Juneau

We are in Alaska! It is nice that the boat isn't moving at the moment. We need to be on land after a day like yesterday! The kids were excited to order room service for breakfast. There are a few things that are no charge, so they ordered from that menu.

Preston & Stockton

Maysen & Jorja

Once we docked I asked Mike if we would have cell service. We had all the kids put their phones on airplane mode when we got on the boat. Mike turned his phone on and immediately got a message that one of the kids had a bill over $100. YIKES! It was Jorja's phone number. We asked Jorja what happened. She had received a message saying she could enroll in a cruise phone plan or text messages would be 50¢ a text. When she left the Hank Smith meeting yesterday she turned on her phone for a second, sent a quick 'Where are you guys?' text, waited fifteen seconds for a reply then turned the phone back to airplane mode. Her plan was to just pay the $1.00. Well, turns out that Jorja's data was on, so in twenty seconds over $250 worth of data downloaded to her phone. Mike called the phone company and they were willing to erase that charge if she enrolled in the $100 cruise package. So, she will be the only one to have service the rest of the week. She is also paying for the $100 herself. Expensive lesson.

Anyway, after breakfast we headed to the Gospel Doctrine class they were having. Jorja loves vlogging. She does it all the time. She doesn't have a vlog, she just likes saying, "Welcome to my vlog." Even in Gospel Doctrine.

We had a few minutes after our lesson before we needed to get off the boat. Is it ever too early for ice-cream? I don't think so.

Maysen

 Jorja LOVES making ice-cream cones.

 Preston

 Jorja & Preston with a photobomb by Maysen.

 Now Mike with the photobomb.

 Our cool towel animal.

 Jorja & Preston ~ I don't know what they are doing.

 In ALASKA! These three have now been to ALL fifty states!

Preston, Stockton, Jorja

 Stockton & Jorja

 Jorja & Stockton with an unintentional photobomb by Stephanie

 Now with Mike. I think Jorja and Stockton are doing this on purpose.

 Maysen, Mike, Preston, Jorja, Stockton, Stephanie

We went to the Mendenhall Glacier. It was beautiful. I did think we were going to be able to actually walk on the glacier though; like Maysen and I did with Nikki and her family. We still had fun. We walked along the Nugget Falls Trail and were able to stand at the base of Nugget Falls. That was as close to the glacier as we were going to get.

Mendenhall Glacier

I tried to take pictures of the kids with my fancy camera, but the settings were off and they were all washed out. I wish I knew how to use this camera to it's full potential. The above picture was taken with my cell phone, the below one with the super nice camera.

Stockton, Jorja, Maysen

 Mike, Maysen, Jorja vlogging, Stockton

This is what Jorja was filming.

Maysen & Jorja's hair

 Mike changed the setting to the point and shoot mode for me.

Jorja, Preston, Masyen, Stockton ~ Nugget Falls

Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls

 Jorja, Stephanie, Preston, Maysen, Stockton

 My family! Stephanie, Jorja, Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Mike

 Stephanie and Mike

 Jorja

 Maysen

 Jorja

 I love my family.

Stockton, Maysen, Preston, Jorja, Mike

 Maysen, Preston, Stockton, Jorja

 Stockton

 Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Mike

 And Jorja

 Mendenhall Glacier

 I liked looking at the icebergs in the water.

 We didn't get to walk on a glacier, but we got to touch part of one in the visitor center.

It's so pretty how there is blue in the glaciers.

We left the glacier and took a bus to a Salmon Bake. It was so cute, fun and delicious. Here is the entrance.

 Maysen, Stockton, Preston, Mike, Jorja

 Stephanie makes a two headed moose and Jorja's arm makes Mike's 49er look weird, but oh well.

 Jorja, Stockton, Maysen, Preston, Mike

 The salmon cook, I didn't find out her name.

More of Jorja's vlog.

Back on the boat. Cool to see a cruise boat with giant mountains as the backdrop.

We watched a magic show today. That guy was good! He was just called to do the show while he was overseas. He hopped on a plane, but his 2,000 pounds of equipment didn't make it. He had to do a different show. He did a lot of card tricks and was amazing. We will get to see his original show in a couple of days. The kids played games again in the library. Jorja spent a lot of time building a card tower. She was proud.

