June 19th

Hey everyone! Not much to talk about, so I'm just going to give you the address to my online video journal (youtube) its an attempt to get more people to look at my blog haha :) so here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5AzwySyNFU

so yeah, hopefully you watch that, i know it's a little long, but...hopefully it's worth it :)

ALASKA TRIP (Journal)

June 4th - Day 1
Hey guys! So...I promised to make a journal about my week in Alaska. Today is Friday, and we left at 2:00. We've been sitting in the hotel room for 4 hours now. Which is more or less boring. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun tomorrow. I just have to get through tonight. Alright so far today we all woke up before 10, went to Sams to buy John a camera, and a couple other last minute travel needs. Then, as if we needed this to happen - we were going to get gas for the car, but we couldn't get the door open to put the gas in :/ So, we had to get that fixed. And by the time we got home, we had 30 minutes left to get out the door. But, at least John and I had time to mess around with our camera's.

So now here I st in a hotel room watching NCIS. Well I guess there's nothing more to say at the moment, so I'll talk to you tomorrow...Probably on the Plane ride.

June 4th
Hey again! It's still the same day, but I'm really bored, so I thought I'd talk to you for a couple minutes :) I'm going to try to stay up all night, but of course, I don't know how well thats going to work out. :) I just finished watching "I Am Legend"...A movie I would not recommend for sensitive people...Alright wellll...I don't know what to talk about so I'm going to go now.

June 5th

Hello peoples...right now I'm on the plane. My brother and I are watching "Alice in Wonderland" I just ate breakfast, even though it's 9:00. It was sausage and egg on a biscuit... Rather dry, but its food. So, the reason of my writing to you is because we are currently flying over the Rocky mountains, and I must say. They're beautiful. My mom and I are in complete awe of these mountains. There's a lot of snow on them, and they're spread out so evenly. Also, there are these little sheep like clouds over them. well, now I'm going to go finish the movie, talk to you later!

Hey! We landed around 45 minutes ago...right now, we're sitting outside the airport in Seattle on a couple of huge rocks.... we're sitting in the shade of some trees "eating" There's a gentle breeze out here, and it's about 60 degrees....yeah, you Texas people, be jealous :)

Right now, I'm sitting on the balcony of the ship. But before I go into details, let me just give a note to Texans - We are blessed. The flies here in Seattle are HUGE. And, there are tons of them! However, its still a nice place to be. Another note - the architectures here are very captivating and intricate. Even here in the city, there are many many trees. The bus we rode to the ship was 60 feet long. I mean it was a really large bus! There were even a couple TV's on the bus! What I find most amusing was the lady my mom sat behind on the bus talked non stop. I kinda have to wonder...do I do that? In any case - back to the ship - getting on board actually wasn't that bad. Not that long of a wait. However, we did have to get our passports checked three times :). Words to describe this are hard to find. Well first of all, the smell is definitely different. It smells like Pineapples to me...well...rotting pineapples. Haha, I guess it will take a little getting used to. The room is very nice, mom has currently crashed on the bed. :). Since we're in Washington, we've gained two hours. So it's 12:24 P.M. here, and where I usually am in Texas, it would be 2:00 P.M. We woke up at 5:00 this morning, so we've been up for 24 hours, and it's only mid day... Which means, we have 8 or 9 more hours left to stay up. Although, I highly doubt any of us will last that long. Seeing as none of us got any sleep last night. The ship itself doesn't even leave until 4:00. Now, back on track. An observation of the water, besides the fact it smells a little weird...when the sun hits it just right, it looks like little fireworks going off under the watter... Absolutely beautiful.

TAKE OFF TIME (June 5th)

4:11 - We left port approximately 5 minutes ago. And let me just say - This. Is. Awesome! We've celebrated and re currently watching the boat turn :). Talk to you later! Oh, and P.S. we just had a safety drill...and they're long.

Later that Night -

Just as I suspected, everyone went to bed except me. It's only 5:00 right now and apparently I'm sleeping on the couch : / Oh well. I'm currently sitting on the balcony, drinking coke, and finishing a book. :)

June 6th

Sunday Morning! I know this is vacation, but I got up at 5:00...I know, that's pretty sad, but hey, in my defense, I went to bed at 9:00. It's 7z;00 on Texas time. Ok, enough about me. This morning, I woke up and went out on the balcony to see a beautiful sunrise. I mean, this is not your ordinary sunrise. The sun was just peaking over the mountains, throwing a majestic sheet of pink over the sapphire blue waters. Well, I have to find a plug so I can straighten my hair :).

Hey again! Not much went on today. Tomorrow we'll go whale watching :) I'll take pictures. Today, we woke up, ate. explored, and watched TV...oh, and we read. Tonight was formal night, but mom John and I originally decided to stay inside the cabin. However, there were a couple things I needed, so we had to leave and go shopping on board. As weird and ridiculous as it was, mom and I stepped into the hallway only to be surrounded by a sea (no pun intended) of well dressed people (mind you, mom and I were both dressed in sweatpants and over sized t-shirts) I hesitantly began walking uncertainly behind my mom. After sh had taken a look around, she spun around looked at me, and between clenched teeth, and a semi smile, threw the words "Well...this is awkward" Unable to subdue the laughter, I began giggling uncontrollably and continued walking quickly behind her. And that was the highlight of my day :).

