While we were in Alaska, we made a trip to the zoo. My little loves the zoo. Honestly, I was very disappointed by the zoo. Heck, the little zoo we went to in Louisiana was much better than this zoo. I wonder if Covid-19 wasn’t part of the problem… but it felt like the zoo wasn’t maintained/kept up with. Most of the animals if they were out (to be seen) were laying down hidden behind tall grass… It was just weird. I hope in a normal year this is better, but I just don’t know. I’ve never been to Alaska prior to this. Guess that means I need to plan a trip in my future 🙂 haha. (more…)
Our first full day in Alaska we went out driving through the mountains. I made mention that I wanted to go into the mountains and we entered this trip with very little plans. Especially since the Coronavirus has been affecting all daily life everywhere. But I wanted to see beautiful scenery and I wanted to go into the mountains. So, our first day, we did just that.
p.s. I love that at home we have deer crossing signs. Here they have Moose and Elk crossing signs. However, we didn’t see any moose (or elk) in the wild until the last day. more on that to come.
Supposedly you can drive to this glacier. The roads didn’t look right or looked like we were going to have to offroad. Have you ever tried offroading in a minivan? Me either. Not sure I want to either.
This was the Matanuska Glacier. The Matanuska is Alaska’s largest road-accessible glacier, and it’s just 90 minutes from Anchorage. It is 27 miles long and 4 miles wide. It is located 100 miles North-east of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway. It flows about 1 foot per day. (more…)
Once we got to Talkeetna and toured a couple of shops, it was time to grab some grub. Wow, I sound so barbarian… grub. haha… Maybe I should say that we spent “so much” time at The Patchwork MooseQuilt Shop that dad and hubby were hungry and tired of waiting. Hubby sent me a text to find the best place in town. I asked Lori where she recommended and her first place was Denali Brewpub followed by a pizza place. Since we had pizza the night before, we decided Denali Brewpub it was. We made it to the restaurant in shifts… The guys led, I was somewhere in the middle and my mom was close behind. haha.
Okay, first off, it was a beautiful day. They had seating mainly outdoors although there was some seating inside. We pulled 2 tables together and enjoyed the beautiful outdoors! It was gorgeous!! The high was 74 degrees. That is actually way cooler minus the humidity from what we were experiencing back home. It was lovely to sit outside in the sun and enjoy! (more…)
We ate breakfast at a restaurant called Gwennie’s Old Alaska Restaurant in Anchorage the day before. Our waitress was so awesome. She asked if we were out of town or locals. When we told her we were on vacation, she asked where all we had been and where we were headed next. Then she suggested heading north to Talkeetna, Alaska.
The next day we grabbed breakfast as we headed out of town headed north to Talkeetna. The waitress had given us a few different Alaska books to look at and mom and my husband did some research before we headed there. One of the things mom saw was a quilt store located in Talkeetna called The Patchwork Moose. Now, my grandma’s birthday is the same day as mine which also happened to be the week we were on vacation. Very few years have I missed celebrating with Grandma. So we decided to go to the quilt shop to bring grandma back some fabric from Alaska.
We did something a couple of weeks ago… We went on vacation. Last fall hubby and I were actually looking into a vacation for us to go on when we stumbled across a really good deal to go to California. Not just California, Anaheim… Disneyland to be exact.
Ever since my little was born, my mom wanted to take her to Disney. I kept telling my mom we needed to hold off until she was at least 5 or 6-years-old. Well, this summer she turned 6. (Which means last fall she was 5… we were at the 5-6 time frame.) We discussed our findings with my parents and my Mother-in-law to see if they’d be interested in going with us. We came up with a game plan, a date, and booked our trip for this summer.
We waited all spring watching the news, debating, talking, stressing, etc. Disney (both World and Land) shut down. I have a friend who lives in California and has season passes to Disneyland. I picked her brain every few days about… is it going to reopen, will this happen, should I reschedule, etc. Finally, she heard rumor that they wouldn’t reopen until January 2021. Crud.
After quick discussion, we decided to start looking into new trip destinations. We couldn’t get our money back (side note… our lives are more important than losing money from a trip, I’m not stupid), but we could reroute our trip… This was all about the time that the one beach opened in California and 40K people flooded to it and they shut beaches back down. We decided that everyone would want the beach so we started looking for other destinations.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, etc. That’s when I suggested Alaska. It’s a state we’ve been wanting to go to… why not. We looked into Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Juneau. We eventually landed on Anchorage.
