Just a great picture of Austin today

from the Pioneer day celebration.

so i thought i would share it...

thanks Ellen for sharing this photo with me!

Noah rides a steer!

These are the videos from when Noah rode the steer at the Show Low rodeo
on the 1st of July

Crazy boy...

the first one is of him getting "tied in" by Taylor's friend Colton

and the second is the actual ride...short but sweet! LOL



Made the paper....

The boys moved on to the regional round of the little league play offs.

It was in Page and happened when Rich and I were out of town

so they went with the team.

They played two games and lost both and came home

but they had a fantastic time!

this pictures was in the paper on the 12th

Day late.....

SALMON COUNT


JULY 15TH WAS 2922

JULY 16TH WAS 27826

JULY 17TH THE DAY WE LEFT 230,643

BIGGEST ONE DAY RUN IN THE LAST TEN YEARS AT LEAST.
THE AVERAGE RUN OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS WAS 80,000

I THNK WE WERE TRULY A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT!!!!!!

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/FishCounts/index.cfm?ADFG=main.displayResults

Alaska Day 8

Good bye Alaska....

Alaska Day 7

On our last full day we knew we needed to head back to Anchorage

but Austin REALLLLLY wanted to do SOMETHING!!!

so we finally settled on the zoo

then we had to get going quickly to make it back to Anchorage before the zoo closed

and we made it!

most of the animals were arctic animals or animals that were native to the region

it was kind of depressing seeing all the animals in cages

I don't think this is something i typically notice or care about much

but after going to the conservation center where the animals are there

because they are orphaned or injured and seeing the big open spaces they have

then going to the zoo...

well it was just depressing

first we visited the polar bear

this is a snow owl

the Eagles (this one looked very old)

Austin with the Eagles

the wolves

Black bear

another black bear

Mountain goats

Leopard

Brown Bears (Look at those claws!)

back to the Polar bears

and then the Otter who was having a great time entertaining us

We saw alot more animals but these were the best pictures

Alaska Day 6

On Day 6 we ventured up the coast to Homer, Alaska

Homer is a fishing town

if you are a deadliest catch fan

you should know that Homer

is the home of the Time bandit

Homer is absolutely beautiful!

they had alot of little shops along the "Homer spit"

they had alittle shop there that sold shirts and things from the time bandit

and outside they had a crab pot

so we baited it up!! HAHA

after we checked out all the little shops

we went down to the "Fishing Hole"

to do alittle fishing

out in the middle of the hole (inlet)

were a couple sea lions out playing

they were fun to watch

this famous old saloon was there

the salty dawg

there were tshirts all over town saying

"a drinking town with a fishing problem"

pretty funny stuff

next we moved on to alittle wildlife place that Austin wanted to check out

I love these flowers...

they were everywhere along all the roads

all along our way around Alaska

while we were in Homer we say this awesome Eagles nest

When we saw it the first time the Mom and Dad Bald Eagles were in the nest

but we could not stop for pictures then

but when we came back they were not there but we could see one of the babies (there were two)

this was a super cool thing to see

Austin loves bald eagles

they are his favorite!

but this bald eagles nest was in the strangest place

In the afternoon we went back to Soldotna

and waited with thousands of other people for the Salmon to start their run

Unfortunately it did not happen before we left

that was one of the main reasons we went when we did so that was alittle

disappointing

when we got back to Soldotna we took another walk down to the Kenai River

we saw this eagles next along the banks

Here is the Kenai

they say when the Salmon are running, people are lined up all along the banks

nearly shoulder to shoulder

bringing in fish as fast as they can snag them

there were alot of beautiful homes along the river too

The Seagulls seemed to be the only ones eating fish!

Alaska Day 5

On day 5 we did alot of this...

We spent about half of the day driving around looking at lakes

and streams for good fishing spots

then we came back to camp and caught up on our sleep

because it never gets dark here, the boys found themselves

often fishing near midnight....

Alaska Day 4

On day four we headed out toward Soldotna.

Traveling along we stopped to check out a Glacier

The Scenery was just so beautiful everywhere we went

These pictures were taken in Coopers Landing

on the River

If you look up in the tree tops of this photo below you can see

a roof top

this is the Princess Resort where my niece Adrianne is working

she was sick and at the doctor the day we came through

here is a little closer shot

in coopers landing we stopped at Jim's Landing to fish

in this picture you can see that Austin has some company

(click to get a closer view)

A bald eagle was waiting for Austin to catch him some lunch

Rich

Austin's new friend still watching him...

We watched these little baby ducklings for awhile. Their mother teaching

them how to swim upstream

Hey Grandpa!!

Grandpa and Austin

This is one of my favorite shots from the whole trip

On our way out of Jim's Landing we saw this moose near the road