This is several months late, but there’s a point to all this…
In July, we went to Detroit (well, a little bit outside of it) to visit Claudine and Dan for 4th of July weekend. Their neighbor across the street always puts on a good fireworks show. It was a pretty awesome show, except for the time that the cops came by and told them to stop. No big accidents, just a little law breaking. We had a great time, and some DELICIOUS bratwurst that Dan picked up while driving around in Ohio.
What was pretty cool is that Dan got his party sponsored by Greased Lightning. He got a party kit, complete with plates, napkins, t-shirts, foam lightning bolts, temporary tattoos - all the fixings for a fun party. All he had to do was submit a video to enter their contest. So click on this link to see (and vote for) the video that was made - that’s Johnny and Frank singing Greased Lightning, and my sister Fatima who’s spelling out the words with sparklers (I took the pictures). Make sure you vote for Dan’s video to win!!!
We had a great time in California last weekend. We were there for Dave’s cousin Cathy, who was getting married. We met her husband Marc several years ago when we went on a snowboarding trip to Mammoth. We immediately got along and had an awesome time, snowboarding/skiing and quoting Napoleon Dynamite the whole time.
We started off the weekend at Cathy’s place, with a mini reunion of the relatives. It had been a while since Dave’s mom and all her siblings had been together with all their kids. We all just hung out and watched “Dancing with the Stars” (Benjamin’s idea, of course). I got a really great pictures of Dave’s grandmother and all of her grandkids and her one great grandkid.
We were honored to have Cathy ask Ben to be her ring bearer. We were a little nervous that he wouldn’t be able to do it, so we practiced with him a lot. During the wedding rehearsal, he did a great job walking down the aisle. We practiced a million times, during the rehearsal and before the wedding. The kid had it down! He was walking like a pro!
We had a plan to have Dave be in the back with Ben and me in the front of the room, since it would be more likely that he would want to walk to me than the other way around. Dave would give Ben the cue to start walking and Ben would walk down to me. We prayed that it would go off without a hitch and that he wouldn’t throw the pillow at someone, since the actual rings were on the pillow. When the time came, they had put down the cloth aisle runner and sprinkled flower petals down the aisle. I was starting to get nervous - Ben didn’t practice with all the extra fluff!
So all the bridesmaids and groomsmen came down the aisle, and it was time for Ben’s performance. The door opened, Dave and Ben came through. As soon as he stood on the aisle, he started whining, “I don’t want to! I’m finished!” and as soon as he saw the petals, he said, “I want to play! I want to play!” He put down the pillow next to Dave and tried to pick up the petals. I was loudly whispering, “Benjamin! Come here!” But he paid no attention to me. By this time people were laughing and to me it felt like an hour had passed - I had no idea what to do! Do I go down the aisle, pick him up and drag him down the aisle? Dave eventually picked him up, to which Ben did the “i have no bones” things where he just becomes limp so you can’t pick him up, and he dragged Ben down the aisle. I took Ben from Dave, put the pillow next to the chair in front of me and we sat down, allowing the wedding procession to go on as planned.
It was a great wedding. The priest was a hoot. I was still a little anxious because there was still the moment where Ben had to bring the pillow up to the priest for the blessing of the wedding rings. He was already getting bored and fussy, and a pack of m&m’s was the only thing stopping him from starting chaos. It wasn’t a big room, so all his little comments were easily heard. When the priest mentioned the rings, I knew it was time. Time for redemption.
I stood Ben in the aisle and reached for the pillow. When I tried to give it to him, I realized that the lace on the pillow was stuck in the zipper of Ben’s diaper bag. I started pulling, but nothing happened. Dave was trying to help, too. Finally, the lace was unstuck and we got the pillow loose. I handed it to Ben and gave him a little push to send him down the aisle. Nothing. The kid was as still as a stone. Marc bent down and opened his arms and made a “come here” motion. I gave Ben one last push (some say it was a big shove, I say it was a gentle nudge) and he finally toddled up the aisle into Marc’s waiting arms. People aww’d. Some clapped. Me? A sigh of relief.
The rest of the wedding was pretty uneventful, in terms of Ben drama. Ben had a good time dancing with the flowergirl on the dancefloor as people were coming in for dinner. When we were waiting outside of the reception for the bridal party to be announced, Ben kept on wanting to go to Cathy and give her kisses, saying, "I want to go to the princess!" I was surprised that he was ok walking into the reception hall with the flowergirl without me, but I guess they had bonded throughout the weekend, so he was comfortable with her. Afterwards, he danced and had a good time, by the end of the night exhausted.
Here's some pictures from the weekend (hover near the top corners for navigation):
Here’s one of my last Alaskan posts…I’ll probably have an “All Ben” one, but that one wouldn’t really feature much of Alaska, just Ben hamming it up for the camera.
