Trip To Squarebanks (AKA Fairbanks)

OK, time for an update of the life of the Frick Jrs. We are waiting to move into our new home. Yep, in case you haven't heard, Jessica and I are in the process of buying a townhouse in Eagle River. We are waiting for the appraisal to go through and are planning to move in sometime in early August. We are pretty excited and hope to at least have all our stuff over there before school starts on August 14th. I will update with pictures and more info as we get closer to the closing and moving.

Anyway, we took our final trip for the summer when we journeyed north to the interior city of Fairbanks with my parents. It was a pretty nice trip, we didn't really do very much, because there isn't really very much in Fairbanks to do. Still, we relaxed and enjoyed the weather. It rained a little, but the weather is much nicer in Fairbanks than here in Chugiak, were it has pretty much rained every day this summer. Well, maybe not everyday, but most days.


Kierin and his Peepaw spent some time fishing on the Chena River. They didn't catch anything-the river is pretty busy and well traveled-but Kierin had a great time taking a break from throwing rocks into the river.



One of the major "attractions" of Fairbanks is that it is close to North Pole, AK, which is where Santa Claus lives and works. Kierin and Connor were pretty excited about seeing Santa. Unfortunately, we happened to visit on Santa's day off-he must have been visiting the elves or Mrs Claus.


After returning from Fairbanks, we took the kids to see "Sesame Street Live!" at the Sullivan Arena. Kierin absolutely loved it and it was so awesome that Connor actually sat still for about ten minutes to watch. Pretty amazing.


Finally, as you can see Connor has discovered the joy that is hockey!

Grandma's Visit, Part II

The second day in Seward we took one of those fjord cruises that takes you around the area and shows you interesting things-glaciers, whales, interesting sights, etc. We went with Renown Tours because it had the best times for our interest-12:00 to 3:00. It was an interesting tour-the boat was a little smaller than the Kenai Fjords Tours boats and the "lunch" they served was bagels and a cookie instead of all you can eat baked salmon, we still had a really great time and saw lots of cool stuff. I have lived in Alaska for almost 30 years and had never been out on one of these boats before. I would love to go again (on a tour whose idea of lunch is salmon, not bagel).


We actually saw a couple of real whales, but I did not get a good picture of them. The first whale was actually sleeping, and hardly came out of the water at all. THe second whale was CRAZY and jumped out of the water a bunch of times, but I was never able to get a good picture of it jumping. It was really cool, though...


We also saw some sea lions that were sunning themselves on some rocks. It was pretty neat how these huge fat guys could get out of the water and move about on land. They were really vocal and the bug guy coming out of the water in the picture here was yelling at the other sea lions to get out of his way. Oh-they were pretty darn stinky.


We saw a bald eagle also. They would come out every now and then to see what was going on on the boats-the tour captains used to be able to give them treats to entice them to show themselves to the tourists. The tour people can no longer do that, but the eagles seem to remember and expect treats.

Speaking of eagles, Jessica and I were driving home from church today and this huge eagle swooped down in front of our car on the highway and would've been smacked if I hadn't hit the brakes. It was cool to see one up close (it was so BIG!), but I wonder what it was doing. Was it sick or did it see something on the highway it wanted to eat? Maybe it was depressed!


This is Keyhole Rock. The water eroded it so that it looks like a keyhole. I thought this was a pretty cool picture-nature is amazing!

Grandma's Visit, Part I

Jessica's mom, Kathy, came up to Alaska for a few weeks this June. She actually returned to California only this morning, but we miss her already. It is always fun when people come to visit, as we get to sight see and do all the touristy things that visitors to Alaska do. Kathy's visit was no exception. Over the next few entries, I will share some of the adventures that we shared while my Mother In Law was up here.

To begin with, we went to Seward for a couple of days the first weekend that Kathy was here. We started our adventure by visiting the Alaska Sea Life Center in downtown Seward. It is a wonderful place and I feel that ALL visitors to Alaska should visit.


Connor enjoys a small snack before we went into the Sea Life Center. Connor absolutely LOVED the Sea Life Center, as he spent a great deal of time running around looking at the displays and animals. Of course, he squealed the entire time. I can't wait to take him to the zoo or the petting zoo at the state fair and see him in action there. By the way, Connor likes crackers, which he calls "cra."


Kierin does his best 'World's Most Dangerous Catch" impression. Luckily, the crab was not real and would not pinch the dude. Kierin also enjoyed the Sea LIfe Center immensely.


Jessica, Connor, Kierin and Kathy enjoy the touch tank at the Sea Life Center. They got to touch all sorts of cool stuff like starfish, sea anemones, and skates.


Kierin poses with a statue of a sea lion at the Sea Life Center.


Jessica, Connor, Kierin, and Kathy enjoy the large deck at the bed and breakfast that we stayed in overnight. It was called Havenwood and it was absolutely beautiful!