I wore drake out

Drake and I are at a pizza shop in Juneau. It's about 2 miles from home. We walked. What can I say, I'm getting trailer fever. The only thing that sucks about it is that I have to carry him home. 2 miles. What was I thinking? I was hoping it would wear him out, but...
Bryce has been in training for the last 2 days. He's not getting paid for it. Sweet. Thank God for the funenjoyment of unemployment. We also found out that if there is any sort of serious injury, we'll have to be flown to Seattle, so we have to work on getting health insurance. Great, that's only like $300/mo. Sweet. I haven't been too diligent at finding a daycare. It almost seems futile. What's the point of getting a job when daycare is $35/day?
Other than all this complaining, things are going well. Bryce got to fly an Astar yesterday. His excitement was overshadowed by his new boss's impatience. He's stoked he flew, but he's nervous about a million other things. I keep telling him he's a kick butt pilot and he should just relax.
Drake is already over the glacier. When I suggest going to check it out, he's like, "No, not the glaaaaacier!" We went to the skate park here yesterday. It's sick! They've got a nice 4 foot halfpipe with an extension. They had some tabletops set up too. Drake was rolling down the pyramids all by himself. He was stoked. He wanted to roll down the huge 15 foot wedge on his stomach. What a frankenberry! I was skating the ramp and he tells me "Just drop in Mom." What a frankenberry.
So despite the frustrations, we're having fun and sticking together. We'll survive this crazy adventure, and if we don't atleast we'll all be crazy together.

We live in a van down by the river

Almost. We live in a trailer down by the channel. (Gastineau Channel) We're on Douglas island. We finally got a place on our anniversary, which was Wednesday, the 16th. It was funny when we were signing the rental agreement and Bryce was like, "What's the date today?" He was so busted. We've just been getting moved in. We bought a 13 inch tv. It's pretty sweet. Life in the trailer has been different. Drake keeps saying "I miss my home in Utah." Bryce and I agree with him. Bryce just keeps reminding us it's only for 6 months.

Bryce went in for his first day of training today. I think it's kindof an informal thing, considering tonight they're having a bonfire. Monday is his real first day of training. After we dropped him off, we came up to the Mendenhall Glacier. There's an Earth Day event up here. Is it Earth Day? The Glacier is so beautiful. One can't imagine how awe-inspiring and breathtaking this part of the country is. When I see pictures of Alaska, I'm always like, "Wow, how beautiful." Let me tell you, no camera can capture the true and entire "picture". The wildlife is so plentiful. We see Golden and Bald Eagles just chillin all over the place. It's cool. Everyone has to make sure they lock their garbage cans so the bears don't get it. Even downtown. Crazy. The only animals I don't like here are the damn ravens or crows or whatever. They're freaking huge and annoying. I know I'm kindof a dork, but the trees and plants here are so beautiful too. On the way up and now that we're here I'm always wondering what type of pine tree that is or how that fragile looking flower can survive in this cold, constantly changing weather.

Juneau itself is pretty dirty and not taken care of. The part where the cruise ship passengers hang out is nice, but the rest of it is so gross. You'd think that being in such beautiful surroundings would encourage people who live here to keep the town kept up. It kindof reminds me of Pittsburgh. The homes downtown are really close together and on narrow, winding streets.

Hopefully they'll figure out, and in the meantime, I'll help out by keeping our trailer and trailer park clean. ;)

Check out the van down by the river: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2897606002265599151&q=van%20down%20by%20the%20river&hl=en

Still on the hunt

We're still hunting for a home in Juneau. We have some promising leads, but half are ghetto and the other half are expensive. Yes, we're opting for the ones that are a little more expensive. (I know, what a shocker huh, for those of you that know how cheap I am.) We've been staying in the Juneau hostel (http://www.juneauhostel.net/). It's actually very nice. The hosts have a 3 year old that Drake runs around with. I asked Drake what he'd like to say to everyone that reads the blog. He says "Hi". That's it. We drove around for freaking ever today, looking for a place to live. It was horrible. I'm really getting crabby, I feel bad for Bryce and Drake. We went to this awesome place for dinner. Their pizza was rockin! I think I'm going to get a job there. I already have another job lined up, but this one is more accomodating to our schedules. So the last two days have been horrible, and I've been exhausted every night, so no blog. Too bad, so sad. But, yes, we're here, we're stoked, and we're gonna have a good time! p.s. I love Juneau. p.p.s. Yes the pics of the goat and buffalo are real and taken directly from the Jeep.

We made it...

Here are some photos from the journey, sorry we missed a few days of posting. we are currently looking for a rental in Juneau. These pics are from the alcan... and yes that is a giant beaver.

are we there yet?

