J&A Days

When Justin was little, he used to play with a little girl named April. Their playdates were called J&A Day. Well, with John and Ann in town, we had quite a few J&A playdates!! So much fun!!! Thank you so much for coming...we miss y'all so much already and can't wait to see you in September. Enjoy some of our memories with them....
Before we headed off white water rafting on the Nenana River near Denali National Park we had to put on these drysuits. Whoever invented these glacier suits must be one crazy dude....not a fan!! Burning up hot!!
Here's Ann with our guide, who pulled her in the glacier-cold river as he fell out!! Unbelievable...plus, her suit leaked!! She handled it with way more grace and panache than I would have! I was way impressed, Ann!
Definitely a little hazy from all of the forest fires near Denali...
Mount McKinley, also called Denali, is infamous for disappearing. It has its own weather system because it's so huge! Even the National Park brochure reassures visitors that The Mountain is really there. We were able to see the entire Mountain for a solid 10 minutes before the clouds came back over it disappearing an entire 20,320 feet of mountain. You can see the bus we rode in for 8 hours...that's correct, friends!! Stinkin' 8 hours in an old school bus...definitely worth it though!! We were told that we wouldn't see the mountain because of all the smokey air from the forest fires to the north. Our bus driver told us that he hadn't seen The Mountain that clearly since the previous summer!! Woo-hoo!! (Do you think he was telling the truth?) BTW, you have to ride in these buses if you want to go any distance into the park...try to limit human traffic or something ridiculous like that. This is what happens when you're on a bus that long...blackmail.

We also got to see a wolf, lynx, grizzly bears and cubs, caribou, ptarmigan, porcupine and lots of tree huggers in the wild. Not something that you get to do everyday...none of our pictures are that great as evidence of this - either we were too far away for good pics or they were too fast!!

We also got to do some fishing out of Seward and Resurrection Bay.
Twinkies!
That's a beauty...excuse me, two beauties - John with his lingcod!John with his hunky halibut!
John with his Jenni!

While down in Seward, we also visited Exit Glacier...
J&A with "the toe"!
At Mount Marathon on July 4th weekend, there is an extreme run in Seward where all of these crazy runners book it straight up this mountain and back down...almost everyone who does it is completely covered in mud head to toe.
Here's a close up of one of the sections...
And comin' back down (sliding on their butts)!
Dirty bums racin' to finish...

We did a really fun hike down in Girdwood too. I love this cute pic of Ann!
Thank you again for being the best outlaws-inlaws!! We love ya'll!