Shane's birthday

So today is Shane's 31st birthday. Gosh I remember when he turned 21. We had a party @ the rent house we lived in. Gosh how some things have changed so much but then somethings have not. Anyways he shares it with a good friend of mine so each year we use it as an excuse for all of our gang to get together for dinner and lots of laughs. We have been so busy lately that I have not spent much time at all with the girls so I am excited about tonight. Good times.....yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

alaska continued

I took a picture of Daddy with us so he could be there with us.....it made me feel better. He would have been in awe as well......forgot to add that.....

Alaskan Cruise July 2009

ALASKA................This is going to be a LONG post....... we took a family vacation to Alaska the last week of July, a cruise. Mom, Ashley, Shane, Collyn and myself along with some close family friends. There is only one word I can continue to use to describe the trip.........AMAZING. Everything was amazing, the scenery, the atmosphere, the company, the port, the ship....everything!!!! We flew out of San Angelo on Thursday @ 5:55 and arrived in DFW an hour later for our connecting flight to Seattle. Collyn loves to fly. She is MUCH better on an airplane than her mother, who does not care to fly but tolerates it on an as needed basis only because she likes to travel. Collyn on the other hand loved it. She even made her daddy sit in the middle on the trip to Seattle because she wanted the window seat. She never ceases to amaze me. We stayed in Seattle Thursday and Friday night. The airline lost Collyn's luggage, well not lost but rather misplaced. Luckily I had packed a change of clothes and necessities to get us through. They kindly returned the luggage promptly 20hrs after we landed in Seattle. We stayed downtown on the 40th floor(very top) of a tower that (once again) had an AMAZING view of the port. Everything in Seattle is up hill, and you walk everywhere because traffic is horrid. They pride their city for being "Green" which is very much true. The city is very clean. We went to the HUGE (like 20+ blocks) market, Pike's place market; a complete mad house. People everywhere!!!! Mom found a neat little quilt shop. We saw the flying fish shop- where they actually get the fish off the boat take it to the door then throw it through the market to an awaiting gentleman who kindly catches it and wraps it up to go for you all while you wait....pretty neat. They had every kind of fresh flowers you could ever imagine. For very cheap. The sunflowers were honestly the size of a dessert plates, and gosh they all smelled SO good. They city is just rich with culture and art. Shane & I went shopping while Granny & Collyn took an afternoon nap; we stopped in the ONLY Supermarket in downtown Seattle for some drinks and snacks for the trip. The people who live in Seattle go to Pike's market everyday and get fresh food, they didn't have push baskets in the supermarket only hand held, and when you check out the cashier asks how far you will be carrying your recent purchase so they can bag the bounty accordingly. Their sacks are recycled and very thin. So that was Seattle. We boarded the boat on Saturday, my goodness it was HUGE and every little detail was so perfect. The rooms are a foot or so bigger than a shoe box and the bathroom, oh it was tiny, you could literally reach out of the shower and brush your teeth in the sink. Very small. The balcony on our room was so relaxing and almost as big as our room, you could sit out there in the deck chairs close yours eyes and wow, very relaxing!!!Our first port was Juneau, Mom, Collyn & I went on a whale watching and Mendenhall glacier tour while Shane & Ashley went zip lining through the rain forest. Our tour was great, we saw so many whales, and even caught a glimpse of a once in a lifetime experience ( from what the naturalist on board said) when the catamaran we were on happened up on a pod of humpback whales exhibit a feeding technique called bubble netting which apparently only happens for a couple of weeks in the summertime and we happened to see it....TWICE. Pretty neat!!! The boys also had fun zip lining and then went with a local to play disc golf(which is a fav of Ashley's) The man that owned the disc golf course took them all over Juneau for a tour and all it cost them was a drink. On Tuesday we were in Skagway. All 5 of us did a gold panning tour which was not @ all what we expected, and even a little disappointing even though we found some gold flakes and had enough to put it in 2 necklaces; one for Collyn and of course one for Frog (Collyn's lovie ). After that tour we split, the boys went to do some rock climbing and rappelling while us girls took the old time street car tour & did some shopping. I was shocked to hear of the price of real estate in Skagway. The tour guide (who had lived there 8 years) drove all through town showing us neat historic places along with a insiders tour of the town. There was an 8x8 portable building someone had turned into a house (one room- bed & bath) that rented for the low price of $500 a month. Hard to believe but I bet it was easy to heat in the winter :). The men to women ratio there is 9:1...wow. Mom found a quilt shop, of course. She made sure we spent some quality time there and left some of the lower 48's $$$ with them too. On Wednesday we did some scenic cruising through Tracy Arm Fjord. They were having unseasonably warm (:() weather in Alaska so lots of ice had melted off the mountains and was floating in the water. (Titanic eek!) & we actually hit one, no damage though. There were these glorious mountains with snow covered tops and waterfalls all the way down them completely surrounding us @ one point. I have never felt closer to God's country. It was absolutely serene & completely peaceful. I don't know if I have ever been that at peace (with everything at once). On our way to Ketchican for our Thursday port, we encounters pods and pods of Killer whales (the captain said this was unusual, usually lots of humpback whales). Some were even close enough to our boat to see the white on their bellies went they were coming up for air. AMAZING. (with some great pics as well) On Thursday we were in Ketchican. We did a totem pole tour and lumberjack show. Neat!!! The lumberjacks even posed with Collyn for a picture, and she let them hold her. Mom again found a quilt shop. (not surprising) This was probably a close tie with Juneau for my favorite port. On Friday we ported in Victoria, British Columbia. Ashley, Shane, Myself and Charli Beth (friends daughter) took the Ghosts & Graveyards tour....expecting to get to see some really scary stuff since they are known worldwide for their haunted establishments. We went to a very old (1800-1900's) graveyard, it had some really beautiful headstones and monuments. They still bury 1 resident a year in it to keep it active but it is what they call their lottery, and it cost $40,000 to enter for a chance to win the plot. Must be pretty big deal for that kinda cash. The entirety of the tour consisted of a bus tour through Victoria and stories of past murders and unusual deaths. We opted to exit the tour early to get a bite to eat and do some exploring and shopping. We ended up in a not so good part of town that seemed miles from our ship. The girl @ the door @ the pub Ashley wennt to asked if he was interested in some crack. We quickly decided to make our way back to the ship in a much better neighborhood, then by cab. The houses there are beyond beautiful, and HUGE. They had lots of wide open windows and flowers everywhere (Victoria is apparently known for their hanging baskets of flowers).... right by the sea....everything was just postcard perfect. (especially @ sunset). We had an AMAZING time!!!!!!!................. but then on the way home our flight from Seattle was delayed 1 hour because of storms in Dallas, we got to Dallas and it said our plane was delayed 2 hours because the plane that we were going to be taking to San Angelo was coming from Corpus and there were storms in between Corpus and Dallas. It got there actually almost on time and then they got us on it, we sat on the tar mack for over an hour without air conditioning and almost another hour after they got the a/c turned on because the automatic door closing device for the luggage compartment broke so they were having to hand crank it, then when they got it closed we were over weight....they asked for volunteers to take the first flight out in the am.....I was beginning to think it was a bad omen....but we got home safe and sound, and EXHAUSTED!!!!!!!! I will have pics posted soon I hope...I took over 3000!!!!!!