Alaska

This year was my grandparents 50'th anniversary and they decided that they wanted to celebrate by taking their entire family on an Alaskan cruise. So here is the official itinerary of said cruise:

DAY ONE: SATURDAY
This day was 'travel to Seattle' day. We had a later flight, which was kind of nice. We went through all of the airport jazz, which I won't bore you with. When we got into Seattle it was pretty late so all we had time to do was catch the shuttle to our hotel, check-in, and go to bed.

DAY TWO: SUNDAY
This is the 'board the ship' day. We woke up, ate breakfast at Denny's across the street from our hotel, and got picked up by some fancy car service that the hotel recommended for us. They dropped us off right next to our port so it was pretty convenient. Then we waited in line after line. First the baggage check. Then security. Then check in. Then get your picture taken. Whew! Lots of lines. We finally get on board and this thing is HUGE! We are talking 13 floors huge! So everyone finds their rooms and heads to the 12'th floor for some lunch. We find a good window seat and start the first gorging ourselves with food session. Right out our window is the space needle which was pretty cool. Seattle is such a pretty city. We then have to meet for the safety drill which was not as bad as everyone said it was going to be. We just sat in a restaurant for like five minutes while they showed us how to use the life jackets. Pretty simple stuff. That night there was kind of a "pre-show" of what was to come. All the shows are in the Stardust Theater, which is a massive theater which you just wouldn't imagine could fit on a boat! The show that night was pretty good and it got everyone excited for the rest of the week. That's all I really remember about that day. There was a lot of exploring of the ship. Here are some of the things our ship had: two pools, four hot tubs, lots of restaurants (I don't even know how many) a bowling alley, gym, spa, arcade, kid zone, shopping center, two clubs/lounges, multiple bars,art gallery, library, game room, theater, sports area with basketball and tennis courts, golf, and a rock climbing wall. And....that's all I can remember.

DAY TWO: MONDAY
So not gonna lie, Monday kinda sucked butt for me. It was a day at sea, which actually worked out perfect because I threw my back out that morning. It was a bad one too. I couldn't even walk without wanting to rip my eyeballs out. That day I sat in bed, ordered room service, and mourned a little at my bad luck. Usually when I throw my back out its out for many days, sometimes even weeks. I kind of went into panic mode on Monday. I think I offered up a continual prayer the entire day. Please oh please oh please let this get better so that I can enjoy this trip!!! That night we had reservations at one of the restaurants for the whole family to get together and have dinner. It was the one and only dress up dinner, and the one and only dinner where everyone would be together at the same time. I forced myself to go. Walking to the restaurant was pure agony. I broke a sweat just getting there. Then sitting there was even more agony. I hit panic mode even worse than before. Especially because tomorrow I was scheduled to go zip lining in Juneau, which is a lot of non-refundable money!! I decided to skip the show and all the entertainment going on that night so that I could rest my back. I went to bed freaking a ding dong.

DAY THREE: TUESDAY
YESSSSSSS!!!!! While I was asleep my back pain traveled from my lower back to my upper back which is SO SO SO much easier to deal with! Upper back pain means that I could walk! YESSSSSS!! prayers are answered..... thank heavens!! My back was still sore and tender but manageable. Definitely manageable. So that day we made port in Juneau. Wow. Not what I was expecting at all. ha ha Juneau is probably the smallest state capitol I have ever seen. It reminded me of the city in "The Proposal", except for maybe smaller ha ha. So of course, it is down pouring rain. We are talking buckets. I wore a poncho. I looked like a big green blob. It was lovely. We get on a bus which takes us to a boat. The boat ride was cool because we got to drive up the canal around Juneau and see all of the pretty waterfalls coming down the mountain. Alaska is a gorgeous state! Zip lining was a RIOT!!! Oh. My. Gosh. I can't even describe how much fun it was. There were a total of nine zip lines. You go from platform to platform and every time your feet leave solid ground you get yet another adrenaline rush. Not to mention we were zip lining in one of the most beautiful forests I have ever seen. Picture the movie Twilight -- that's what the forest looked like. (I was half expecting to see some vampires and werewolves running around beneath me!) And of course, it is raining, so we were pretty much taking showers on each zip line because we reached up to speeds of 35mph! So yeah, it was cold. And it was wet. But it was the funnest thing I have ever done! Oddly enough I think the scariest part for me was at the very end. We had to repel off of our last platform which stood maybe about thirty or forty feet off the ground. Yikes. And it wasn't like there was a wall or anything, it was a straight drop. And you know my luck, I of course somehow tangled my rope and the guy told me I had to go hands free so he could fix it. That was.....hard. To just let go while you are dangling on a thin rope way up in the air with your life depending on someone else. Yup. Hard. But I survived. Whew. GO me! =)

DAY FOUR: WEDNESDAY
Wednesday was the 'Skagway' day. In Skagway we didn't have any excursions planned so we just walked around the small town taking pictures, shopping, and of course getting drenched. Skagway is also really pretty. As we were walking back to our ship a police officer on a bike stops us to talk to us. He had noticed my mom's BYU jacket and wanted to know if any of us had gone there. Cassie said that she did and he tells us that he went to BYUI and served a mission in Maine. Wow. Us mormons really know how to find each other in a crowd! ha ha. So we start talking to him and he tells us that half this town (which consists of only 600 people) are LDS. He then points to like five stores on the main street that are all run by LDS families. I thought that was super cool. They don't have a church building to meet in, so they meet in three different log cabin looking things. It was fun talking to him.

DAY FIVE: THURSDAY
Thursday is another day at sea. I mostly wandered around the ship, ate, and played shuffle board with my cousins and grandpa. I lost terribly.

