We survived Alaska!

Among all the business of moving this summer, we are definitely carving out some vacation time. I'm totally not stressed unless I start to think about the fact that I'm COMPLETELY unprepared for my new job, but oh well...that's how first years at new jobs are. Right? This is the beauty of being a 5th year teacher...I'm inexplicably less nervous than usual. I figure I'll make it work somehow. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself once we get there for being so relaxed about it, but oh well.

Wow, off topic already! This post is supposed to be dedicated to our recent cruise to Alaska and Canada. None of us had ever been on a cruise, and we all decided that we aren't too sure we ever want to cruise again. However, the Alaska part was fantastic! We had lots of fun, and got to be very cold in the summer. It was all great until Wednesday when Brian got sick, but here was the fun part of the trip (warning, lots of pictures):

We flew to Seattle and spent the morning checking out the famous Fish Market and the Space Needle. We knew we would fall in love with this city, because we love to sit around and drink coffee and read all day. We were right. Love at first sight. Brian almost didn't get on the boat.

Space Needle, from our hotel window

Fish Market...awesome food and gooooorgeous flowers! 

At the top of the Space Needle, after our 5 mile walk around town

On the boat, pulling away from Seattle. Noooo!

First formal night at sea...we got a little antsy during at sea days. Ready to get to Alaska! But we loved our waiters, Hambali and Asep. 

Ketchikan, Alaska. Site of the bridge to nowhere that never happened. Wow, it's cold and rainy!

Sorry this is sideways. Saxman native totem village. This one was begging to have  his finger pulled. Classy.

Rainforest hike in Ketchikan. We saw a bear cub!

Petting and feeding Rudolph

We found Sarah in the gift shop!

Tracy Arm Fjord cruising. Unbelievably beautiful.

It's a glacier!

Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska

More Mendenhall Glacier. We were captivated by the floating chunks of blue ice.

Our boat, obscuring the view of Juneau

Drinking Alaskan beer at a Mexican restaurant in Juneau. What??

The day I'm sure you all heard me worry about in advance. It actually turned out to be the best day of the trip. 8 mile glacier hike in Skagway, Alaska. This is when the train was pulling away, and I wanted to run after it as soon as our guides said "shoe chains will be necessary for walking on the glacier."

Oh, here are the shoe chains! Little did I know that we were walking straight up a STEEP hill of ice on the glacier. Covered in loose rocks and boulders. I didn't even fall once!

Us at the top of Laughton Glacier, where we had lunch. Yes, we actually are standing on the glacier. It's covered by a thin layer of dirt and lots of loose rocks, so it doesn't look like it.

Our awesome guides who made it a fantastic trip

It gets fuzzy here, because Brian was sick at this point. But, we took a quick trip into Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and it was GORGEOUS. We now have Canadian stamps in our passports.

Waterfront in Victoria. It was very, very English-y.

Parliament Building lit up at night

Hope you enjoyed the quick tour of our trip! We are going to put the rest of the pictures on Flickr, so let me know if you're interested in more. We have amazing desktop background pictures for the rest of our lives.