Alaska was incredible. I would have to say that if you ever have a chance to go there, go, and if it’s a cruise, get a room with a balcony. Every time you look out of your window, it looks like a postcard. The mountains are breathtaking. As for the glaciers, well, I never thought that I’d take so many pictures of a block of ice. It’s the coolest thing to see a glacier calf (when a part of the glacier falls off into the water) - it makes this big cracking sound like thunder and falls into the water with a huge splash, creating giant waves in its wake. Every time it would happen, the whole boat would cheer. We were also fortunate to be at the Hubbard Glacier on a clear day, something that they said was rare at this time of the year.
After passing through some fog, sailing through Disenchantment Bay.
See all the mini-icebergs?
Gilbert point, the entrance to Russell Fjord
Looks like a small piece of ice, but look closer, to the right
It’s bigger than it seems!
More favorites - hover over the top right and left for navigation buttons
To see the whole gallery, click here. You’ll see all of my pictures I’ve posted so far as well as some I haven’t. You’ll also see a lot more description in the photos.
We saw a lot of animals in Alaska. We took a stop at the Anchorage zoo, which really was a big forest with pens to hold animals (with the exception of the Polar Bear habitat). It was a really great place, even though it’s smaller than most zoos I’ve seen. But outside of the zoo, there was a ton of wildlife to be seen! We saw two moose (mooses? meese? mice?) when we were in a shuttle. They were just outside someone’s yard, chewing on some bushes. They didn’t look like I expected, but I guess it’s because it’s not the season for horns yet. There were also a ton of bald eagles everywhere, though they were usually high up in the trees or far away (as you can see from the two golf ball looking like things in one of my pictures). From the train going to Seward we saw the white backsides of beluga whales popping above the water every now and then (no WAY I was going to catch those guys in a pictures - they’re too fast and it’s hard to tell when they’re coming up for air). From the boat we could see dolphins/porpoises, seals and jellyfish. At port, we saw a “wild” cat, and there were lots of dogs for Benjamin to play with.
We also saw a couple shows. In Anchorage, when taking the free trolley Ben met a little puppy that the driver let him play with. She told us that the puppy’s parents were in the Wildride Sled Dog Show, a show that features dogs that compete in the Iditarod. We had some free time, so we went to the show. Since Ben had already met one of the mushers (people who race and care for the dogs) he got one of the prizes during the show, which was pretty cool. It was a fun show to watch and it was really interesting to learn about how tough the conditions out there and how important the bond is between leader and their dogs and their proper care.
In Ketchikan, we saw the Great Lumberjack Show. I didn’t think I’d be entertained too much, but it was actually a lot of fun to watch the lumberjacks compete at various events. The emcee was so personable and made the whole audience feel comfortable. The crowd was divided between two different “camps” and cheered for the lumberjacks in their own camp. There were a lot of events to show off their skills, but I think my favorite was the logrolling. The springboard chop was the most impressive, though…
As I may have mentioned before, I went on vacation with Ben and my in-laws. Dave didn’t come because he was studying for his board exam. It was a perfect time for us to go to Alaska, because I’ve always wanted to go and Dave’s not a fan of non-tropical/snowboarding-free vacations. Having my in-laws around was a great help, because they would take care of Ben if I wanted to explore a little bit (I liked exploring the different towns, Dave’s dad liked hanging out on the boat with Ben).
In today’s vacation picture installment, I’ve got the various family pictures. I’m not in a lot of them because I’d rather be behind the lens than in front of it. Also, Ben will have his very own “solo shots” post, because he’s such a ham that he had a TON of pictures taken by himself.
I’m using a different gallery program for these shots - if you want to go to the next picture without having to close the picture, hover your mouse near the top right hand corner of the photo and you’ll see an arrow appear. Click on it and you’ll go to the next picture.
Since I had around 2200 pictures that I took during my Alaskan vacation (who knew I would take so many pictures of a block of ice?!?) I’ve decided to break down my pictures into several groups, with today’s being FOOD.
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This is my third cruise, and I have to say that the food during this cruise was pretty awesome. However, having been on Norwegian’s “FreeStyle” cruise last year, I think I prefer not having a set time to eat. You see, for most cruises, you have a set dinner time that you have to attend, which I can understand - so they can make all the food all at once. Also, you’ve got assigned seating. I guess you can request to have a private table, but that’s unlikely to happen. In our case, we were seated at a table for 10, but there were actually 12 of us there since the other group that was seated with us had two children. If you’re a social person, I guess sitting with strangers for your whole trip isn’t a big deal, but when it comes down to it, I suck at small talk. Luckily, my mother in law is pretty good at it.
