I've done it again

I am starting a Google+ account so that I can get on here more often to read the blogs I 'follow', but that should also remind me to post on here on occasion.  And I should post, because, strange though it may be, people are still actually checking it on occasion.

So, I will attempt to post more on recipes I am trying, my TV obsessions (Doctor Who and Sherlock), the games I play, and any other interesting projects I come across.

Lately that has included a lot of little things, first of which is a baby afghan for a shower I went to earlier this month, although I don't think I took any pictures of it.  It was really cool, three strands of yarn, white, green, and yellow, all crocheted together using rows of double crochets.  It turned out to be a chunky, variegated, soft blanket, which I am pretty proud of.  Also, it probably only took 5 or 6 hours altogether to do it.

My TV watching has been mostly a waiting game, since Sherlock just started filming their 3rd series and Doctor Who doesn't start airing for another week.  I am a big fan of those shows, although that apparently makes me a bit of a sadist, since Steven Moffat is evil and I still watch his shows.

As for games, my new hobby is LARP and table-top role playing games.  LARP's are Live-Action Role Playing, which means a group of us act out our characters' roles.  I am really enjoying the role playing games and have managed to get involved in 3 of them now, two World of Darkness and one Dungeons & Dragons game.

I still go geocaching on occasion, and hope to get out more now that the weather has started to warm up.  I am also learning to shoot, thanks to a nice guy at work.  I promise, once again (I hope I don't disappoint again), to keep more up on this blog, since writing it is fun and a good way to record some of my projects.

Busy doing I don't know what

I have been racing around doing something for the last while, even though I am not sure what that something was. I am positive that I was busy though.

Life has just been going along, full of work and housekeeping and visiting with friends and family. I try to make it out geocaching as much as possible, although other plans and the weather have kept me in for the last couple of weekends. There are a couple of caches close to work that I may try to get this week and a couple near home that have been calling to me. :) A friend and I have decided to try to do the SE Washington oldies challenge, which requires you to find the 25 oldest caches in our area and then log the title cache. There have only been about 5 people to finish it in the 3 years that it has been going, since apparently they made caches harder in the olden days (early 2000's) of caching.

Other than that, I finally set a date for my next murder mystery party and I am so so excited. Everyone I wanted has agreed to come and we all agreed on a date. An old friend from college will come for the weekend and we are looking forward to the visit very much! Did I mention I am very excited. I have a little over a month to get all the planning and set up done, as well as make a costume and figure out the menu. The mystery is set in Chicago 1928 and is full of gangsters, flappers, and the most horrible punny names, including Molly M. Awbsterr. Yes, that's what I said. I always shake my head at these things, since puns are very low on the list of my favorite kind of jokes. Oh well.

There is not really anything else going, other than my ongoing quest to eat better, exercise more, and keep my house cleaner, all while getting out and having fun. I feel like a super-hero for doing all of that...on the days when I actually accomplish it. I feel a bit lazy on the other days. Eh, that's life, I suppose. I am glad that spring is here, the weather is trying to get warmer and the flowers and trees are all beginning to blossom. It is one of my favorite times. Tonight I am going to try to go for a walk after work and take advantage of all of it.

Post Christmas Wrap-Up

Christmas is over now and I am back to work and life is back to normal. Not that I wouldn't mind another week of vacation, but since I spent most of it lazing around or geocaching and almost none of it accomplishing things, it is probably for the best that my break is over.

I vaguely recall that I may have promised to post pictures about the things I was making for Christmas. I am not sure what prompts these strange actions, but I suppose that I might as well show you the pictures that Chantel was nice enough to take. :)

Project 1 was the clay ornaments. I wanted to make some salt dough clay and cut out ornaments to decorate. Steps one and two were easy enough.

Step three caused us some pain. By us I mean Chantel, Autumn and myself. We are all fairly creative and at least somewhat crafty, but our ornament decorating skills were very, very entertaining. We each ended up with one that we are embarrassed to admit to making. Chantel gets off easy on this though, since she says that anyone who asks about it will be told that her two year old made it. :) We learned one valuable lesson, though. Glitter not only makes things better, but it does a great job of distracting you from a really crappy coloring job.

Project 2 was the lotion bars. I found the recipe for these a while back and though they would be super-neat to make for Christmas. I enlisted some help (thanks girls) and we got cooking. Literally. The process for the bars is super easy. Heat stuff until melted, pour in molds and wait until it is hard again. Ta-da!!!

Melt one part shortening, one part beeswax, and one part vegetable oil in a double boiler.

