Homer Alaska June-July 2015

wish I could bring some of these home, but I don't think they would have fit in my suitcase.

The Homer spit

Fourth of July in Homer Alaska 

Sterling Alaska June-July 2015

Bear with me as every picture and video in this post was taken on my iPhone.  I am no great photographer so I suggest you go on your own Alaskan adventure, this place really can't be beat.  On our last week in Alaska my uncle Bob and cousins Steven and Tommy joined us in Sterling.  We went fly-in fishing with bears, spotted moose off our cabins dock, religiously carried bear spray with us on every hike(but never ran into a bear on a hike), and all in all got to see some pretty incredible sights.

moose on Moose River

Cousins Steven and Tommy

The name of this glacier is Two Glacier because there are two glaciers merging

We saw a few bears on our fly-in fishing trip but we got the closest to this one.

Aimee Westerns Pages

My sweet sister-in-law Aimee also made some pages to put in Henly's quiet book, that are so cute I had to share.

Camping in the forest

Open the zipper and there is a little pocket for animals and such.

Here are the animals we chose to put in there.

Color Matching gum ball machine

I know and appreciate all of the work and time this girl put into these pages!  I know these will entertain Henly for hours on end!

Laura's Quiet Book

Oh my gosh!!  This quiet book took for freaken' ever.  First, I promised to have it done by christmas for my sisters little kiddos, but there was no way.  So I made a new deal to have it done by their birthday.  Yeah...that didn't happen either. So here I sit, long after the kids have gone to bed, finishing up this horrible, frustrating, headache inducing, QUIET BOOK!  

Oh man, I am ready to take a break.

For my future self:  Don't let this post deter you from making another one for Henly in the future.  When I was little, my very favorite thing to do in sacrament was pull out the quiet book my grandma Hicken made for me and play with all the little toys and treats she tucked into it.  Hopefully one day I will make one for my little grandchildren too.

Harvesting a garden

This book is supposed to remind Laura's kiddos of home,
 so this garden page goes along with Grandma and Pop pop's garden.

Harvesting Pop pop's apple trees.

Every apple has a little snap, to help Mavic with his fine motor skills.

Baking sweets with Grandma Diana, is Violets favorite thing to do!

Put the fruit in the pie and weave

Something I have noticed these days is little girls have no lace up shoes!
Violet can practice lacing these up and then tying them.

Chicago doesn't have any mountains so this is to remind them of home.

Who doesn't like tic-tac-toe?  And this way you never run out of paper.

Counting activity, if you know Laura you know she loves cupcakes.
Match the sprinkles with the number.

1st Birthday

Henly's very first birthday was celebrated a little early 

so my sister and her family could come. The whole day was a blur!  So many littles running around having a blast.  Smash cake that would not stay upright.  Lots a family, friends, fun, and food.  What a great day!

Like everything I do these ideas are credited to Pinterest

rainbow cakes!  So yummy and cute.

Mr Henly Pants is one!

I'm so disappointed I didn't get more pictures of the party, it was so much fun!

Glacier National Park

 Other then the fact that we are pumpkin orange this was the beginning of our Glacier National Park trip!  This was the beautiful drive on Going-to-the-Sun-Road.

 Our first stop on the trip was Logan Pass where we got to see Goats, coyotes, Marmots, even a grizzly bear way far up the mountain.  In fact, the only animals we didn't get to see on the trip were Moose(although we heard them), and Mountain goats.

Baby Henly's very first hike. 6 weeks old and he slept for most of the trip, just what we were hoping he would do, little angel.

Here we see Spencer and Henly Fitting in with the other tourists.

Then we headed on over to Many Glacier Region.  This is the first area we explored while looking for moose and bears, I swear every person we passed got to see the animals but we missed them by a hair

 This is the trail to Glacier Lake...Absolutely Stunning Hike.

This is on the way back, we did get to see a bear.  It was about twenty feet away from us, just off the trail and we would have gotten a picture of it but sadly our survival instincts were stronger and we just sped by as quickly as possible, I will always remember it in my mind though.  To bad you can't see into my mind.

We had a game to see how many Subaru Outbacks we could spot, 

and let me tell you about half of the cars occupying Montana

 are Subaru Outbacks.

This is the beautiful Red Rock/Mosquito Infestation Lake, 

it really was beautiful though.

Grinnell Lake, this is where we heard some moose calls, but didn't see any moose:(.

 Here is mom sharing her chips with
a chunky squirrel we found at Grinnell 
Lake.                               ->