Achievement unlocked: we went on a cruise with the grandparents! We spent a week sailing from Seattle up the Inside Passage and back down, stopping in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan.
Juneau was a delightful throwback to our Switzerland trip because we got to ride a gondola up a mountain and go on a hike! Plus we found the coolest little store/post office and a neat brewery to write postcards in. Sitka was our favorite stop because we got to see my college roommate Jenna and her two awesome kiddos. (Love you, doommate!) Tycho and Nova loved exploring the playground and running around in the trees eating huckleberries with their new friends! Ketchikan… probably is better if you can get farther from the cruise dock. But the kids had playground time and got to see a whole bunch of salmon try to jump upstream.
Biggest takeaways of the trip:
- Nova likes salmon. She LOVES salmon. She will eat salmon three times a day. But she is NOT a bear.
- Tycho learned chess and had so much fun playing, we bought him a set for home. Also Yatzhee!
- The kids really like having chamomile tea! Nova loved doing “Dutch afternoon tea” and eating all the little Dutch treats. (Another funny throwback to our Europe trip!)
- Tycho also learned how to play Spades with GG and Papa D and we discovered he’s actually something of a card shark
- In Sitka huckleberries are red! And we ate so many
- Max learned how to make origami cranes and has proceeded to make one nearly every day. What do we do with our new flock?
Bonus: We arrived in Washington four days early and the kids had special GG/Papa D time while Max and Kristan stayed at a cool cabin on the Hood Canal and read books in silence for a couple of days. Life changing!
Tycho’s Pics: Alaska
I enjoy clicking on the first photo in order to see all of them in large format. It also reveals the text on most of the situations, making it more fun to view.
I still admire the warm colors combined with use of depth of field.