Stir in a small amount of your choice of essential oils for a nice scent.

Pour the melted mixture into molds. (I have an insane amount of cupcake tins, and they are a really nice size.)

Let set until cool and solid. Also, remember to label them, or you might mix up the different scents. I actually thought of this while doing the second batch, yay me!

These turned out really great. They are slightly greasy when you rub them on, but it feels nice once it has soaked in. They smell really great, too. We made a violet batch, a vanilla batch, a violet jasmine batch, and and orange batch. We ended up with a total of 36 bars, or 12 each, out of a pound of wax and the equivalent weights of shortening and oil. I gave away a bunch of mine to people for Christmas, but I still have several. :)

Project 3 was a spur of the moment idea to make little tulle tutus for my 3 year old niece. I did not have a pattern, but I dove in anyway. It's not as bad as it sounds, they didn't come out quite like I had envisioned, but they still looked nice. I made each one with 2 different colored layers of tulle and a wide purple ribbon (blanket binding is so great for hiding edges you don't really want to try to hem). I made all three of them for about 7 dollars and 2 hours of work. And she loved them. She loved them even more when she found out what they were.

Project 4 (the final project) was an earring holder for my mother-in-law. She mentioned it in her Christmas list and I liked the idea. Years ago, my grandmother made earring holders for each of my aunts and I remembered her idea and thought that my mother-in-law would really like it. The ones my grandma made were a bit frillier, but I didn't think that would be quite right, so I went really simple with this. The basic idea is you take an embroidery hoop and stretch a piece of lace over it and then embellish. I hot-glued a cord and some beading along the edge, which also helps to keep the lace in place. I then glued some little enamel roses I had in my craft crap along the top, just to dress it up a bit. All done. The way it works is to slip the hook or post of the earring through the holes in the lace and then put the backs on on the back side. She really liked it. She liked it even more when I told her what it was. :)

That is all for my Christmas projects. For once I actually finished everything I wanted to get done. And on time, too. Go me!

p.s. I forgot, there was a project 5, but I never got any pictures taken. I bought some glass beer mugs and etched them for my husband and his father with their last initial. I made the stencils in a different font for each of their sets and made 4 mugs each. The etching was pretty easy, but cutting the stencils was a giant pain. It is a good thing they really liked them.

It's not quite letterboxing...

but geocaching is pretty fun and, in some ways, easier.

I love letterboxing, and often describe it as treasure hunting with no treasure. Well, geocaching has the treasure. Well, at least it does if you consider small toys and trinkets treasure. Whatever. It is just as good.

Geocaching uses GPS coordinates instead of written clues, and is much more widespread. For example, there are 10-20 letterboxes in my metro area. There are more than 200 geocaches. I will never find them all. Which is a good thing.

The only real requirement is a GPS unit you can plug coordinates into and a computer with which to obtain those ingredients. The best site is the official geocaching site, www.geocaching.com. It is a free membership and there are thousands and thousands of caches everywhere.

I have added my GPS to my letterboxing kit and plan to look for them wherever I go. I recommend you do the same. :)

The first snow of the year

It started snowing last night. And continued all day. And is supposed to continue all night again. So far we have 6 inches. :)

I know, I know, I shouldn't be happy, since I have already seen one accident and 2 people going all squirrelly on the city streets, but I can't help but think of how pretty it is. I plan to spend the evening curled up on my couch in front of the lovely fire (pellet stove) and drink something warm and read my book.

I hope you enjoy the snow!

Christmas Projects

Yet again I have high hopes for craft projects for this Christmas. There are several things I want to make for gifts, for friends, and for snacking.

I am going to make a set of salt-dough ornaments, for myself, and probably for a lot of other people. I am not sure I even did this when I was little, but I have an urge to use my cookie cutters, even if I don't make cookies with them. The pack of cutters came with a clay recipe on the bottom. I hope they turn out well, then I can give them out to my family and they will have something made by me on their trees.

Another gift to make for my friends is a set of lotion bars. I found this idea on the linked blog and love it. The are a solid bar and rubbing it with your hand melts is enough to spread on your skin. They can, of course be customized. I have a couple of friends coming over to help and we will make a bunch of them for gifts (and for ourselves). I will post pictures of the process.

Cookies. I don't know what types yet, but I love baking cookies and I want to come up with a few that people aren't used to. I think I have talked the girls at work into doing a cookie exchange for Christmas, so I will hopefully have several really great kinds without have to bake such a huge variety myself. If anyone has a great recipe or just a favorite, please share it. :)

Finally I have a couple of crochet projects that I need to finish up. These aren't really for Christmas, but I need to get them done. A few months ago (read: lots of months ago) I promised some friends a "craft it forward" gift. I have finished one and have two more almost done (including yours, Laura) but there is one that I have not even started and I am not sure what it is going to be.

