This year we celebrated Cahl's 43rd birthday by spending the night at the fair. We took Hunter and Brinley and several of their friends, along with Cahl's mom, and spent a few hours checking out the exhibits and booths, and playing games while the kids rode all the rides. After dinner, the adults headed home (but not until after Cahl finally won a GIANT cookie monster!!) and the kids stayed to play some more. We all had a great time, and hope Cahl had a great birthday!
The last big summer trip for us this year, was getting to spend 9 days up in Alaska. We flew up bright and early the morning of the 3rd, and after a reroute and delay in Ketchikan, we finally made it to Wrangell just before lunch time. Mike picked us up at the airport, and after we dropped our stuff off and got everything situated, we spent the afternoon grocery shopping and letting the kids explore town. Hunter and Brinley had not been there before, so they were super excited to see everything and learn their way around. Once we got all of the food and supplies loaded, we set out for Anan to spend the night. Cahl and I stood out on the deck and watched the Aurora Borealis that night, which was gorgeous!
The next morning we had to tickets to the Anan Wildlife Observatory Site, to see the bears fishing. We didn't see any bears as we walked up the trail, but there were plenty of signs everywhere! We spent at least an hour at the observation deck watching the bears- it was an incredible experience! We saw close to a dozen bears fishing and eating, some of them just a few feet away from us. Visiting Anan was definitely the highlight of my trip! After our time was up there, we headed back to Wrangell to pick up a few last minute supplies, then headed out for our week at sea.
We spent the next 5 days out at sea, fishing and sightseeing. During that time, we limited out on rockfish (60 total), caught a handful of greenlings and lingcod, crab, and caught 18 halibut. My halibut came in as the heaviest of the week, at 92 pounds! We were able to bring 300 pounds of fish home with us! We also caught a lot of super cool things we couldn't keep, including huge starfish, little sharks called dogfish, and even an octopus! We saw so much wildlife, too- bears, otters, seals, jellyfish, whales, dolphins, and deer. The areas we visited were really beautiful, and we loved exploring Hole In The Wall one morning.
At the end of the week we headed back to Wrangell to spend our last few days. We spent one day up in Petersburg and visiting the La Conte glacier. What an incredible experience to be so close to something so huge and powerful- we even saw a huge chunk break off into the ocean, which was so crazy! The colors of the water and ice were absolutely amazing!
Once we had done all the touristy things, we spent the last day in Wrangell cleaning out the boat and getting it ready for the next group. It was an amazing vacation, and I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to take our family up and experience it.
