Alaska: Alaska Wild Berry, the Zoo, and some other random fun

Monday we headed over to the Alaska Wild Berry Store.  Our main purpose in going was to see the reindeer they have.  Unfortunately we discovered that they were gone!  Boo.  We did have a fun time looking around the store though.  

 They boys liked trying on the different animal hats.

 Henry and Grandma looked at an Alaska magazine while the big kids looked at souvenirs with Rachelle.

That afternoon James taught Rachelle how to make bracelets on the rainbow loom.

 And then Rachelle decided to make Peter's hair pretty with some of the rubberbands.

Henry wanted pretty hair too.

 James showed me some pretty awesome tricks in the hammock as well.  It was such a nice day so we spent a lot of it outside. The backyard neighbors came over the fence and the boys had a good time playing with them for a while. Rachelle was complaining about how "hot" it was.  I was going to make fun of her... until I looked and saw my crayons melting in the sun!

For Family Home Evening that night we learned about our heritage and Grandma told the boys some stories about some of their great grandparents.  Later that night I found Jacob reading stories to Henry in bed.  It was really sweet.  (No pictures of the two of them though!)

Tuesday we decided to head to the Anchorage Zoo.  It's been about 3 years since we've been to a real zoo.  We had passes in Oklahoma but the zoo was just a little too far in North Carolina and we never made it there... so the zoo was on our list of things to do.  The zoo in Anchorage is pretty small so we were able to see the whole thing plus eat lunch just in the morning.

 One of the most entertaining parts of the day were the wolves.  As we were looking at them they suddenly all broke into howling.  It was pretty cool.

  Most of the animals are native to Alaska: like bears and reindeer.

Of course there were more beautiful flowers.

Here are the boys with their snapdragons--which I showed them could "talk."

 We even saw an "ugly duckling."

 And you just can't pass up a chance to put your face in a cutout of an oversized moose.

 And we ended our trip with this funny little porcupine.  He was just crawling all over this fence entertaining anyone who would stop to watch.  (Did you know porcupines could climb like that?!)

That afternoon we spent some more time outside in the beautiful weather.  Henry loved playing in the hammock.

 We played on the grass.

 And Rachelle and Peter even got a nice little nap.

Coming up: Potter's Marsh, a Trolley Ride, and a tragedy

Alaska: Weekend #2

Friday we decided to visit the library.  William had finished his book and wanted to get the next one in the series to read.  It was fun to let the boys play in the children's area for a little bit.

We also discovered a little park right near the library where we played for a little while.

 And William read some more.

 Later that day Grandma took Jacob and the boys over to Kincaid Park to fly kites.  It was so windy that even Jacob had a hard time holding onto the kite!

Saturday morning Mom, Jacob and I met up with Rachelle at the Farmer's Market and then I ran errands with Rachelle.  Later in the day Rachelle and I took all the boys (including Jacob and Peter) to Kincaid Park again.  It wasn't very windy at all though and the kite flying didn't work so well.  It was a beautiful day though.

James tried to comfort Peter when Rachelle walked off.

And the boys had a fun time playing on the playground.

Rachelle decided to go on a walk to get Peter to fall asleep--Alex and Henry joined her.  James eventually joined her as well.

Soon, Jacob took off and so William and I decided to try to catch up with everyone.  As we walked down the trail we heard that there was a big bull moose near the end.  I wasn't sure I wanted to see a moose too close but there were lots of people down there.  It was amazing how close he was to the trail!

A nice man at the end of the trail offered to take our picture with the moose... but you can't really see the moose.  Oh well.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day.  We were able to facetime with Rich go to church, and even watch a movie.  We saw Ephraim's Rescue which was great--and we still talked about it and the lessons we learned from it.


Coming up: Week 2 and lots more fun!