More Pictures of Alaska

Dane pointing out Captain Jack's boat (from Pirates of the Caribbean) in the inlet. From then on, every boat we saw was Captain Jack's boat.

Ty dipping his feet in the cold water on the beach.

Anchorage, Alaska.

Ty playing on an old horse toy at Grandpa's house. Apparently they don't make them anymore because they're too dangerous, but I have no problem letting my child play on it!

At the Imaginarium in Anchorage. Ty's already looking at what he should do first!

Sliding down the rock at the Imaginarium.

Us at the Imaginarium.

This was the best part, the bubble area. Nice one, Dane.

Ty and I got to be in our own bubble. This was our first one that made it all the way - notice our look of shock on our faces!

Our second one that worked, much more composed.

Libby's not as enthused about the bubbles.

Ty with his conductor's hat on the Alaska railroad train with Grandpa.

View of mountains from the train.

This is taken of our train taken from one of the last cars.

Ty finally fell asleep in this position and refused to put his legs up.

Here we are in front of the Alaska Railroad Train that we took to Seward.

Libby approves the sea lion.

Ty, amazed at the king crab. They were huge.

Libby swinging at the park in Seward.

On the slide at the same park.

I love this shot.

Ty and Mommy swinging at the park.

The trip to Seward just got the Flansburgh men all tuckered out!

Anchorage, Alaska Temple!

Ty got a hold of a pen and this was the result. We found out later when we changed his clothes, that he marked his legs and his belly, too!

Grandpa and Libby looking at a plane.

Walking with Grandpa.

Ty petting a goat at the Alaska Zoo.

The kids and Grandpa at the zoo.

Ty likes to run from exhibit to exhibit.

The kids looking at some bears.

Ty looking at another bear.

Daddy and kids at the zoo. You can see that Ty's already ready to run off to the next animal.

Ty kissing Libby on the forehead.

Grandpa, Dane, Ty, and Libby in front of the zoo.

Playing in pajamas at the Salt Lake City airport play area.

Home, Sweet Home

Well, we finally made it back home, and lived to tell the tale. It was extremely exhausting! Plus, to add insult to injury, I had to make the trip back sick. Here's what happened:

Tuesday:

• I woke up early with a fever, chills, and swollen throat. (I could barely swallow.)


• We left at about 9:30am for our 12:30 flight (we would not be late this time)


• Got there with no hassle, they didn't even question the extra water!


• Our plane was delayed about an hour, then we finally got into the air about 1:30pm!!


• Had a pretty good plane ride, they showed Kung Fu Panda as the movie so Ty loved it. I got some sleep, but felt really sick by the time we got to Salt Lake City.


• When we got to Salt Lake, I almost felt like going to the hospital, but instead laid down and rested while Dane took care of the kids.


• Our next flight - the red-eye - was delayed about an hour, too. We finally got into the air at 12:30am.


• That flight, Ty slept fine. Libby, however, decided that she would like to play, then eat, then play some more. Finally we gave her some benadryl (more for the other passengers that for her), and she fell asleep within 20 minutes! (I felt like apologizing to all the passengers as they left, but was just too tired myself.)

Wednesday:

• When we arrived in Atlanta at 5:30am we were so disoriented we felt like we were walking around drunk. We even got asked by an employee there if we needed help (she looked really concerned, maybe more for our kids than us!)


• We eventually found our gate and Libby and I slept while Dane and Ty spent more of our food vouchers. (I, unfortunately, used very little of the food vouchers because I was so sick...what a waste!)


• Eventually, time past and we got on our plane only 1/2 an hour late leaving at 10:30am.


• We got back in Syracuse at 12:30pm greeted by my dad, mom, and Tiffani! We didn't even have to wait for our checked luggage because it was waiting for us in Delta's office (see last post) and they even helped bring it to the curb!

It was so nice to be home, and if you do the math right taking into account time zone changes, we were in airports for about 23 hours, but up moving for more than 24 hours. We have no inclination to fly anytime soon, and think that our next trip will be without children! We love them dearly, but they are so exhausting! In fact, the following day, we saw a plane and Ty got all excited seeing it so we asked him if he wanted to fly on that plane. His response: No!

Since we've been home, I've been slowly recovering. My doctor took me out of work for the rest of the week because I've having fevers still and have been so sick. At least I didn't get sick during my vacation...but it still was awful to travel like that.

We really enjoyed our trip, but hope next time that Dane's dad will come visit us (at least until the kids get a little older)!

