Last weekend I was making cinnamon rolls for my Sunday School class, and our kitchen echoed with the words, "See! See!" over and over again. Noah was very curious. So I pulled a chair up to the counter and this little sugar bear decided to sample some of the filling.
It also kept his little hands busy and out of the cinnamon rolls. He was in sugar heaven.
Noah is very into doing things with his eyes closed right now: eating, walking, playing with his toys, handing us things -- it doesn't matter. And he thinks its hilarious. This little progression of pictures shows his silliness of eating without being able to "See! See!"
Not long ago he decided to use my KitchenAid bowl as a helmet and tried walking around without seeing. I'm SO glad I had my phone close by to capture this silly moment:
Six days after coming home from Sea Ranch, Nate packed up again and headed to Alaska with his friend Andy. They spent ten days fishing, bear watching and taking in the beauty that is Alaska.
First stop was King Salmon, where the boys boarded a float plane for Katmai National Park.
After arriving at Brooks Lodge in Katmai, they transported their gear about a half a mile to the campground.
Yes, they camped. Instead of paying thousands of dollars for a few nights in the lodges, Nate and Andy spent $8 a night and camped.
Brooks Camp is one of those legendary places where, at the right time of the year, bears swarm and feed on salmon like crazy. I mean, BBC was right there filming next to Nate as he took pictures. This is THE place when it comes to bears.
For three days these bears provided great entertainment for Andy and Nate.
Wait...there's more!
I mean, when you take a trip specifically to see bears, you better come home with several hundred pictures of them, right?
And some video:
After fishing and walking with the bears for a few days, the guys said good-bye to their four-legged friends and flew back to Anchorage.
After stopping for some amazing pizza at The Moose's Tooth and picking up some food at Costco, they drove on to Ninilchik.
A lot of time was spent fishing in their usual favorite places, although the catch this year wasn't nearly as fruitful as in years past. But, even failure to catch fish is less disappointing when you get to do it in beautiful Alaska.
Nate was definitely disappointed with the halibut catch. These guys are tiny. But all of the other guys on the boat were seasick and Nate had to do pretty much all of the work to reel the fish in.
Those same sick guys, didn't want him to throw back the little ones to try for something bigger, because they were just worried that they'd end up with nothing. Thus, a smaller catch than he expected. But it was still plenty to bring home and stash in our freezer. Yum!
If Nate is guilty of any addiction, it's Alaska. He literally craves it. Every time he's there he thinks
about buying land. If only work had an office in Anchorage...
We missed him like crazy and were glad that he didn't decide to take up permanent residence with those bears. The next time, he promises that our boys will be up there with him...and maybe mom too.
I knew we had taken a LOT of pictures, but I had no idea I'd write about
so much of it. Turning these posts into a book at the end of the year
is big incentive to document like crazy.
Plus, this kid has so much personality that taking just a picture or two is impossible.
So here's the last of the pictures, and it's mostly a ton of cousin cuteness. I'm so glad we have these little ones to keep us laughing!
When you're on a vacation without much of an agenda there's lots of time to relax. I think most of us grown ups definitely took advantage of that and, along with the kids, caught up on a good book...or at least a good magazine.
I think our favorite thing about Sea Ranch is going on walks. The trails are so close to the ocean and the scenery is priceless. When this is what you see on a regular basis as you look out your back door, you just want to get outside.
It didn't matter the time of day, we were always happy to be outside exploring and taking in the beauty surrounding us.
My favorite walks were in the morning.
Most mornings Nate and I would go for our runs, and by then our little early riser was ready to get out of the house.
We were also hoping to let everyone else sleep a little longer by getting this noisy guy outside for a while.
He saw it so often that by the end of the trip, Noah was pointing westward and saying, 'ocean.'
We have a little tradition of taking an early morning walk the last day we're at Sea Ranch. This time we had Noah to enjoy it with us.
Noah loved going on walks and exploring. I think we could watch him run all day long. It's just too cute to see those little legs go. Here's a little compilation of him on the go. I love that it's combined with the beauty that was literally outside our front door. And the face plant he takes at the end is kind of funny too.
