Our Tiger Scout

With an Eagle scout for an uncle, grandpa, and lots of great uncles and cousins, we were excited for Collin to start Cub Scouts in first grade.  The night of his first meeting, we were hosting a church group at our home, so my sweet Uncle Bobby took Collin to the den meeting -

And this last weekend, we went on our first camp out and first family camping experience.  Collin, Cas and another dad and his son went up on Friday night, and then Maya, the mom, the sister Cate and I joined on Saturday morning.  Maya was equally excited about watching a movie in the car on the ride to the state park as she was about the actual camping experience.  

You never know what you're going to get in Texas in October - the previous weekend had temperatures in the 90's - but we ended up with a gorgeous fall weekend.  When we arrived, I learned that the boys had been running around through the woods until 9pm Friday night like maniacs, and that Cas had slept so late on Saturday that he almost missed breakfast.  Who sleeps well in a tent and sleeps late camping?  The gifted sleeper, Cas!

Saturday morning the boys went on a 2-mile hike, and we arrived in time for lunch and group activities like tug of war - 

Walking on a slack line and racing through an obstacle course -

Maya and Kate - just two months apart and friends from their brothers' baseball and now soccer - played together all weekend.

Saturday afternoon we carved pumpkins for a contest.  Then we tried to get the exhausted and melting down Collin to nap - unsuccessfully - but got Maya to crash for a nap in the tent.  Soon it was time to get dressed in his cub scout uniform for the dinner and pack meeting.  I had heard dinner Saturday night was catered, but then I heard it was hot dogs.  Fortunately, it was hot dogs and fruit for the kids, but catered BBQ for the adults.

I had laid out cute Aggie clothes for Maya and had fixed her hair in the morning.  We forgot her jacket at the house and her hair got a little wild in the woods.  Our little nut and our happy boy -

The little sisters -

In earning his bobcat badge, part of the pack meeting ceremony included painting the boys' faces to represent different qualities (ie blue, look to the sky, enjoy and take care of nature sort of thing)

Then the boys were able to paint the parents' faces - Cas took one for the team here -

First badge ceremony.  Our troop took over a huge loop in the state park campsite with 250 campers!

We're excited that Collin is entering the world of boy scouts and we hope he (and we) build great friendships and learns lifelong skills.  After we put the kids down on Saturday  night, I enjoyed sitting around the camp fire and getting to know the parents of first grade cub scouts a bit better.  It was a pretty successful first family camping trip!

Fall 2016 iphone dump

On the last week before school started, I took both kids to this great, free indoor church playground near our home.  Maya loved having Collin join her, and at 8am, we had the place to ourselves!

Collin's cousins - and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law - invited Collin for his first sleepover.  He had a great time, and we met at the Children's Museum to pick him up and share more fun with family.  The strong boys showing off their muscles - 

Maya had her fair share of play dates and activities on our Mondays and Fridays together.  Two Mondays this year, we've been able to meet one of my best friends for Maya to play with her daughter -  

 Some days we hang around the house (in our pajamas) and use up bottles of Spin Art paint -

I picked Maya up from school one day to see her "reading" to her classmates.  Her teachers had read the book earlier in the day, and she remembered quite a bit, retelling the story in dramatic fashion!

One Friday we watched Collin's school performance, the annual Friday morning patriotic sing-a-long

And then hit up a neighborhood park -

On a Saturday afternoon in September, we were supposed to meet up with our 3rd grade mentee  at the Children's Museum.  With plans up in the air, communications broke down, and it ended up just being the kids and me at the museum over Maya's nap time.  They had a great time!

We spent forever in the restaurant, writing down the orders with great concentration - 

Collin's writing has improved so much, seen by the fact that he voluntarily tried to write out my order

Maya was a serious waitress with a lot on her tray -

We were able to spend a Sunday afternoon with cousins involving countless rounds of hide & seek  -

On a Saturday morning at 7:15am, we were at our neighborhood park for a race to support an organization sharing the gospel through radios in Sudan.  Collin ran his first race - a 1k - and then told everyone he was a marathon runner.

Collin had a virus and was home Thursday and Friday.  Thursday he vegged out with hours of tv time, but Friday he started feeling better so we did a lot more activities.  We built train sets -

We did science experiments, played games, read a chapter book, did some math activities - as Collin called it, we "played school."  He had a great time and wrote his teacher a note about his time off.

