W is for...

Waterpark! No pictures cause I didn't want to bring the camera and get it wet, but if you haven't been to the Renton Waterpark (Henry Moses Aquatic Center), you should check it out. We had great weather and both kids got their fill of fun. There is a lazy river, wave pool, shallow pool with playthings for younger kids, 2 big slides, and a regular pool. It was a fun way to end the summer!

V is for...

Vigorous hopping while simultaneously shaking hands in 30 seconds and Vinegar Science! Over the weekend, we discovered the Universal Record Database, which also would have been helpful for U day. Their philosophy is that there are plenty of creative records to be set out there. You need to submit a video and have a quantifiable measurement for your record. So Ilea and Kyler Vigorously Hopped and Shook Hands. They made 142 hops total. We have submitted it to the database, and are waiting for it to be published.

We also did Vinegar science. Trying to find something besides blowing up a balloon with Vinegar and Baking Soda, I went for the Rubber Egg in Vinegar. The first egg must have had something wrong with it! In the morning the yolk was sitting in the bottom of a rather nasty jar of shell, vinegar, and foamy stuff. So I emptied it out and tried again. Stay tuned to see the results of our Vinegar Science.

U is for...

Unique Stationery and Umbrella art! Fri we attempted to do U day. That's a hard one! I saw a craft online (Martha Stewart, I think), where she took a few leaves and spray painted the cardstock and got these great pictures with perfect outlines of the leaves, and very artistic droplets of paint. It doesn't work quite that way....first, the leaves blew away from the spray paint, so we had to use rubber cement to glue them down. Then, the paint doesn't make these pretty droplets, it fills the whole thing. OK. So we worked with our Unique art. We actually did make a few cards, and Ilea made a face. So desperate, I found an example of Umbrella art. The kids made some great pictures!

T is for....

Trading spaces! My kids don't like Tea, and we didn't have a rope for Tug-of-War (besides there were only 2 of them...). Kyler did have Tae Kwon Do today, and we had Thai Peanut sauce with pasta, which is one of their favorites. In the morning we thought about Trading spaces. We did it for lunch and dinner, all sitting at different places at our table, but the big Trade was going to come at night. They switched rooms. Kyler wasn't really that excited, but Ilea has been kind of wanted to sleep on Kyler's bunk bed since he got it! So we switched. Kyler took 6 animals with him, and his pillow. Ilea just took her pillow. Luckily they both made it through the night!

M again!

We were unable to go into Meeker Mansion last time we tried. But Facebook is amazing! One of my friends was reading our post while her daughter was there, and her daughter has been a volunteer at Meeker Mansion for almost 20 years! She contacted us and offered to give us a tour! So on Sat our whole family got to go. It was a fun place, with beautiful stained glass, painted ceilings, and wonderful woodwork. Joanna was a great guide, with lots of information. We enjoyed our peek into history! Thanks Barb and Joanna!

Ship Highlights

This post is mostly pictures of the ship.

This is the Crow's Nest, on the very top deck. It had a great view out the front of the ship. At night there was dancing in here.

All over the ship were windows with art displays, statues, and art on the walls. The stairwells would have themes in them. One had different ship/sailing pictures, one had flowers and botanicals, and one had different Escher pictures. One section of the ship had Egyptian artifacts (well, replicas), and this section had Napoleonic things.

This is the outside part of the Lido deck, by the pool. We spent a lot of time here. just down the hall, where that guy in the white T-shirt is, is an entrance to the cafeteria area, with more seating.
Another picture of the Lido deck, from the same end. In the middle were the 2 hot tubs and the pool.
This is the Mandorian Lounge. There was a balcony, and seating on the lower level as well. This is where all the shows were, and infomation sessions too.
This is one of the lounges. There were many around. In the evening there would be a string quartet playing, or if there was a piano at different times of the day there would be someone playing, anything from classical music to jazz. The seats were usually pretty comfortable, with small tables scattered around.
This is the library. They had books you could check out for the week, and games in cabinets also. They had lounging chairs, a large table with felt on top for puzzles, some tables with large New York Times Crossowords under glass and you could check out a dry erase pen to do the puzzle. They also had larger tables around. It was a great area, and we used it a lot for meeting. It was right behind the coffee bar.

