6 months already...

Has it really been six months already!! WHERE DID THE TIME GO~~ ? Connor is doing great and keeping us busy...Big milestones: he's rolling all directions, sitting up on his own, reaching for everything, taking baths in the big bath and eating solids!~ (which he thouroghly enjoys :) His stats: 22 lbs 28 inches long 12-18 mo clothes. We still think he might be teething.. but are beginning to realize it doesn't happen overnight.. it can be a LONG process!!

I was a little behind getting his pictures this month.. but these are the best ones for his 6 months photos:

His "preppy" outfit :-)

Oh yeah.. and he smiles and laughs all the time! :-)

What a little model!! :-)

Smiles....

He pushes up completely on his arms now... tries to get his knees under him once in a while..it'll still be a little while before he crawls

LOVE him in hats :-) and of course gotta love the rolls!!

I know its not winter.. but this hat is so adorable on him.. and won't fit for much longer!! :-)

Smiles :-)

I think he was babbling in this one.. which he does often now :-)

sucking on his lower lip.. also something he does often :-)

amazing how fast he's filling up the chair! Gotta love the smiles in this one.. and of course the hands in the mouth :-)

What a big boy... I can't believe how much he's changed in just 6 months!

 ..

This was him in the chair at 1 month.. growing like a weed!!

Been a crazy month.. we're off to Boise tomorrow morning for a week. Nicole has recently became a consultant for Thirty One (bags, totes and purses).. i'll post about it later, but Shelly, her mom is hosting a Thirty One party in Boise next Saturday so she's going to do that.. and of course to spend time with the family! :-) until next post!

Day 8 and 9 Seward to Whittier AK then back to Seattle

We stayed the night in Seward and spent day 8 cruising Resurection Bay, then we drove to Portage Glacier and stayed at a campground for the night.. our favorite campground the whole week... Then on day 9 we drove back to Anchorage and flew out the morning of Day 10..



When we got to the harbor to check in for our cruise they told us that because of high seas in the area our cruise was scheduled to go that they had to do a shortened modified cruise, but promised that we'd still see wildlife, so we decided to go anyways.....

Most beautiful boat harbor i've ever seen!! mountains everywhere!! :-)

wow... and pictures don't do a justice!

Connor fell asleep waiting to boad the boat, amazing how they can sleep anywhere and in any position!!.. this looks so uncomfortable to me, but whatever works :-)

At our table, we sat with a very nice couple from California... notice Connor is still asleep!

As we were leaving the harbor we spotted a bald eagle..

Seals sunbathing on the rocks!

Momma and baby mountain goats with an eagle flying by at the same time.. only in Alaska! :-)

sea birds in a little cutout in the rocks above the water..

Bear Glacier from a distance...

Harbor seal.. they are rare to see and very shy so this is the closest picture I could get...

One thing I really hoped to see was whales... we only saw them for a split second .. they were being very shy :-) which is disapointing, but o well. This is Jeremy and Connor as we were "holding our breath" hoping to see a whale... The whales held their breath longer... ha ha bad humor.. sorry....

beautiful scenery we saw on the cruise

When we got back to the harbor there was an otter hanging out waiting for scraps from the fish cleaning station... smart!

This was the view we saw on the way to Whittier... the sun was actually out and it was AMAZING reflecting off the snow peaked mountains!!

WOW.. is all I can say... we sat here for a while :-)

What a beautiful state!!

This is Connor getting a bath in the motorhome that evening.. I wanted a photo to show how the shower was the perfect size for him....... not so much for big people :-) He loved his baths!!

We stayed in an awesome USFS campground in Portage Glacier.. We finally had out own campfire!! (we hung out with a family at theirs earlier in the trip).. We ate enough marshmellows to make us sick :-) it was awesome!

