Adventure is out there

Well I wanted to stay true to my word and not update for a month after my mom and Earl left and sure enough, it's been about a month!  It was wonderful to see my mom again, it had been almost 2  years since I had last seen her.  Way too long. Unfortunately, they came during our coldest summer since about 1920, we've only had about 2 weeks of "summer", the rest of the time has been rainy and 40's and 50's.  Yuck.  They were able to experience a true Alaskan summer, it rained for them most of the trip!
Because Dylan and I were working during their visit they were able to travel around AK without us, but we did have some good weekends together.  The first weekend we went down to the Kenai, camped in Seward (in the rain) and Soldotna (also, in the rain).  We met up with them in Seward where I got bit by an ankle biter dog (on my ankle, ironic, no?) and froze in my sleeping bag. 

Ruckus prefers to ride shotgun

After Seward we drove out to Soldotna and then on to Homer.  We stopped along a river and saw hundreds, literally hundreds of Eagles.  Being terrified of birds this kind of sucked but it was also pretty cool to see so many eagles in one place.  

The birds on the water are all eagles.

This was my first trip to the Kenai and it was much flatter than I had anticipated, however we literally turned a corner on the way to Homer and there were suddenly mountains everywhere.  

Mom, Earl, and I on a lookout on the way to Homer

Homer Mountains

After we made it to Homer we did some exploring out on the Homer Spit, stopped in the Salty Dawg, where we didn't get any service for the 10 mins we were in there, so we left and went to the Homer Brewery and Winery.

We then had to have our DD (Earl) drive us back to Soldotna.  

My birthday was the weekend after our Kenai adventure and Girdwood finally had a sunny day so Lauren, Johnny and I took advantage and went on a bike ride followed by an awesome birthday dinner!

I think we did more drinking than bike riding.

Birthday moose!!

The following weekend we drove to Denali to spend a weekend camping and hiking in the park and around Healy.

Ruckus was tired of holding his head up during the car ride.

Welcome Moose!

 We spent a day and hiked out to Johnny's cabin to hang out in the wilderness.  I got in a fight with a car door and lost, the mosquitoes were in thick clouds, but we all had a good time hanging out by the fire, eating an awesome meal, and just having a relaxing afternoon away from everything.

View on the trail to the cabin.

We spent another day hiking through Denali, we hiked out along the road and saw a grizzly bear and some caribou.  We were lucky and had a few days of no rain but on our last night we heard some thunder in the distance.  I hadn't heard thunder since California last September.  It's the little things in life that you begin to miss.

Hiking along the Denali Road

Our last morning in Denali mom came and woke us up to tell us that a grizzly had killed a moose in the campground during the night.  I had actually woken up and heard weird noises outside and Ruckus was acting weird but I hadn't thought too much of it.  Guess I possibly heard a moose dying.  Crazy.

The grizzly that killed the moose.

All in all I had a great time visiting with my mom and Earl!

In other news, for those of you who don't know, I was recently hired as a 1st grade teacher in Burley, Idaho.  I received a call shortly after mom and Earl left inviting me to participate in a phone interview.  I of course said yes!  A few days later the phone interview became a Skype interview, which I actually preferred a lot!  Going into the interview I had a really good feeling about it and during I felt like I really clicked with the principal and other 1st grade teacher.  When I said goodbye, I was skeptical to feel like I had it, but deep down I knew it was mine.  Sure enough the following morning they called to offer me the position, which I happily excepted!  So in 2 weeks Dylan, Ruckus, and I will be driving to Idaho via the Alcan highway.  We are very excited for this new adventure in our lives and excited to have a new place to explore.  But mostly, I'm excited I can finally, FINALLY, brag about my new teaching job!  (Which by the way, I still get giddy about.)

I most likely won't be doing any updating from now until the trip, but if internet access allows me to, I HOPEFULLY will be doing a couple updates along the road.