This is the Rotterdam Dining Room. It was in the back of the ship. There was assigned seating on this floor, which we used mostly. There were huge chandeliers in the middle, and it was open to the floor below which was more informal seating. There were windows on the sides and back, so you could see out while you ate. It was very beautiful.


This is from our kitchen tour. The kitchen areas are quite large, with multiple huge walk in fridge/freezers, tons of ranges, ovens etc. It was amazing.
This was what they called the Atrium, near the middle/front end of the boat. This large "organ" went up 3 stories with circular stairs around it. It was one of the first things you saw when you came on the ship.

The only thing we forgot to get pictures of was our room! It was larger than we thought, and was fine for us. Since we didn't have any windows, we usually relaxed on one of the other decks. We highly recommend Holland America! Let us know if you want to go on a cruise!

S is for...

School Supply Shopping! Yes, I made them go to the store and pick out their stuff. No one was excited, but it’s got to be done. We also had a Seafood dinner - Shrimp Cocktails and Salmon. I’m sure missing that 5-star cuisine on the Ship!

R is for...

Ribbon craft, Reading, and Rest. We made a variety of ribbon crafts today. I remembered some old Christmas Candy Ribbon crafts that I had (I think I bought them for my MOPS table and we never used them). I also looked on the web. There were Ribbon Dragons, which both kids made (Kyler’s is small, and is on his shoulder). Kyler made one of the Christmas candy ribbons with me. And I also made some Ribbon Fish. I thought the kids would love these, but they thought they were too hard, so I ended up making 2 myself. They were really cute. We all read for a while, and I’m ready to Rest.

Q is for

Quest! This was a pretty fun day. On Tues I went around the neighborhood and took pictures of things the kids should recognize. Sent them off to Costco and picked them up a few hours later and I was ready. I planned out the route, then went around the neighborhood taping Ziploc bags with the pictures inside to light poles, mailboxes, and other public things. To start the Quest I gave them the first picture. It was of their friend Victoria’s house. Off they went to find the next clue. I think there were 12 in all. It took them about 40 minutes to find them all and make their way back home. For a reward I got them some Frozen Yogurt from Costco. I wonder what we can do next year?

P is for....

This was an easy day. Ilea had her friend Sammy over to play.

We tried to get a play-date for Kyler as well, but everyone was busy or out of town.So he was allowed the most wonderful treats, to play his Pokemon Platinum on his DS. For dinner we had pizza. Pretty easy!

Day 7 - Cruise

Last day. The time zone changed back, so we lost an hour, but we were at sea and there was no real schedule. We slept in, and ate in the nice dining room for the last time. Most of the day was at sea. We swam, relaxed, and took pictures of the ship. Lunch at the Lido deck. We arrived in Victoria by 5:30 or 6pm. We had our Last Supper early that night, 5pm. Then we were told that we would have to wait 30 minutes for another ship to get out of our parking space..uh, dock. Then we waited another 30 min or so for it to actually leave. We finally got in about 5pm. We watched the ship dock and the people to prepare the dock for us. They lined up the ramp, and brought over a beautiful lamppost with flowers on it, and an extension cord to plug in the light, and a red carpet. It was kind of funny. Finally people could get off. I felt really sorry for the ones going up to Butchart Gardens - it's about 45min-1 hr drive, and there is so much to see! It was getting dark soon, and they are pretty pricey. I would hate to have to run through the whole thing trying to see it all before dark.

After a bit we finally got off. We were a number of blocks over from the harbor, which is where Kipp and I thought we were going to dock. We showed the kids where Kipp and I had stayed before, and walked around the harbor. We went down into the shopping, but mostly we looked for a Starbucks. As we walked we found these Eagles all painted differently. It was fun to find them.

As we were coming back we enjoyed some street performers playing some fun music with xylophones (4 sets!), and drums. The kids danced, and it was neat music. We wandered back to the harbor.
By this time most of the tourist shops were closing and only the pubs were open. We had a long walk back to the ship. We were going to go in the hot tub, but it was about 10pm already. We had to pack up our suitcases and leave them outside the door. Our last towel creature was a crab. We put the kids to bed and went up to the Crow's Nest, a lounge on the very top floor with windows on the front of the ship. We watched the city for a bit, and then went to bed.