By the way, the picture on top is a cute welcome home poster that my sister-in-law, Tiffani, made for us. She and my brother Joe moved back to Syracuse and stayed at our house while they were looking for an apartment. They left our house so nice and clean, it was great to come home (instead of dreading the mess that we left). Tiffani and my mom also made us a wonderful meal so that we wouldn't have to cook first thing after being home. Thanks guys!!

Change of Plans

So we did it; we "pulled a Trefflich." (Trust me, this phrase will catch on!) When we got to the airport yesterday at 5:30pm for our 7pm flight, we quickly checked in during which we told the lady that they screwed up our seats (instead of all being together in row 12 like I had reserved, they had Dane and me in for 44 on one side of the plane, and Ty in for 48 on the other side of the plane) but she said that she couldn't do anything about it, to talk to the lady at the gate. Sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong! Getting through the screening process was like a taste of hell. We stood in a really long line just to have a sharp TSA guy thoroughly look at our drivers licenses and tickets and make sure that we aren't terrorists (although I'm starting to think that having young children like ours could be considered weapons of mass destruction). Then we had to go through all of our very organized carry-on items and declare all our medications, fluids, gels, shoes, etc. We had about 7 bins, plus a small suitcase and a stroller. When we got to the other side and were trying to neatly and quickly put everything back where it belonged, I was confronted by another very astute TSA rep that said that my 2 bottles of water were going to be confiscated. I don't think so! I quickly told him that I checked the website and that extra water and juice was okay if you had young children and were a nursing mother. I fit both categories! "Let me check them," he replied. "Okay, you can take them," he said when he came back, tail between his legs. He also made me open the sippie cup of water so that he could wave a piece of litmus paper above it, ensuring, again, that we weren't smuggling bombs via our sippie cups.

Okay, now it was about 6:30pm. Yes, it took an HOUR to do all of that. We rushed to our gate that was crowded. I forced my way to the ticket counter and asked if we could all sit together on the flight. (Although, the way that Ty was acting at the time, I was kind of okay with him sitting all by himself. Let Delta deal with him - they separated him from us!) Umm, they were unable to do that, but since they were extremely overbooked, did we want to get bumped and fly out the next day? For $1200 in vouchers, YES! From there, it only took another 2 hours to get our next flights set up (yes, our children and we were at our wits ends). It took so long because so many people were bumped, and they now had to change plans for all of them.

On the plus side:

• We got $1200 in vouchers,
• We may get to fly first class for one of our flights back,
• We got meal vouchers,
• We didn't get our checked luggage back so we won't have to check it again and it'll be waiting for us in Syracuse,
• We got to spend another night with Dane's dad (where we played some cribbage and Dane got a hand of 19 - told to be impossible in cribbage!)

On the down side:

• We had to wait another day to fly out,
• Right now it looks like we'll be taking about 20 hours to get back to Syracuse,
• We didn't get our checked luggage back so we have only 1 change of clothes plus pajamas for the kids, but virtually no clothes for us,
• Our pack-n-play was checked so Libby had to sleep on the floor with pillows around her,
• Her carseat was also checked so she sat in Ty's carseat (we used one that Dane's sister had here that's forward facing for him) and Ty sat next to daddy with a regular seatbelt,
• It's going to take forever to get back to Syracuse.

We'll see how it all turns out - we're hoping to get our flights rearranged (again) so that we'll get back to Syracuse sooner, but either way please pray that we'll arrive intact!

So Long, Farewell...

Well, the time has come for us to say goodbye to Alaska and go back home to Syracuse. We've had a really great time here - have had the chance to see some beautiful sights, see family, and eat a lot of great food!

To update my last post: Dane's dad came home from the hospital on Sunday and is doing much better. We're glad that it was only a one night stay. To respond to a few people's comments on the subject of hospitals: Yes, we're sick of going to them. I think we've had our fill for at least the year.

As I write this, we're all packed up and ready to go. I got to stay and pack (really, I like doing it...it's the Downing in me!), and Dane and his dad took the kids to go to the Alaska Zoo. It doesn't look very big, but I've heard that there's a lot of bears and animals native to Alaska. Should be fun for them.

We fly out tonight around 7pm, and are supposed to arrive into Syracuse aroudn 12:30pm. It'll be a long time, but we'll be glad to be home. Hopefully we can "pull a Trefflich" and get bumped so that we can get tickets for another vacation! See you all soon!!

Here's some more pictures of Alaska to enjoy before we can post all of ours (I think we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300!).

Unfortunately...

Well, apparently we were all having too much fun and no one had been to the hospital in a while...so it was Dane's dad's turn this time. He has pretty bad respiratory issues (asthma and the sort) and he's had a cold that's turned into bronchitis. Now, for you or me, bronchitis would be a couple of days in bed laying low. But for him, it's a one-way ticket to the hospital (do not pass go, do not collect $200). This happens to him a couple times a year, but it sucks that it happened on his vacation. He went in this afternoon, and Dane and I visited him later on this evening and he's doing a lot better. In fact, he insisted that Dane and I go on our planned date...so we did.

