Sam's Rites of Passage

Sam has had quite a busy month, and has enjoyed a couple of "rites of passage".

First off was the first day of Kindergarten. Doesn't he look ready to face the world? Because we live right down the sidewalk from the school, the boys get to walk home and I can watch them the whole way, very convenient. Well, on the first day of Kindergarten, I walked down to the door of the school thinking that Sam would want to see me there as he came out the door on his first big day. I was obviously wrong about that assumption and was corrected the next day on the way to school. He informed me that he did not want me to walk down and meet them after school, he wanted to walk just with Tyler. I said to him, "I thought you might like me to walk home with you on your first few days of school." To which he replied, "No, I can see you when I get home. I want to walk with Tyler, then I can talk to him alone." I am not sure what great secrets they are sharing on the way home from school, but it is fun to see him so independent, Sam was definitely ready to start school.

Next came Sam's birthday! Six years old! He was looking forward to this for weeks! (of course, what kid doesn't?)

Sam decided to decorate his own birthday cake this year. Seeing as my boys are extremely engrossed in Lego's these days, it was no surprise that he wanted a Lego cake. First I was to bake a cake that was round and frost it with red frosting so it would look like Mars. (Red frosting is really hard to do, ours ended up more pink, but oh well.) Then Sam designed the scene on top! Here are the good guys capturing the aliens on Mars. If you look carefully you will see one little alien is in his containment unit...

And then, to top it all off, two days ago Sam lost his first tooth! He has been wiggling it for weeks now, and has been very excited about his first loose tooth. I feel like we are a little tooth factory right now, with all three boys wiggling and losing teeth in the last couple of weeks. Well, Sydney could not be left out and has been randomly proclaiming, "I have a loose tooth, see?"
So, here's our little toothless boy and his tiny little tooth...

Tyler helped him set up a little table in his room and then they wrote this note for the Tooth Fairy. It says, (in case you need help deciphering) "What cand (kind) of tooth did I lose?" And, as you can see, we now have proof that the Tooth Fairy is real, as she actually answered...
The little smiley face was Sydney's addition.

Warning! View at your own risk...

Well, the suspense is over! Today was the big day, the Ultrasound! And here are the pictures of our darling baby! After viewing this picture we thought we might name the baby "Skeletor"...
The cute little profile...
And, well, this is self-explanatory!
I guess Sydney need not worry about being de-throned! She can go on with her reign as Gordon Princess!

My Favorite Alaska Things...Part 3

Hubbard Glacier must have been one of our favorite things, because we took about a hundred pictures of it. And so, I share them with you... okay, not all one hundred, but here's a little sampling...



Once we got up by the glacier it got a little bit colder, as you can imagine. We enjoyed looking at the Glacier from my Mom and Dad's stateroom balcony (there was a much better view there than from our room, seeing as we didn't have a window).
We did go up to the front of the ship for a few minutes as well, but watched most of the show from Mom and Dad's.

Once the captain got the ship up as close as he could to the glacier, he turned the boat, luckily to Mom and Dad's side (the captain probably called it starboard or something like that) and then turned off the engines. My favorite part was being able to listen to the glacier, it kind of sounded like thunder, and then we got to see a little calving too...
At first the calving seemed pretty insignificant, until we noticed the kind of waves it was making...

This was really, pretty amazing!





A little iceberg in the ocean (I forget the name of the baby icebergs, Bergies maybe?)
And then, on our way out of the bay came the grand event, the Polar Bear Plunge! Jim was the only one in our group brave enough to join in, I preferred to stay in Mom and Dad's warm stateroom. Steve went to document the event. Here is Jim, psyching up for his big plunge...
Waiting for his turn...
This is Michelle, the cruise director, I am glad that I am not a cruise director! You have to be chipper and full of energy all the time, I got tired just watching her...

The moment of truth! The grand belly-flop plunge into the frozen waters of the Lido Pool (actually it is heated)...Hooray for Jim!

So there you have part 3, the Hubbard Glacier. If you are feeling the urge to see the other 90 pictures, just let me know...

The Wildlife of Alaska

Another of my favorite things on the Cruise was the Wildlife (I know, I could have just included my family in this category, but I thought that would have been just too many pictures for one post). There is all kinds of wildlife in Alaska to see, and one of the things you hear about most are the whales. I was not disappointed...

...I did hear a lot about whales, but the one that I saw looked something more like this than the pictures above...

But, be not dismayed, we did see some other cool wildlife...

We did see some wildflowers...

There were a lot of Salmon...

(not the greatest picture, but you get the idea)

We saw an eagle, just sitting there. We were able to get within about six feet of him, it was amazing! Of course, he was in a cage...

Because there were so many Salmon, there was a good chance of seeing some bears (live ones, not stuffed). Or so we were told. So, we went on a walkway above a river where the Salmon were running, hoping to see some bears. There we came across this sign, I really liked the sign...

Now I know that you never haggle with a bear about who got there first, that is good to know!

Well, we waited there on that pathway above the river with about 40 other people, all standing, staring at the river below and being extremely quiet, waiting for the rumored Mama Bear and her two cubs. And then all of the sudden, there they were! First the Mama Bear...

and then her cute little cubs, I really only got a good picture of the black one, but there was a brown one too! Yeah! Real wildlife! That was pretty cool!

And so, there you have the Wildlife of Alaska, as experienced by Kelli Gordon. I don't know, but I think I experience some pretty scary wildlife daily, right here at home!