Anchorage Zoo

While we were at the movie, Uncle Tim and Auntie Joy took grateful Jillian to the zoo.

They rode in style! :)

At the zoo, they showed the map to Jillian and let her pick which animal to see next. She would point to the picture and off they went! I thought that was such a cool idea!

Jillian's favorite was the snowy owl!

Auntie Joy and Jillian

Dall Sheep are awesome!

Uncle Tim and Jillian checking out the black bears.

I was only able to upload this picture rotated this way...I'm not sure why. Its a little harder to see, but if you look closely, you can see there is a black bear in the corner. I'm told he was sticking his tongue out of the bars to gather food....and this cracked Jillian up. :)

I love this picture....Jillian looks so happy, so full of joy! :) She loves spending time with the Burson family and is missing them so much now that we are home in Hawaii. While we were visiting, Jillian was able to hug and kiss each Burson before bed most nights. On the second night at home, Jillian and I were getting ready to read books before bed and she just started sobbing. Thankfully she was able to tell me what was wrong...she was missing the Burson's. So we called Alaska and Tim, Joy, Josh and Luke all got on the phone to say "good night Jillian". It totally made her night and she was able to go right to sleep. Thanks guys!

The Happening

Movie day! On Wednesday, a group of us went to see "The Happening". Josh and two of his friends, Taylor and Jeff, came with Jeremy and I. This movie is made by our favorite movie producer, M. Night Shyamalan. It was a little creepy and a little gross in a few places...but pretty good overall. All of his movies have such interesting plots, The Happening was no exception.

AWCC

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center (formerly Big Game Alaska) is one of the coolest places ever! They rescue animals which for some reason or another could not survive in the wild. They are like a zoo...but BETTER!

The Burson's took us there on Tuesday. This is the first time we've been that it wasn't raining. Last summer we took Nana (Jeremy's mom) and his brothers to AWCC....it was rainy and chilly that day, but we still had fun then, too. We brought the Burson garden wagon and Jillian LOVED the ride!

Jeremy and I loving the mountain views!

Jillian is sitting on Luke's shoulders, next to Josh, in front of the Bald Eagle home.

MOOSE! She was totally posing for the camera!

Cuddly moose.

Jillian and I in front of a red fox.

The buffalo...

Tim, Joy, Josh and Jillian checking out the buffalo.

H2Oasis

Anchorage has an indoor water park...H2Oasis. On Monday Jillian and I met Lara and Allison there to play. Allison LOVED it......Jillian, not so much. I think the high noise level and new environment were a tad intimidating.

Lazy River....we took the girls around a few laps.

Lara and Allison riding the waves in the wave pool.

Jillian is looking down at the lazy river.

Jillian and Allison. :)

Father's Day BBQ

We arrived in Anchorage on Saturday, June 14th. The next day, Sunday, was Father's Day. Joy organized a great BBQ to celebrate the Dads in our lives....and we thought it was a wonderful opportunity to see and visit with many of our friends whom we've been missing. Thanks Joy!


Tina, our favorite German lady, brought bratwursts to share....YUMMY! Left to right, behind Tina who is holding the brat, is Gwen (Joy's Mom-in-Law), me, Lara, and Joy.


One of these ladies said this picture should be captioned "Who does this remind you of?" Can you guess who? You might be surprised at the answer.... :)


And who's that girl wearing the skimpy top????? What nerve!

Jillian wearing Jeremy's shoes and taking a walk with Uncle Tim.

Bob and Tina used to be one of our neighbors in Anchorage. We just love them....even though they always made us look bad because they have the prettiest yard on the block. Their oldest daughter is pregnant with their first grand-baby and they are just thrilled to pieces. Jillian really bonded with Tina this trip and gave her lots of practice playing with a little one! Thanks Tina for all the fun!

Josh, Audrey and Luke saving the world....playing video games. ;)

Clean-up crew...Gwen, Joy, Tina.

Here we are with the Vanhoozer family. Andy and Jeremy used to work together. They are so fun! Andy and Lara have a 2 year old little girl...Allison. This was the first time that Allison and Jillian were able to really play together....and they had a ball!

At the little girl table. :)

Yummy, dessert! The girls pigged out on chocolate pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream and pie. With that menu, can you believe there was a time when Jillian wasn't allowed to have any sugar at all??????

Hula Chicks. :)

We love the Bursons!

