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Day 2: Ketchikan

Ketchikan was nice. It was cloudy and rainy in the morning but it cleared up pretty quickly. We signed up for a "shore excursion" but we had a couple hours to kill before it started. We wandered around and found a coffee stand and sat by the water and had breakfast. There were 2 other cruise ships docked so there were a lot of people. Every other store in all of these tourist towns is a jewelery store. It's really annoying because you think there will be cool local shops and it's all just jewelery and ulu knives and things made out of antlers. Our tour started and our good friend Travis drove us out to Totem Bight State Park.

There are 14 totems at Totem Bight. Travis told us the stories told on them and explained how to read them and stuff. It was really interesting. Most of them tell stories about a family or a specific person but some of them explain how native Alaskans believed man was created and other folk stories to be passed on. This one below is the 3rd tallest totem pole in the world.

This is the clan house. It's where an entire extended family or small tribe would live. The totems on the four corners are guardians and the one in the middle is kind of like an introduction to the characteristics of the clan. All of the totems face the ocean so that a visiting or attacking clan can see if they're peaceful, their history, the characteristics of their current and past leaders, etc. The doorway is only about 4 feet high. They believe that spirits are very large so they make their doors small so that evil spirits can't get in.
The totems and the clan houses were all cut and carved with a tool called and adze. It looks like the wrong end of a hammer (the part you use to take the nail out) only it's really sharp. You can see the notches it makes in the wood. It's really really smooth, too. You can rub your hands on it and you would never get a splinter. Ketchikan is in a rainforest so it was cool to walk through and see how it works. It was my first rainforest. Oh and this was my first ever slug sighting. Apparently the local kids have slug races.After the totems, we moved right along to THE LUMBERJACK SHOW! It was amazing. My mom kept screaming because all of the events made her nervous. Our team was the Dawson Creek Camp (the red guys). We won. I lost my voice because I was cheering so loud. I think I cheered even louder than at Medieval Times but only because I had to be yelling over the chainsaws so often.

The Axe Throw

I don't remember the names of the other events...we lost this one.

It was pretty cool.

The log-roll was a crowd pleaser.

The cool thing about Ketchikan is that most of it is built on stilts over the ocean, even the roads. The ground is all steep granite. Even the houses are just built on stilts because you can't clear land to make a foundation. Some of the houses have about 200 stairs up to the front door. Ketchikan is also the salmon capitol of the world. We learned a LOT about salmon. They even taught us a cool trick to rememeber the five types of salmon. Alaska is just so educational.

Day 1 & 2: Not Even Alaska

from the airCan anyone identify this mountain? Mt. Hood? Mt. St. Helens? It's right before we descended into Vancouver. Feel free to look up flight patterns and get back to me. Alex, this sounds like a job for you.

Vancouver
Vancouver seemed to be a kind of odd city, aesthetically speaking. Every building was all glass (but not in a pretty way) and I couldn't stop thinking about earthquakes. The drive through town from the airport to the pier was cool. We got to see Chinatown and the new train system they're building. It just intensified my desire for a tour of the Pacific Northwest (although Luke pointed out that Vancouver is technically in the Pacific Southwest)

We passed under this bridge.
It was pretty.We were going really fast because we only had a short amount of time to get out of the Strait (of Georgia?) before the tide went down. It was kind of exciting.


The second day was just at sea. It was good to have a day to get used to being on a boat (get my sea legs if you will) and explore all of the cool places onboard. Our rooms were surprisingly large and we had a balcony which was really great. There was a big theater and restaurants and bars and stores and all kinds of stuff. Whenever I started getting nauseous from thinking about the wasted food and the amount of money being spent, I just made myself think of the ship as a big city and dealing with it the way I would deal with a foreign city (probably Dubai). When it became a cultural experience it was a lot more fun. It was a pretty good strategy.

Oh and we saw TONS of dolphins from our balcony. They were really far away at first and it looked like big jumping fish and then they were coming closer to play with the wake we were making and then all of a sudden there were dozens and dozens of them. It was soooo cool! None of my pictures turned out very well because I was too busy freaking out. I didn't think we'd see dolphins (they were actually porpoises), especially not so soon. I kept running back into the room to update Luke, who was just getting out of the shower. "Luke, come look, something is jumping out there!"..."LUKE! I think it's big huge fish jumping, hurry up!"..."OH MY GOSH LUKE IT'S DOLPHINS WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR SHIRT HURRY UP GET YOUR CAMERA THERE ARE SO MANY WHERE IS MOM CALL THEIR ROOM GET OUT HERE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

yeah yeah yeah, i'll get to it.

I promise that I will have an actual post really soon. Probably several posts involving a sickening number of pictures of glaciers. I appologize in advance. If it makes you feel any better, I'm completely unpacked and almost finished doing all of my vacation laundry! I would have been all the way done, but Crissa made me do her Praxis practice (say that five times fast!) math tests all day. We only had to call Alex twice! In return, she's letting me drive her to Iowa City tomorrow to take the actual test (I don't have to do that one with her) so that I can hang out with my peeps...who all moved away...well then my library and my coffee house and my Baldy's. (HAHA ALEX I GET BALDY'S TOMORROW!!)

For now, have a look at this picture of the sun as it begins to set...and be sure to notice when it was taken.

amazing.

I'm in Alaska!