Jorja

Sick Sea Day

Wow. This boat was rocking! All day long. Mike, Preston and I went up to breakfast. We were able to get a spot by the window, which was really pretty. Mike wanted Preston to show him where the ice-cream machine was. We went outside and found a spot by the pool. It was quite entertaining to watch. The pool water would slosh out every so often. Not just a little bit, giant waves, taller than I am. They drained the pool by the afternoon. It was crazy rocky the entire day. I had some sea sickness patches that I bought for a cruise five years ago. We never used them. Mike, Maysen, Stockton and Jorja each took one. Mike was sick all day. He was a bit seasick, but mostly his ear has started hurting again. It is such intense pain. Usually it lasts for three or four days. Not a great time for this to come back. I wish the doctors/dentists could figure out why this happens and be able to fix it. Poor Mike was absolutely miserable all day. Stockton was cautious all day but managed to hold it together. Jorja felt fine with the patch and Preston did great. The one who got hit the hardest was Maysen. She has never been sick on a cruise before. Not even on a boat. This morning we went to the Hank Smith/Dave Hadlock presentations. Maysen was not feeling well. We went into the hall during the ten minute break and Maysen threw up right in front of the elevators. Luckily she had a doggie bag. They had taped doggie bags on all the stair railings. I got her into a bathroom where another girl was throwing up. Eventually Maysen was able to wash her face and she felt much better. We went back to the presentation. Maysen ended up laying down on the seat. Mike was in so much pain he had to leave and go to sleep. I took Maysen to her room during the lunch break. Preston stayed with her while Stockton, Jorja and I went to lunch. We came back to pick up the other kids. Maysen wanted to finish the presentations. She started walking to the door when she got sick again. She threw up a ton in the toilet. Poor girl. She went back to bed. We started the morning with six and finished the presentations with four. Well, three. Jorja skipped out the last ten minutes of Hank Smith's presentation to meet up with some new friends.

Preston

 Stephanie

Anyway, today was formal night. Maysen was feeling better by the end of the day. Stockton said, and I quote, "There is no way I'm dressing up tonight." He hadn't thrown up, but he was barely hanging on. He said he would watch Preston for us. Mike, Maysen, Jorja and I all went to dinner. Mike made it through most of dinner before he had to leave because of his ear pain. The girls looked so cute. We sat at a table with the Covington family. They are from Kansas and are really nice. They have three kids with them. Brad, not sure how old he is. Joy, who will be a senior and Graham who is 15 and will be a sophomore like Jorja. It was funny because when they sat by us, Graham left an empty seat between him and Jorja. Jorja was like, rip me, or something like that. At dinner we discovered that they love board games. One of them said that Betrayal on the House at the Hill was their favorite game. We had actually brought that game with us. We brought an entire suitcase of games. It is easier to do when you drive. The kids met in the library to play games. (Stockton and Preston came too. They were very happy with their pizza and crepes they found for dinner.)

Brad, waiter, Graham's forehead, Jorja, Maysen, Stephanie

 Jorja, Maysen, Stephanie, Mike

 Jorja & Maysen

 Jorja, Stephanie, Maysen

 Jorja

 Maysen

 Mike

 Stephanie and Mike

 Our towel animal

 The kids towel animal

Code Names was being played when I got there. Brad told Maysen that he had noticed her a couple of times and wanted to talk to her. Maysen said, "That's adorable. I'm glad you didn't notice me when I was throwing up." Haha! I love Maysen! We played Code Names a couple of times, then played One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Daybreak. The was a lot of fun. Stockton, Preston, Jorja and Joy left. I played one game of something before I went to get Preston tucked into bed. I came back and Maysen, Brad and Graham were playing Pokemon headbands. I had no idea what half the words they were saying meant. It was funny to watch them though. Jorja came and got Graham and took him up to the teen section. Maysen and Brad played Millebournes. I went to bed. It will be nice to be on land tomorrow! This is my seventh cruise and I have never felt it rock like today. Sam would have been miserable.