Dustin and Ashley watched Ty and Libby and apparently they all had a blast. Dane and I went to Golden Corral (oh so good...why don't we have one in Syracuse?) and then went to Earthquake Park - a trail that remembers the earthquake from 1964 that measured 9.2 (worst in North American history), lasted over 4 minutes, and reshaped much of Alaska. It was really neat to read all of the information on it, and it was fun to take a walk without children and just with my husband!! Hopefully Dane's dad will get out tomorrow (today?) from the hospital.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

We finally did it! We've been looking forward to riding the Alaska Railroad train to Seward, Alaska since we first decided we were coming to Alaska (3 years ago!). We woke up at 4am to make our 6:45am train. (Ty was a little confused because it was still dark out, and he was promised that he would be going on a train when it was light out.) Ty was really excited and got to wear a train engineer's hat that Grandpa Flansburgh got him. We finally got aboard the train at about 6:15 and finally started moving at 6:45. It was a really fun way to travel - a lot more room to move around than any other form of travel, plus no car seats or seat belts! However, it kind of backfired because that's all Ty wanted to do the entire ride: MOVE! It was exhausting, but also really nice to see all the scenery that you can't see otherwise because only the trains go through all the back country. Ultimately, though, he fell asleep (after screaming for about 10 minutes). But, he fell asleep with his body on the bottom of the chair and his legs standing on the floor. When I tried to move him he just whined, so I left him!

It took about 4 hours and we finally arrived to Seward. We met up with Dane's brother, Dustin and his girlfriend, Ashley. (They didn't want to ride the train because by car it's about 2 1/2 hours and not so "touristy.") We ate lunch at a nice restaurant, Christo's, (I had a salmon quesadilla - delicious) and then went to the Alaska SeaLife Center which was set up after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill to help rescue wildlife sea animals and also educate people about them. It was really fun and neat to see so many animals I've never seen (for instance, sea lions are HUGE!). Ty got to run around (some more) and Libby loved looking at all of the fish and animals. She was in the stroller and would go from one exhibit to another clapping her hands in approval!

After we were done there, we found a really fun playground in town and just let the kids get off all their energy there. It was a great place to relax while letting the kids run off some steam. Finally, we sent the kids home with Dustin and Ashley so that Dane, his dad, and I could enjoy the relaxing train ride back, sans children!

It was so beautiful. We saw 3 or 4 glaciers, numerous mountains and waterfalls, a black bear, moose, and more scenery than you can shake a fist at! I definitely recommend doing this at least once in your life!

When we got home, Ashley had done a great job babysitting the kids - they had slept most of the way home in the car, but she and Dustin got pizza for dinner and fed them, and then tired them out again so that when we got home we could just put them to bed! It was great! (I mention mainly Ashley, because Dustin was asleep on the couch when we got home, tired from all the driving I guess.) It was a beautiful day that I'll remember for a long time.

This is the route (in black) that took us from Anchorage to Seward.

More information on Seward: http://www.sewardak.org/history.htm

More information on the Alaska Railroad: http://www.akrr.com/arrc119.html

Climb Every Mountain

On Tuesday Dane and I got to get away from the kids for a few hours and we climbed Flat Top Mountain. As you can see by the picture, it is aptly named because of its flat top to it! It was a lot of fun. The only other mountain that I've climbed was Mount Timp. in Utah. This was was great because it was pretty gradual for a long time, then right at the end we had to do some rock climbing. So fun. If I didn't get so many blisters (really bad ones) then we would be climbing Wolverine Peak (another harder mountain here) on Saturday. The only thing that was a disappointment about reaching the peak of Flat Top was that I was promised, by Dane, that the huge payoff for the climb was the incredible view. Well, being the mountains that they are, they were enveloped in clouds when we got up there. Kind of neat to be in a cloud, but no view of Anchorage. The cloud did go off to the side for a while so we did get to see some more mountains on the other side of Flat Top (opposite from Anchorage), but I was a little bummed that I couldn't see for miles and miles. Oh well!

The descent was supposed to be easier than the climb, but I almost felt it was harder because I just wanted to run down but wouldn't be able to stop if I did! Plus, thanks to the cloud, we got off the trail for a little bit and found ourselves on some really unsteady rocks. One wrong move and it would've been all over...thank goodness we got off of that alright! It was a fun little date...too bad Syracuse doesn't have mountains like this right around the corner!