Day 6 - Cruise

On Wednesday we were in Ketchikan. This day we did have a tour set up, so we had to actually wake up, eat, and leave the ship by 8:15 or so. The kids have been wanting to take the Duck tour in Seattle for a long time, but we haven't been willing to pay the price. So we decided to surprise them with a trip. Ketchikan is the first stops for the ships that used to go north. It's a pretty town, and our good friend, Janice Montrey comes from there (her son Lucas is Kyler's friend)! So we took a 9am tour. It was fun and good to do. We drove around town first, learning about the history, and then got to go into the water to see the canneries and other waterfront buildings. We again had beautiful upper 70s weather.

When we got back from the tour we explored around some more. I had some letterbox clues I wanted to try to find. We headed out to find the first one, and while we were looking, someone gave us 4 tickets to a tram that we didn't even know about. We tried to find the first letterbox, but it wasn't there. So we used the tram tickets, which took us up to where the 2nd clue was. It would have been a long uphill hike otherwise! It was a nice view too.

Luckily the letterbox was there! I was excited!

We went back down the hill, and spent some time shopping and looking in art galleries again. There is a river with tons of salmon in it, which was fun to watch. We pushed Kipp's comfort level and got back in the last 1/2 hr before the ship was supposed to leave, around 1:10 (the ship was leaving at 1:30). We were hungry, so off to the Lido deck to eat lunch and swim for the rest of the afternoon. The ship had a long sailing time now, from Ketchikan to Victoria BC late the next day.

When Kyler ran into our room he got a surprise!

The dinner again was formal. It was fun to get dressed up, and the food was delicious. Kyler went to Kids club, and Ilea joined us for the last show, which was Broadway Love songs. It was fun. The costumes were great, and the singing and dancing was pretty good. We wandered around a bit, and finally went to bed.

Day 5 - Cruise

Day 5 so it must be Sitka! We arrived here by 8am or so. No rush, as we were to be here all day. We had breakfast by 8:30 or so. This was one of the days where our ship was not able to dock, and we had to take tenders to the shore. They carried quite a few people, and they had multiple boats running, so there was no line by the time we got ready to go ashore. This was one place we didn't have any excursions planned for. We just spent the time visiting around the town. It's a Russian based town, and many of the shops have Faberge eggs, royal blue and white china, and other Russian crafts. The first thing we came to was a 50-ft native american long boat. There is a "famous" Russian church, but we chose not to go in it. We had fun looking at all the gift stores and art galleries. There was a fur shop that we went into. The kids haven't seen real fur like this before. The sheared fur won me over, and while Ilea didn't like the idea of killing animals for their fur, she figured that if they were already dead it was OK to wear it. So she still needs to solidify her ethics! But they were sure lovely to touch.
We found this huge totem pole, in a park, with some statues also. The town is not very big. There is a bridge which leads to more town. Sitka looks like the San Juan Islands on steroids. Same islands and channels everywhere, but the mountains are all very tall and craggy. Everywhere around us was very beautiful. We walked back through town and found a grocery store and got something to drink. Being a little cheap, we weren't paying for soda on the ship, so Kipp and I shared a big Coke, and we got a bottle of water for the kids (we forgot to bring our water that day, and it was warm - around 80). On this side of town there was a park along the waterfront, and we went down to a large State park. On the way was a salmon hatchery, and boy were they jumping. It was fun to watch them. Kyler found a hermit crab to hold in his hand, and we rested there a bit.

By 1pm or so, we were hot and tired, and decided to go back to the ship. You can see one of the other tenders loading on the side. By the way, our room was on deck 2. Deck 3 is the biggest deck, with the rails below the lifeboats and the open space on the front. We spent the afternoon swimming and enjoying the sun. The ship left about 4pm I think.

When we came to get ready for dinner we had a towel dog. Tonight's dinner was special. It was a Chef's extravaganza. Everyone had chef's toque's to wear, and the food was a little more formal. There were dancers and singers in between the courses. It was fun, and the food was great as always. After dinner Kyler went to the kids club, but Ilea wasn't interested and came with Kipp and I to the show. It was a magician/comedy show. I think he spent too much time on comedy, but Ilea enjoyed it, and some of the tricks were pretty good. He also had a small dog, a Coton de Toulear, which Kyler desperately wants. It's being taken under consideration.