Graham, Brad, Maysen

On the Boat

Cheri took us to the cruise terminal this morning. That was so nice! It took awhile to find where to go, but we got on the boat just fine. Mike and I are in a cabin at the front of the ship. The kids are in a cabin up a floor and at the back of the ship. This is as close as they could get us, and we signed up for the cruise in February! Crazy! The kids are actually in an adjoining room and I was extremely tempted to ask the people in the next room if they would switch rooms with us. I was too chicken though. I don't like being this far away from them though. At least they are older and will be fine. Still, I wish we were closer.

Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Jorja, Mike

 Jorja wanted to send this picture to Hailey

We are going to have a ton of fun though. We ate and ate today, and also played a round of mini golf. We met two other couples at dinner. Maryann and Rory from Yakima, Washington and Holly and Jasper from El Paso, Texas. Both of them are with our tour group, so that's fun. Dinner was sooooo good.

Stockton, Preston, Maysen

 Stockton and Mike

 Preston and Maysen

 I couldn't decide which picture I liked best. Preston is adorable, I don't get many of him smiling normal now a days.

 Jorja and Stockton

Mike and I went to the meet and greet for our tour. We listened to Dave Hadlock and Hank Smith. I was wishing Jorja was there. Especially since I found out that she was just in her room wanting to be meeting people. She didn't come with us because she wanted to go to the teen area, but she felt uncomfortable and didn't stay long. The other kids were having fun watching weird shows and goofing around, Jorja just wanted to be out and about. I wish I had taken her with us. Hopefully she'll meet people tomorrow.

Hank Smith and Stephanie

Mike and I did take her to the teen area for their thing that started at 11:00 at night. She was so scared. She wanted to go in, but was scared to go by herself. She wants to find friends on this trip so bad. We sat out a little ways way from the entrance. She had tears in her eyes. She was so embarrassed because she was crying and with her parents. She didn't want to go, but she wanted to go. She cried and whispered to me, "I hate being shy." She has done amazing things for being as shy as she is. Mike was telling her that today might be the easiest day to meet people because everyone is new. Finally she got her courage up and went in. Mike and I waited outside in the video arcade for awhile. We saw her talking to people through a window and even saw her line dancing for a bit. We finally thought she was okay and would want us to go. It's scary for me to leave her. I hope she got back to her room okay. Oh man, I'm going to have to trust these kids a lot more on this trip! I hope she had fun. I have no idea if it was amazing or awful. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Ivars

Mike and I took the kids into Seattle today. We knew we wouldn't have time to do a whole lot, but our number one thing we wanted to do was to go to Ivars. We found a parking garage and walked down some steep hills. It dropped us right out at Ivars.

The kids LOVED it! It was just as good and as fun as I remembered. The kids had so much fun feeding the seagulls. Preston put a french fry over Jorja's head in the hopes that a seagull would fly right there. It worked! Although Jorja had realized what he was doing before it actually happened so it didn't freak her out as much as he had hoped. The kids asked Mike to get more food when we finished. They weren't done playing with the birds. We saw Mike come down the stairs and then saw him getting attacked by a seagull! Hahahahaha! We laughed so hard! The bird came and stole one of his fish sticks.

Preston

 Maysen

 Preston & Jorja

After Ivars we walked along the pier for a bit. Marijuana is now legal in Washington, so there is marijuana adds and souvenirs everywhere. We saw this saying on a shirt, then again on whatever this is.

We stopped at the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, which has moved and confused me for a bit. We then walked up to Pike Place Market. It was really crowded, but I did see some flying fish. We didn't have a ton of time there, but Maysen helped me pick out some flowers to bring to Cheri. We walked back up super steep hills to our car. We only spent a few hours in Seattle and thought our parking bill would be about $12. Nope. It was $22. Man, it has become so expensive up here!

Mike, Jorja, Preston, Maysen, Stockton

 Jorja with flowers for Cheri.

