Bears and Sea Lions!

In the past few years our bear population has really sky rocketed!  So much so that we are pretty much guaranteed to see one upon leaving the house.  Yesterday, I heard that there was a Mama Brown Bear (sow) with.....Are you ready for this.....QUADRUPLET cubs hanging out over at Allison Point.  Now THAT'S something special!  Even for these parts!  James Michael and I took a little detour on the way home from dropping Husband and Elijah off for their 5 day rafting adventure and, sure enough, the bears were right on the side of the road!

We watched for half hour or so, during which time James Michael noticed we were low on gas and wondered what would happen if we ran out.  I suggested he could push the truck home.  His reply?  "Not when YOU'RE in it!"  Stinkerhead.

Back to the bears.....So tonight I loaded up all the kids, took them to the grocery for a very healthy meal of corn dogs, bananas, and Strawberry milk  (Husband is gone...remember?  Doubt we'll be eating anything NOT out of a box this week!) and headed across the bay.  The bears were easy to find.  Tourists were lined up F.O.R.E.V.E.R.!  Did I mention how good the bears are for tourism?

So, are you ready for some pictures and maybe a video? (If I can figure it out that is!)  Here goes!

Ughhh!  The video won't work.  Well, I'll post and keep working on the video part!

LuLu Belle Cruise part 2

Alright, I promised the rest of the pictures!  So here's some of those Sea Lions.  Kinda funny about these sea lions.  See the really big ones?  The bulls?  Those are the ones that no one would mate with so they got sent to live here with the "teenagers" LOL 

I also promised a picture of some ice bergs.  These are really tiny ones.  It was the end of the cruise and neither Sydney and I were motivated to go take pictures of a glacier after the winter we had!

And one last picture of Don and me.  We have a similar one in our living room that was taken on the same boat about 10 years ago.  I'm really excited to print this one and hang them side by side.

That's about it for the blog.  If you would like to see more pictures you can check them out on my FaceBook page.  I'll be uploading this month's photos to an album tonight.

Cruising Alaska

I live in the small Alaskan town of Valdez.  It's a cozy little thing perched right on the edge of the water.  There's lots of fishing, fish processing, and tourism going on around here in the summer.  This weekend we were invited by our friends to go on a cruise on their tourist boat.  We took it as an opportunity for a "date" with just the Bigs (Bigs refers to Sydney, Hannah, Elijah, and Mattie) and sucked Aunt Chelsea into babysitting for us for the day.  Elijah opted out of the cruise so it was just us, the girls, and our friends that were visiting from out of town.

It was a kinda rainy day so we dressed in layers (You can always take it off if you're too hot but if you get cold and don't have more to put on, well, sucks to be you) and headed for the Lulu Belle.  (Visit their website http://www.lulubelletours.com/ for more great, Alaskan pictures)  As you leave the harbor there are two fish processing plants.  There happened to be a boat docked there unloading fish so I snapped a pic.

 

The next thing we saw was a group of otters.  There's a technical name for them and Fred, the boats captain, told us SEVERAL times what it was but clearly I wasn't listening and I'm not concerned enough to google it! LOL  Aren't they cute little things?  We actually have otters in abundance here.  The kids and I regularly head down to the docks to look for our favorite otter, "Spot", named that because we always "Spot" him.  Truth be told it's most likely a different otter every time but they all sorta look the same so.........



Next up was a hump back whale.  We had so much fun watching this guy.  At one point he was about 40' or so off the front of the boat.  He was clearly feeding and kept getting closer and closer to the land which dropped off sharply under water making for a perfect back scratching area!



I think it may have been quite possible to sit there and watch him (her?) all day.  His movements were so fluid and perfect.  It amazes me how perfectly God designed these massive creatures to be able to move so deftly through the water.  And to live on something as tiny as krill and shrimp to boot!  I mean, seriously?  Can you imagine how much that guy has to eat just to get a belly full?  Anyhow, on with the show.......

I think the next thing we saw were the Dall Sheep.  We saw a Mama and her very tiny baby.  Can I just tell you that to THIS Mama it looked like that mountain was straight up and down?!  I know those things are very sure footed but I was seriously having a heart attack!  Would somebody please get that baby off there?!!

We also saw a group (pod?) of Dall Porpoise.  Those guys are so fun!  If you stick right around 35mph they will come right to the boat and swim and jump ahead of you.  They are smaller than a dolphin with the coloring of a killer whale.

One of my personal favorites (for sight, certainly NOT smell!) are the Stellar Sea Lions.  I could watch them all day!  They don't really DO much other than sit around on the rocks, occasionally fighting with each other, making burping noises......Wait.....that sounds a lot like my dinner table!  JUST KIDDING!!! LOL  My kids don't burp.  They tell knock-knock or "why did the chicken...." jokes.  Speaking of which....Why did the duck cross the road?  Because the chicken was on vacation!  I know, knee slapper, right?  Never a dull moment around here! LOL 

Oh, no!  It won't let me upload any more images!!!  I guess this will be a 2 part post?  OK, up later are sea lions, ice bergs, and a picture of Don and I.....But I think it'll wait until tomorrow!