House repairs, preschool, and sisterly love...

Well I'm finally getting caught up on the blog. It's been a busy summer with all the traveling and then the house repairs in between. Jim got the A/C drain fixed and a pump installed so now we can begin replacing the flooring. We've opted to do it ourselves since we have a hard time justifying paying somebody else to do something we can do ourselves. However it is a somewhat daunting project to put in over 320 square feet of tile and Jim has been super busy at work so it's been left to me to begin. Now if I could only find the motivation to get started! We also have a few other projects on the list to get the downstairs back in order so hopefully in the next month it will all be completed.

Whitney started preschool last week after missing the first few days while we were in Alaska. She goes 5 days a week for a few hours in the afternoon and has been loving it. Maren had a hard time the first few days we dropped Whitney off. However, since the day I took her to Chic-Fil-A for a play date after we dropped Whitney off she's been fine and seems to enjoy the time alone with Mom. Whitney also has started playing soccer in the last few weeks. Each game she gets a lot better but it is pretty comical to watch at times.

Lastly here is a cute picture of the two girls. Maren has started to insist on sleeping in Whitney's bed with her each night after scriptures and prayers. A few nights she's had to be put in her room after getting out of bed to play with toys. The other night I went to check on them and found them both asleep holding hands. Some good sisterly bonding!

Morning run-in..

I came within a foot of this the other morning while out running!

I
it is called a Virginia Oppossum. You don't normally see them as they are nocturnal but this one had found it's way out onto the bridge that I run across to the base. I didn't know what it was until I was right upon it and with cars flying by on one side and the wall of the bridge on the other side neither of us had anywhere to go so I skirted by as quickly as I could while he showed his displeasure by hissing and showing his jaw full of sharp, little teeth. Luckily on the way home there was less traffic so I was able to run into the road to get around. Definitely woke me up though!

ALASKA...

For our last adventure of the summer we headed north to Alaska. We have to visit every other year to keep our residency status so we can continue to qualify for the annual dividend. On that note we are very grateful for Gov. Sarah Palin and the Alaska state government that approved an energy rebate for this year to be given out in addition to this years dividend! It is always a pleasure to visit up there to spend time with family and to enjoy the amazing beauty all around.

Downtown Anchorage from the air

Our first day there included the traditional hike up Flat Top Mountain. It was a pretty cloudy day so we didn't have the great views that you sometimes get from there but it was fun nonetheless. Whitney was a super hiker and hiked the entire way (3.5 miles and 1550 ft. elevation gain). She especially liked the rock scrambling on the upper section.

Jim loaded all those rocks into the kid pack while his sister was kindly carrying Maren for him

That night we attended the wedding open house for Jim's younger sister. The next day Jim set out to hike Ptarmigan peak with his older sister while I flew out to go salmon fishing with Jim's dad on Olsen creek off the Beluga river. Jim's dad caught a rainbow trout but that was as good as it got that day. On our trip out we also stopped to set up part of their camp for the duck hunt that Jim and his dad did the next two days. The next evening Jim and his dad flew out to the camp to meet the Dittmans and get ready for the start of duck hunting season the next morning. While they were gone the girls and I enjoyed spending time with the rest of the family. We picked raspberries with Grammy in the backyard and spent some time at the zoo and Alaska Wild Berry products. The girls enjoyed the chocolate waterfall and getting to pick out some salt water taffy for a treat.

I enjoyed getting out for some morning runs and enjoying the beautiful views of the mountains and ocean along with being able to run some hills! Our last day there we headed back out to Olsen Creek with Jim along this time for some morning fishing and had some great success. I think Jim caught about 12 fish and I had at least six. Once the salmon enter the fresh water they begin to slowly turn red before spawning and dying. Generally the less pink they are the better the meat so you get picky as to which ones you keep and which ones you release.

Whitney's favorite part of the whole trip was getting to go for a ride in the plane with Pops and Grammy. We headed out on the red eye that night and arrived home the next evening just in time to prepare for the tropical storm that hit the next morning.

Zion National Park...

A week after our return from Europe we headed out west to Arizona and Utah to see some family and friends. We stayed with my grandparents in Phoenix on either end of the trip where the girls enjoyed being thoroughly spoiled and getting to go golfing, swimming, and drive the golf cart.

We spent the rest of the time at a ranch/resort outside Zion National Park. We met up there with some of Jim's good buddies that he grew up with and were roommates during college. The boys enjoyed some golfing and skeet shooting while the wives and kids enjoyed the pool and some hikes. Mostly we enjoyed each other's company.

Our last full day Jim and I hiked Orderville canyon with Dave and Chris. We took Maren along in the kid pack for the 11 mile journey. The hike began on dirt roads and a dry river bed and slowly dropped down into the sandstone slot canyon.

We had a few short rappels on the way and a few jumps into and swims across some deep pools (we rigged a line to run Maren across the jump/swim sections). The hike ended in the famous Zion Narrows for the last few miles.

The hike through the slot canyons is absolutely beautiful and the challenges that the water brings adds some fun and variety to the journey.