We got back to Cheri's on time. I was proud of us. Cheri invited some people over for dinner. The Knopfs and the Jensens. The Peays were out of town. It was fun to see some people that I hadn't seen for years and years. Although Facebook is nice since I'm able to still have contact with them. Jorja, Aidan, Carter and Lily were watching this weird pimple popper show. I had fun watching their reactions. I tried to video them, but I was too slow for the best one. Oh well.

Winnie & Jorja

 Carter, Lily, Aidan, Winnie, Jorja, Chris behind them all

I had a great night. We ended up staying up late in Cheri's bedroom. Cheri was trying to teach Jorja how to put waves in her hair with a flat iron. After they finished that we stayed up late laughing our heads off. Mike got Cheri laughing as he told the story of one of their church experiences in Wyoming. There is no way I could even attempt to describe it, but just imagine Mike imitating a stereotypical valley girl voice. "So, Joseph went to the Sacred Grove and he started like praying and stuff and skip forward a bit and Moroni pops up." Other classic lines were "here goes that" and "Joseph was in prison for like crimes and stuff", "In Nauvoo they have the trail of hope, but it was a kind of a trashy time so I would have called it the trail of trash." Needless to say, we were laughing so hr it hurt. Aidan made us laugh even more with some of his impressions too. Poor Chris was trying to sleep because he has to work tomorrow. This night was so fun. It reminded me of staying up until 2:00 in the morning with Cheri and Cindy at our primary presidency meetings. We had so much fun together!

Cheri in Seattle!

We left our hotel early this morning. They had a great complementary breakfast, so that was nice. We stopped for lunch in Yakama. Preston is obsessed with Subway for some reason. There was a yogurt shop right next door. I took a picture of Dairy-free yogurt to show Sam. Anne FaceTimed me right as I was doing that.

We are now in Seattle! We made it here about 5:00. The drive wasn't too bad, although we did hit nasty Seattle traffic on the last bit. It's weird, now you can't use the carpool lanes unless you have a pass. I guess they take pictures of your vehicle and send you a big bill in the mail. At certain times of the day you also need three people to be considered carpool. Anyway, we drove by the hospital where Maysen and Stockton were born.

Overlake Hospital

We also saw the hospital where Stockton spent a few days the first week of his life. We didn't go out of our way for these things, they were just out the window. What we did go out of our way for was our old house. We decided to drive by it before we got to Cheri's. Holy cow our street has changed! We used to live next to a sheep farm. We were the top house at the end of the culdesac with neighbors that lived so far back it didn't even feel like we had neighbors. Well, the farm was sold and there are a ton of houses there! Our house looks so tiny and run down. The houses next to it have sold for a million dollars. WHAT! They look like normal houses. The prices in Seattle have gone absolutely crazy!

Our old house

 The street that didn't exist when we lived here.

 The new neighbors.

 This street sign wasn't here either.

Mike said it was weird to see our house in worse shape than when we lived there. We aren't the best with yard word. I remember sitting on that little grass hill with Mike, Maysen and baby Stockton and watching fireworks. We could see the Seattle fireworks sitting on our front lawn. We have a lot of good memories here. Too bad I didn't have a blog back then.

After that weird trip down memory lane we found Cheri's house! It was so, so, so, so, so good to see her! I had so much fun laughing and talking with her. Chris came home from work and made hamburgers. Stockton and Jorja ended up going on a boat with Carter, Aidan and their friend Taz. Taz's family is building a house right on the water. They have their own boat dock. So, they went wake surfing in the dark. Stockton and Jorja just rode along. I think they had fun.

I had the best time with Cheri. It was so fun to see her again after so many years. The second I saw her it felt like no time had passed. That was the saddest thing about leaving Seattle was leaving Cheri and her family. So glad to see her again!

Cheri lives in a different house now. They designed and built it. It is beautiful. I was able to visit her here years ago when my cousin Chad got married. That was about twelve years ago I think. Mike and I slept in the guest room. Maysen and Jorja slept in Lily's room and the boys slept downstairs. It was an awesome evening. I was so happy!

Stockton, Preston, Jorja ~ hope we don't break their house!

 Stephanie ~ excited to be on the calendar!

Lily & Jorja