After the magic show, the highlight of the night was a Chef's Dessert Extravaganza. There were tables lining both sides of the pool on the Lido deck, fresh crepe suzette, a chocolate fountain with fruits and things to dip, pastry, pretty much anything you can think of! It was amazing. While we were waiting for the desserts to be set up, we were at a small table by the pool. There was a huge chess set near us, with knee-high pieces. A girl and guy about 18 yrs old or so were playing a game. The guy knew how to play, but the girl didn't know very much. Kyler just couldn't help himself, and watched for a few minutes, and then asked her if she wanted help. She said yes. They started winning, but then the guy got an older friend to help him, and the guys finally turned it around. But Kyler had fun, and the girl was very sweet to him. They did pretty well. The other guy said that Kyler doesn't think far enough and goes for the obvious move, but didn't do too badly for an 8 yr old! At 10pm they finally opened up the treats, and we all found something good to eat, or 2, or 3...

Day 4 - Cruise

Day 4 was different for us. We went from Juneau north a bit to Glacier Bay. They let a Park Ranger and a local liason for the native peoples on the ship to share information, answers questions, etc. We spent the whole day on the ship. We arrived at Glacier National park around 7am, but didn't arrive to the first glacier until about 10:30am.
The day was sunny, but a little windy on the deck. Everyone went out on the front decks. We were early and got a great place at the very front, and had fun watching the glacier. There were lots of little icebergs in the water, which became more numerous as we got closer. There were mountains rising up on both sides of the channel, although it was hazy further out from the fires.


As we got closer we could really see more detail. This is Marjorie Glacier. The face is around 300 feet high, and there were lots of little pieces falling off. Your eye would catch movement, and sometimes you could see it, or sometimes just the splash where you missed it. There was a point, and just behind the point we all saw a huge, long splash! It was so frustrating! It happened again before we got close enough, and once we could see that far side, of course nothing happened. The ship sat by the glacier for about an hour, and it was great. There is one spot where you can see what looks like water boiling up right at the base of the glacier. They said that was the outflow of melting water coming out. It also stirred up a lot of silt, and fish, and there were tons of seagulls and other birds feeding. The glacier moves about 6 feet a day.

We enjoyed talking to everyone around us as we watched for the big drop of ice.

That morning we all got announcements of another type. There was a request from the captain to help locate a lady who had not been seen since midnight the night before. She did get on the boat in Juneau, but was missing. They had her picture on the TV's and screens. They continued with announcements about every half hour for the next 4 or 5 hours. Finally they announced that it was presumed that she was no longer on the boat and that the coast guard would take up the search. As we found out the next day, her body was found around 4:30pm on Monday, about 12 miles from Juneau. We do know she had been having problems with the person she was traveling with, and had been drinking heavily and had to be cut off at the bar. Bits and pieces of the story seemed to come together as people talked about what happened the rest of the week, and as we got news from outside the ship.

Around noon we left Marjorie Glacier and headed back out the park. We went to another place called Johns Hopkins Inlet, and saw a different glacier. It was a little dirtier - we could see more layers of the dirt the glacier picks up, but it was neat also. We were surprised at how jagged the glaciers are, and how there are holes and spires. I always imagined it was like an ice field, smooth on top, and just shear at the edge. But there were caves, and towers. The ship has so many decks with great windows, and we had plenty of time to view all the glaciers, and the mountains with snow and glaciers higher up also. In the picture you can see the hole where the melted water is pouring out on this one.
We had lunch, and swam some in the afternoon. It was about 80deg this day. We had to move out of the sun so we wouldn't get burned!

We eventually went to dinner and found out a little more about our waiter, Toto. He is from Indonesia, the island of Java. He has a 9 month old and a 5 year old, and has been working about 5 years on the ship. He works for 11-12 months, 7 days a week, 11 hours a day, and then gets a month off. This is the same for most of the kitchen, waitstaff, and cabin stewards. They double as bartenders, or cleaning the decks, or whatever needs to be done.


Our cabin steward made a cute elephant today, and included Jenny's sunglasses and Kyler's bear. The kids loved it. We went and saw Bolt this evening instead of the show. It was a comedian, and we weren't sure how "family-friendly" he would be. Bolt was fun, and we went on to bed.