DAY SIX: FRIDAY
Friday we sailed to Ketchikan. It was my favorite city we went to in Alaska. It was a lot bigger than the other ones but still just as pretty. We walked around the town and shopped for a while, and then we went to the Lumberjack show. Which was freaking awesome and super hilarious. They split us into two teams and were then assigned two lumberjacks to root for. It was quite the competition. The lumberjacks were dang cute and way funny. It was the first time I ever considered the idea of maybe marrying me a lumberjack. ha ha totally just kidding.

DAY SEVEN: SATURDAY
Saturday we went to Victoria, Canada. I LOVE that city! I told my mom that if I was ever forced to live in Canada I would definitely choose to live in Victoria. Not that I have seen much of Canada, this was actually my first time ever going to another country. But Still. It was the prettiest city I have ever seen! We went and checked out China town, which was super lame to New York's China town in comparison. We then did a little shopping in the main part of town. There were street performers everywhere, even little kids, maybe ages 10-15, were out there playing instruments. They were seriously adorable and so much fun to watch. We even saw a fire juggler. We went to the wax museum (which again doesn't even compare to NYC) but it was still pretty cool and something fun and different to do. I was impressed that Brigham Young had made it into that wax museum. He was featured in the 'World's Religious Leaders' room which I thought was pretty neat seeing as he was there with Mother Teresa and Gandhi. Not that they are better than he is by any means, just that they are more well known, which is why it is so cool that he was in there! We got out of the museum in perfect timing to see the sun set over the water. It was such a gorgeous view. I already want to go back to Victoria!

DAY EIGHT:SUNDAY
Sunday is sadly the day we get off the boat. We had room service deliver us breakfast in bed and then it was an early morning of last minute packing and waiting in line to get off the boat. We again got a ride back to our hotel where we all proceeded to collapse and fall asleep. When our naps were over we called our cousin Shawn who lives about thirty minutes outside of Seattle. She came and picked us up and took us to Pikes Place Market, which is by far my favorite place in all of Seattle! Pikes Place is a huge farmer's market. The fruit is huge and fresh and delicious! I bought a pound of cherries that pretty much exploded in my mouth with deliciousness. I also bought a cream cheese chocolate chip cinnamon roll which you had to see and taste to appreciate the real heaven that it was. We then went to lunch with Shawn to a place called Cutters. After lunch we all looked like walking zombies so Shawn dropped us off at our hotel and we went to sleep.... insanely early.

DAY NINE: MONDAY
Today we woke up at 3:30 to catch our early morning flight. Whew. That was early! The only thing of interest that happened today was that our plane's computer broke and we sat in the plane on the ground for about an hour while they tried to fix it. I sometimes get nervous on plane rides when things go wrong. We will leave it at that. It was a long morning. From Fruit Heights I drove straight to Logan and collapsed in bed and slept for ages. And that is the end of my trip.

EXTRA STUFF:
So because I have a bad memory here is some other stuff that happened on the cruise that I can't remember which day it belongs to. The days all kind of blended together ya know? So my favorite show was some professional jugglers who called themselves Sharkbait. They went to professional clown college and then worked at Barnum and Bailey's Circus for a while. They were just as funny as they were talented and I got a kick out of them. There was also a whiteout party that was a lot of fun. Everyone wore white and there was a big dance. One of my favorite game shows was the Quest game. We split into eight teams and each team had a two team captains, male and female. So the host (our cruise director Andy who I forgot to mention earlier but who I absolutely LOVE) would call out things that we had to find in our group faster than the rest of the other teams. Andy asked for things like false teeth, car keys (who carries those around on a boat?), girls wearing boy shoes, boys wearing high heels. One of my favorite ones was when Andy asked the boy team captain to run up with three bras on his head. (Two of the three bras that made it up there were my mothers and little sisters thank you very much!) The last quest was for our team to turn our manliest man into the girliest girl that we could. That produced some interesting results let me tell ya!

So my other favorite part of the cruise was the FOOD! I have never eaten so much in my entire existence. We had three course meals, three times a day, and snack and desserts in between that! One night we even had a chocolate buffet with more chocolate than even Willy Wonka possesses! My favorite foods there was a chocolate cake with fresh raspberries on it and the cheesecake. Oh the cheesecake! I think I might have had that at least three times a day everyday! YUM!
(And that's where I will end this blog. With happy thoughts of the world's best cheesecake!)

Cheating

When I was 15 years old I broke my knee in gym class jumping hurdles. I had surgery and to this day have two big screws in my knee. My doctor told me that I am not allowed to run ever again... well in this lifetime anyway. I was not hurt by this pronouncement however. Running for exercise was first introduced to me by a She-Devil named Ms. Alvarez. She made running hell on earth and I loathed running almost as much as I loathed her. In fact, it was kind of a relief. My high school gym classes consisted of me walking around the track while everyone else passed me by. Which is how it always was, but at least everyone knew I had an excuse this time.

There have been a few times since the broken knee incident that I have cheated and gone running. These instances usually happen when I am feeling really stressed or have high anxiety levels. The last time I cheated was about four years ago. Well, for some reason this week I have felt the strongest urge to cheat again. And I did.... twice. As I am running the streets of Logan, ipod on, out of breath (cause I haven't gone running in 4 years) I feel SOOOO good! I feel like I am gonna freakin' die, but somehow at the same time it feels SOOOOO good!!!! Maybe this whole "not allowed to run" thing is not such a good thing after all. Running is addicting. But somehow I need to stop this addiction because if I don't my knee is gonna swell like the stinkin' Goodyear Blimp!

Summer Goals

This summer Emily and I have two goals: Go to Bear Lake as many times as possible. (We are shooting for at least 15 times this summer). And having as many campfires as possible. So far the count is Bear Lake: 1 , Campfires: 2

Here are some pictures from Campfire 2: