Alaska Pipeline

El Dorado

We all went and panned gold at El Dorado. It's a very Alaskan thing to do. We panned $70 worth of gold all together. Holy smokes, look how big my little brother is! I can't believe it, he's passed up Brent.

We love visitors! The girls had so much fun with Matt, Jade and Sadie. Grandma and the girls flew out Wednesday and my girls have asked to fly to Utah everyday since. Here are a few pictures at Chena Lake in North Pole.

Chena Lake

Halibut charter

My family finally came to visit!! Yeah! I scheduled a halibut charter for us all. My sitter couldn't make it so Brent stayed back with the kids.... What a good hubby. Anyway, here are pictures of me, Matt, Mom and Dad. We all got our limit on halibut and I caught the only ling cod of the day. Yeah me.

Whittier, Alaska

Our halibut charter was in Whittier, Alaska. It is a tiny tiny town 45 minutes south of Anchorage. 135 people live there year round. The whole town lives in a condo owned by the city. No one is allowed to build homes...crazy! Anyway, the only way in and out of this town is through a train tunnel that goes straight through the mountain. I believe it is a 2.5 mile tunnel. The problem with this is that it is only open for 15 minutes every hour so if you miss your 15 minute opening you sit and wait for an hour. (Guess who was driving and missed our 6:30 a.m. opening because I missed the turn.) Anyway, our 7:00 charter turned into an 8:00 charter. Check out all the glaciers there! Global warming, my eye.

Denali

This year for the 4th of July weekend, I went to Denali National Park with some friends. We went rafting in the Nenana River. It is very cold water. 6 hours prior to being in the river the water was ice in a glacier. Denali was absolutely beautiful! We could not have hand picked better weather. I had a great weekend, it was nice to get away but I sure did miss my hubby and my babies! I was away for 2 nights.