Alaska Cruise

In mid-September we were thrilled to head up to Vancouver, BC and meet my parents and brother & family for an Alaska cruise. Jacques & April are living in Tai Wan for the next couple of years and so it was wonderful to be all together again as a family.

I had a hard time sorting through all the pictures and whitteling them down just a few, so here are some of my favorites.







Here's John cracking Hayden up about something :)



Hayden loved the huge chess board on the cruise deck and each time we passed by we had to let her carry all the pieces around for a while.



These next couple of pictures are from our room balcony.



Riding out of Vancouver



I thought these were seals swimming in the water, until I blew the picture up a bit.... two bears swimming! If you click on the picture, you can see the bears close up!





We took a train ride up the mountain in Skagway, Alaska. Since John and I are living in flatman's land right now, all the majestic mountain cliffs and views were just what we needed. This was a cute picture of my sister in law, April, and their little boy, Trent.









Here's John keeping the girls entertained by doing "itsy-bitsy spider"



In Juneau, it was raining (pretty much the entire trip it rained, but still pretty), and Jacques, Remi, John, Hayden and I took a tram up to the top of the mountain that overlooked Juneau. One of my absolute favorite things during this trip was to watch Hayden and Remi together. Remi loved to play with her and Hayden could not get enough time with her older cousin Remi. Remi could crack her up constantly. It was just so fun to watch!









Off of my parents veranda we watched small glaciers and breathtaking waterfalls float by, gorgeous!







All the scenery was lost on Hayden and the younger kids. I kept telling her, "Hayden can you BELIEVE this??!!", but all to deaf ears. So, John kept her entertained by watching kid videos on his iphone. What a good dad!








And now, that you've seen all the gorgeous pictures and are salivating with jealousy at this amazing cruise, let me fill you in on a bit of the backstory. :) We did hit horrible weather on the cruise, 105 mph winds, to be specific. The ocean swells were pretty high and we all got sick, poor john (who I've never seen sea-sick before) threw up at least 30 times before his skopalamine patch kicked in. We missed our stop in Ketchikan because of the weather as well. But, through it all, we still got some amazing scenery -obviously- and really enjoyed spending time together as a family because these days, it doesn't happen too often!