Tuesday, July 28, 2009

July 4 Round Up

At long last here are pictures from the weekend of the fourth. We headed out to Elfin Cove and Pelican for the festivities and fishing, and also to the outer coast (aka "Big Wide Open Ocean") for some beach combing. It was a gorgeous, perfect day for cruising as Gwen demonstrates here... sunny, warm, hardly any chop.... And then there were whales.
I've had some queries about the sheer number of these huge creatures that we saw that day. I'd guess we were looking at 80 to 90 of them. Some were miles away and some were right next to the boat. It was beautiful and kinda scary at the same time.
This guy was pretty close to us for a while. He was a big solo humpback and we just called him a him because he seemed so huge. I think the males are larger than the females, but I could be wrong. (Yes, really, it does happen sometimes.)The coveted "fluke" photo. It took me forever to get one; my camera was not at its best that day.Greg's mom Linda took some great shots and sent them to us on CD. I haven't included any of them here, but I'll check and see if I can post the best ones. She got some fantastic close-ups of flukes with water dripping and glistening off them.
I think this is one of the mom and baby we saw. We could hear them "talking" each time the surfaced together. That was truly amazing. Whale songs are so eerie and unusual.After about 45 minutes, we had to say farewell to the whales, their songs, and antics. We were hoping to find some of the beautiful glass balls that the Japanese fishing boats use as floats for their nets, so we needed to get out to the coast and see what the weather was up to.
Unfortunately, the water was too rough to put in to the beach on the outside so we found a different, inland beach at the northern end of Lizianski Inlet and tromped around there with Greg's mom and the girls. We got there pretty close to low tide and were able to explore quite a bit. Not a lot to find there due to the lack of people to discard stuff to find, y'know? The girls found a rock formation they called "Sink Rock" because it had two little divots (not the correct geological term, I'm sure... maybe someone knows?) that they could rinse their sandy paws off in before snacking us out of house and boat. Man, give those gals some fresh sea air and they will not stop eating .... I'm already setting some extra cash aside for the teen years' food bill. No, I'm not really, but I probably should be.Greg looked over the area with his big iron as per the usual.The girls and I found a great spot for rock-throwing. This little creek didn't have any fish at the time we were there, but it looked like it was big enough to be anadromous. (That's the five dollar "Alaska" word of the day!) Boo Boo is a southpaw and she could just fling rocks all day. She tries so hard to get each one to land smack in the water and make the telltale splash. If she throws one too short, she says "No!" and shakes her head. She can't end on a "bad" throw either. Once we say, "OK, one more throw, then we have to get back to the boat," she interprets that as one more "good" throw. So we all have to pay attention then to notice a good throw and make the call that we really have to go...Greg taxied us all back and forth on the raft. Gwen and Grandma went first. In fact here they are just getting to the boat on the way out. Then Greg paddled back to get Boo and I last, while I emptied the ammo from the rifle and kept scanning for bears.
Whew- all that and we haven't even got to Pelican yet... come back soon. It'll be worth it!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

What are you girls doing today?

So the girls were playing very nicely downstairs yesterday and when I went down, I complimented them on how cooperative they were being and what good friends they are.... Gwen answered with "Yeah, we were just taking our babies for a walk. We're playing a game called, 'Big Sister, Little Sister: A Love that Never Ends'."

Where on earth does this come from? I love it!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Taco Mommy Bye Bye!

Amelia has been talking up a storm since Grandpa was here. Greg's dad was up in mid-June and Greg's mom was just here over the 4th. Since they come up for different reasons, they travel separately and we get several weeks worth of excitement. Anyway, we've been able to vaguely understand Amelia's grunts and sounds, but when the grandparents arrived, I guess she felt she needed to kick it up a notch. She started being much more deliberate with her pronounciation, making sure to put the last letter sound on the word, etc.

Yesterday, she even said her very first sentence... it was "Taco Mommy bye-bye!"

For those of you not privy to this lingo, I'll interpret. Our landlady Melinda lives next door and got a new dog several weeks ago. It's an adorable male Pug, only about 8 months old, and his name is Taco. The girls absolutely love him. They can be doing anything in the house (reading, eating, watching a movie, sleeping....) and if they hear his tags clinking outside, they both will drop everything and sprint out the door, shrieking, "TACO!!!! TACO!!!!". Yesterday, as Melinda was pulling out of the driveway, Amelia noted that Taco's mommy was going bye-bye. Brilliant, huh?

In other kid-news, Gwen had her physical exam for kindergarten last week. She is practically perfect in every way, just as suspected. She is 5 years, 4 months old and 47 inches tall (yes, that's only 16 inches shorter than her mom!!). She weighs 52 lbs (Gwen, not Mom! HAR!!) and exhibits normal progress and development. She is starting swimming lessons tonight and soccer camp next week. Now we just have to see if we get accepted to the school we applied at for her. She's been calling it her "new school" since mere minutes after she was done with preschool in May, so we're really hoping it works out.

We spent the 4th in Pelican and in Elfin Cove, saw about 80 or 90 humpback whales (several of which surfaced a measly 30 yards from us), threw birdseed at a truly Alaskan wedding, barely escaped witnessing some crazy ol' drunk Alaskans streaking along a boardwalk, took note of the Alaska rural recycling program, jigged for and caught some spawning herring (Gwen kept wondering why all the bait fish were roughhousing so much), and then caught four little tasty halibut with the herring.

We'll always remember that we were in Pelican when we heard Palin resigned. Somehow, amid all that spectacular and incredibly vast scenery, we didn't seem to care.

Pictures to follow soon.