Alaska - Sitka

Okay here is one of my favorites - Sitka. Sitka is a beautiful little seaside town on the Southeastern part of Alaska, sprinkled with tiny islands. Another place I could totally live, without the cold. The ship wasn't able to dock here due to the size of the ship. We were anchored off shore and the life boats tendered us in. It was a different experience. I think our driver was driving for his first time. It took him about 20 times to dock the little think, no joke! At Sitka, we saw an amazing number of Eagles and baby Eagles. We visited a Raptor Center, a Salmon hatchery (part of the Sheldon Jackson Museum/Aquarium), did a little walking around the Sitka National Historic Park and downtown and some shopping. This was probably one of the most expensive places as well. We went into the local grocery store to purchase diapers and they were exactly double what I pay here as well as wipes and a few other items.

Here are a few pictures of Sitka. We didn't get too many!

Okay, Here's our ship anchored in Sitka. That little tiny boat beside it was the tender or lifeboat that shuttled us to the dock. Below is the tenders at the dock.

Here's some pictures of us at the Sheldon Brown museum/aquarium/salmon hatchery. Ashlyn wasn't cooperating for our family picture but later decided to join us for the group picture. With us is our friends Cheri, Mike, & their son Ryan.

These are the Eagles that were perched all over the rocks just outside the hatchery. You have to look closely and you can see a few white heads on the rocks and some on the polls.

Wait a minute... aren't Eagles on the endangered list??? Actually, they aren't anymore. I wasn't aware of this. But after visiting Alaska for the second time I was informed. It's amazing to see so many of them.

Here we are getting ready to walk through the forest. Again we had to drag Ashlyn into the picture with us. She has all these stipulations to appear in our pictures. She wants them taken when she is ready.

The kids each found hiking sticks and used them to climb and bang on everything. There were some really cool trees and logs in the forest. Here's one of them. Here we are at the Raptor Center. This center has a minimal contact area where most of their birds go. There is one way glass so we were able to see in but they could not see us. The majority of the birds here are able to be returned to the wild after rehabilitation.

The kids were passing around and actual bird foot. Yuck! This is Cheri's mother Marriel (sp), Ryan and Ashlyn, proudly displaying it.

Seth wasn't quite so impressed with it. Can you tell???

Here is the one an only Harbour seal we saw this trip. He was teasing us. He kept swimming up to the ship and taking off. So this is the best picture I could get.

More to come. I skipped around a little bit. I think I'll do Juneau next.

ALASKA!!!! - Seattle

We are back!!! Of course it was Awsome, but nothing compares to the first time. Welcome home to the Florida heat. It was a cold 42 degrees in Seattle. The kids had a GREAT time! Seth was just about perfect, Ashlyn had her moments..... atleast 2 tantrums a day, but that's just her. She would have been the exact same at home. Of couse we started off this morning with one. Anyway, I'm going to post this trip a little at a time since there is so much to say and sooo many pics. It would take me too long to do it all at once. We had 13 total with us on this trip. Our very good friends Cheri and Mike (we took this trip with them last time), there 3 kids, Ryan, Chloe and Holly. Cheri's parents, Herb and Muriel, and Mike's parents Jim and Diane. Our cruise left from Seattle and visited, Juneau, Hubbard Glacier, Sitka, Kethcikan and Victoria, BC. My favorite stops this time were Sitka and Victoria (even though we didn't have much time there).

We started off with a two night stay in Seattle. I LOVE Seattle. This is a place I could definitely live. The flowers are unbelieveable and my little flower child couldn't keep her hands off as you will see in the pictures from here and throughout our trip for that matter. She actually picked one right in front of the Space Needle. I thought we were going to get arrested. Here we visited Pikes Market, took a Duck Tour (absolute blast), the Seattle Aquarium, Seattle Center Kids Museum and the Space Needle.

Here are some pictures of us having dinner ath T.S. McHugh's Irish Pub.

Doesn't daddy looked thrilled....... long airplane ride!

Cheesing it up for the camera

Here is Ashlyn showing off her pick in front of the space needle and some other random tulip gardens we passed in our journeys. Flowers are everywhere!! Like I said before there are flowers everywhere. They are beautiful. There's flower trees, bushes, beds and planters everywhere.

Here's some pictures from Pikes Market. Again, flowers everywhere. You could get a huge bundle of Tulips for like $10. Ashlyn was absolutely terrified of this fish. She started screaming when Jason put the stroller anywhere near it. And to make matters worse the guys had tied a string to it through the ice and could scare the s*#@ outta of people by making it move.

Here we are at the space needle.
Pictures from up top.


We took a Duck tour (it's a boat on wheels or a car shaped like a boat that goes on land and then drives right into the water) through the Seattle down town. We saw pioneer Square, Seattle Waterfront, Seaco Field and took a ride into Lake Union. We had an absolute blast. Of course our driver had everything to do with it. On the tour we learned that they're are like 400+ Starbucks' in Seattle. How much coffee could one need???? In Lake Union we saw these teeny tiny houseboats that cost a small fortune. 300sq ft for like $400K. The Sleepless in Seattle houseboat is currently up for sale for $2.5 million. This particular house is 2075 square feet. We also saw some head guru of Microsofts 3 story houseboat which I would say it was more like a house. Anyway it originally had a cement basement in it but he had the whole thing raised and had the basement glassed in so he could have an underwater view. Most of the houseboats that have basements have I guess normal basements but then there are some with cement. To me the whole idea is crazy. They call them houseboats because they fit in your standard boat slip.

The DuckDaddy and Seth hanging out on the tour

A lot of the boats from "Deadliest Catch" come out of Seattle. Here is one. The driver called this fountain the hippee shower. He said the bums showered here.
Here is the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat
The little tiny green one on the right just sold for like $375K.These are the bigger ones with concrete basements and all.More flowers hanging all the walls all down the street

We took a very quick visit to the Seattle Aquarium. Here daddy is trying to convince the kids to pet the starfish in the picture below. They were not interested at all.

The kids playing in the arms of the octopus in the kids area.Ashlyn goofing around in the gift shop.

Pictures from the Seattle Center Children's Museum. This one is Ryan and Ashlyn

Ashlyn acting like a lizard

One last picture to end the Seattle portion. Jason said he's chaging his sign to this........... this was a sign in downtown Seattle.