Drywall!

The bathroom door is no more! The entrance to the existing master bath has been closed up! This bath will become the pool bath with an door to the backyard. We added some shelving since there was no space for linen storage in there! This is the patched doorway before they finished it with plaster:We took some space from this closet in the Master for the linen shelving in the pool bath:

This is the view of the old (now patched) doorway and the new shelving:

The pool bath is small so its hard to get good pictures!

The new bath has walls now! Its very exciting! This is where the vanity will go:

This is the new door from the master to the porch:

The walls in the living room have been patched where the new slider is and where we filled in the step. It looks so good and I can't wait for paint!

Things are moving along nicely! Every time I go over to the house something else is done. We're getting closer to moving day!! :)

Yesterday my heart was filled with joy! Why? A new Costco opened near our house! I love Costco! And it is right next to the library I go to every week.

Its the little things in life, people! :)

Hot dog and soda anyone?

Back to reality!

Our vacation is over and now its back to reality! The remodel is still movin' along. Today was a big day: Windows and doors!! Whoo-hoo! Check out the master bedroom. It has a new window and a new door to the new porch!

Here's the snazzy new slider in the living room:

And the new bathroom window:

And here's a pic of one of the skylights in the bathroom. (The view of this picture is looking straight up into the ceiling of the bathroom.)

Love those skylights! If you scroll back up to the first picture, you'll notice the skylights on the roof. It's so exciting to go to the house and see one more thing being accomplished!

Victoria, British Colombia

As the ship sailed out of Skagway, I forgot to tell you that we celebrated several occasions at dinner that night! Dave's 60th Birthday:
Notice the sweet guitar our waiter Benito has! (Its a pepper mill and a plate cover

Our 10th Wedding Anniversary: (Its only a picture of the cake because I was the one taking all the pictures!)

And Nick and Elaine's 40th wedding anniversary:
Elaine is singing "Let me call you sweetheart" with the wait staff! :) Awwwww!

The next day we docked in Victoria,BC around 5pm. This is the view of Victoria from our balcony as we pulled in:

We headed out by bus to see the Butchart Gardens. Victoria is a beautiful city and just about anything will grow there. There are gardens and flowers everywhere! We arrived at Butchart with high expectations. (Elaine got lots of ideas for her garden next year!)

We were not disappointed. Butchart Gardens is truly stunning. http://www.butchartgardens.com/ There are 2 acres of beautifully, blooming flowers, plants and trees. (The garden is actually 55 acres, but a lot of the land is used for behind the scenes growing.) We made our way from the entrance of the park to the "Sunken Garden." This garden is the one that started it all. The Butchart Family owned Portland Cement. Mrs. Butchart decided to make one of their old limestone quarries in Victoria into a garden. That was 1904. This is the result:

Not bad for an old limestone quarry, huh?

That's me in the rose garden, which had hundreds of varieties of roses. It smelled so good! The Japanese Garden was added around 1908.

Not long after this it started to get too dark to keep taking pictures. I wish we could have stayed longer. Our bus headed to Church and State Winery for a little vino! http://www.churchandstatewines.com/

We had a fabulous tasting of 6 wines paired with chocolates. Delicious!

You can't get Church and State wine in the USA, so I brought home a couple of bottles! When we got back to the ship I noticed the flower baskets they had on the entrance to the gang plank. The whole city was like this!
Back on the ship we went and onto Seattle tomorrow which completes our trip. All good things must come to an end! :(

Skagway, AK and Carcross, Yukon Territory Canada

Hi! Sorry I'm a little late with the Skagway post! I got busy with work and I was just too tired.