That is a lot to accomplish in the next month, but I think it will be fun. I will try to be good and post lots of pictures of all of these things as they happen.

Fall is here...with a vengeance.

Fall showed up a couple of weeks ago. It sort of crept on, sneaking in cooler weather and tinted leaves. Fall is always beautiful. Golden leaves on my sycamores, falling to create a pretty carpet on the lawn. Red trees, yellow trees, and green trees, all blended in a fall painting.

I would love to show you pictures of even more gold. However, yesterday, fall invited it's dear friend the wind to visit us. With a high wind warning and gusts of 50 miles per hour knocking out power around the state (although thankfully not mine) I have no leaves left. There are a fair number of them piled in my yard, but almost none left in the trees.

Bare trees leave me ready for winter. The cold wind continues tonight and makes it feel as though it could snow at any time. I know many across the northern parts of the country have snow already, but I will be happy to wait until after all of our travelling next week.

Just a side note, I somehow got my camera to take this picture right after the other. I don't know what I did, but it is sort of neat. Enjoy your fall.

The weekend is here

The weekend is here and it looks like it will be crazy! We are hosting a wine tasting party for a few friends and we have some more canning to do, as well as baking and laundry and general cleaning and yard chores.

I have let all the chores get ahead of me yet again. Sigh. I know I am not the only one who doesn't have the time and energy to clean, but even though I mean well, I still have trouble getting to it. So, tonight and tomorrow I will clean the rest of the house, do a couple loads of laundry, grocery shop, and bake bread for the party and for next week (unless we eat it all, and then I will have to bake more on Sunday).

The wine tasting tomorrow night should be a lot of fun after all that work. We have about 8 people, 6 bottles of wine, and a really nice pasta dinner. Sounds like a good time, right? :)

On Sunday we have to get some work done outside (if it doesn't rain too much). A friend's neighbor sent me a whole mess of plants and bulbs and tubers that she divided this fall and we need to sort through them, figure out what they all are (hopefully) and get them in the ground. We also need to get a space cleared to store the dahlias, since they will be ready to dig up within a couple of weeks. A good chunk of the garden beds will also be ready to clean out soon, since they are about done producing, now that the weather is cooling off.

On a side not, I have to find something to do with 4 cabbages. They haven't been picked yet, since I am not sure what to do with them, but they will split before too long and I am worried. I can make a couple of dinners with one or two, but there are still two more to use up. I am thinking sauerkraut, but I have never made it before and need advice. If anyone knows a good method, it would be super if you could share.

The last chore I can think of is to put my herb garden to bed. We laid out a pretty design this summer, but it was getting late in the season, so the herbs I planted never really took off until a couple of weeks ago. Some are doing really well and I was thinking to move them into a large planter I have and over-winter them in my dining room. Then I could have fresh herbs for as long as they last. Next year, hopefully I can get it planted earlier and hopefully the neighbors cats won't find it so appealing and I will have a good enough crop to be able to freeze or dry a bunch to use the rest of the year.

Canning Tally

I start every post with an apology for not posting in so long...but I can't help it. I had a busy summer with work and running around and I don't know what all.

Today I just wanted to show you what I was up to this weekend.

The total was:

60 pints of salsa

24 quarts or spaghetti sauce

14 quarts of tomato soup

29 quarts of canned tomatoes

8 dozen no-bake cookies

10 dozen peanut butter cookies

4 dozen butter cookies.

We bought 10 boxes of tomatoes at the Farmer's Market and spend two long days processing and canning all the things we love to eat all year long. The soup is a new recipe from a friend of Shane's at work, so I haven't tried it yet, other than a spoonful to check the spices while it was still really hot. I think I will heat up so and make grilled cheese for dinner in a couple of days. We still have two boxes of tomatoes to do something with, so if the soup is really good, I might throw together another batch later this week. It was a huge pain and a very tiring weekend, but I am so glad that we will have all these yummy things to eat this year, it is just so much better than store-bought...and easier :)

Getting Going

It has been a little over a week since I decided to try out SparkPeople. (Yes I know, I ditched that blog once a day thing pretty early. I just don't have the time.) I think I am getting it figured out, but there is still a lot to explore and more decisions to make. I am still working on eating better and getting enough water. (I just love going to the bathroom so often, so much fun.) I am doing well at sticking to the exercise plan, since it is pretty basin and doesn't take too much time.

