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I did a SILLY title!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Portland forests

In addition to ice cream and doughnuts, we also enjoyed some of Portland's fantastic city parks. Forest Park claims to be the largest urban forest in the US.

It has banana slugs! We learned that Kelly has a slug phobia; she did not share in our delight at this particular discovery.

Also, large trees.

And fun ruins.
 

The opportunity to scramble along fallen trees gave the girls a nice boost of energy when they were starting to flag.

They did a different sort of climbing at Mt. Tabor park.

At one point, there was a gaggle of 5 kids in this tree, all climbing as high as they could.

Narnia?

Goopy gross stuff

Juniper's response to being asked to put on sunscreen.

Juniper's response to being allowed to play in the river mud near Kelly's condo. Gross is in the eye--or hands--of the beholder.

The girls discovered the mud when we had some other agenda that did not involve maximum filth, and we promised them we'd come back. We returned to the river shore the next day, with the kids decked out with bathing suits and permission to get as muddy as they wanted to. Let the record state that promises were kept!

Hazel was proud of her "boots."

While the girls played in the mud, the three adults picked wild blackberries--enough to make a generous birthday cobbler for Aaron.

Friends & Fireworks

After our cruise returned to Seattle, we took the train down to Portland to visit our friend Kelly.

Although Hazel is too young to remember when Kelly lived in Atlanta, she immediately took to Kelly like the good family friend she is.

In addition to being an all around wonderful person, Kelly won extra bonus points with Hazel for keeping us all plied with ice cream, chocolate, and doughnuts. If you ask either girl, they will tell you that Portland has AMAZING food. (Aaron and I agree.)

I've never gone out for 4th of July fireworks dressed like this, but it's a little cooler in the Pacific Northwest than the Southeast.

Kelly's condo is an easy walk to fireworks, but we were briefly delayed by this passing train.

We made it! Fireworks, bridges, river -- fun!

In case there was any doubt that Juniper is a truly champion sleeper, here she is, fast asleep against Kelly's legs, while the rest of us watch fireworks.

Goodbye Alaska

Victoria

Our final port of call was Victoria, British Columbia. This photo overlooking the city has everyone in our group: Sally, Charlotte, Mark, Aaron, Ellen, Juniper, Janet, Rebecca, Hazel, and Luke.

Victoria was lovely, in the way that wealthy coastal cities often are. (And, no, there is nothing outside the frame of this photo to explain the piano. It's just a piano overlooking the ocean.)

Also tacky, in the way that tourist cities often are. No lack of maple in this Canadian city!

There is a pier where you can buy frozen chunks of raw fish and feed sea lions. The sea lions obviously know the routine and enthusiastically showed up to claim their fish.

It's fun to get close enough to a wild animal that you can notice normally unseen details, like a sea lion's nails.

Or the backside of a peacock.

We spent about 10 minutes watching this very angry peacock try to intimidate some crows away from a pile of birdseed. His tail was on full display the entire time. We also learned that in addition to displaying their impressive tail feathers, peacocks also rattle their feathers to make a clattering sound.



It sure seemed like the peacock was rattling his feathers to intimidate the crows, but science suggests the rattling may have been more about impressing the nearby pea hens. The crows never did leave the seeds, but this is one fine looking peacock, so maybe he had some luck with the ladies.

We wound up getting hot dogs from a shop on the busiest corner of the main tourist street because it was quick, convenient, and kid friendly. To our somewhat pleasant surprise, they were also delicious.

My mom took the kids back to the boat, and Aaron and I wound up with some time to wander by ourselves. We saw charming residential neighborhoods and stunning ocean views, and somewhat inexplicably, these steps into the ocean. No beach, no docks, just the barnacles and other sea life claiming the bottom few steps. Presumably there was some reason for these steps when they were built in the mid-twentieth century (our guess based on style and appearance), but these days there is no apparent reason for them. Just the pleasure of sitting, watching the ocean, and feeling like you've discovered a tiny private mystery.

Back on the boat, Hazel and Luke show off their matching Victoria T-shirts.

And attack Sally with icy hands. (They were also using ice water as hair styling product.) We had previously declared that Hazel and Luke couldn't sit next to each other at dinner because they would be so focused on playing that they wouldn't eat. We lifted the ban for our last dinner on the boat, and the kids were happy to get up to their silly shenanigans.

Aaron at work

Beam me to Las Vegas, Scotty. 
Gale Force 9's latest game is Star Trek Ascendancy, and Aaron went to the annual Star Trek convention to demo it. Rebecca came down from Chicago to help out with the show, see Vegas, and enjoy the con.

Teaching Khan how to play the game. I hear he's a pretty poor sport -- beware his wrath if he loses.

First day of school

This is a big school year for our family -- Hazel started elementary school today! After three years of watching Juniper head off to school, she was really excited to go herself.

Big girl kindergartner.

 Third grade!

Both girls have grown a lot since last year.

If you want to track their first day progression: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010

Hazel seemed a little nervous waiting in the crowded hallway.

Once she was in the classroom, she found her seat and jumped right into playing with plastic animals.

At the end of the day, she happily ran off the bus and proclaimed that "school is awesome!"

Activities on board

The top deck of the ship had a sports area, with basketball courts, a climbing wall, ping pong tables. And mini-golf.

It was pretty surreal to be playing mini-golf on a boat with Alaskan mountains in the background.

The FlowRider was another attraction on the sports deck. It creates a continuous wave for body boarding or surfing.

Rebecca, the most athletic in our crowd, was the first to try it out.

Aaron later joined in on the fun.

Juniper just met the height requirement and gave it a try.

She quickly wiped out and was a little scared and overwhelmed by the experience.

But she tried again, with more success the second time. She had a blast and was proud of her accomplishment.

It's possible that having a room service breakfast one morning caused almost as much excitement as anything on the sports deck. It was crowded, and there was nowhere to put anything, and the kids absolutely loved it.