The Families Come to Visit!

 Hi, Everyone:

It's been a really exciting two weeks here and we couldn't wait to share it with you.  Two weeks ago, Steve's family came into Anchorage after spending 7 days on a cruise up the inside passage.  Their adventures were quite incredible, and you can read all about it here: http://ruthalan.blogspot.com/

Once they got into the Anchorage area, we met them in Whittier for a weekend trip down to Seward.  

After exploring the sea life center together, we went for a short hiking trip at Exit Glacier.  On the way, we ran into the Tamarack Camps bus again (woooo!).  The afternoon we were in Seward, it was close to 70 degrees and the ice was melting really quickly.  It led to an overrun of the road, which required cars to go through probably a foot of water.  It was pretty intense, and we had to make a few shuttle runs because we weren't sure Tammy's car could make it through  Nonetheless, it was pretty cool.

We hiked up to the toe of Exit Glacier.  On the way, we took some neat family shots:

We also got to get really close to the glacier, which was really neat given how quickly the ice was melting off of it:

The next morning the family headed out on a 3-hour sea kayaking (insert Gulligan's Island theme song here about a 3-hour tour).  We paddled around Resurrection Bay and actually got closer to a Bald Eagle than either of us had seen thus far.

Over the next few days, Steve's family explored Anchorage and the surrounding areas while he worked.  Then on Wed, Tammy's family came to Anchorage for a visit.  Tammy's family was heading out on a 10-day excursion the following morning, but the two families got to spend some time together and get to know each other a little bit better.

Luckily, the two families were in town on an incredibly beautiful day.  We decided to take a walk around Kincaid Park (where we did a lot of cross-country skiing in the winter), and Denali/Mt. McKinley was out full force:

We stopped for a few photos of the entire family (minus Steve's Dad since he was taking the pictures):

After eating lunch in Kincaid and going for a short walk, we decided to show our families where we got engaged.  We drove the cars up to the starting point for the trailhead to Mt. Baldy.  While we waited for everyone to get geared up, we began taking some impromptu engagement photos.  It seemed appropriate:

(Yup, that's Denali in the background)

Once the families were ready, we started our hike up:

Although we didn't go all the way to the summit, we reached a point where we could show our families the point on which we got engaged.  You can see it here:

That evening, Steve's family flew back to Michigan.  The next morning, Tammy's family left on a 10-day excursion around Alaska, which we'll discuss in a subsequent blog post.

We have less than one month remaining here, which is incredibly saddening.  But we have had one of the most amazing years of our lives thus far, and we are excited for what's next in our future together!

We'll have a few more blog posts over the next few weeks here as our time comes to a close.  Keep on reading!