Overall, I guess I am getting going. Not too bad, but maybe not that great either. Sometimes I eat a lot and then wince when I put it is the counter. I figure, I could fib about it, who would know...other than me. That is the sticking point. I feel guilty for cheating, eve though this plan isn't about cheating or rules, just about eating better and hopefully less of the things that keep me chubby.

I need to practice not feeling guilty. Is there an easy way to do that? Is there an easy way to say "It's ok to eat that much garlic bread, but don't do it too often"? I will work on it and let you know. :)

Other than that, I think I am going to be able to do this. The articles and posts and messages are very positive and that is a big boost. Here is to trying my best and success.

Day Two

I made it one of my goals on Spark People to write in a journal once a day. This may prove difficult to keep up, but I thought it might be helpful. Accountability is a good thing.

Today was pretty good, I made most of the goals set for eating and I did all the exercises I was assigned. The program set me up to do 30 minutes of cardio and a full body weight training routine three days a week. Hopefully I will be able to do it more often as I get going, at least the cardio. I am riding my stationary bike for now, but I will be able to do more outside things like yard work and walking as it warms up. I don't know if walking counts, but maybe I can even get in shape to go jogging. Cross your fingers.

I am ready for spring. It is sort of here, but the weather keeps going back and forth between grey and sunny. This weekend we are taking out the old cherry tree in the backyard and hopefully we can buy a new lawnmower. Ours in kinda toast, but since we got it for free two years ago, I think it's OK. I still feel a little bad about the cherry, since it is a great tree, but it doesn't fit where it is and it is splitting and if it loses a limb, that limb will fall into my bedroom. Not a pleasant thought.Once the tree is out we will have more space for the vegetable garden. I want to put in some vine crops this year and hopefully we can work them into that area.

For now I am going to go relax. I think I will be a bit stiff tomorrow. It has been a while since I have worked with weights. Night.

Spark People

I am now a Spark People...or is that Person? I don't know yet. :)

www.sparkpeople.com is a website that I heard of through my sister-in-law. She started it last summer, and really got going with it the first of this year. It is basically a healthy living site with diet plans and exercise plans and lots of groups for support. There are articles and a recipe database and chat groups on tons of subject.

I have not yet explored a tenth of the things available on the site, but I think that it has promise.
The site is really full of stuff, so navigating takes a bit of memorization, but the tabs and such are pretty self explanatory.

The plans encourage you to set goals and track them daily. Doing so earns you points, but I am not clear yet on what points get you, other than kudos from your friends. One of the goals I am working on for now is journaling every day, so most of the time I think that will take the form of blogging. I will try to keep them brief, since a daily ramble through my vocabulary would be boring for both of us. I will post recipes from the site and let you know how my goals are coming along.

The biggest reason I am doing this is to try to get active and lose weight. The site and I agree that I need to lose about 50 pounds and I am aiming to do that by my birthday in October. Wouldn't that be a nifty birthday present?

For now, I am off to get some work done. I will hopefully talk to you again tomorrow :)

Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

Mine is doing nicely, thank you. :)

My bulbs are coming in now and I think that some of them worked very hard at multiplying last summer.
We still have 15, count 'em, 15 bell peppers.
And 16, I know it's crazy, tomato plants. The are all doing very well, although the tomatoes are ready to be move up a pot size. They are getting rather tall and want to lay down.

I am super pleased though, since there is at least one plant alive in each peat pot. Which is much better than we did last year. I think we might be getting the hang of it. Soon it will be time to plant the rest of the early seeds. Hopefully this weekend we will have time and can get some yard cleanup done. The flowers need to be weeded and the lawn mowed, although I need a new mower for that, since ours gave up the ghost last year. The only problem with that plan is that it has been cool and windy and grey for the last few days and it is not nice to work outside when it is not nice. Oh well. Later!

All right already

So shut up already, Chantel :)

No really, I have been getting nagged by my office mate about how hard it is to stalk someone online when they never post new blogs. Silly child.

I haven't posted recently for 2 reasons. One is that I am not very exciting and the other is that I keep forgetting to get the pictures I want to post off of my camera.

So, for a brief, pictureless blog, I will give a summary of what is up.

This weekend is game night! Yay for many people and food and entertainment and such. So far we have a total of 9 people, which is great and hopefully there will be at least three more than that. Shane has always wanted to try having multiple tables playing different games during the evening, so people can try more of our giant selection of games. Including the 6 or so new ones in the last three months. It's not an addicti...wait, never mind.