O is for....

Orange Ooblek, Olympics, and Stir fry Orange Beef and stir-fry Orange Broccoli. We picked up Bartholomew Cubbins and the Ooblek from the library yesterday. Ilea read it out loud to Kyler. We haven't read that book in a long time! Then we made Orange Ooblek. It's 2 parts corn starch and 1 part water. Fun stuff (Oobleck is a type of non-Newtonian fluid called a dilatant)! They played with it longer than I would have thought. Even Kipp thought it was neat.


Later in the day the kids worked on thier Olympic competition. They created 20-30 games that they could do around our yard and have been competing with each other and keeping scores. They had started them earlier in the summer, and thought O day was a good day to work on them again. I think Kyler's ahead. Kipp jumped into this race, and almost won!



For dinner I pulled out an old recipe of Orange stir-fried beef and noodles, which was mostly tasteless. But I also tested a recipe for Cook's Illustrated of Stir Fry Orange Brocolli. Now I don't normally like brocolli, nor do I like the smell in my kitchen after cooking it. But this was delicious! I even had a large second helping, which is bizarre! It really helped the beef, and had a great orange-spicy flavor, and no usual broccoli smell. Too bad for the kids that I found a new veggie I like!

Day 3

Day 3 - the time zone changed, so we got to move the clocks back one hour. This made it feel like we were sleeping in, but we still got to breakfast in time for treats! We were going to Juneau, but not arriving until about 12pm. So we relaxed in the morning. Jenny did bible study every day, and read a lot. Kipp went to a computer class that morning, and the kids went to Kids Club. There was a library/game room area in the middle of the ship, on one side. We often relaxed there, and used it as a meeting place. Again, we had lunch on the Lido deck. We ate a little early to be able to get off soon.


The cabin steward usually made up our room in the morning, and then came again in the evening. Every day there would be a "towel creature" on the main bed. The first one, on Day 2, was maybe a snake or something. We weren't really sure. This one was a seal, and he added Kyler's brown bear. It was fun to see what he would do every day.

Our ship had the best dock! We got off the ship and were right at the bottom of the tram to Mt Roberts that we had decided to go on. The tram went up 1800 feet. Other ships (there were 2 ships on the same route as us, from Seattle), had to dock further away, and had quite a walk to get to the tram and shopping. This is our ship as we headed up the mountain. It was a little hazy that day because there were a lot of fires in the Yukon and Canada, and the smoke was drifting our way.


The view from Mt Roberts. There was a nature center there, and we took some trails for a hike. We went further than we planned because it was so nice out and Ilea wanted to hike longer. She really wanted to go to the top, which was 3 miles up from the nature center, and we had a hard time convincing her we weren't equipped for a hike like that. We finally came down.

We did a little shopping at the bottom. Basically, all these towns have the same shops near the ships - art and jewelry shops mixed with tourist souvenirs. We did our fair share of getting souvenirs at every port, and enjoyed all the different art shops. There were all kinds are glass, wood, crafts, statues and paintings. It was fun, but we finally got tired, and went back to the ship. We relaxed for a while before dinner, and the kids swam again. Did I mention that there was a retractable roof over the pool (there were 2 pools, this is the one in the middle of the ship, with 2 hot tubs - the other was on the same deck, but out in back, and it could get pretty windy)? If it got too humid they would open it a bit. If it got too windy, they would close it some. They were really good about keeping it very pleasant, and the roof was made with glass windows, so it was bright and airy even when it was totally closed.

Kipp had a headache, and lay down for a while. The kids went to Kids club, but Ilea came back early and she and I went on the tram again. We weren't leaving Juneau until 10:00pm, and the tram was open until 9:30.
So about 8:30 pm we headed up (luckily it was SOOOO close!). We missed the sunset, which Ilea really wanted to see, but it was still light out, and the sky turned pink. We saw the lights on in the little town, and the reflection of the pink sky in the water. The lights on the ship were on also, and it was really pretty. It was worth our last minute run.

