The scenery in Alaska is as breathtaking as you can imagine. My favorite parts? The air! Coming from smog-ridden Southern California, it’s always great to get away from that brown dingy crust of air that clings to our horizon and clogs our lungs. AND the trees! It’s just an awesome sight to see untouched forests all around you…almost surreal. Instead of giving a daily recap, I’ll just go through the big stuff. If you missed it, go see the slideshow here. Here we go!

Cruising
I just don’t think it’s for me. I can see how people can like with the all-you-can-eat madness and that cool waking up in the next town feeling, but really it’s not for me. It’s not that the food wasn’t good, some of it is actually great. I just really hated the fact that all everyone did was eat! It kinda grossed me out. Probably another thing that turned me off was that we had the kids and we couldn’t do much of the activities that the ship had planned for all. I mean the activities were pretty cheesy, but I guess you can make the best of it. Freaking BINGO! I was one away from the jackpot! Damn you, lady in the giant purple dress! Damn you! So unless it’s an ultra luxury cruise on some exotic location, I don’t think I’ll be on a cruise ship anytime soon.

Lucas going crazy on the ship…

Float Plane
Awesome! We took our first float plane tour in Juneau, AK and it was so cool! It was only a 20 minute ride but the sights were just insane. Seeing all these glaciers from above makes it a must do. I think it would’ve been even cooler on a helicopter, but maybe next time. At almost $300 per person, I almost didn’t do it. But in retrospect, it was the BEST part of the trip.

Family
This was our first family vacation where we all went somewhere pretty far. My mom planned the whole trip and she did an great job gathering all of us crazies in one spot. Granted, being stuck with your relatives for 7 days straight can ruffle anyone’s feathers, but, all in all, it was a blast. Thanks to all those who participated in our jumping shots. Those times messing around will always be bookmarked in my memory. Not sure if one of these trips are coming around any time soon, so I’ll cherish this for a while.

Top: Lille, Tita Le, Edward, Ethan. Middle: JB, Tere, Mom, Tita Peggy, Lola, Tey, Nathan. Bottom: Tristan, Lucas and me.

The Boys
For the most part, the boys did great. Lucas had his daily spats with his cousin, Tristan, but I guess we all saw that coming. Those dudes are crazy. One minute they are hugging and holding hands…best friends. Then the next minute they’re swinging for the fences. One funny story with Lucas was his new name! Yup, he started introducing himself as Buddy or Buddy Lucas. It’s pretty hilarious when he walks in an elevator and says “Hi, this is my brother, Nathan. And I’m Buddy!” We all start laughing. I guess I should stop greeting him by saying, “Hey little buddy!”

The Two Maniacs.

Nathan is now becoming quite the world traveler. At 7 months, he’s been to The Philippines, Alaska, Seattle and BC, Canada. Not too shabby. He was the star of the ship as the cute little baby girl. Yep, everyone thought he was a baby girl.

Prince Rupert, BC
The trip went from Seattle to Ketchikan to Juneau to Skagway to Prince Rupert and back to Seattle. All of them were beautiful and worthy of touring except for one. No offense to the denizens of Prince Rupert, but that was a complete waste of time. I guess I’m just bitter because we couldn’t go whale watching there (no kids) which I heard was great. So we ended up taking tour of the town and wow! The location itself was beautiful, but the town was so….yuck. At almost $60 a person for this bus tour, I’ve never been so underwhelmed in my life. I love history and tours, but there was absolutely nothing interesting about the town. They really need to change that or at the minimum, cut that cost in half. I’m still disgruntled…that was, by far, the worst part of the trip.

This is the only thing we could do in Prince Rupert…

That’s most of my stories. Go visit Alaska! It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to!