June 7th

Today, our ship docked in Juneau. First, I'll tell you a bit about Juneau. The population is 3000 people, there are 21 jewelry stores,most, if not all of the buildings are restored from the 1900's. There has never been a stolen car in Juneau because, according to their laws, a car isn't stolen unless the person doing the stealing has driven at least 50 miles.The longest road is 47 miles. There have been 3 attempted bank robberies, none of which were successful, because as I said before, the longest road in Juneau is 47 miles long, so they can't go far. The most interesting story I heard was from the bus driver taking us whale watching. Close to the port, there is this little shack called the "Grab and Go" shack. The reason being was because when the shack was originally developed, a bear came down, grabbed 30 hot dogs, and went a little ways up a hill, sat down, and began eating them. Thus the name "Grab and Go" Now, about the whale watching - Over all, I saw 5 bald eagles, 4 seals, 1 otter, and 6 whales. But, I wasn't very successful in getting a picture of the whale because they came up and dived so fast! If you blinked, you missed it. However, the scenery was absolutely beautiful. I'm sure that according to the pictures I took, the mountains all look the same, and they're not nearly as beautiful as the real thing. :) Well then...that was pretty much all that happened on our day today. So, I will talk to you tomorrow!

June 8th

Today was very interesting. We stopped in Skagway. I guess I'll give the background of Skagway too. The population is the same as Juneau - 3000 people. Now the stake of Alaska cost 7.1 million dollars. There is one school in Skagway. That schools cost 8.2 million dollars to build. Amazing right? Here are some interesting facts - there are 23 jewelry stores, all owned by the Cruise Lines. The closest hospital is in Juneau, since Alaska doesn't have any roads to the rest of the United States, the goods all have to be shipped. In consequence, a bag of potato chips is 7 dollars, a gallon of milk is 6 dollars. And you thought Texas was expensive!? Alright so today we went horse back riding, and, like whale watching, there was absolutely beautiful scenery. Another thing I learned today - We rode past a cemetery called "Slide Cemetery". The story behind that is that about 7000 men (stampeder's) came through the trail. However there was an avalanche, killing all the men. None of them had any means of identification, so the people that found these men just guessed at the names. Therefore, most, if not all the gravestones are marked incorrectly. Alright, well mom and John want to go shopping now, so talk to you later!

June 9th

Hey buddy! Today we didn't get off the ship to go anywhere, we just cruised at about 12 knots. Quite slow. But, we did get to see some seals playing on an ice chunk. I basically read all day, and took a couple naps...well, I'm going to go to bed now, Because I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow to go zip lining :).

June 10th

Ok, so today, we all went zip lining. After waking up at an unearthly hour of 5:30, we headed off the ship. We docked in Ketchikan (Not to sure I spelled that correctly)Before I tell you of my adventures, I'll say a few words about Ketcikan. This particular city is knows as the first state of Alaska, also known as the salmon capital of Alaska. Like Juneau and Skagway, there are many jewelry stores. No big surprise there :) About zip lining - I think mom John, and I were all a little jittery at first, but, afterwards we were fine. The scenery was beautiful, we got to see lots of bald eagles (31 in all) and a bear den. We actually zip lined through a rainforest. Like I said, Absolutely beautiful. As soon as we got off, we all got metals, and hot chocolate. And...food. John and I both got t-shirts. I'l probably take some pictured of the shirts we bought. We also went shopping a bit. I bought something to put on my key chain. (I've been collecting little things to put on my key chain from different states) and a camera case. only Lord knows how much I've been needing that ;) As far as the rest of today? We got to see 3 horse drawn carriages, and again, a lot of old fashioned buildings...We left really late though, because a couple of the people were late getting back to the ship :/ well, I don't think it'll make that much of a difference. Well, tomorrow is our last day on the cruise :( But to tell the truth this has been the longest week in my life :) In a good way! I love it here, but,like I said I miss home. The scenery in Alaska is beautiful, the food on board is amazing, service, likewise, and I would recommend this cruise to anyone anytime. Even if you don't like the food, the scenery is still absolutely worth it.

June 11th

Today we landed in Victoria, Canada. It was really great though. They have a lot of shops and stores and such. It was so much fun. We mainly went to this one shopping mall that was 4 floors, and over 85 stores. I LOVE their clothing lines. My mom even bought herself some shoes. The streets were quite interesting. According to our bus driver, Victoria is the incest city in Canada. Although I don't know exactly what downtown Dallas looks like, downtown Victoria reminds me of downtown New York :) One thing that absolutely amazed me was this one lady that recreated the Mona Lisa with sidewalk chalk. And it looked exactly like the real thing. So, nothing very interesting happened yesterday. I bought (overall) - A t-shirt, two necklaces, 2 items to put on a key chain, and some ear rings. I'm rather sad to leave. No more falling asleep in front of the TV, no one making the beds, and cleaning the room, No more waking up to the beautiful scenery of the mountains and bald eagles (37 in all) I LOVE ALASKA!!!

June 12th

Woke up at 6:30 this morning, and got ready to go to the airport. Right now, We're still on board, waiting to get off. We're not getting to Dallas till 6:30 (around) and then we have to go find our car...joy. But I'm so excited to go home! I can clean my own room, and eat vegetables and lots and lots of fruit...and see BINKY! :):):):)

The flight was awesome, everyone got back okay. As soon as we got home, I began unpacking, and doing laundry :) So...yay...I'm still kind of sad that we're not in Alaska or anywhere near there...Honestly I just miss the scenery, and the fact that mom won't be so relaxed and calm anymore...haha well, Goodnight!



And that concludes my journal of Alaska...Lilly out!

P.S. I only uploaded a few photos...in all, I took 412 pictures :)

June 17th 2010

Hello readers! Sorry I got back from Alaska 5 days ago, but we're just no getting back on our feet, if you understand the expression :). So - About Alaska. I loved it. It was absolutely amazing. I loved the scenery, the tours, the service. All great. However, the food could have been better. I am hoping to post pictures Along with the journal that I kept while in Alaska, and...abroad...haha. I guess I'll make a separate post with the journal included so you won't be confused with this one :)