Other than that, I went to the taste of home cooking school last night with Chantel and got many yummy recipes and snack ideas, at least two of which will be used for dinner tomorrow. I also went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry last week with a teacher friend of mine as a "chaperone", sort of anyway. It was nifty, with a big t-rex skeleton and a planetarium and lots of neat exhibits.

We also letterboxed for the first time this year and found all four of the boxes we went after. I think that might be a record for us. :) It was a gorgeous day and I will get some pics from Nikki for that.

Other than that I am obviously working hard and keeping busy with some new miniatures for a wargame that my husband enjoys. You buy tiny (2-4 inches) pewter miniatures, put them together, and paint them, and then fight long battles on the plains of some imaginary place. Sure nifty!

I will do my best to put up another post tomorrow or Sunday with pictures and info on my seedlings and flower garden (already tons of flowers!) and maybe even recipes of the tasty things I will make for dinner for my friends.

A picture post

These are the first of the seeds we planted for our garden this year. 16, count 'em, 16 tomato plants, in 7 different varieties (yes, we are nuts, no, I am not quite sure there will be enough tomatoes for canning). The round ones are green bell peppers. :)

This is my shamrock plant, which I am showing off because it is happy enough to bloom. Yay!

Tiny green points in my bulb garden. These are snow iris.

Flash on weighing day. He is 5 months old now and I think he is getting bigger, but I need to start measuring him more carefully to be sure :)

I baked an apple pie with some of the apples that I froze last fall. Shane thought it looked pretty and told me to take a picture of it. It tasted pretty good, too.

We visited my parents at Christmas and drove over to the coast one day. The waves were coming in and the sun was shining through the clouds. I loved this picture.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Well, it works for Star Wars anyway, for me...whatever.
Anywho, I have been gone for so long that I am not sure if any of you are still bothering to check on me...other that Chantel who is so good about reminding me of how lazy I am. I have been busy and lazy and all those other good things that come with life.
Shane and I are well, and Flash is doing great. He is growing and eating and loving his box. We have planted a lot more grass and lettuce and he just wanders around and munches away. We also have a new roommate, my friend Autumn, who will be staying with us for a few months. I am really enjoying having her around. We have been best friends since kindergarten and it is great to be able to spend more time together.
She also teaches a yoga class at a local dance studio that I have been attending for the last couple of weeks. It is great, but I am not in good shape and not very flexible, so it is quite a workout for me. So, HA to all those people who say that yoga is not exercise. HA, I say.
I have been spending my winter working on my crafts and relaxing. I am working on getting better at knitting and am still doing ATC's when I have to time and creative energy. I also like to kick back after work and just relax. Work is starting to get really busy right now, which is nicer than having nothing to do, but still tiring.
We are going to be starting our seeds for the vegetable garden soon. I bought a bunch of tomato seeds, as well as some beets and peppers, from this great website that sells heirloom seeds and it turned out that they were out of one of the varieties we wanted, so they sent us two substitutes, plus a whole mess of other samples, including lettuce, more beets, radishes, zucchini and another tomato. I think we are planting 7 or 8 types of tomatoes. Yes, we are crazy. No, they will definately not go to waste. We love to can, as you may have noticed, and it would be great not to have to buy tomatoes. In addition, I got a food dehydrator for Christmas, so there will be tons of drying experiments. Yay! (Bethany, I look to you for good ideas and advice)
Other than that, life is just normal. We are going to the (really late) holiday party for Shane's work this weekend, as well as a friend's baby's 1st birthday party. Another friend is having a Pink Papaya party next weekend and there are several of my friends going to that, so it should be entertaining. As the weather warms, we will be getting the garden and yard tidied and ready for the season.
Overall, life is normal and good. Yay!

Meet Flash!

I have a tortoise! I have been very neglectful in not letting you know about him sooner, but I have, as usual, been busy and tired and gone and working and all those other nagging little things I call a life.

At any rate, his name is Flash and he is a Leopard tortoise. They are the 4th largest tortoise in the world, so he will someday be a foot or so long and weigh around 60 or 80 pounds. :)

I know, I am crazy, but Shane and I loved the idea of having a tortoise as a pet and we thought about it for over a year before we actually made the decision. It is a big decision, because when I said someday, I meant in thirty or forty years. Flash will outlive us. Leopards can live a hundred years or more in captivity. Yes, I said a hundred. Wierd isn't it. Kinda like having a parrot, but way less noise and irritation.
We built him a little home, which you can see in the second picture, but it turned out that the guy at the store and even some of the online people who keep tortoises are wrong. They all say that a little area is good for the tiny babies. It makes them feel more secure. All it made Flash feel like was an escape artist. Within a couple of weeks, he was pacing the walls and seeing if he might be able to climb out. So, we built him a much larger box, about 3x4 feet, which he loves and roams about it all day long (you can see him over in the corner...tiny).

