Saturday, July 23, 2011

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!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

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

Monday, July 18, 2011

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!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

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