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Now you don’t have to eat in the main dining room for the general sitting time, you could always go to the cafe and eat, but the food isn’t as good, and there isn’t much selection. It was pretty much pasta or pizza, with some exceptions.
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But as I said before, the food was pretty incredible. I think I only had one dish that I wasn’t incredibly fond of, but everything else was tasty. Our waiters were great - you get the same waiter for the cruise. He got to know Ben and that he was pretty much going to have a hot dog every night, as well as chocolate ice cream for dessert. Outside of the main dining room, the food was still excellent. There were many choices for breakfast (we had it in the cafe, not the main restaurant) though I’m a little disappointed that Eggs Benedict wasn’t an option. Ben enjoyed pancakes, fruit, eggs and bacon every morning and I swear it’s the most I’ve ever seen him eat - he had to have gained at least 2lbs during the trip!
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Outside of the cruise ship, the food was great as well. We had crab legs, fresh steamed crab, salmon sushi and all sorts of great stuff. However, I would have to say that the most disappointing thing I had during my trip was salmon chowder. It was pretty much potatoes with a dash of salmon. Eh!
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So without further ado, here are my food pictures, starting off with my favorites:
(I wrote this post yesterday, so we’ve been there already and never before has a piece of ice been so incredible!)
First Day at Sea
We’re just about to reach the Hubbard Glacier (which, I read, is surrounded by *insert ominous noise here* ICEBERGS) Just wanted to post a couple pictures from the last couple days. Yesterday, we took the Alaska railroad from Anchorage to Seward, and the 4 hour trip was GORGEOUS. We boarded our boat in Seward and were so tired we decided to just hang around the boat for the rest of the day.
Here’s a couple pics:
The Best Way to Get a Great Pic on the Alaskan Railroad is to Go Between Cars and Stick Your Head Out!
On Deck at the Cruise Ship
Oh, and we do get TV here on the boat - what is up with McCain choosing the Governor of Alaska?!?! That was totally out of nowhere. I hope they bring back Tina Fey on SNL to impersonate her - they look exactly alike!
So it’s pretty late, even for Alaska, and I need to get up at 5am tomorrow to catch a 6:45 train to Seward, which is 4 hours away. But I wanted to post a couple pictures before I leave Anchorage. We had a pretty busy day today - went on a trolley tour around the city, went to the zoo, and saw a sled dog show. Much happened during and inbetween those times. I’d like to say I’ll write about that later, but those words, as you may know already, are probably just lies!
Here’s a couple pics that I’ve chosen for your enjoyment:
We passed by the Alaska State Trooper Museum, and saw on the window that they had a rebuilt Hudson Hornet in there - it’s Ben’s favorite car from “Cars”!
My “real wildlife” quota of 1 animal has been filled on our first day - saw a couple moose grazing on people’s lawns as we drove by
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it already, but I’ll be going on a much needed vacation this week. We’re going on an Alaskan cruise, which has always been something I’ve wanted to do. Sure, it’s fun to go on cruises in tropical areas, going snorkeling and lounging on the beach, but I’ve always wanted to experience the beauty of our northernmost state, something I got a taste of when I visited there for work several years ago.
So of course, I’ve been doing research on things to do and places to see. I’m excited to see the glaciers and wildlife! But as I was going through people’s pictures in flickr, I realized there was something that I could have been suppressing, something that I will most likely have an encounter with during our cruise: ICEBERGS.
It’s something that I’ve mentioned in this blog, but never really gone into detail over…but I’m really scared of icebergs. I’d never seen one before in person (and really had thought that there was a likelihood that I’d never see one) but there’s something about them that rattles me. I think that part of it is the fact that you only see about 15% of it above water - the rest of it’s massive size lies hidden, waiting, under the water. The other thing is the sound that (I assume) they make underwater, this low frequency, ominous rumbling.
At first, I thought that maybe I was just making up this phobia, but in Wii Fit there’s a game where you have to balance on an iceberg to pick up fish, but if you go too far you fall off. I get all nervous and my heart starts beating heavy when I play it, so I know that this thing is legit, because I LOVE playing video games!
I just did a good search on “fear of icebergs” and I ran into an article that explains almost exactly how I feel:
Immense and unforgiving, icebergs show up where they are not supposed to be. They are cold and cruel-looking. More to the point, they often hide the worst of themselves.
I once came across a particularly vivid series of iceberg photographs.
Every shot showed different icebergs from two perspectives, photographed both above and below the surface of the sea. In one especially frightening shot, two jagged ice peaks reached innocently into the blue sky. Below the water, however, the thing spread into a monster, a craggy mass fully six times the size of the peaks in depth and width. It glittered with menace.
With an iceberg, it’s what you can’t see that is most terrifying.
So I leave you with this picture, as I try to get over my icebergophobia so I don’t totally freak out when I’m on the ship and I see an iceberg in the distance.