He is still sleeping in his little box, since the temperature in the other room gets too cool at night and we have a space heater in with the little box. Also, the little box with be his traveling home. When we go visiting for more than a day, like for Thanksgiving or something like that, we will take him with us. It is kind of like having a baby, since he has a certain amount of gear that we will have to bring along, like his light and his trays of grass to eat. I know, I am crazy. :)

Anyways, I just wanted to show him off to you and tell you how adorable he is. He is really young, so he behaves just like a baby, sleeping and laying under his light and eating and having a bath and sleeping some more. Hmmm...sounds sort of like me, too...anyways. Thats all I have for now.

A Murder Mystery Birthday

Now that I am finally finished writing about my cruise, I can tell you all about our Murder!

Our cast

My friend Nikki and I have birthdays that are only four days apart in mid-October. Last year we had a joint party and invited everyone to dress up and come and play board games. This year we got the idea to be a little more structured. We hosted a Murder Mystery. Neither of us had ever hosted or even been to a Murder Mystery, so it was a little challenging.

First of all we tried to pick an easy game. We went with a Wild West mystery, since the costumes really easy to put together, and the plot seemed fairly simple. We made up a list of our friends and got the invites sent. After a few casting problems, we had enough people and everyone had their character info.

dancer, bounty hunter, saloon owner

We had the party last Saturday and it was a bit crazy getting all the clues together, finishing the cleaning, and getting the house set up, but we ended up having awesome costumes, lots of yummy food, and a really great set up with a dining room/bar, casino, and lounge. We made chili and cornbread with lots of other snacks and deserts for the party and everyone showed up within a half hour of the start time (with some of my friends, this is a major accomplishment).

The party was really great. Everyone got into character and as the clues were revealed, everyone investigated for all they were worth. In the end, we found out that my husband was the murderer, but that he was not going to get in trouble for doing it, since the victim had secretly been a criminal. Shane even got to apply for the bounty! I call that pretty sweet. :)

the solution

Our Anniversary Cruise - Part 2

We visited 2 towns in Alaska and 1 in British Columbia on our cruise Itinerary and saw 2 glaciers.

The first place we stopped was in Juneau. As Alaska's state capital, it had some neat buildings and some cool history. The ship was docked about 20 minutes walk from downtown (yes, Juneau has a downtown, it's not that small.) so we decided to walk in rather than taking a shuttle or the bus. Partly this was to avoid the HUGE line of people waiting, partly for the exercise, and partly because we were attempting to not spend every penny we had ever made during the course of the vacation. Once we got into town, we wandered around and made our way past the Courthouse to the City/County museum. It was a really neat little museum, with info on the gold rush, traders, and political history. Also, they had a huge chunk of the little building devoted to the local basketball team. Apparently high school basketball for them is what football was where I grew up (stands to reason, since it is indoors). When we were leaving they gave us a certificate celebrating Alaska's fiftieth anniversary as a state, which was signed by the governor. Very nifty.

Alaska State Capital Building

After the museum we walked past the governor's mansion, which was really pretty with a very nice garden, and onto a little park at the edge of a residential area. Cope park is a nice little park that runs along Gold Creek, at whose headwaters gold was first discovered in that area. We went there to try to find a letterbox, which we were unable to find. It was still a great walk through town and a really nice park. After that we went back to the downtown area and wandered through the shops. Shane bought me a really pretty necklace made of white quartz with gold veins through it as an anniversary present and souvenir. Once we were done in town, we grabbed a shuttle up to the glacier. Mendenhall Glacier is about a half hour out of town and you can easily walk to the base of it. We did not hike around to the glacier, but we did take a bunch of pictures and hike some of the little nature trails near the visitor center. After that, we headed back to the ship and went to the buffet for a late lunch. We kept it light, since it was only a couple of hours until dinner time. It was really neat and really weird having a set time for dinner. Normally we just kinda eat when we are hungry, but it was not really that hard for me to adjust. I just made sure not to eat too much too late in the afternoon. Since dinner usually took between an hour and an hour and a half to finish, there was plenty of time to eat all the food I wanted. :)

Mendehall Glacier

We were in Juneau on Sunday and on Monday we went to Skagway. Skagway is really focused on the gold rush and the tourist trade. There were tons of tours available, so we chose one that would take us up the White Pass Highway, the main route for the gold rushers. We crossed over into Canada (my first time in Canada, ever) and stopped to see some great scenery and a really cool cable suspension bridge. The driver told us lots of stories about the rush and also lots of really bad (and funny) bear stories. He kept us entertained as he drove us back into Alaska and to the last part of the tour, where we got to try gold panning and see a gold dredge. It was really neat to see the inside of a dredge that had actually been used in the Yukon and we even found a little bit of gold in our pans that we got to bring home as a souvenir.