Let this be known… I’m not here to debate if going on vacation was the right thing to do or not. I was stressed out in the weeks prior to leaving. Stressed beyond belief. I had a few meltdowns. I might be 2. Anyway… the point is… we went on vacation, we had a great time… And here’s what lead us to head to Alaska. We’ll call it the “backstory.”
The initial plans
Alaska wasn’t our first destination.
When my little was about a year old, we were planning a summer vacation. My mom kept mentioning that we should go to Disney World or Disneyland because the little loved Disney so much. I kept saying, let’s hold off until she’s at least 5 or 6. If we’re going to spend that amount of money, I want her to remember it.
Jump forward to last fall.
My husband and I were looking for a vacation for the 2 of us. I don’t know why I think we were just killing time one evening. That’s when he spotted that we could go on vacation to Disney fairly cheaply. Then the debate was on World vs Land. Eventually, we fell upon land because we’d never been to California. Okay, well he had for work, but does that really count?
We talked to my parents and his mom about going to see if they’d be interested. Yup. Got the older daughter on board… and plans started moving forward. (more…)
Y’all, I know this is a fictional book, but I am now a fan of baseball. haha! I always have liked baseball. I can’t watch it on tv very easily… I prefer to be in the stands. The vibe you get from the stadium helps! But wow…
So Caden is the sister of the main female character of Stone Vows. See, they are all tying in together. The characters are still all appearing. We are starting to get a ways out from the Mitchell Sisters… but still they are appearing a little. Especially because the Mitchell Sisters husbands all own the gym that Caden uses and Murphy eventually starts working at. Hopefully, I didn’t give away too much.
Hmmm… So this book helped make a comeback from Stone Promises. I still couldn’t give it 5 stars. Toward the middle to end it got one of those weird way too many thoughts, trying to make word count vibes. I still really liked the book, don’t get me wrong. I liked the characters. Chad/Thad and Malory made a visit from the previous book as well as characters from the other Stone brothers book and the Mitchell Sisters Book. I still think Chad/Thad (he’s one and the same) is a very hard character for me to remember. I keep having to really think about who he is and how he falls into this…
I really want to play “Never Have I Ever” after reading this book. Unfortunately, I don’t really have people to play it with. Oh well. And everyone else would probably be drunk, but not me ha! Or full if we just played it with food. It’s all good.
Stone Vows – Samantha Christy (A Stone Brother’s Trilogy Book)
SHE’S FORBIDDEN.
I’m her doctor.
She’s my patient.
My only patient.
She’s alone and in trouble.
From the moment I see her, I know she’s special.
As a resident, I’ve spent years living and breathing hospital life.
Then she comes into my ER, and my need to help her is all-consuming. (more…)
Okay… so far, my least favorite book/character that Samantha Christy wrote. Honestly, I keep forgetting about this brother. Is that sad? Especially since I just finished this book. I mean I started the next book, but I was trying to tell hubby about all these books. I CAN’T seem to remember this brother. Ugh!
And sadly, his wife is one I keep struggling with too…
Stone Promises – Samantha Christy (A Stone Brothers Trilogy)
We were childhood friends.
Me and the boy who would grow up to become Hollywood’s hottest star.
When I was six – I fell for him at the bus stop.
When I was fifteen – he moved away, taking my heart with him.
When I was twenty-four – he came back for me even though I didn’t want him.
The nine years we spent apart, I tried like hell to fill the void. (more…)
I really liked Samantha Christy’s style of writing. When I was finished with the Mitchell Sisters Trilogy, I went on the hunt to see what else she had written. Turns out she had a trilogy on the Stone Brothers. And Charlie, who made an appearance in Black Roses happened to be the first female character in Stone Rules. Score… We got to stick with the Mitchell Sisters. Totally game for that.
Now back to Christy’s style of writing. I won’t lie, some of the sex scenes that she writes are enough to make me blush. I guess that’s what you get when you read romance novels. They weren’t as bad as 50 Shades of Gray… and for the record, no, I did not read that book all the way through. I made it 25% of the way because I wanted to see what all the hype was about. It made me freak out to the point I slammed my kindle shut at the time and sat on it. I was sitting on an airplane headed to Las Vegas. Hubby was sitting next to me and wondered what my problem was.
I couldn’t do that book, 25% and I was out and I’ve never tried again. Yup, you can hashtag truth that. Sad but true maybe, but true none the less. (more…)
