Holly's Halloween

Mike and I got up early to exercise.  We were there at 6:00 for our 6:15 class, only to find out that our class really starts at 7:15.  Good thing Mike loves me more than his sleep.  I bet we will never make that mistake again!  I took Maysen to her laser appointment.  I was also able to convince the rest of the family to watch the second episode of the Dr. Who we started watching yesterday.  I don't know if convince is the right word.  More like force, but they were good sports.

Mike and I left about 4:00 to take Maysen back to college.  We hung out in her room for awhile until it was time to go to Holly's party.  Holly was my roommate at Ricks my first year away.  I haven't seen her in over 20 years.  I don't think we've seen each other since we've been married.  Anyways, Holly knew I sometimes come to Logan because of Maysen.  She invited us to her annual Halloween party.  It was so great to see her!  We didn't stay too long.  Holly was the only person we knew, and I was the only one who really knew her.  I reminded Mike that we went on a double date with Holly.  Holly and I came down to Provo.  I went with Mike and Holly went with his roommate Terry. Anyways, Maysen loved the food.  It was all Halloween treats and according to Maysen it tasted really yummy.  Mike and I are trying to stay away from sugar, so we just had fruit and a few meatballs. Demetria can't eat gluten, so she stayed away from everything except the fruit.

Demetria & Maysen

 Mike, Stephanie, Maysen

Holly has an amazing view from her house.  So pretty!  Mike and I took Maysen and Demetria back home, then we headed back as well.  Mike was driving in the carpool lane going a little over the speed limit. Apparently that really annoyed the truck behind us who was tailgating Mike like crazy.  Finally the truck went around us.  Perfectly fine.  The truck then slowed down until he was going 40 miles an hour.  We know they were just doing that to make us mad.  Way to get back at us for not going fast enough.  Wackos.  When the break in the carpool lane came up Mike was about to get over when I told him not to.  I asked him to see how long the truck would play this game.  I was convinced that if we got over the truck would do the same.  That happened on the way home from Ricks when I was in college.  The car I was in let another car in front of us.  That car slowed down and followed us from the front. Every time we would change a lane, the car would as well.  They did this the entire way to Utah.  It got pretty scary and was quite dangerous.  I didn't want to start playing that game with the truck. When we didn't go around at the break in the carpool lane and Mike wasn't tailgating the truck gave up and sped away.  Weirdo.

Heather's House!

We left Stone Mountain this morning and headed to the house of our high school friend.  It was so fun to have her live in Georgia when we did.  I also went to college with Heather.  I mentioned to Paul that we had an institute class together.  It is easy for me to remember him because he was engaged to Heather at the time and I always sat next to Heather.  Before we left our campground I was able to get pictures of our 'Southern' shirts.

Stephanie, Mike, Preston, Jorja

 Jorja

 Preston

 Mike (his glows in the dark!)

I wanted to get this one for Maysen, but it wasn't in the buy 3 get one free deal.  I probably should have gotten it for her anyway.  And a matching one for Grace.

We made it to Heather's house this afternoon!  I was so happy! Heather let me invade to do laundry, which is such a blessing.  It was nice to have a relaxing day.

Stephanie and Heather

Heather lives in such a magical place.  Lily was in the pool when we arrived.  She was in the pool for EIGHT hours today!  What a fish! There is a pond near Heather's house, so the kids were able to just play while I got the clothes clean.  It sure is beautiful here!

Jorja on the diving board

Stockton and Preston fully dressed on the duck

Lily and Paul in the pool

 Jorja joining the duck party

The kids got their swimsuits so they could swim for real.  Mike and Stockton had a mini war to push the other in.  They both lost.  Mike got Stockton in, but Stockton did not let go and Mike tumbled in after him.

Stockton & Mike

Paul, Lily, Jorja, Preston

 Chicken Fight!

Jorja didn't last long on Stockton

Lily & Paul

Mike & Preston

 Jorja & Winnie

 Preston & Mike

 Maysen

 Preston & Mike

 Stockton

Jorja and Preston had fun catching frogs.  Look how tiny they are!

Jorja

 Preston

 Louie

I really wanted to go to the Hawaiian Chick-Fil-A.  Heather needed to drop Celia off at dance camp two hours away.  I thought we would get back around the time Heather did, but it took a lot longer than I expected.  I left Maysen at Heather's house doing laundry.  She doesn't like to eat out much.

It's kind of cool.  They have a fast food side and a restaurant side.  The same food is served on both sides.  We picked the fast food side of course.

 Their frozen pineapple was delicious

 Stephanie, Preston, Jorja, Stockton

I stayed up talking to Heather for awhile before I headed back to the laundry room.  I worked on the laundry until two in the morning.  It is nice to have clean clothes for the second half of our trip though!  Good thing I will be able to sleep while Mike is driving!

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!