The trip today wasn't too bad. When we exchanged $, I walked into the bank and said "I'd like to get some canadian currency". The girl was like, "no one's ever said it that way before." i'm such a dork. who cares. the trip today wasn't too bad. people in calgary can't freaking drive in snow. bryce's pics illustrate that. i'm tired. we're all tired. canadian kids shows are so lame. both bryce and i are going bonkers with the cheesy characters. thank god for molson canadian lager. the hotel we're staying at has the weirdest windows. they're big bubble windows. i'll post pics. bryce and i feel like we're in a woody allen movie or something. drake gave us a room tour. he was like "this is where you keep your food, this is where you sleep, this is where you make coffee, this is where you watch tv." i'm so glad he doesn't realize how ghetto it really is. soooooo tired. peace. oh yeah, i'm getting a kick out of how canadians speak, eh? and by the time we get through canada, i'm going to be so good at metric conversions!! let's start a new drinking game...

We are now in Whitecourt AB, drove through calgary and decided that canadians cant drive in snow. there were cars off of the road everywhere, they got 10 inches of snow this morning. We even saw a motorcycle smashed into an exit sign! some dude tried to ride his motorcycle to work in 10 inches of snow... sounds like something I would do. (including the crashing part) anyway, we stopped in Edmonton and had some sushi, good stuff. now we are staying in some ghetto rat trap notel motel. Drake did really well again today on the way, we saw a dodge charger that looked like the transformer bumble bee and he was stoked! Last night Tor saw some antelope and said "look at the gazelles", pretty funny stuff... enjoy the pics. back to my molson canadian and fat tire. mmm not in utah any more...

We're okay so far

Like Bryce said, we're in Lethbridge. We're aiming for Grand Prairie or something like that tonight. If we make it, cool. If not, whatever. We've got the jeep loaded. Poor jeep. My sister Milinda's playing with Drake. My mom and Steve are chillin too. We're getting ready to hit the road. We'll update via this blog since it's crazy expensive to make calls in Canada.

OH CANADA

Well we are in Lethbridge alberta, 700 miles into our trip... ready to hit the road.

8 hours to blast off

We're finalizing everything. The jeep's packed. Just dropped the fish off to Ken & Connie. (Love you guys) We're planning on leaving about 6 in the a.m., so realistically, about 7. We're going to Lethbridge or Fort Macleod, Alberta the first night. We're meeting my mom, stepdad and sister there. That's cool they're driving all that way. We have a ferry to catch from Skagway to Juneau on the 16th. So we've got a week to get to Skagway (approx 2350 miles). Bryce's job starts on the 21st. Wish us luck. Hey here's some pics of our going away party.

Still packing

So I dropped the dog off to my sister in law Jan. I was so sad to see him go. I was more upset about it than Drake was. All he cared about was that he didn't get a toy at McD's. Whatever.
Now Bryce and I are busting our butts to get our stuff packed and organized. It's crazy to think we're only going to sleep in our house for 2 more nights, then not again for 6 months.
I'm much more excited now than I was 2 days ago. Now that all the big stuff's taken care of, I'm a little less stressed and scared. And to answer some questions: Yes, we're renting the house. Yes, we know him. He's one of Bryce's friend's buddies. Yes, we've met him before. No, we're not taking any furniture. And, finally, Yes, we're crazy.

Ahoy, Ahoy From Pennsyltucky

In PA, had a banging bbq @Brautumns... thanks everyone! Brautumn, Jess, Joe, Kylee, Jeremy, Matt, Dana. Matt makes wonderful hockey puck steaks. Joes rum drinks would kill a pirate. Love you guys, see yuns in the fall. Mom Mom is doing well, I spent all day with her yesterday, had as much fun as you possibly can in a home like that. Leaving tomorrow @ 4 am to catch my flight in Balmer. Getting pumped for our road trip! AK or bust (literally).

Here we go...

So, this is it. I'm crossing the items off my lists. I only have 3 complete days left until we leave. I have a lot to do, but at the same time I don't have so many things that I'm getting overwhelmed.

Bryce is in PA visiting his Grandma right now. He has the camera. So no pics for a couple days. He was reluctant to go. He didn't want to leave me to have to prepare for our journey on my own. Of course I can do it all by myself, no problem. Right? Maybe?

I'm really nervous, excited, scared and emotional. I'm mostly scared. Would I normally admit that if I were speaking in person or over the phone? No. I'm trying to be strong and brave. I don't want Drake to get any more weirded-out than he already is. He knows things are going to be different. I don't know if he understands how they'll be different. How does one explain this to a 3 year old? Do I tell him I'm nervous as hell about it too, but if we all stick together everything will be okay?

As you can probably tell, my mind is all over the place. I have so many things to do and so many random things I'm worried about. This is getting way too serious. I'm going to go do something so I can check it off one of my many lists.