The following Monday was a school holiday, and Collin was disappointed to have another day off school after being absent the previous two school days.  We love that he enjoys school, but I'm also thankful we had a fun day meeting my mom at the zoo -

Crawling through the tunnel that is within an aquarium -

Success on the carousel - Maya requested to sit on a bench, and though it felt like a waste of a ticket, she was happy as could be -

Who knew a bench could be this exciting?

Last stop - reptile house (this is usually when I'm melting down with hunger and ready to wrap up the zoo visit) -

Sometimes it takes some bribery to get through the grocery store.  The mess with this popsicle didn't occur until we got to the car.  Parenting fail!

In October, we were able to connect with our 3rd grade mentee, with Cas picking him up and meeting the kids and me from a soccer game at the Children's Museum for take two of our Saturday afternoon/early evening plans.  Posing before Tallandis arrived by the Halloween scenery -

I had seen a cute mother-daughter pose on Pinterest that I wanted to try in our upcoming annual family photo session.  Collin snapped one of Maya kissing me in one take - 

When Maya took on the photographer role for the same picture, these were the results - 

Collin is on a more intense soccer league this year.  It's not ideal, mostly because he doesn't love soccer and doesn't have that aggressive, competitive drive in this sport yet.  I wish some other friends had stayed in the low-key church league, but every single 1st grade boy from his school who played soccer seemed to play in the league where they needed a copy of his birth certificate to confirm I wasn't lying about his age!  Anyway, his blue team played another team made up of his classmates and we took a group photo -

In mid-October, my wonderful mom spent the night to watch the kids while Cas and I attended the elementary school charity auction, and then stayed the night at the hotel followed by a late brunch on Saturday.  She on the other hand, had Maya wake up at 5:15am and had to get both kids to the soccer game at 7:45 in the morning.  We love her so and had a great early-anniversary mini-vacation!

Character dress up day - Charlie Bucket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - a book we had read earlier in the fall - 

Picking out pumpkins by the store -

Celebrating our last day of Monday music class for the season, a great hour I was able to spend with Maya at a local church for about 9 weeks this fall -

We've had a fun fall so far!

Whales, Glaciers and Rainforest Trails - Adventures in Alaska

Cas earned - by being in the top 8% of his sales force - an Alaskan cruise with colleagues from all over the world this summer.  His trip included a plus one, and fortunately I beat out the contenders (my dad being the most vocal) for a spot on the Regency ship leaving Vancouver and ending up in Anchorage.

The scenery was stunning, the company was delightful (his CEO and top executives along with some fun couples that work in his group throughout the U.S.), and the cruise ship was so luxurious we're ruined from cruising again (we were in the smallest room and we had a balcony).

We left our home Tuesday morning, and unfortunately, Collin woke up before we left.  He was furious with us for not taking him, though we continually explained that it was a work trip with Cas, no children were allowed, he would be at art camp with his best friend, etc.  He kept arguing that Alaska was his favorite state and he was going to put himself in our suitcase.

So our Uber arrives and Collin is trying to get inside.  My mom has to physically restrain him while he's crying hysterically, kicking and screaming.  Then Maya sees that my mom is - in her eyes - hurting her brother and starts hitting my mom.  So my mom's 12 days starts with both kids physically assaulting her and throwing a tantrum.  At least there was nowhere to go but up!

We landed early afternoon, starting our trip with a day and a half in Vancouver.  We connected with a couple we had met in Florida in May and took a few mile bike ride around Stanley Park on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon.

Stanley Park totem poles -

We were not the only ones enjoying Stanley Park -

We then headed to an amazing Indian food restaurant with our biking riding friends for the start of our weight-gaining week and a half of feasting!

On Wednesday, we walked around the Vancouver Harbor, taking pictures by a "minecraft" style Orca whale for Collin -

Then late in the morning on Wednesday, we boarded a bus for Granville Island, where we walked through the shops and enjoyed the cool weather. That afternoon, we bid farewell to Vancouver and boarded the cruise ship for Alaska.

After dinner on the ship, we walked over to an enclosed viewing deck piano bar.  Around 10:30pm, we had some wine and watched the sun finally set (though it stayed bright most hours of the day)!

