Alaska

August of 2010 I booked tickets to take the kids to Alaska in summer 2011. We had enough airline miles, I am always missing my family and Greg works all the time, so I decided to go for a whole month. The first few days I was worried that maybe a month was going to be too long. But the kids weren't ready to come home by the end. One of the first nights there, the older boy cousins drew in marker all over the younger boys. I was glad my kids were sleeping in my room because they remained marker free, but it was funny to see. Caleb had a heart check the next morning and the doctor lifted his shirt and he had a large arrow pointing at his belly button with a circle drawn around it. The doctor said, "Did you sleep alright last night?"

The whole family went to Hatcher Pass for 4th of July weekend where my sister's family owns an old gold mine. We stay in the old miner's bunkhouse. There are 19 cousins, my Mom, 5 siblings and spouses (except Greg) and there were a couple adopted family members that stayed with us too. Oh and 7 dogs! We did quite a bit of hiking. The kids got very wet and muddy and enjoyed playing on the zipline and going underground. We also did fireworks 2 nights which is kind of funny in Alaska since it doesn't get dark at night. And we had the usual kids talent show which is always entertaining. Alexis and Paxton showed off their cartwheel skills and Denali walked on her hands.

We took 17 of the 19 grandkids to see Cars 2 in the theater. Denali slept through the entire thing and Paxton was so entertained he barely blinked. We went to cousins soccer and T-ball games and enjoyed sleep-overs every night. We spent a few hours at the lake and the kids enjoyed burying each other in the sand. Aunt Missy let them do messy art projects. Aunt Amber made sure there was dessert every night. We hiked to horseshoe lake where we saw moose and beavers and Denali got to get her picture taken in front of the Denali National Park sign. Paxton was a trooper. It is a 3 mile round trip hike with a significant elevation change and he made it almost the entire way. That doesn't include the hour spent running around down by the lake. The kids also enjoyed playing lots of board games with each other.

One of the highlights was we threw a surprise party for my sister's 40th birthday. We invited a bunch of friends and family, gave it a MASH theme and made a awesome slideshow of pictures and videos for her. And of course there was yummy food. She really was surprised even though children kept slipping little comments in around her.

My sister did a camp for kids called "Incredible Edibles" and we were able to participate in that. The girls LOVED it! We roasted many marshmallows and hot dogs over backyard fires, went to the playground frequently and had a super fun cousins scavenger hunt. Uncle Billy took us fishing at the hanger pit and all 3 kids were able to catch at least one fish. We played in a kids miniature golf tournament where Denali won a prize for wearing a Curious George costume. We visited Grandpa Rick at the cemetery. There were a mom and baby moose in my sisters yard as we were leaving Healy.

My mom and brother took some of the younger kids to Happy Hoppers while Missy and I took some of the boys to see Harry Potter. Loved it! I got to visit my friend Ashley and let our kids play. My moms apartment has a most amazing view and the kids loved staying at her house. My brother works for Delta during the summer and he was able to come see us off when we flew out.

I was surprised how well everyone got a long, not too much fighting except my girls fighting with each other as usual. The tooth fairy visited 3 times, only one of those teeth was knocked out, the others came out on their own. One 5 year old got a broken arm. At least half of the family ended up with strep throat. Only Alexis in our family got it, but she was pretty miserable for a couple days. Mostly I enjoyed just hanging out with my family, visiting with my sisters, having help with the kids. Every meal was an assembly line and bath duty was rotated among the sisters. It was so great! And although I missed my husband and my bed, I wasn't really ready to come home either. 3,000 miles is just too far away.