The Hubbard Glacier

What a day! We woke this morning to what we thought was thunder. To our surprise we opened our balcony door to a magnificent view. Over night we had cruised to the base of the Hubbard Glacier. What an unbelievable sight. What we thought was thunder was actually the glacier "calving" (when a chunk of the glacier breaks off into the water to form an ice berg). It was incredible. We saw a few seals today and porpoises swimming beside the ship during lunch.

This will probably be my last blog post until we return home. The cruise portion of our vacation ends in the morning (boo hoo!) and we begin the land portion of our vacation. We are headed to Anchorage, then on to Denali. Keep your fingers crossed that we'll see some bears and that the weather will be clear enough for us to view Mt. McKinley.

Today we find ourselves in Icy Strait Point Alaska. It's basically a small village made up of two different eskimo tribes. The population is 850 people and 3500 bears. Unfortunately or fortunately, we didn't see any bears. Mark, Scott, Jacob, and Jared rode ATV's to the top of a mountain and rode the world's largest zip line to the bottom. (over a mile long). It took and hour to get to the top and 1 minute to get to the bottom.

Tonight is formal night with prime rib and lobster for dinner. Life is tough!



Jared filmed his decent down the mountain via the mile long zip line. The person speeding by on Jared's right is Scott.

Alaskan Update

Father's Day was a huge success with the guys catching an abundance of fish with 3 big keepers (1 king salmon and 2 silvers). I have pictures that I'll post when we return home. Yesterday we were in Juneau. We took a float trip beginning at the Mendenhall Glacier. Beautiful!! We had a few rapids. Today we're in Skagway. We're getting ready to go hiking and investigate the city. As always, the food and service aboard the cruise ship is amazing. I hope all is well on the home front! Bon Voyage!

The view from our hiking adventure.

**While in Skagway, we shopped, panned for gold with Gabe finding the most gold (21.00 worth). After our gold fever had passed, we decided to take a hike. The hiking was fabulous!

Greetings from Alaska

Jacob's Catch!

Gabe's Catch!

Jared's Catch!

The guys leaving to go fish on Father's Day.

We made it! Life is good on the cruise. We are well fed (understatement). We are now cruising the inside passage. The boys have found the arcade, the rock climbing wall, and are signed up for a dodgeball tournament this afternoon. Tomorrow the guys are spending Father's Day deep sea fishing while Martha and I are shopping and getting spa treatment. Sorry no pictures, this computer doesn't have a USB port. More later...

This my last post before we're cruisin'! I will try to blog a little on our trip and keep you posted on our adventures. Thanks to all the Williams clan who are watching the house, feeding the dog and cat, picking up mail, mowing the grass, and watering the plants, washing the windows, sealing the driveway, repairing the fence, staining the deck, painting the half-bath. Oops, sorry I got carried away there. All kidding aside, you're the best! Remember there will be great rewards for your service. :) ha...there I go kidding again.

I believe Dale Evans said it best...

Happy trails to you,
until we meet again.
Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

We have been working away preparing to leave town. Everything is clean...laundry, done...garden, weeded...grass, mowed...pool, cleaned and shocked... Jacob putting the finishing touched on the yard by weed eating.

Jared and Gabe weeding the flowerbeds out front? Uh...that's what they were supposed to be doing before they got distracted. lol Actually, Jared was helping Gabe add gas and check the oil on the 4-wheeler so he could take a ride..

We are feverishly preparing for vacation. Part of the vacation experience is the excitement of packing, unpacking, and repacking. Gabe and Jared have been packed for a week now. They must share their mothers penchant for preparation. I think we are officially ready. Cruiseship here we come!!

What else have we been up to? We went to Cleveland, Tennessee with Jacob's baseball team. I'm not sure who had more fun, the boys or the parents. The players decided they needed haircuts for the tournament. We had two boys who ended up with their number carved into their hair, Jacob had "J Willy" carved/cut into his, and one boy was brave enough to wear a mohawk. Of course they had high school baseball tryouts the following Monday, so they were back to conservative, clean cut young men by Monday morning.

This picture was taken as the mohawk was unveiled to mom. She handled it very well.

As you can see Gabe really enjoys hanging out with the big boys. Scary! How else would he entertain his elementary school buddies with stories of his high school friends. Yikes!
Great news...the whole team (summer team) made the high school team for 2009-10. Great job boys!

Hello friends. I know it's been awhile. I was telling some of my baseball homies (aka my peeps, my crew, my girls...uh okay...my friends) about my blog and I began to feel guilty. Guilty for my blog neglect. Can I get an amen? I do have a somewhat valid excuse. Our internet was out for er, uh...4 days (I say sheepishly).

What have we been up to you ask?

Baseball of course...and then more baseball.

The biggie would have to be Jacob getting his driver's permit. Scary? Well, I've only peed myself once. Don't judge, we were approaching the car in front of us very quickly, he wasn't braking, and I have a three baby bladder. Need I say more?

Jared tried out and made the school basketball team. We now have 6am practices 3 days a week.

Scott is traveling on business in Canada. How convenient that his trip coincides with the 6am practice schedule. hmmmmm....

Jacob has been to the doctor with a potentially broken hand. I say potentially because we don't have the x-ray results yet. It's a long story, but in a nutshell, the radiology technician "couldn't legally" give us the results and had to send them to our doctor. By the time we were through with the x-ray, our doctors office was closed. Very frustrating! What did Jacob do to his hand? He was at bat and got hit by a pitch. I received a little bit of ridicule because I responded with, "Thata boy Jacob, maybe he hit you out of your slump." Okay, sometimes I'm not a tender, touchy feely mother. I did make a special trip to the concession stand for his favorite color of Gatorade and took it to him in the dugout. Does that count?