Trouble

There's trouble brewing...

Trouble, I say...trouble! Lol!

Drumroll, Please...

We had a break in the weather one day last week, so B-man was anxious to get the Jeep painted. He drove around to the back of our temporary housing and got to work. One good thing about it being light out all night is that you can just keep working on your projects until they get done. Unless it rains...which it didn't, but we were afraid it might.

So, click here for the before pictures.

Boo was very excited to look out the window and see B-man painting the Jeep. He kept saying, "Mama!! Daddy's painting his Jeep green!"

Prepping to prime.

Priming the top.


And here it is...


Wait for it....




Wait for it...

Ta-Dah!

They were out of OD green at the store, so he went with spruce green for the top and black on the hood.

No more girlie stickers!

Not too shabby!
We do embrace purple around here, as you all know we are Clemson Tigers through and through, but I think this color scheme is a better fit for B-man.

So, what do you think?

Talkeetna, AK

This weekend we drove North up to Talkeetna. We had to drive through Wasilla again, so I looked up Sarah Palin's address hoping we could do a drive by viewing of her house. But, when we arrived, we discovered she lives down a gravel road with no trespassing signs up at the entrance. Darn it!
But, we kept driving north and found ourselves in Talkeetna, AK. It's a cute, tiny little town.

I don't know whose boots those are in the bottom of the picture. They were just there in the gravel. These are kind of like the ones that B-man was issued. They have a port on the side of them so that you can pump air in them to keep your feet warm in the winter.

The Roadhouse
Famous little restaurant in Talkeetna.

We had reindeer chili.
Boo had mac n cheese.
It was very good.

The big town of Talkeetna. This is about it, but it was a busy, busy place.

Log cabin getting a new foundation.

A Mountain Man
(this one's for you, Grandpa)

Cool sign on the side of a building.

Planter

Log cabin post office! How neat.

This is where we stayed the night.

This is the view from where we stayed. On a clear day you can see Mckinley.

Coffee house in town. Look at the beautiful flowers.
The only place I've seen colors so bright is in Ireland.

There's the Alaska train again!
We're really going to have to plan a trip to ride along.
Maybe when BeBe comes next month?!

More cool signage.

We had scheduled a flightseeing tour of McKinley with a stop on Ruth Glacier.
But, the mountain was "socked in" with clouds, so we weren't able to go.
We were all very disappointed that it was cancelled. Boo especially had a hard time.
But, we'll try again another day.

Cool plane playground equipment.

Birch trees.
You can get lots of local wooden items made from birch trees.
Granny, you would have LOVED all of the gift shops! :)

What's cuter than cute?
Lowcountry Faye babes in matching moose jammers at our lodge!
SOOOOOOOO Cute!

B-man is back at work today and I'm doing laundry and working on our supper menu for the week...so it's not all sightseeing, ha. He did paint the Jeep, so I need to get pics up of that soon. Have a good week!

7 Months!

It's that time again! Today marks Lil Bit's 7 month with us! B-man just said, it seems like she's been with us longer than 7 months. I agree. When she first arrived, my world was turned upside down again for the second time. But, she is such a trooper and fits right in with our family. I mean, she's been from TX to SC and all over Alaska too and takes it all in stride. She is so social and doesn't want to miss a thang! She's also a very happy girl (don't get me wrong, she has her moments) but for the most part, she's just happy to be here and I love that about her. She's definitely becoming more aware and is growing up already. She really wants to get moving. She will just swim as hard as she can on her belly hoping to get somewhere.  It's happening way too fast. I'm definitely not ready for her to crawl. I was hoping to get into our house and unpacked at least a little bit before she becomes mobile. But, I have a feeling it's going to be soon.

She looks innocent, but I think she's going to give me a run for my money.

She kept laughing hysterically while I was taking her picture.

And doing jumping jacks.



She's as sweet as she can be.



And is soooo beautiful.

Lil Bit, we are over the moon for you!
Happy 7 months!

The Longest Day!

Happy Summer Solstice Day!!
Sunrise was at 4:20 a.m. and sunset will be at 11:42 p.m.
That's 19 hours and 22 minutes of daylight! But really, even though the sun does officially set, it's light out all of the time.

There are all kind of Summer Solstice Parties planned for tonight in Alaska. Kind of neat. But, I'm hoping we're all asleep by then...well, at least 2 of the 4 of us anyway! ha!

Birthday Girl!

Today is our Sandy Girl's birthday! She is 11 years old! Wow!! I can't believe that!

I called her this morning and sang Happy Birthday to her and BeBe said she was looking around for me when she heard my voice.

BeBe took her for a birthday walk around the field with her buddies and she had some special treats and a birthday nap. BeBe also took these pics of her today. I must admit, I got teary eyed looking at my four legged babies all the way back in SC. We miss them!

Sandy Girl
The softest dog in the world!
(She always lies with her front paw like that...right Grandpa?)

Bella, Murray, and Sandy girl
Party Animals!

Birthday Song!

(don't mind the jets in the background)

Drive to Seward, AK

We wanted to get out and see Alaska this weekend. It was supposed to be pretty mild and sunny out, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of the good weather. We didn't really know what to do though, so we decided to just get in the truck and drive. We had already driven North to Wasilla, so we decided to go South towards Seward. See the maps below. Alaska is HUGE and I'm still getting my bearings, so I added a couple of maps to help you all understand where we are and where we went. We left Anchorage and hopped on Hwy 1 headed South.

This is Hwy 1. Along this part of the drive, it's a coastal highway. The Alaska Railroad tracks run right along the coast as well. The water you see here is the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet.  The mountains ahead are on the Kenai Peninsula.

We stopped at Portage Lake. Portage glacier is up around the bend from this first mountain.  You can see Burns glacier straight ahead in this picture. It's called a hanging glacier. It was amazing!!!

These icebergs had broken off and were floating down the river.

The water was COLD!

We want to go back and take the cruise right up to the glacier.

Go back up and look at the family photo and pay attention to the ice in the water.
The pic of this berg was taken before that one.
We got to see it break apart (as seen in the family pic).

It was VERY loud when it first started breaking apart.
We didn't get that on video, but we started filming and got it rocking and rolling.

Beautiful views!

Cool boat with teeth! Ice teeth?

We left the Portage Glacier area and continued the drive towards Seward through the Chugach National Forest. It's also amazing!

We finally made it to Seward, a small fishing town. It was packed with fishermen and campers.

We saw several Bald Eagles on the drive and B-man got a couple of goods pics of this one below.

Fisherman at Resurrection Bay

This is on the way back to Anchorage looking across Cook Inlet.
Do you see the mountains way off in the distance?

Dall Sheep on the way back to Anchorage.

There were a bunch of cars stopped on the side of the road taking pics.

Alaska Railroad Train!
This was Boo's highlight of the day.
Oh yeah, this is at 10:00 at night. The pics of the sheep were also taken at 10:00 p.m.


It was a LONG day, but a great day of sightseeing! And thankfully, we all slept in today!


I want to say Happy Father's Day to all of the Dads out there and especially to the ones near and dear to us...B-man, PawPaw, Grandpa and Uncle A! You all are so special to us and I'm so glad to have you in our kiddos lives.