Visitors from Alaska

About three years ago my oldest brother John and his family moved to Alaska. Other than a visit last summer from Johnny and some of the kids, we have only seen our cousins over the web-cam. A little over a year ago their youngest son, Ben, was diagnosed with AT/RT brain cancer. Ben is now almost three years old and doing well after a series of treatments last year in Seattle and Houston. We thought it was awesome to spend time with the entire family, including Cari and Ben. What an awesome vacation!

Here are some highlights:

Swimming at Alaina's pool. The kids love to swim. We all came home a little sunburned after this fun activity.

John and David were a little scared to get in the water this year. They were content to watch the big kids play.

A trip to Lagoon. The kids in our family love it, and the adults hate it. Still it was a "must do."

The kids went on Rattlesnake Rapids three times in a row. They were all soaked to the bone and still loving it.

Fun activities at Grandma Jeans including; making ice cream in baggies, a scavenger hunt that led to magic beans, making tie dye t-shirts, sleepovers with night games, and hours of just plain fun playing together.
The kids had to shake their ice cream bags to make the ice cream firm. They thought jumping on the tramp with it would speed up the process. Mostly it just made a salty mess.



This is what you get when you plant "magic beans" (jellybeans) at Grandma Jean's house. The kids found the beans in a scavenger hunt. Then we planted them and watered them for a couple days. They were in awe of the result!


Each kid made a tie dye t-shirt. What a mess. Most of the adults had to use straight bleach to get the dye to come off our hands. The kids LOVE their shirts.
Just hanging out and being silly.

We had a big family picture at Mike's house in his awesome yard. The kids had fun playing on his playground. (Except for when John got a bloody nose, that is. At least the picture was over by then...)
Ellie and Megan...what posers!

We had an awesome time and were bummed to see them leave on Saturday. Can't wait to see them again. I guess it's true that distance makes the heart grow fonder!