Alaska Update

Well Hello Blogging World!!!

I know it has been a long time. We are in Alaska and have really made sure to not waste a minute! We have gone kayaking several times out in the ocean as well as Mendenhall Lake. We've gone hiking to the glacier caves several times now and found one that goes very deep. We've seen whales, bears, and eagles. We've done a lot of gold panning. We got a sluice box and have been just so excited to find gold you can actually pick up and collect. We haven't gotten rich by any means, but we are still way excited because it's way more than we've ever gotten before. We've gone on a float plane trip to Taku Lodge to eat a salmon buffet with the view of the gigantic Taku Glacier. We went on a helicopter ride to the top of Mendenhall Glacier and went dog sledding. We've been whale watching 3 times and even watched some bubble-net feeding and 3 whales do a full body breach one after the other. We kayaked out to Admiralty Island and camped. Admiralty has the highest concentration of bears of anywhere in the world. Unfortunately/fortunately we didn't see any bears on that trip. However, we did see some fairly fresh bear poop!

Tyler is working for HAPA (Holland America) driving tour buses and rocks at it! We was named the Employee of the Month for June. What a stud!

I am working once again at Del Sol. It is fun to be back there, but weird to be with a completely new set of girls and management. I was also promoted to Assistant Manager with a pay raise.

We are living with David and Jenna Harris in a two bed/one bath apartment that is pretty close to the Mendenhall Glacier. I met David out here when I interned for Del Sol four years ago. He was a driver back then and we have become good friends. Since then Tyler and David have become good friends too and now David is married and his wife is even cooler! ha! :)

Unfortunately, my time here is coming to an end. I am leaving next Saturday because I have teacher trainings. I will be teaching 2nd grade at a new charter school in West Valley. I am very excited and yes a bit nervous too! It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm ready to get going on it.
Tyler will stay here until the end of August.

Well, that is a pretty good update. I have billions of pictures loaded on facebook of our adventures but I will post some highlights on here.
We love it here in Juneau! It is so beautiful! It will be hard to leave.

Okay, here are several pictures in no particular order... Enjoy! :)

This is inside a cave under the Mendenhall Glacier.

These are our "housemates" David and Jenna. We were on the dock waiting for the 4th of July fireworks that start at 12AM on the 4th.

These sea lions started barking and making really funny sounds. We took pictures and filmed them until there were about a hundred of them that started getting really close and aggressive looking. So we started to book it out of there and they chased us about a mile and a half. We had to go around a different island. They wouldn't let us go around that part of their island. It was SCARY!!! Aren't these guys supposed to be cute, curious, and cautious? They were getting mean!!! They must of had some babies or something they were trying to protect. It was crazy!

Lucky Tyler got to ride in the cockpit! Lucky!!!!! This was on our float plane trip to Taku Lodge.



We hiked Mount McGinnis. This is part of the pretty view of the Mendenhall Glacier.

This is called bubble net feeding. The whales swim around in a circle below the surface blowing up air which creates a net of bubbles all around a large group of small fish. Then the whale in charge swims up from the bottom and makes a loud trumpeting sound which scares the fish even more and they all swim up to the surface. Then all the whales swim up with their mouths wide open and snatch the little fish up!!! The seagulls love it too! The whales do all the work of bringing the fish up and then they fly in and snatch some.

This is inside one of the caves under the Mendenhall Glacier.