Yo quero Taco Bell?!

Why is it that i can go to Taco Bell and eat 2 taco's and be happy...but when i make taco's at home, i can eat 6 of them? Do i make them differently, like with air instead of beef or something?

Messy messy...

Mady is slowly transitioning herself over to adult food. She eats her own things, but then she wants to try what we have on our plates. I'm totally fine with this, but Frank is having a hard time. He thinks she should eat all of her own food and her bottle first, and then if she is still a bit hungry, she could have a bite or two of ours. He doesn't realize that it doesn't work like that. She wants to eat our food when she wants it, and her food will come later when she feels like it. She knows what she wants, who are we to tell her no to what we have...especially if it isn't bad for her. He is also crabby that when she eats our food, she uses her hands and gets messy. He freaks out!! Kids are going to get messy. They are going to get messier before they get cleaner, but he doesn't get that either. After lunch today, her hands and face were dirty, and he was sooo pissy! It's how she learns! Is this a man thing, or just my OCD hubby thing?

Life is fragile...

I would really appreciate it if everyone took just 1 minute out of their busy lives to say a little prayer for my friend Meagen and her family.

Last night, they were on their way home from their grandfathers viewing when a drunk driver crossed the road at full speed and crashed into their explorer head on. Meagen's dad was killed, her mom has a broken back and a chance of being paralyzed, and her 2 sisters are in medically induced coma's right now. Thankfully (if there is a reason to be thankful in this whole situation), Meagen only has a broken leg and some bruises.

This is just a tragic situation that could have been avoided with one person not deciding to drink while driving. I am devastated for her loss and what is going on with her family right now.

Please, take a moment to say a little prayer
Please, take a moment to hug your family
Please, take a moment to think before you drink
Please, take a moment and tell someone you love them

Alaska, day 8

The last day of our cruise, day 8, took us to Whittier.

Whittier is a small town of about 250 people. Yes, you read that right, only 250 people live there. And, no joke, they all live in this apartment building.

Whittier is a unique town, as there are only 2 ways in and out: Either on the water or through the tunnel. The tunnel opens on the hour for the people on the Whittier side, and on the half hour for the other side. And it only stays open for 15min and then you have to wait for the next opening an hour later. So you better not be late getting in line, lol.

Traffic waiting in line to go through the tunnel
After we left Whittier, we went to a tour of the Portage Glacier.

The small boat we were on got us very close to the glacier. It was breath taking.

The Portage Glacier, up close

The Portage Glacier on the way out

Ice chunk floating in the water

After that part of the tour, we got back on the bus and made our way to some wild animals :) We saw Elk...

Adult Moose...

Cute, not-so-little, baby moose...

Brown bears...

and Grizzley bears...

This bear liked me :)

There were so many animals there, it was great...

Us with the Bison

We then all got back on the bus and we were taken to Anchorage, where we got to walk around, shop and browse throughout town. It was a nice, clean town...and we got some great deals there too, lol. Then we made our way, via shuttle bus, to the airport. This was a HUGE mess. Frank, being the smarty pants that he is, remembered what crap we had to go through the first time at the airport in Philly with Mady's boarding pass, so he said something right away. At first they argued with us, that since she didn't have her own seat, she didn't need a boarding pass. Well, after a few minutes arguing and a phone call to the security area, they finally said we were right. I wish we were wrong. The process of printing out a boarding pass for an infant that doesn't even have a seat took longer than the flight was going to! How hard is it to print out a piece of paper that says "it's ok for this baby to get on the plane". Holy crap people. Litterally 45min later, we were finally ready to go. Mady was pissy too, as she was in the stroller the whole time and totally ready to get down and run around.

She was going insane!!

The flight home was a long, overnight flight, and then a shorter early morning one...

Frank fell asleep with the baby...

So i ate his breakfast cookie :)

All in all, our Alaskan cruise was a wonderful time! I am so happy that we did it, and i will always remember the things i saw there. And i'm so glad that we took Mady too, because one day she will be able to look back on these pictures and see what a wonderful time we had.

Thank you all for sharing in our vacation with us, via pictures. I hope you enjoyed seeing our life for a few days. I hope to be able to share many many more vacations and experiences with you all very soon.

Love,

The Stiffies

Alaska, day 7

Day 7 of our cruise brought us in to College Fjord. There are lots of glaciers here, so it was a wonderful day for sitting on the balcony in our room and just relaxing. Of course, we had to run up to the main deck a few times to get some better pics.
We didn't get to the glaciers in College Fjord until early in the afternoon, so we spent the morning playing trivia games (like we've done all week and we didn't win a single game...until that day). We finally won a trivia game, you did indeed read that right. We won the Mad Gab game, which was right up our alley since we play that at family fun night at LEAST once a month :) It almost qualified us as cheaters. I like to think of us as seasoned pros. And for all of our efforts, what did we win?! Princess Cruises hats. Oh well, at least it wasn't a pat on the back and an "Atta boy".

After some cruising, we finally made it to the glaciers. All the glaciers in College Fjord were named for the founding people of the some of the major ivy league universities...

The Bryn Mahr Glacier

The Smith Glacier

The Vassar Glacier

The Wellsley Glacier

The Yale Glacier

And the Harvard Glacier, which was the biggest one of them all.

The Harvard Glacier again.

Aunt Marian at the Harvard Glacier

Mady at the Harvard Glacier

Us at the Harvard Glacier

Cruising in College Fjord

And of course, after we left College Fjord, we had to take that opportunity to take some cheesey pictures. You KNEW that was coming!

Look out Captain Ahab, here comes Captain Mady. Ahoy ye mateys!

Playing with the buttons in the elevator

Playing on the balcony again...forget toys, just buy this girl a stepEventually, Mady asked me to pick her up so she could see where she was steering the ship, lol

Having our last drinks on the ship

All in all, this was one of the most relaxing days on the ship...except for the re-packing all your stuff part that we had to do right after we had those wonderful drinks at the bar.

Stay tuned for our last day of Stiffie antics tomorrow :)

Alaska, day 6

Day 6 of our cruise brought us into Glacier Bay. It was very cold there, since there are so many glaciers.

The first Glacier we came up to was the Margerie Glacier.

The next big glacier was fairly far away, so our captain took us past some littler glaciers on the way.

This is the Clark Glacier

This is the Muir Glacier

This is the Reid Glacier

Mady spent most of her time in Glacier Bay playing on the balcony. Up the step, down the step, up the step, down the step.

She did take SOME time to enjoy the glaciers though.

The other big glacier we saw was the Johns Hopkins Glacier, named for the university of course

There was a smaller glacier right next to the Johns Hopkins Glacier, called the Lamplugh Glacier. That glacier is named after the founding president of the university.

I also took some random pictures as we cruised through Glacier Bay.

This is chunk was about the size of 4 of my cars

And what day would it be if we didn't take cheesey photos?!

Later that night was our last formal night, so we dressed up and made the most of it. Mady enjoyed walking around the ship on her own too.

All in all, Glacier Bay was one of the best days on the cruise.

Stay tuned for more fun tomorrow! :)