Our first full day was at sea, and Thursday morning we attended a business meeting, and then I spent the afternoon lounging, feeling slightly queasy as I got my sea legs, while Cas explored our great ship and connected with folks.

Day two of the cruise had us arriving in Ketchikan.

We disembarked from the ship and then headed to another tour bus for a go-kart tour of the Tongass National Forest followed by lunch with a crew from his company.

We traveled overnight and woke up Saturday morning for a 6:30am transfer to a smaller boat while still at sea.  The second boat took the U.S. contingent to the Tracy Arm Fjord.  We were told to wear lots of layers and standing outside on the ship, passing icebergs and glaciers, I needed all of my five layers of clothes!

Photo opp at Sawyer Glacier - the sun came out right as our small boat reached the stopping point near the glacier -

Between the glacier and Juneau, we had our first up-close encounter with humpback whales -

We also saw a black bear along the shore but needed our binoculars to see him with any level of detail.  By noon, our small ship took us to the Juneau port to meet up with our cruise ship, take a short nap, and then head out on afternoon excursions.

The small cruise to Tracy Arm was something they surprised us with on board, after we had already selected our activities.  It was a great morning trip, getting us close to glaciers and whales that we wouldn't have seen on the large cruise ship.  But unfortunately, the activity we picked for Saturday afternoon in Juneau was called "Whales, Glaciers and Rainforest Trails."  Since we had experienced two of the three that morning and were low on sleep, we not-so-enthusiastically headed to our afternoon tour.

It turned out to be a great afternoon though.  It was Cas' boss' boss' boss, his daughter and us - just the four of us - on a short hike to see Mendenhall Glacier, along with our very enthusiastic and verbose tour guide, Phil.  

Then we boarded an exploration vessel for whale watching.  And we saw them bubble net feed, something that our tour guides assured us was unusual and they were almost as excited as we were!
(From google - Bubble Net Feeding is a unique feeding technique employed by Humpback Whales, in which a group of whales swim in a shrinking circle blowing bubbles below a school of fish. This shrinking column of bubbles surrounds the school of fish forcing them upward. The whales spontaneously swim upward through the bubble net, mouths wide open, catching thousands of fish in one gulp.)  My video must be too large to load, but you can trust me that we were excited!
We passed by some sea lions lounging and headed back to port -

We hit up the company hospitality tavern for the evening, but called it a night pretty early after our very early morning start - 

Sunday morning we woke up to our favorite day of the trip.  We got to sleep late and as we stepped outside, it was sunny and gorgeous!

We shopped for souvenirs, enjoyed a salmon bake on the cruise, and met on the dock at 2pm for our helicopter glacier tour.  I was quite nervous about the helicopter, but we could not have had a better day.  In fact, it was so clear that our helicopter pilot, a very young 25-year-old named Kyle, said it was his first time flying.  And he wasn't joking - it was his first time flying this route and going to these glaciers, as the pass is normally too cloudy for the helicopter tour.  Still wish he had shared this after we landed safely back at the base!

Kyle kept us safe as we followed the other two helicopters with our group and took in scenery like this:

When I think of our Alaskan vacation, the breathtaking scenery from this day is what comes to my mind.

We hiked around the glacier for 45 minutes, walking by huge crevices that could swallow a city bus, and of course, posing for pictures -

Our final stop along the cruise was to Sitka, a small island where The Proposal movie was set.  We participated in a bike and hike tour in the morning -

After a lunch in the town, we passed through some souvenir shops but thankfully we did not come home with a wolf pelt, just posed with one -

In the evenings on the ship, we'd normally eat dinner with a group - like some of the couples who work in the same group as Cas in California, Atlanta and Philadelphia - 

And sometimes hit up the dance club with DJ HeebeeJeeBee (who voluntarily names yourself this?!?)

My favorite spot was the viewing deck bar where we listened to piano players while staring out at scenes like this - 

Our ship docked at Seward, and we took a train on Wednesday morning to Anchorage for the continuation of amazing scenery - 

We wrapped up our last day, spending the night with one of Cas' former co-workers who moved to Anchorage with his family and whose wife who works for oil and gas in a position in Alaska.  We had a great time catching up with his family, and hope to return with our entire family some day.