Connor and dad at Connors first campfire!! YEAH

Connor bundled up with mom by the fire :-) It was a little chilly being so close to the glaciers.. :-)

We woke up to POURING rain... nothing like starting and ending the trip with rain.... We were planning on going to Whittier, a town only accessible through a train tunnel, its the only multi use tunnel in the USA (maybe world.. I can't remember) It has a light and changes every 15 minutes to trade with the train.. Because of how nasty the weather was we decided not to go as the town of Whittier is basically a few miles (walk) once through the tunnel. So instead we had a relaxing morning, then slowly made our way to Anchorage to stay the night at the motorhome parking lot as we flew out in the morning....

Connor hanging out in the drivers seat watching the rain ... He did GREAT on his first family vacation!!

On the way to Anchorage we stopped to watch the boer tides come in.... we waited for several hours, only to be disappointed (later realizing we were about 20 miles too far south... bummer! It was cool to see these crazy people getting into the ice cold Alaska water with surf boards though:

Apparently you can surf the boer tides.. im sure its fun, but the cold water is a little too much for me :-)

9 days and over 700 photos later.... we had our first family trip! It was awesome.. The weather was the only disappointing factor, but you have to expect that in Alaska.. We will definately go back, and the motorhome thing worked out as good as we imagined... will most likely do that part again too... Hard to believe it's already over.....Back to reality!

Day 7 Russian River to Seward AK

On day 7 of our Alaska trip we went to Seward, its another southern costal town...

Seward seems to be best known for it's fishing, cruises of the Prince William Sound, Kenai Fjord National Park and Exit Glacier (well all of the glaciers in the Harding IceField really, but Exit in particular) and the Sea Life center. I think of all of the towns, Seward was our favorite.

This is a beautiful view of some of the many glaciers that surround Seward.. It was a little rainy again, so it's a little hard to see just how breathtaking it was. Seward was basically surrounded by mountains like this, some call it "chlosterphobic" but Jeremy and I both thought it was awesome!

We stopped at the visitors center to get some info and couldn't help get a picture with this guy!.. glad it's stuffed!! :-)

We walked around town a little, then decided that becasue it was a rainy day we'd check out the Sea Life Center

Cool bottom feeder fish covered in algae :-)

More sea erchants.. we got to touch one like this... was very weird, but cool

They had some very fun birds to view.

Connor enjoyed watching the birds play in the water

A PUFFIN!! COOL :-) I was litterally like 4 feet away from her~!

This guy was strutting his stuff... it was hilarious!~

Jeremy and Connor with a seal doing a "swim by" :-) Connor was enthralled with the color and lights!

Connor and I as another, much larger seal swims by! We sat and watched him do this over and over.. fun now that Connor is so much more aware!

The campground we planned to stay at was about 10 miles back out of town and on our way there was the park to view Exit Glacier. We had just planned to drive there and leave because of the ugly weather.. but when we got there we got lucky, there was a break in the clouds.. so we put on our hiking gear and went for the 3 mile hike to get within touching distance of the glacier (found out later they no longer allow you close enough to touch for safety reasons, but it was still a beautiful hike, and still extremely close to the massive 'dieing' Exit Glacier.

The view of Exit Glacier from a distance.. the water in the foreground is the runoff.. Exit Glacier, like most of the glaciers in Alaska are melting and growing smaller every day ("dieing..".)

The runoff streams.. I can imagine this water is FREEZING COLD!!! :-)

(Notice the glacier in the background). Along the hiking trail there were markers that show a year representing where the glacier was during that timeframe. This one shows that in 1926 the glacier was this far down the valley... that's a lot of melting in less than 100 years!

Jeremy and Connor with the beautiful scenery in the background.

Connor and mom with Exit Glacier in the background! He is such a happy boy when he is outdoors!~ :-)

All of us! We were so glad we did this hike.. TOTALLY worth it :-)

The glacier up close.. to get a feel for how massive it is.. there are some tiny white specs in the center of the picture on the right.. those are people on the trail... amazing!!

Tomorrow morning we will get up and come back to Seward to catch a day cruise of the Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords National Wildlife Preserve, then if the weather permits we'll go to Whittier.