When we got back to the ship, Kyler met Ilea and I to see the show for the night. After about 10 minutes he whispered "When are they going to have the games, like the first night?" I told him there weren't going to be any, so he ran off t0 the kids club. Ilea enjoyed the show with me. The theme tonight was H2O! A Tribute to Water! They had lots of sets of music with everything you could think of that had rain, water, etc. It was fun. They had lots of different costumes and did a great job with sets for how small a stage it was. We all got back about 10pm. There was a TV in our room, and it had a few channels, like CNN, a couple of movies, and ship info. We watched Men In Black for a bit, read our books, and went to bed.

Cruise - Day 1 & 2

We had a wonderful cruise to Alaska! It started on Fri, July 31, on the Zaandam (Holland America). Fred Little gave us a ride to the dock. We turned in our bags and got through security. Then we got our room keys, which was our ID on board. We were able to go to deck 8, Lido deck, right away and get a buffet lunch. It was great! We all ate too much, and the kids had tons of desserts. We had a table by the pool.


We explored around the boat, and went to our room. We were down on the 2nd Floor. We decided not to use the elevators for the week, unless Jenny was in high heels. We kept that up most of the time, only using the elevators about 3 or 4 times the whole week. It was a lot of up and down! We got our swimsuits on and went back up to one of the pools.

At 3:30 we all had to go for lifeboat drill, then back up to watch the ship take off! It was a gorgeous day in Seattle, and we had great weather the whole week.

At 5:30 we went to the Pinnacle Grill for our first dinner. It was very nice, and there was a fee for the adults, but it was worth it. The food was amazing, and we enjoyed a 4 course meal. The kids tried new stuff, and everyone had a great dinner.

After dinner the kids went up to the Kids Club (KC Hal), and we explored a little more. We went to a show that night, but it was more games with the audience than a show. We were all tired, and so we went to bed a little early.

On Sat we slept in late, so late that all the chocolate croissants were gone! We wouldn't let that happen again! We ate breakfast in the main dining room. Pastries, muffins, eggs any way, cereal, pancakes and french toast were all available. There were also specials every day. It was great. This was our only full day at sea, although land was visible some of the time. We were headed up to Juneau. The kids ran off to go see the kids club, and Kipp and I relaxed. We took a tour of the kitchens, which was amazing. There are over 50 chefs and assistants getting the food ready all day. There are about 1400 passengers on this ship, and a crew of 400. They do a beautiful job of all the food. It was all presented like a 5 star restaurant.

Kipp and I did a scavenger hunt late morning. We were paired with another family of 3, and we won! We got 'Dam Dollars" as a prize. They are redeemable at the end of the week.

We all had lunch on the Lido deck again, and spent most of the afternoon by the pool, swimming and relaxing. We had our first dinner in the main dining room. It was one of 2 formal nights. Everything was great - looking and tasting. Kyler switched from salmon to toasted Cheese sandwich, and had that every night after! He didn't know what he was missing! Ilea tried many different things, and usually enjoyed them.

The kids went to Kids club again, and we went to the musical show. It was singing and dancing, with a theme of Southern Nights. It was pretty good. We went to bed later that night. There was lots of rocking during the night, but it didn't bother any of us.

Surprises on our Alaskan Cruise

Here is a list of some surprises on our first cruise

1. How fast toilets flush - You couldn't get out of the bathroom before it was done flushing. It was like a cyclone.
   
2. How big the room was - We were expecting a room about as big as a king bed. We were pleasantly surprised
   
3. How often Kyler had a cheese sandwich almost every dinner (6 out of 7 nights)
   
4. How there was a retractable roof over the Lido deck pool.
5. How smooth the water was on the whole trip
6. How much smoke there was in Glacer Bay and Sitka.
7. How we didn't get a drop of rain on the whole trip
   
8. How easy it was to spend money on stuff - Somehow you just feel like spending money (or you don't care)
   
9. How long the staff assignments were - waiters/stewards worked 11 hours/day for 10-12 months/year
10. How much it costs to use your cell phone voice and data
11. How much soda costs - my dad said that all cruise ships charge for soda these days
    
12. How many infants and toddlers were on the trip - It is hard to imagine toting/watching/feeding/entertaining a small child on a cruise ship.
    
13. How well the kids club prepared the many activities for the kids and was free. - They did so many things... here is a short list (...)
    
14. How warm the pool was. It was so warm that there was absolutely no chill to the water.