Monaloca

We returned from our long-awaited Alaskan cruise on Friday. We traveled with my parents, my sister and her family, and some long-time family friends through perfect weather (sunny nearly the whole time!) and some crazy kid (and adult) moments.

We took loads of photos. I’ve posted some here, but be sure to see our full album of favorites.

Our Favorite Trip Memories, Verbatim

Kai – The plane ride. (Really?? It took us over 12 hours to get from San Jose to the ship in Seward!) The “moving” dining room. Getting dessert every day. (Big surprise.) Spending time with my family. (Yay!) Oh, and the glacier was pretty cool.

Melina – Big ship. Big ice. Play. Cows. (Me: But we didn’t see cows in Alaska.) Oh, no cows. (Pause) Why not?

Joey & Me – (It was so cool we’d be hard-pressed to find a different highlight.) Kayaking near Hoonah alongside a baby humpback that literally played peek-a-boo with our whole kayaking crew for over 90 minutes. At one point he slapped his flippers on the water, over and over, for a good 10 minutes. Even our Hoonah-native guide said she’d never seen such a show.

He also got as close as 50ish feet from us and burst his huge open mouth out of the water, straight towards the sky. Watch the video. (And yes, we were a little nervous that he might accidently hit one of the kayaks.) Another whale moment: A few days later we, along with my sis, German, and Melina, saw 2 orcas jumping gracefully in the waters just below our balcony. Our parents were jealous.

Some Funny Moments

After we put the kids to bed in our teensy cabin each night, Joey and I would usually hop the balcony railing to my parents’ room, where we hung out with Stacie and German, and usually a bottle of wine and extra desserts. On one of the first nights, Kai saw us head out to the balcony after he was in bed. 30 minutes later he decided he “needed” something from us so went outside, and we weren’t there! We heard him crying in the hallway from two doors down. As usual, he hadn’t listened when we said where we were going. He thought we’d fallen overboard.

One night our parents offered to keep an ear on the kids so all four of us could go “out” on the ship. After a few cocktails Joey and I headed back to the room, where the kids were sound asleep. But when Joey leaned down to cover Melina with a blanket, he saw her bare naked butt staring up at him. Apparently she’d decided it was a bottoms-free night. We did wake her to diaper and jammie her up again. She just looked at us blankly and didn’t say a word.

All in All

Alaska itself was fantastic. Spending time with my extended family and the Hindmarshes – and getting to see Uncle Bob for a full day in Juneau – was loads of fun. Traveling with two little kids in such tight quarters, and without a ton to entertain them (especially Melina, who didn’t have a little ocean camp she could attend) was tough.

And cruising wasn’t really for us. It’s probably one of the most reasonable ways to see Alaska, which has a ridiculous amount of land but very little road system. But I felt like we spent the majority of our vacation on a big floating hotel (because, well, we did) and not immersing ourselves in and amongst the land and people we had come to visit.

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