending the day with dear friends. What a blessing to have such a wonderful community in Boulder. And there were no mishaps with the fryer so we might have to break it out again next year.