Alaskan Cruise -- bucket list dreams do come true!!

I'm finally getting my notes posted from our amazing Alaskan Cruise trip. And I hope I'll be able to grab pics off my phone to add here, as I go. I wrote most of this while we were on the cruise, and finished up the last bit right after I got home. So, I'm excited to get it all up on my blog. It was an amazing trip, one we had dreamed of taking for a long time. Here's the report:

Day Zero – Sunday, July 14

Hard to believe, but my sweet parents talked us into this trip, encouraged us to go, and even offered to watch our kids the entire time. Can you believe?! I’m still in shock, and feeling soooo grateful! Of course, it’s something we’ve been talking about doing for a long time, but once I mentioned that we might actually GO this time, my mom was our cheerleader and convinced us we really ought to just DO IT!! Seriously -- she called me back several times, asking if we had booked it, and encouraged me to talk Brian into it and make it happen. What a nice mom and grandma!!

So, Sunday morning, we helped the kids get packed up, then we went to church. Then in the afternoon, I made up some chicken salad sandwiches and we drove to Jerome to meet my parents. We traded cars with them, so they could keep our van for the week for the kids. My mom had major back surgery just 10 weeks ago, and she’s still in a lot of pain. I was really worried about leaving the kids with her and my dad, because I didn’t want them to be an extra burden. On the phone, again and again, my mom told me, “I think it will be fine to have them here! I’m just here, just doing normal stuff… It will give me something to do!” How incredibly sweet, huh?!

One extra exciting event for Samantha – Blackfoot Stake Girls Camp happened to be this very week, and both Aunt Melissa, and cousin Sara were already going. Melissa called to see if Samantha might want to go along with them?? Of course!! She was super excited about it, especially because she’s been with Sara to several activities with the YW in the Wapello ward and already feels quite comfortable with them. So, she took off Tuesday morning and stayed up at Camp Pasa-La-Coma (the same Girls camp I attended as a girl), until Friday. That was an unexpected treat!

In the meantime, the kids staying with Grandma and Grandpa were having their own fun surprises… including a two-day sleepover/stay with cousin Anna, and lots of playing time with Matt and Austin and Josh. They got to go to the movie, Aladdin, have a hotdog roast, play in the canal and in the irrigation water, and have fun treats made by Grandma. All this, so Brian and I could have this amazing trip!

And some of the reasons it’s been EXTRA amazing is because we’re celebrating some fun milestones… This month, July 2019, is our fifteenth wedding anniversary! Yay!! It’s also Brian’s 45^th birthday, and my 44^th. AND, this cruise to Alaska marks our FIFTIETH State, for both of us!! We’ve both visited all the other 49 states, and just had this last one to get together. ALASKA!!! As you can imagine, we’ve been pretty excited about this! Even though it was a very spontaneous trip as we were putting it together, (we booked it Thursday night, to depart Monday morning), we’ve actually been talking about it for quite some time, and hoping we’d get to take this trip as a 15^th Anniversary trip. And HERE we ARE!!! Sailing the wide open sea on my birthday, just 10 days before our actual anniversary.