Anchorage - Week 4 (Already!)

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On Monday, the girls had a quiet morning and met me for lunch at the “Moose’s tooth” for pizza. Then they ran some errands, including an exciting trip to the recycling center. Gabbi has been incredibly into speaking different languages. She’s obsessed with German (gee, I wonder why Petra and family). She goes around saying things that sound Germanish, but is still gibberish. For example, “Ich de klein”. It’s cute, but a little annoying after a while.

After work we drove about a half hour north of Anchorage to Thunderbird Falls. Our friends, Bernadette, Kara, and James met us at the trailhead and we started off. The kids ran most of the mile to the lookout at the falls. It is absolutely incredible how the maximum speed of our children increases with the number of other children present! A side trail took us to near the bottom of the falls along the side of the creek. The trail was pretty wet from all of the rain that we have had. During the hike, I noticed that Bernadette had a canister of bear spray on her belt pack. I asked if she had ever had to use it. She said that she had, but not on a bear. She had run-ins with a wolverine and a vicious dog. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera.

Tuesday the girls went to the Berry Factory. They were hoping to learn about edible berries and had heard good things about the displays. Turns out it was a tourist trap of sorts with 5 signs about berries. They did have a 20 foot chocolate waterfall and plenty of chocolate for sale, so the girls didn’t mind so much that they didn’t learn as much about berries…. In an attempt not to overload the girls with hiking, we let them choose what we would do on Tuesday night. They chose the open swim at the local high school. The pool was great. They had a waterslide that we gladly paid the extra $2 apiece to use. The girls loved the waterslide. Jacqui went on our laps for the first few times down. Then she was ready to go on her own. The lifeguard asked how old she was when she got to the entrance of the slide to go alone. We told him that she was 5 and he replied, “you’re almost 6 though right? Because you need to be 6 to go alone.” We agreed and she had a great time going down on her own. After a while the lifeguards rotate to different stations. When Jacqui went to the slide with the new guard, we gladly proclaimed her 6. He said that you needed to be 7 to go alone….and said that she must be almost 7. We agreed and now have twin 7 year old girls. Danielle and I each went off of the diving board and really enjoyed our family swim!

Wednesday was a rainy day, so the girls went to the Native Heritage Museum. They really enjoyed seeing the different types of houses that the Alaskan natives lived in. They also were able to participate in a native dance. In the evening, Danielle took an African Dance class at a yoga studio. She had a great time. Gabbi, Jacqui, and I had a relaxing evening of games at the apartment. Gabbi has really had an interest in other languages while we have been here, so we took out a few foreign language children’s books. We spent some time looking at Richard Scarry’s book of German words. The girls spent some time giggling as I completely butchered all of the German pronunciations (help, Petra!)

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