Alaska Fair

While we were in Alaska the state fair was going on, so we headed out to opening day. We had planned to get there during the first two hours of the fair for $2 tickets, but getting 4 adults and 3 children under the age of 3 out the door can take some time. Especially when one (Hannah) has multiple melt-downs over little things calling for a nap before we left. We are getting into an interesting phase with Hannah were she will stomp her feet, fall on the floor and worm herself around the room on her back. It really is lovely, but this is about out vacation, so back on track. In some ways it was the same as any fair with lots of fried foods, displays of peoples crafts (sewing, drawing, photography, etc) and a barn of show animals as well as produce. While these can be found at most fairs the Alaska Fair was also unique. We watched a Lumberjack show which you won't find here at the Texas State Fair. The fair food included a lot of fish in tacos and quesadillas, again probably not something you will find here in Texas. I'm not a huge fan of fish so I stuck with more familiar food, but Megan said that the fish quesadilla was really good. One other thing unique to the Alaska Fair is record size cabbage and zucchini. Hannah got to go into her first petting zoo, which I think she enjoyed or at least it seems that way as she chased the piglets. The pictures from the day are below, hope you enjoy them, we did.

Alaska Railroad and Glacier Cruise

On Wednesday Michael and Megan were so gracious to keep Hannah for the day while Chris and I took the Alaska Railroad down to Whittier for an afternoon cruise around Blackstone Bay. On the cruise we were able to see 7 glacier and stop at two of them and watch for calving which is were pieces of the glacier fall into the water.

We were in car A which was a double-decker with food below and tables up top. We shared a table with a nice couple from Nashville, Liz and Homer, I didn't get a picture of them because I thought it might be weird. Looking around the train we were by far the youngest passengers which was kind of funny, yet not atypical for me.

The rest of the cars of the Chugach Explorer.

On the way to Whittier they slowed down the train so everyone could see these Dall sheep up on the cliff. If you look closely at the middle of the picture you will see a couple of white specks, the sheep. I tried zooming in but I just got a fuzzy picture.

We passed many rivers and streams and happened upon a fisherman proudly showing off his catch to the passengers on our train.

A glacier we passed on the train. The day was a rainy one so it is a little hazy, but I liked the evergreens in the foreground and the mountains and glacier in the background.

Here is the ship we cruised on. No, not the Carnival ship, but the small ship in front of it, the Emerald Sea. It was funny I took a picture of our ship, but then when I looked at the picture all I could see was the Carnival ship.

So, I used the zoom and got this picture. Isn't she a beauty?! Really it was a nice ship for a day cruise. We had a table to sit at in a heated cabin and they had an all-you-can eat buffet of salmon and prime rib. The ship had a deck on top that you could stand on and take pictures from. It was nice.

As we sailed along we passed this sea otter floating on its back eating something.

There were many waterfalls, I thought this one in particular was very pretty.

At this point it had started raining again, but here is a picture of a glacier.

Here we are at the Blackstone Glacier that was named after a mail carrier from way back when that died in this bay when he was caught up in a blizzard.

Watching for ice to fall into the bay. Occasionally you would hear some cracking but nothing falling and then a little bit later you would see a bit fall of, pretty neat.

Piece of glacier floating. The Forest Ranger on board told us what size was an iceberg and what other size pieces were called, but I can't remember. I do remember that he said that you see only 10-15% of the ice above the water and the rest is below, so this was probably actually a really really big piece.

They pulled up a piece out of the water for us to look at. Here is Chris standing next to it. He took a picture of me with it, but I made a silly face about it being cold and therefore no one else will see that picture. My blog, my rules! :)

A whole bunch of floating ice chunks!

We passed what they called a bird rookery of Kittiwakes (small sea gull like birds). They had their nest built to the side of the mountain and there were thousands of them.

More waterfalls! Did I mention that the Ranger said that Chugach National Forest is actually a rain forest.

A bald eagle had a nest not to far from the Kittiwakes. It was really awesome to see one out in the wild!

A sea lion that we saw as we came back into Whittier.


On the ride back to Anchorage. We had a great day with just the two of us. Thanks Michael and Megan!!!

Portage Glacier Valley

On Tuesday of our vacation we drove out to the Portage Valley to see Portage glacier and then we decided to take a little 3/4 mile trail up to the Byron glacier. On the drive there we could see this range of snow covered mountains that were just beautiful. Michael and Megan said that you couldn't always see them, so it was exciting to be able to get such great pictures. The second one is my favorite picture from our whole vacation.