When we moved to Kona last summer I had a very hard time adjusting to living in Hawaii. I missed Alaska....and all of our friends...terribly. I think Jillian was on the same page with me....just not able to articulate her feelings as well. At Christmas, Jeremy surprised us with a very loving gift....a trip to Anchorage. He had coordinated with the Burson family, our friends we love so much they feel more like family. We would be staying with them for FOURTEEN DAYS! We returned from our Alaskan adventure this past Friday evening and we all had a wonderful visit!

Tim, Joy, Josh and Luke....thanks for having us, we love you and miss you already! We can't wait until you can visit us here in the land of Aloha!

Uncle Tim and Auntie Joy....could they be any cuter? :)

Josh and Luke....could they be any more handsome? :)

OK....between Joy and I (who are scrapping girls) & Tim and Jeremy (who are supportive husbands) we took enough enough pictures in 2 weeks to fill an entire scrapbook. Many, many fun pics from the 49th state to come.

Off to Alaska....

This evening we are getting on a plane bound for ALASKA!!!!! We will spend 2 weeks with our closest friends, The Burson Family. We are all so very excited! Alaska pictures to come.



Yesterday, while I was doing some last minute yard work, Jillian escaped. I didn't realize she was gone until I heard happy noises coming from our bathroom window. This is what I found when I went to investigate. She decided she needed to take a bath in my bathroom sink. :) Water play is awesome! :)

Here is little puppy dog taking a nap. He is using a washcloth for both a pillow and blanket. It also looks like Jillian cooked a special snack for him. Often there will be several little animals throughout the house napping and snacking. Good times.

Oh, How We Love Kukio

We call our favorite beach in Kona, Kukio. It actually has a different, hard to pronounce name. We call it Kukio because it is right next to the actual Kukio beach and to get here you have to take Kukio Nui Drive. It is a small-ish beach, protected by a border of rocks....so the water is very calm and still, like a pool. Jillian will actually get in the water and play and swim here. When we go to beaches with a rough break, the waves are too intimidating for Jillian. The beach has lots of pretty trees that provide great shady areas. There is also a bathroom with showers...which is fantastic to rinse off all that sand before heading home. Oh, and the best part...it takes us 10 minutes to get here. :) If you come to visit us, we'll be bringing you to Kukio. Promise! :)

In the picture above, Jillian is using her watering can to water the rocks.

We got lucky on this day and had the beach to ourselves for over an hour. Lots of little crabs live under these rocks, see below.

Our favorite treat to bring to the beach is popcorn. Yummy! It was still pretty early in the morning, so I also had coffee...not a terribly great combo.

This little crab just walked over and started crawling on Jeremy. It must have thought he was a big rock.

This is the biggest crab we could catch on this day. They are super quick! Aren't they funny? They don't bite and their little pinchers are too small to do anything but aid in crawling and climbing.

Greenwell Coffee Farms

Last Friday we visited a Kona Coffee Farm.....Greenwell Farms. We went to get coffee and ended up having a little adventure.

We took the tour and ended up not taking any pictures on the actual tour....what was I thinking? There were two girls working that day and both were really great with Jillian, showing her all kinds of neat things. Jillian is being shown "sleeping grass". It is a fern like grass, that when touched withers, browns and sleeps. Then after a bit, it wakes up and looks normal again. Too funny!

The shop....very cute. They have a resident cat at the shop who Jillian fell in love with. Jillian gave her lots of hugs....and the cat (named Kitty) was very tolerant with all the love.

All around the shop are the biggest citrus and avocado trees. In fact, since we just planted lemon, lime, orange and banana trees in our backyard, I started wondering if we made a mistake. Anyway, lizards (a member of the chameleon family) live in the lime trees. The girl working, I think her name was Samantha, said that 7-9 lizards live in each tree. We were on a mission to find a lizard....she found one and we each got to hold this very cute and very calm baby female.

Well, Jillian opted not to hold the lizard and simply enjoyed her from a safe distance.

Art in the Park

On Thursday one of the moms from MOPS coordinated a play date at our favorite playground. She organized crafts and snacks for the children. Jillian had a blast. She is sitting next to her buddy Grace. She stopped playing on the playground for a brief moment to paint.....then she said "see you later" and was back to running and climbing and sliding.

Sliding down a slide.

Sweet girls......Teghan, Jillian and Grace. Because of the little rocks, Jillian wears tennis shoes or no shoes. If we go in flip flops, she kicks them off and runs around barefoot because it is too annoying to get those itty bitty rocks in her shoes.....then by the time we leave her feet are filthy! I felt so smart remembering real shoes! Hee hee....clean feet for an afternoon of errand running.

I was there too! :) I'm usually the one taking the pictures....I grabbed Jillian for a quick shot and you can see that she is not happy that her fun stopped for a photo op!!!! :)