Nine Years!

Tommorow is our ninth wedding anniversary. Eric had to be gone this week, so he took THursday and Friday off and we celebrated over a long weekend. It was really important to us to get to do something special this year, since Eric will deployed on our tenth anniversary.

So we decided to take a mini-tour of Alaska to the south of us! We left Thursday morning and drove down AK 3 through Denali National Park. We got to the southern viewing area for Mt. McKinley a little after lunch time, so we had a little picnic and spent some time looking at the tallest mountain in North America!


After that, we found a nice spot on a creek called Troublesome (appropriate for a family of three boys, yes?), and we let the boys throw rocks in the water, which I believe has become their favorite pastime.

Later that night, we went back to our hotel, and found that the sun was setting behind Mt. McKinley. I took a couple of pictures, and we talked about how pretty it was, just like most other mountain sunsets. And then we went to our room and started getting the boys in bed. We were getting them tucked in when we glanced outside, and this is what we could see:

We were blown away. We've never, ever seen a sunset like that. I don't even know what else to say about it except that it was incredible, and if anybody knows that new song "You Light Up the Sky", that's what it reminded me of.

The next day, we went to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, which I think used to be called Big Game Alaska. What a cool place! You drive in and they have these huge pens for all of the different kinds large Alaskan wildlife. You can drive through or walk through, and you can get our whenever and wherever you want to. We parked the van and walked through, checking out all the big game. We saw elk, caribou, black bear, grizzlies, musk ox, bison, moose and bald eagle. All very close up! And then we went to the cafe and gift shop, and they were selling reindeer sausage, hides, and had taxidermy of pretty much every kind of animal in the conservation center on display, including a huge grizzly! Ironic? Not really. This is Alaska, after all. :)

After that, we went to see Portage Lake, which is a huge lake that was created by a glacier. We brielfly considered taking the cruise to see the actual glacier, but it would have been over a hundred dollars for the family, so we just admired the lake. I would love to see this lake in the spring time, when the ice is melting. I saw a picture online, and it's looks amazing!

We spent that night on the air force base near Anchorage, and got up early the next morning to drive down to Seward to see Exit Glacier and the Alaska Sea Life Center. Both of those activities were a lot of fun. The boys wanted to throw rocls in the glacial melt that was running out of the glacier like a river, which was pretty funny to me. And they really enjoyed seeing the seals, sea lion, all different varieties of fish and sea birds at the Sea Life Center.

And then we drove back up to Anchorage, which was a beautiful, amazing scenic drive. We spent another night on the AFB, and headed home the next morning. Alaska is an incredible place, and we are thankful we had the opportunity to see a little bit more of it together!

Always love a rainbow. :)