Gold Panning in Skagway

Once we got back to Skagway, we wandered through town and looked at the shops and a cool little museum devoted to the gold rush at the National Park Service office. When we were finished in town, we walked back to the ship and again had a little lunch before resting for the afternoon. Shane took so many naps on this vacation that I am surprised he needed to sleep at night. He basically dozed whenever we were in the room for more than a few minutes. The bed was super comfy, which was awesome, since I have gotten spoiled by my sleep-number. We saw the show after dinner and Shane hung out in the casino for awhile before bedtime. We had to get to sleep early on Monday, because Tuesday was the day we were going to sail to a glacier and we would be there by 8 in the morning.

Dawes Glacier

We were sailing up to the Dawes glacier in the Tracy Arm Fjords wilderness and I actually set the alarm so that we could be up in time to get some breakfast before we arrived at the glacier. We found a seat in the buffet that was right at the front of the ship so that we could watch the cliffs and waterfalls while we ate. We went outside when we were done and found a spot to sit and watch the scenery float by. There were tons of little waterfalls cascading down the sides of the mountains on either side of us and lots of little bitty icebergs floating past the ship. We were originally scheduled to go the the Sawyer glaciers, but the channel there was too full of ice for a safe passage, so the captain got permission to reroute us. This was way better than just sailing around doing nothing, but now we have to make it back sometime to see the twin Sawyer glaciers. When we had sailed as far as it was safe to go, we got a great look at the Dawes glacier. It looked like a river of ice, with it's ripples just flowing down into the sea. We did not get to see it calve while we were there, but all the icebergs in the water were really great.

The rest of the day was spent sailing out to sea on our way down to British Columbia. Of course, the weather turned again and the seas got pretty rough, but I managed to keep control of myself and took plenty of Dramamine. That night after dinner the featured show was a couple of comedians/jugglers. They were really great, but had to work really hard with the ship pitching so much in the rough water. I got quite a scare when they pulled Shane up on stage. They were juggling machetes back and forth around my husband while the ship rocked and rolled! Let me tell you, my heart was in my throat. Shane was, of course, just fine, although he was terribly embarrassed about being pulled up on stage. It was a bit of a thrill, but I would be happy never having that happen again.

We spent a whole day at sea on our way to Victoria, which was spent relaxing on the deck, playing a game of shufflegolf (I took third place and got a medal!) and just generally wandering around the ship and goofing off. We had another formal night and I even talked Shane into getting a formal portrait done while we were all dressed up. Dinner was really yummy and, of course, we had a great time with our table mates. After dinner was a production show featuring the ballroom dancers employed by the cruise line. Shane was very NOT interested, so I went by myself. I said hi to one of the cruise directors staff and visited with her for a while. The show was super and afterwards I went and found Shane and we hung out for a while and then went to bed.

The next morning we made port in Victoria, BC, which is a gorgeous city. Again we walked into town and wandered around a bit while we tried to decide what we wanted to see. We ended up starting at the Royal BC Museum, which was hosting an exhibit from the British Museum featuring artifacts from about every culture throughout history that you can think of. It was a bit crowded, since there were school groups going through, but we really enjoyed it. They even had a couple of artifacts that you could handle! I found it thrilling to be able to hold a bronze figurine from India that was many hundreds of years old. I have always been fascinated by history and archaeology, so I think we really lucked out in going to the museum that day. This was the only stop in North America that the exhibit was making.

After the Royal BC museum, we went to the Victoria Art Gallery. It was really nice, although they had several sections closed while they changed exhibits. After the gallery, we walked up to Government House, which is where the Lieutenant Governor lives and where visiting dignitaries stay. We were told by someone from the information center that over the summer a member of the Japanese royal family had visited and the Price Harry of England had been to stay for a short while. Kinda cool! The house itself is not open to visitors, but the gardens are so we spent a great hour wandering around. The property is huge and there are all kinds of landscapes in it: a rose garden, a pretty duckpond, tons of lawns, a rock garden, and even a 70 hectare scrub oak forest. Following our usual pattern we walked all the way back to the boat for a late lunch. I don't know how much I walked on this cruise, but I do know that I pretty much ate whatever I wanted and I weighed the same when we got home as when we left. That is something!