I am not sure if this is the Portage glacier or not. It seems to me that glaciers come in groups. Whenever there was one there was at least 2 or 3 more. If you look at the glacier it looks blue and that is because the glacier really is blue. We learned from a Forrest Ranger that glaciers look blue because the ice crystals are so small that they absorb all colors of light except the blue rays which they reflect so that the ice appears blue. Also we learned that for a glacier to be in fact a glacier it must cover 25 acres.

Here we are in front of Portage lake and the glacier is back behind us. This lake was carved out by the Portage glacier and the glacier in the 1800s was actually were we were standing.

Here is a zoomed in shot of the Portage glacier across the lake.

A stream ran along side the trail up to the Byron glacier. I assume that the water is from the glacier. It was very cold. Here Chris is letting Hannah feel the icy water.

When we got up to the glacier we were surprised to find that we could actually walk right up and touch it which was so exciting. Or so we thought. Later when talking to the Forrest Ranger we found out that this is actually a snow field from an avalanche off of the glacier. Since it came off of the glacier I will continue to say that I walked up to a glacier and was able to touch it. He didn't say how long ago the avalanche occurred, but it has been many many years. There was a cave carved out of the ice by the stream that was tall enough to walk back into, if you are the adventurous type. It was really awesome to be able to see it so up-close.

Here is picture of Michael and Amelia standing next to the "glacier".

Hannah reaching out to touch the ice.

And then to taste it!!!! When do children out grow the need to explore and experience everything by taste?

Family picture! If you look at this picture the ice has a blue hue confirming to me that it is okay to say that it is still glacier :)

Here you can see the blue of the ice a little closer and Hannah's cute little finger. Who knew that a finger could look so cute pressed up against ice! (Sorry my Mommy-ness is coming out)

Looking up the side of the glacier it was really beautiful!

Hannah had the most fun just playing with rocks along the stream. And yes there was even tasting of the rocks.

The Alaska Zoo!

Here are our pictures of our visit to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage. We had a great time seeing animals that we would not usually see here at our zoos. This was Hannahs first trip to the zoo. I think she had a great time; she started pointing out the animals before we could point them out to her. Chris did a great job of showing her everything while I took pictures which would explain that there are not many pictures of me.

Meet the Halbrooks!

As I said in the previous post we went to Alaska to visit my brother, Michael, sis-in-law Megan, and their two kids Amelia and Ben. They live in Anchorage at the Elmendorf Air Force Base were Michael is stationed. This was the first time for us to meet Ben who turned 6mo. while we were there. So without further ado in no particular order. . . .

Sis-in-law Megan and nephew Ben. Isn't that just the sweetest smile! Pretty much all you needed to do was look at Ben and he would break-out into a big smile; it was great. Sorry Megan I didn't get any forward facing pics of you.


Our niece, Amelia. She was lots of fun. How many of you know a 2yr old who can sing you the whole national anthem? She can!

Here is my brother, Michael. This is a picture from one of our site seeing adventures. Thanks Michael for driving us around.

Here are a couple of pictures of Hannah playing with her cousins. Whenever Ben was in his exersaucer Hannah couldn't resist going over and giving him hugs and of course showing him how to play with the toys on the exersaucer.

Cousin Amelia showing Hannah how to push the baby doll stroller which was Hannah's favorite of all of Amelia's toys.

Alaskan Vacation

Well I managed to go a whole month again without blogging. But I did warn that it was a busy month. We went on our first family vacation since before Hannah was born. And I have to say it is much different going on a vacation with a child than when it was just the two of us. We went to Anchorage, Alaska to visit my brother Michael and his family; I will have pics of them in a later post. Here are some pictures that I took while we were on our way there. We had to get up at 4am to get to the airport for our early morning flight. By the time we got on the plane Hannah was really tired so unfortunately all the pictures I took of her on the plane she looked dazed and out of it.

Here we are waiting at the terminal to be one of the last ones on the plane. We figured that the least amount of time on the plane would be best for Hannah and I believe it was. She was a great flier, there was the occasional fussy moment but on 3hr+ flights even I feel like being fussy.


"Hannah smile at the camera! No, you're too tired?"

Waiting to take off. We had planned to take one of Hannah's car seats on the plane, because we were blessed with mileage points and a companion ticket, so the 3 of us were able to fly for pretty much the price of one person. But back to the car seat . . . . it got left in the car in remote parking and was not remembered until we were on the bus almost to the airport. I actually think that it worked out better without it because it gave her more room to play and she was able to stretch out to sleep.

Eating lunch in the Seattle Airport at Chili's Too! Hannah is a people watcher so she had a great time in the airport.


Catching a little sleep on the plane. Hannah was able to sleep for an hour each flight, which worked pretty well by breaking up the time on the plane.