Dachau, Germany and Brugges, Belgium...

On our drive from Garmisch to Kaiserslautern we made a stop to check out the Dachau concentration camp. This was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazis and was used to house mostly political prisioners. It was very sobering to see and read about the experiences of the prisoners there. One of the things we hadn't realized was the large number of concentration camps that were spread across Germany.

(A memorial statue at Dachau)

We stayed a night in Kaiserslautern and then the next day made our way back to London with a stop in Brugges, Belgium on the way. We enjoyed a few hours walking around town and touring the bell tower but most of the other sites were closed that day. The highlight was the fresh Belgian chocolates that we picked up.

We caught the ferry back across the English channel that evening on our way to London to fly out the following day. Luckily, the flight home went smoothly.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

After our jaunt in the Swiss Alps, we headed to the Bavarian Alps to meet up with the rest of the family. The US military has a beautiful resort in the mountain town of Garmisch, Germany at the base of the Bavarian Alps that we stayed at for a few days. Our first day there was rainy and we were recuperating from our climb the day before so we decided to head to see Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles that were the homes of King Ludwig I and Ludwig II respectively. These castles are relatively new in that they were built in the 19th century. Unfortunately King Ludwig II was only able to live in his castle for 180 days before dying in suspicious circumstances after being declared insane. To this day some of the floors of the Neuschwanstein castle are not finished but the areas that were completed before his death were beautiful. The next day we found a alpine slide to go ride there in town by the old Olympic stadium from the 1936 Winter Games. It took some coaxing to get Whitney to go on the sleds but after dragging her on the first time she loved it and went many more times.

Afterwards, we went on a nearby bungee trampoline which is fun but very tiring after 10 minutes of doing flips. Maren even got in the action and loved it.

Saturday, Jim and I awoke early to head out and climb the Zugspitze (Germany's highest mountain at 2962 m). The approach included a walk through a beautiful gorge and canyon with a glacier crossing and the climb was done along a series of cables called a klettersteig (in Italy they are called via ferratas).

There were some points along the route where you would have to climb an iron ladder that was pounded into the rock or step across on iron spikes. It was a very fun climb with the diversity of scenery and climbing that it provided.

My dad, brother, and the girls rode the tram to the summit to meet us at the end of the climb. I must admit that it was nice to descend the 7,000 feet we climbed that day by tram instead of having to hike back down though it meant sharing the summit with tons of people.

Matterhorn...

After our six weeks in England we headed over to the European continent for a week. We started our trip by heading out from England on a car ferry across the English Channel to France. We drove from France through Belgium to Germany to meet up with my parents and brother there. It was a long day of driving especially after it took an hour to go 9 miles on the motorway around part of London! The next day Jim and I headed for Zermatt, Switzerland while the girls went with my parents and brother to Garmisch, Germany on the Austria border. The drive through Switzerland was absolutely beautiful. Jim was trying to think of a different schemes whereby we could move there and live. We definitely need to go back and spend more time there! One of the funny parts of our trip to Zermatt was that we hadn't looked real close at the Google driving directions until we were halfway to Zermatt and we came upon the directions to catch a car train that went through a tunnel to the other side of the mountain range. Given that we hadn't looked up any information on the train and it's schedule we opted to drive around the mountain instead. No private vehicles are allowed in Zermatt so we had to park a few miles down the canyon and catch a train into town.

Upon arriving in town we walked to the other end of the beautiful mountain village to catch the tram. It was great being able to catch a tram part of the way to eliminate many hours of hiking each way.

(J at the top of the tram)

We still had a steep 2 hour hike from the top of the tram to the hut we were staying at that night. We enjoyed a wonderful hot meal that night while gazing out the window at the Matterhorn before heading to our room we shared with 24 others (12 on the bottom bunk, 12 on the top). Actually luckily the room wasn't full that night so there was one space between us and the party next to us. We could get used to these kind of accomodations when climbing! We celebrated our 9th anniversary the next day by heading out to climb the Matterhorn. (If you've ever seen a Paramount pictures film it's the mountain used in their logo.)

(K all geared up about an hour into the climb)

We woke at 3 am to begin climbing but after about 4 hours the going was too slow and no longer safe due to the large amounts of snow still on the mountain covering the bolts used to protect the climb so we turned around at about 12,000 feet (about 2,6oo feet below the summit).

(Why we climb!--The challenge and amazing views. To truly enjoy the Alps you have to get up high as you can't see much from the villages in the narrow canyons. In the picture of J you can see the town of Zermatt in the lower left.)

We made it about halfway up the technical portion of the mountain. It took us 5 hours to down climb back to the hut due to the melting snow.

(K downclimbing the ridge, and J traversing the narrow, snow-covered ridgeline)

We were surprised that there was so much snow as it was the middle of the typical climbing season for that mountain but this year the snow stuck around later. Next time we'll just have to wait until August to climb. We picked up the rest of our gear at the hut and then headed down the mountain to our car. We then drove to meet the rest of the family in Garmisch late that night.