We were very tired after our Juneau adventure. We had high hopes that Skagway would be less stressful and much more fun. And that is pretty much how things were! Skagway is awesome. The first part of our trip was a train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. The railway was built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush and still operates today. Here's a link to their website http://www.wpyr.com/history/ . The scenery from the train is gorgeous! Here's a few photos from the train:

That bridge is the 'old' bridge. Our train was on the 'new' bridge. The railway leaves from Skagway and takes you into CANADA! (I had never been to Canada before.) We were lucky enough to see a bear from the train. We only saw him for about 10 seconds, but everyone on the train went nuts! Our train ride ended in British Columbia where our guide for the day picked us up in his bus. This was the view at the end of our ride:

I must say that our day on this tour was fabulous because we had an awesome tour guide. His name was Bruce. He is an artist and a year round resident of Skagway. He is a wonderful storyteller and we enjoyed his tour and his knowledge. Bruce is a unique kind of artist. He carves ivory. I can hear you shout "That's illegal!!! That's animal cruelty!!!" But Bruce carves Mammoth ivory- tusks from animals who roamed the earth thousands of years ago and are now extinct. He gets them from miners who find the tusks while digging for ore. His creations are really beautiful. Check out his website: http://www.aptalaska.net/~schindlr/index.htm Thanks for a great day Bruce!

Bruce drove us further into Canada to the Yukon territory. He was nice enough to take this picture: (and he took pictures for everyone on the bus, which was like 40 people)The road we traveled is sometimes impassable in the winter because of avalanches. I loved that we stopped here. So rebellious! :)
Here's another beautiful photo from a "picture spot".



Bruce took us to a small town called Carcross, named for the large herds of Caribou that cross through that area every Fall. Our tour included lunch at this fun place: (and Yes, it was raining. Again.)

They fed us a hot lunch of barbeque chicken, coleslaw and biscuit. (Canadian cuisine, of course). They had fresh warm donuts for dessert. Yum. Nick was devastated when they ran out!

Seriously though- I saw some lady jamming 6 donuts wrapped in a napkin into her purse. Seriously? We're on a cruise with a 24 HOUR BUFFET, LADY! I THINK YOU'LL MAKE IT BACK TO THE SHIP WITHOUT STARVING! Crazy people.

Our lunch spot had some really cool 'tourist trap' stuff. Here's Nick with the Bison at the taxidermy museum:

Yes, that's right folks! He's picking its nose. Can't you just hear him laughing? And can't you just see the curators of the museum cringing? Such fun!!

There was also dog sled rides and (my personal favorite) PUPPIES! Muddy,wet puppies. And boy, did they know how to work us tourists! Look at these guys:

This guy said: "Gimme the treat, lady, and nobody's pants get muddy." I swear. Ok- he didn't talk. But if he could that's what he'd say.

Rob saw another bear! Scary!

This place offered dog sled rides. I took a quick video of the dogs. They are so strong and all they want to do is run! Check it out:




After lunch we ventured into the small town of Carcross. It took about 5 minutes to tour the town. Its pretty tiny. This was my favorite part:

That's right. Sushi! If your wondering why we didn't have lunch here, this is why: Kinda small. Here's the Carcross Post Office. After our short stop we headed back to the USA. We made a couple stops for pictures. And whatta ya know? Another rainbow!

We made a stop at this neat place so we could photograph these trees. Bruce educated us about coastal tundra. These trees, although small, are anywhere from 5-700 years old. They survive the frigid, snowy winter by getting buried in snow.

This is one of those places where tourists like us stop and stack rocks. Its a way of leaving your mark behind without trashing the ecosystem. Bruce says that, in his experience, there are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those who stack the rocks, and those who knock them down. Look what I caught Nick doing:

LOL! We hit the road again. Bruce had a rule that no one can fall asleep on the bus. Look at these rule breakers!!!
We made it back to the ship with little time to spare before all aboard. The rocks along the pier are painted with the symbols of the ships that have docked here over the years. Check this one out:

Such a great day! On our way out of port we were fortunate enough to see 2 humpback whales. They were cruising along, spouting out of their blowholes. It was really cool. I couldn't zoom in enough with my camera to get a good picture, but here is where we saw them.

A little bit further down the fjord, we saw Twin Falls- named so for the split at the bottom.

Lovely! Tomorrow is a day at sea and next stop is Victoria, BC!

Juneau, AK "The Capital City"

Juneau was by far the most adventurous stop on our trip! We signed up for a river rafting adventure through the cruise line. We were a little leery when we arrived to rainy (no surprise there) Juneau.

We thought the rain might create some crazy rapids. Like this:

Ok- that's Niagara Falls, but we were a little concerned. No worries, though.

