Bears

Nikki and her girls took Maysen and I down the Turnagain Arm to Chugach National Forrest.  Maysen kept making fun of me because I kept calling it 'that finger thing'.  Finger....arm....what's the difference? It was raining when we arrived at the visitor center so I decided to leave the fancy camera in the car and just use the cell phone.  I tried to take a picture of something, but my camera ran out of batteries as soon as we walked inside.  It might or might not have been because I was checking Instagram every three seconds.  Literally.  BYU dropped their box today in New Mexico.  I wasn't sure if Mike would notice when they did, so I wanted to take a screen shot and text it to him.  My phone was dead before the box dropped.  When I got back to Nikki's and was able to charge it I saw a ton of messages back and forth from Mike and Brett.  Mike tried for the box and missed it by one minute!  Oh man! There were tons of cool things in there too.  A Taysom Hill jersey and a signed picture of Taysom jumping over the Texas player were two of the things.  Mike would have loved it.  It makes me smile that he did that with his girls.  How fun.  Maybe Brett will have better luck in Virginia.  Anyway, we played around there for awhile and then watched a movie.  They even had a penny machine.  I was excited about that. Preston LOVES the penny machines.  Preston and Jorja both got penny books in Hawaii.  Preston downloaded an app that he can find out where every penny machine in the world is.  He was pretty obsessed with that.  He loves it when I bring him home a smashed penny. Maysen is still a bit bitter that I let him do that.  She says she always asked me if she could have a penny when she was little and I would always say no.  I asked her if she wanted to collect them now. She said it was too late but might reconsider when she is married. Whoops. Sorry about that Maysen.

Our next stop was to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  That place was cool!  You basically just drive around and look at animals. All of these animals have been rescued and would not survive out in the wild.  You can stop and get a better look.  They also have signs where you can find out what happened to the animal before they were brought there.  We first saw this moose.  He was pretty cool, we named him Henry.  

Henry  

We spent the most time here with the bears.  They were incredible!  So much fun to watch.  They had the brown bears on one side and the black bears on the other.  Nikki told me if you ever encounter a black bear you need to fight back, but a brown bear you play dead.  I think the rhyme was, "Black fight back.  Brown lay down."  Hopefully I don't need to know that.

I took a lot of pictures.  I think I enjoyed the brown bears more than the black ones.  Maybe because the brown bears were awesome!

 This was my favorite picture

The brown bears and black bears do not like each other.  There is a fence between the two areas, but sometimes they like to yell at each other anyway.

 Look at those horns!

We left and looked at other animals for a bit, but came back to the bears for feeding time.  We were only there for the black bears.  Still, the brown bears were more interesting.

Bear food

While I was trying to get a picture of this guy eating, Maysen was trying to get my attention.  She was looking at the brown bears.  One of the brown bears was standing up looking at her.  She said he was like that for about thirty seconds.  I totally missed it!  I got a picture of him standing later, but it would have been cooler to get him standing looking at Maysen.

 Maysen

 This poor eagle only has one wing

We met Lynn in a parking lot at Home Depot.  Nikki was bringing him money so he could buy a gun off of some guy.  Ha!  They are giving us the full Alaska experience there!  We went out to eat after the transaction was completed.  I can't remember where we went, but it was delicious!  I had a meatball sandwich on a giant pretzel.  So good!  I gave half of mine to Nikki and got half of her sandwich, also on a pretzel.  I'm bringing Nikki's sandwich to the airport with me.

Lynn took the younger girls home while Nikki and the older girls went shopping with me.  I wanted to get some Alaska shirts.  We struck out at Target, but Walmart had a ton.  It was so fun looking at all of the Alaska things!  Once we finished there we came home to packing and ice cream.

Had to say good-bye to the caterpillar 

Eryn loved Maysen.  She kept telling Maysen she was her best friend. She is adorable!

Maysen & Eryn

Nikki has five daughters.  I can't believe how different all five of them all.  They look different and have completely different personalities. Maysen and Jorja look different, but Stockton and Preston look exactly the same.  Funny and fantastic to get five daughters all completely unique.

Riley & Kelsey

Katy, Maysen, Eryn, Maddie

 With me!

 Nikki and Stephanie

 With Eryn

 Maysen said this picture squished my eyeball

 I love Nikki!  I'm going to miss her!

Nikki and Kelsey took us to the airport.  Our flight leaves at 1 am.  I will write about our flight home tomorrow.  I hope it doesn't take twelve years to see Nikki again!