At this very moment I am sitting by the fireplace in a lodge looking at Mt. McKinley.
Just thought you should know.

post-wedding

okay, this was before the weddingthis is alex's "are you saying this isn't the coolest thing you've ever seen?" face

she used the leftover bead wire to make a (sweet ass) hot air balloon
she was mostly excited that you could hot glue a balloon without popping it
she later wrote "IOWA" on it, of course.

but this was after
we went back to Tim's hotel room to hang out for the evening. we drank the absolut that bryan stole from dan's new year's party (that hadn't yet left the trunk of my car) and watched youtube stuff and the spanish channel on mute. it was perfect.

I drove home on Sunday (convoying with Alex and Tim) but then got back in my car on Monday and drove to Des Moines. Matt was stopping there to see his former roommate Adam Weaver play a show. I was glad for the opportunity to spend more time with Matt (sans wedding craziness/pressure to dance) and I'm always up for live music.

matt ditched his friends and we went for a walk
we found this building
he answered my phone
then we went to the show
the show was really good. it was kind of their "rock set" which was fun. i've heard adam play some (really good) acoustic stuff so it was fun to see him rock out. he's one of the coolest guys ever. mostly because he's from the south. you should probably find him on myspace.

we sat upstairs to get a good view and so the boys could play pool
we got some brews and matt played alone when everyone else went downstairs
it was a good night. not that i needed more of it but driving alone was good, as was the matt time.
ok that's seriously the end of all wedding-related posts. i promise.

the art freak wedding

i meant to post these in a timely fashion. that didn't happen. these are all pictures of wedding stuff. the wedding was a week ago in geneva, il. here's what went down:

this was the head table

the guestbook was this bucket full of vintage postcards
the guests were asked to write a message on a postcard and put it in the mailbox
it was fun. i picked out about 10 postcards to choose from and forgot to fill one out

the favors

Track Listing:
1. Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
2. No Other One - Weezer
3. You're So Square - Buddy Holly
4. You And Me Song - Wannadies
5. Two of Us - Beatles
6. Mint Car - The Cure
7. Saturday Sun - Nick Drake
8. I'll Be Here When You Wake - The Reindeer Section
9. This Modern Love - Bloc Party
10. Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
11. Noah's Ark - Cocorosie
12. Follow You Into The Sun - Sean Lennon
13. If I Ever Feel Better - Phoenix
14. Perfect Day - Lou Reed
15. Langley School Music Project - God Only Knows

the programs
there were 3 designs
this one, one of just a sparkler and one of lightening bugs (like on the inside)
eli drew them

the inside (eli wrote it)

it's almost time!
eli (and his sister) fixing jess's dad

bouquets!
jess!

jess and her dad right before they walked down the aisle

ew! gross!yes, that's an umbrella. it started raining during the ceremony. it was actually kind of great. it was a nice, gentle rain (and the bridal party was under a tree so they stayed dry) and it stopped right away and it was a beautiful evening after that. i think everyone decided that it was pretty cool that it rained. everyone kind of bonded as they ran for cover as soon as the (very brief) ceremony was over. the only sad thing is that trevor cut is talk short and everyone was distracted and not really listening to what i'm sure was a really great message.

marissa changed out of her dress really quickly
i made her hold up her bouquet

pretty

the best part about rain at your wedding?
the rainbows!

at night
check out those beautiful lights!
candles from the tables
the dance
they're married!
shortly after i took this picture they were ready to leave and saying goodbye to everyone. right before they walked out the door jess and i made eye contact and started sobbing. we've never done that before. it was hilarious. i think everyone was a little scared, but that's okay.
that's all.

oh wait, the bouquet, you ask?

(If you could care less about how I made the bouquets you should stop reading right now.)

Basically we bought a whole bunch of beads (about a thousand) and a LOT of 24 gauge craft wire. Then:

Cut off about a yard of the wire
String a bead onto the wire, bend it halfway down (with the bead at the bend)
Hold onto the ends with needle-nose pliers
Hook the bended end (with the bead) onto an electric drill with a hook at the end
Go! The drill twists the wire and makes...well, a twisted wire with a bead at the end.
Repeat (a lot)
Pretend the bead wire things are flowers and arrange a bouquet!

That may not have made sense. I have some pictures of the practice project that I'll post later if people are curious.

the end.

pre-wedding

warning: my blog is about to be taken over by wedding-related pictures. i appologize if you're a boy. or anyone except for maybe holly. and alex, who wanted all of these pictures.

the bouquets are finally done!
months of work! hundreds of beads! calloused fingers!

the rehearsal in the driveway
from l to r: marissa (jess's sister), eli, joh (eli's brother), anna (eli's sister), lauren (flower girl), aunt tina (overbearing)

jess and the kids (iris, lauren & rowan)
and her dad is back there too

the rehearsal went really well. trevor was really organized and had already discussed the little details so there was really no waiting around. i didn't even have to write out phonetic spellings of the groom's name for him like i did for the pastor of the last wedding rehearsal i attended...

matt pulled a misch and got right up the tree to hang lights at the site

hey marissa, how do you feel about decorating for the wedding?

anna and eli taping down tablecloths

tim is a bug's worst enemy
eli and joh setting up the badass music stuff

i think this was supposed to be a "before" picture
i don't have an "after" picture

we picked out 3 kinds of fabric to hang in the entryway of the building for pictures
it turned out to be a cool idea and a good way to add something to that space

tim and alex rocking out the lights
they made a great team because alex knows what she's doing and tim does what he's told

ellen helping with the sign

that's the sign

time to leave and get ready!

everything came together really well. set-up went really smoothly and jess did a great job of making decisions ahead of time so that it wasn't too stressful to get it all done. the place looked great, everything worked and I can't believe it's finally over. more to come, don't worry.