We took a bus ride out to Mendenhall Lake, which is at the base of the Mendenhall Glacier. Very pretty! Check out our rides for the day!

That's the glacier under those clouds! :) They gave us some really great rain gear (also a theme this trip) and a guide.

His name was Evan (pronounced EEEEvaan) and he was 19 years old. He took this picture of us just before we shoved off. In case you can't find me, I'm the blueberry in the front with the life jacket on. Nick and Elaine are right behind us. We look like a basket of bananas. And one blueberry. With life jackets on. So off we go into the 34 degree water. Our guide paddles us out onto the lake and towards the rapids. At this point its really cold. My toes are already somewhat numb and we are 5 min from shore. But it was beautiful, and scenic, and I'm really excited to hit those rapids! Evan gives us some basic instructions- one of which is how he will rescue us if we fall into the frigid water. (scary)

So we head towards the rapids, which are not all that rapid, but look like fun. We start to speed up and Whoo Hoo! Splish splash! Fun! And then...... STOP. We hit a rock. We are stuck on the rock. Evan tells us, no problem- he can get us off the rock. He asks us to all bounce our feet and some of us to shift our weight by rocking side to side in our seats. After about 15 minutes of bouncing and rocking, we are still stuck. We ask Evan if he has a radio, or a cell phone so he can call for help. The answer is no. (WTF EVAN?) We happen to be stuck directly in front of two homes on the river. A lady comes out of one of the homes and asks if she can call someone. (that sounds smart) Her son tries to help by tossing us a rope, but the rope is way to short and her son can't get it to us. After about 30 min the lady is smart enough to call 911. Evan didn't call anybody because HE DIDN'T HAVE A CELL PHONE OR A RADIO!! Isn't that something they teach you on the first day of tourism school?? "Don't take a group of cruise ship tourists on a raft who have no idea wtf they are doing with out a way to call for help!" I digress.

So the lady from the house calls 911 and tells us the fire department is coming. Evan says - 'oh great. That's like a $12k charge. I'm gonna get fired.' His 19 years are really starting to show at this point. Nick was really good at keeping him focused on the fact that the safety of the people on the raft is the first priority and his job is a distant #2. Now 35 minutes have passed and we are cold and tired and not having fun anymore. And then AL appears!! AL! Al was one of the guys who helped us out on the shore before we left. YaY AL!!

Al proceeds to try and throw us a rope while wading into the water up to his thighs. On the third try, Rob catches the rope!!! An then Al accidentally lets go of his end and we are right back where we started. Nick was laughing so hard I thought he would pee his rain pants! But - Good News- The Fire Department is here!! A big Fire truck pulls into the house's driveway. ..... And ONE guy gets out. ONE GUY. The fire department sent ONE GUY. At this point, I figure we are never getting off this rock. Fortunately, Al, the fireman, the lady's son, and now her husband, successfully toss us a rope. It took 4 tries, but Rob catches it, and is able to tie it to the raft. The people on shore start tugging, and we start bouncing our feet, and the raft begins to move!! A few tugs and a few more bounces and we slide back into the rushing water! YAY!! We were stuck for almost an hour. This was our view while we were stuck: (I figured since we were stuck, I might as well take a picture.)

The rest of our ride was uneventful. We did see 2 bald eagles and some great scenery. Evan told us all about the bald eagles and the history of Juneau. Did you know they named Juneau after Joe Juneau? The night before the town was going to vote on its official name, Joe Juneau bought everyone a round of drinks at the local saloon. Smart man. (I'm not sure if that is a true story, but I like it!)

Here's a picture of the duration of our river raft trip. It was misty and quiet and lovely. :) Bald eagles are majestic and beautiful.

Our ride ended and we gave back our awesome rain gear. We made our way back to the ship, had a quick dinner, and went to bed. What a day!! Here's all of us as we are about to head back to town: (sorry about the poor quality, but it was almost dark. oh, and it was raining.)

Rob has on his "happy" face. LOL!

Tomorrow is the awesome town of Skagway!!

P.S. No. We did not see Sara Palin. :)