This was the last night of the cruise and we saw the farewell show and went to the little scavenger hunt/game show that they host each cruise called The Quest. I am not allowed say much about it other than it should not be attended by children, that those were some of the prettiest men I have ever seen, and that if you ever go on a Royal Caribbean cruise, you absolutely cannot miss it. It was the funniest thing ever!!

On the last day of our cruise we sailed into Vancouver, BC to disembark. It was really quick and easy for us to go through customs, since we hadn't bought anything in Canada. We grabbed a cab to the bus station and took our Greyhound across the border to Washington State. We live in Washington, so a friend picked us up in Bellingham and drove us home. It was a long drive, since we took the scenic route, but it was great to be able to visit and have dinner with him. We arrived home late that night and were very glad to be able to flop down and not have anything else left to do.

The end :)

Our Anniversary Cruise - Part 1

Shane and I decided to do something special this year for our anniversary, since this is number 5. We finally decided to take a cruise and agreed upon Alaska as the destination. After months of planning and excitement (on my part, Shane pretty much ignored it and me) it was time to go.

The cruise lasted 7 nights and was really great. On the first day we drove to Seattle and, after going through security and check-in, boarded the ship. It was huge. the ship has 10 passenger decks and holds over 2000 passengers and 800 crew. So, as you can imagine, there was a lot to explore. We found the buffet restaurant, which was open for lunch, and got something to eat. Then we wandered around. We checked out the pool deck, which was right outside the buffet and the next deck up, which was open. Then we located the main dining room, wandered past the shops, and checked out a couple of the lounge areas. By then it was 2:00 and we were allowed in our rooms. Our baggage was already waiting for us, so I unpacked and Shane took a catnap. There was plenty of storage, even though the room reminded me a lot of my dorm in college. The bathroom was tiny, but sufficient for the week.

Centrum Sculpture

After Shane's nap we went up and wandered around on deck 10 (the open one) and found a good spot to watch sail away. Actually two spots. We watched them cast off the mooring lines from the front and then went to the stern to watch the engines stirring up the water behind us. There was another ship leaving at the same time and several smaller craft zipping around, but we had no problems getting out into Puget Sound.

We spent some more time on deck, but soon it was time to get ready for dinner. On our way down, we checked out the casino and the spa, even though I had no plans to use either. We tidied up and I put on a clean shirt and went to the dining room. The first night was casual, so my jeans were ok. We were sitting at a table for four, which was nice and cozy and met our tablemates for the cruise. There names were Patty and Blake and they were from Huntington Beach, CA. They are only a few years older than us, so it was great to be able to chat and had a lot of fun with them the whole week. Our waiters were Uzari, who asked us to call him Uzi and said 'fabulous' to every choice we made, and Jessie, who seemed to be there whenever we turned around offering bread and filling the water. They were both super.

There were shows each night in the theatre and the first night was a comedian who was super funny. Also they introduced the singers and dancers employed by the cruise line, who were really great. After the show they put on the movie "Watchmen", which Shane and I had been wanting to see, so we hung around for that. About 2/3 of the way through the movie, I started getting queasy since we were almost to the open sea by that time. The ship was pitching pretty badly and I decided to skip the rest of the movie and go to bed.

towel animals!

The next day was spent at sea and I spent half of it in my room being uncomfortable. I finally managed to down some Dramamine and make it out for lunch. After lunch we had a meet and mingle with some people we had been chatting with online and also got to meet the cruise director, Carlie B. Everyone was great and offered tons of suggestions for beating sea-sickness.

Shane and I did some more wondering and he showed me some of the places he had found that morning while I had been battling with my stomach. This was the first formal night so I got all dressed up in my pretty blue dress (saved from HS prom) and we went down to the dining room. Again (as with every night) dinner was great and then the show was super.

I can't even remember everything I ate, but each night we could have soups, salads, appetizers, entrees, and desserts...as many as we wanted. Most of the time we each did a soup, a salad, and entree, and a dessert. Sometimes we were a bit greedy and went with 2 desserts, but that was usually the extent of the gorging. :) There was any kind of food you were in the mood for: fish, steak, pasta, Italian, Asian, Mexican. It was all very, very good. I could go on for days about the food, but I should stop now and post this.

Later I will come back and write about the next few days. Preview: Juneau, Skagway, and glaciers!