We're still here...

The first pic is a pic of Drake while we're riding bikes. That's all he wants to do lately. It's great. The only time I don't want to ride is when it's pouring rain.

The second pic is a crappy shot of this beautiful flower up here. It's called Dwarf Fireweed. It's so pretty.

The third pic is an example of Drake's art work. He's awesome. He can spell mom on his magnadoodle. he says, "updownupdown, o, updownupdown."

This fourth pic is Drake riding in the bike trailer of some cool Aussies we met. They stayed at the campground. We've met a ton of cool people.

Last pic is the Mendenhall. I can't get enough photos of it.

We've been busy too. The last couple weeks have flown by again. My sister Jen has been in town. The whole time she was here it rained. The weather has sucked the past couple weeks. I'm going outside to play with Drake right now, I'll post more later.

Drake is such a daredevil. This video is him power sliding at one of the campsites. He rocks.
This is Drake rallying.

Man, the days are flying by

Bryce is right, the bugs are horrible. Just when we think the mosquitoes are dying, the no-see-ums start chewing on us. Poor Drake-we coat him with bugspray, but they still go for him. He'll lie in bed at night scratching his neck, face, arms, etc.
Drake is doing really well. He's rallying on his bike. He's just like Bryce! He loves to go off the ramp Bryce built for him and down steep trails. He psychs himself up for them. I can hear him whispering "No biggie, no biggie." Then he takes a couple deep breaths and goes for it. I'll post a video when I can. He likes to draw and do letters and numbers. He can't write more than a few, but he tries.
I'm busy at the campground. I can't believe how much crap people leave around. I do my best though. Not really much going on with me.
We went on a hike on the 6th. It's the Mendenhall West trail. At the end of the trail you can hang out at the glacier and go in ice caves and stuff. All of our friends here have already done it, but it's 3.4 miles one way, so it's kinda hard with Drake. We finally went for it. Packed snacks and everything since it's about a 6 hour round trip hike. We rode our bikes about the first mile or so. Drake rallied the whole time. When Bryce and I wanted to stop for water, Drake was like "Let's go! It's been a long enough break." He ended up walking the entire trail by himself except the last quarter mile or so. He's unbelievable! Anyway, we got just over a mile in and stopped to take a picture when I realized I'd left the camera at camp. OOPS. We continued on and it started pouring rain. We were nearly to the glacier when we decided to turn around. I was so scared of bears and I insisted we were on the wrong trail the whole time. When we finally got back to the camper, we were all looking forward to changing into dry clothes and chillin. I was soaked to the bone and cold, so I threw my pack down and got a towel to dry Drake off. We both started coughing. I realized that when I put my pack down, the bear mace sprayed a little. So we had to hang out in the jeep and let the camper air out. I'm such a dork.
Here's some of my picks of pics for the last week and a half. (Which, by the way, has flown by.)

Well we haven't seen the sun in a while and holy $*@# the bugs are out in full force. I have had a rough couple of weeks, definitely the worst weather I have ever seen in a helicopter. The kind of flights where you land the last one of the day and head straight for the bar. But that's what I am here for, very valuable experience fer sure. Hope everyone is well, here are some pics. New snow on the glaciers all last week. Cheers

Well, I wanted to put on some of my favorite pics, but I don't know what the deal is. The internet connection we're using isn't cooperating now.

There was a crazy rain storm Friday night. I've never heard rain like it before. You know the quick, fierce summer rainstorms we get in Utah? Well it was about 10 times worse and lasted hours. We had a 5 gallon bucket outside, and it got completely filled up in about 3 hours. I wanted to take a video of it. It began at 3 am. Of course, it's daylight here at 3 am, so I wanted to video the trees swaying and the sound of the rain. It would have been cool, but I was too lazy to get out of bed.
Other than Bryce seeing that one black bear a couple weeks ago, we haven't seen much wildlife. A couple porcupines, squirrels, nothing too exciting. We see dozens of bald eagles everyday, but up here, they're as common as sea gulls in Utah. I do have to say, if I go the whole summer without seeing a bear, I won't be too disappointed. I'm a tad scared of them. I bought a can of bear spray (basically concentrated pepper spray). Usually it's just me and Drake, so if I saw one then, I'd freak.

I did realize the other day that I'm already starting to take Alaska's beautiful scenery for granted. I drive down the road, and there's countless waterfalls coming down sheer cliffs between lush, green, forested, towering mountains. But when I drive by it everyday, I am in awe less and less. Stupid humans and our stupid short attention spans. We live at the base of the glacier for crying out loud, and I see it and think "Oh yeah, there's the glacier again." I have to remind myself this may be the only time in my life I get a chance to be in Alaska.

We've met a lot of cool people from all over the world. An older couple from Holland have been hanging out with us. They say if their children knew they had to hang their food in trees to keep it from bears, they'd be worried sick. There's also a couple from Germany here now. They have a 5 year old son that Drake's been playing with. They just moved to America a couple years ago. They've taken their son backpacking all over SE Alaska for weeks. Pretty adventurous! There's a lot of great people here, but they come and go. The tree-chopping, glass-smashing, chain-smoking parties come every weekend. I can't get over how ironic it is that Bryce and I have to go bust parties and ask them to quiet down. I giggle every time I do it, with my green "Forest Service Volunteer" hat on. We'll have to get our Volunteer outfits on and take a pic. It's so funny.