More wedding updates

OMG, I'm getting married two weeks from tomorrow!!!

The house is looking better -- knowing that both sets of parents are arriving early next week is motivating me to work on the yard, finish some little interior projects and get the guest room ready. Everything in there is washed and clean, so the pets have to stay out. I ran out of boxes for the multitude of wedding items and ended up purchasing some nice-sized green rubbermaid totes that can double as beverage holders/coolers during the reception. Multi-tasking, I love it.

Sent in our marriage license paperwork this morning and we will be able to pick it up in person on the Monday after D arrives back in town. It makes me a bit nervous to have waited until the last week for this, but it couldn't be helped - that lodge job kinda threw a kink into our plans!

Still trying to connect with the owners of the Inn about meals and setup -- they are in full-on wedding mode already with a couple events under their belt already this month. Oh, flowers are done! I visited a wholesale flower company in town and placed an order, to be picked up Friday morning before we leave Anchorage for Moose Pass. I'm feeling really good about this - $550-$600 worth of blooms for $217!

The girls at work are throwing me my second bridal shower next Wednesday. I don't even care about the gifts - I'm more interested in good food and wine. ;-)

Memorial Weekend in PWS 6

We arrived back in Whittier on Sunday afternoon and caught an early tunnel back to Anchorage. It was still gorgeous out. This is the boat launch area for small vessels, although annoyingly enough, bigger boats dock here a lot.

Waiting in line for our turn to enter the tunnel on the Whittier side. There are waterfalls everywhere.

You can see the triangle-shaped entrance to the tunnel below. It's TINY compared to the size of the mountain. It's a 2.5 mile long tunnel.

D stopped here at Portage to do some additional tie-downs in the boat, so I got out and snapped some photos of the icebergs. Portage Glacier used to come all the way down into the water but it has receeded significantly over the years.

Memorial weekend in PWS 5

I think I have one more set of photos and then we're done with Memorial weekend. The one below was taken from my comfy vantage point on the beach. Drift and I were able to hang out here while D sat in his tree stand and hunted for bears. The boat is floating way out there because it is on an anchor system - prevents us from getting beached at low tide.

Super awesome view. I found this huge flat rock on the beach and created a makeshift beach chair. Surprisingly comfy. I watched lots of boats, otters and seals go by. No whales on this day.

Drift got a little upset when D walked off through the woods towards the bear hunting site. This dog loves D so much.

The Princess cruise ship goes by to look at College Fjord (all of the glaciers in this area are named after colleges back east).

More photos of the area...it was mostly low tide while we waited for D, so I did some walking across the rocks.

Difficult to see, but this is a glacier running into the Sound.

My ring (I got a little bored at one point).

Close up of a little critter stuck to the rock. They are easy to pull off and you can see the little mollusk (or whatever they are) retreat back into its shell.

A curious seal that watched us for a while.

Our beach and staging area. In total, we waited about 5 hours for D to hunt. No bears were shot, but he did see one come into the bear bait site.

It's still so light outside at 11 p.m.! The fishing boats were congregated in this part of the sound, near the beach, fishing for reds (sockeye salmon). They put the nets out, wait for a bit and then pull in the catch. I watched them for a looong time. They were still going strong when we left for our hour-long ride back to camp.

The weekend

I cannot WAIT until my and D's parents come into town next week -- I'm at that point where I could use a little help with things. There is so much wedding junk everywhere, but most of it has been moved into my craft room and out of the spare bedroom. I don't think my parents would appreciate sleeping on top of this stuff.

Everyday I come home from work and get things together for the big event. Bed time has been 1 a.m. for the last week. My to-do list is 4 pages long now, but I'm one of those people who needs to be organized. I live and die by my lists!

D will be back in less than two weeks, so the dog and I are excited about that. I thought maybe I could get away with not cutting the lawn until our parents arrive, but it's looking a big long. Plus our neighbors on either side both mowed this weekend so ours looks especially unkempt. I can't remember the last time I cut the grass -- probably when I was in high school!

This weekend was pretty full -- a first Friday/artwalk downtown with friends to kick off the weekend, plus lots of errands and wedding stuff on Saturday, and then I took my coworker to brunch on Sunday for her birthday.

Yesterday (Monday) I took a boat trip into Prince William Sound for work. Will post some photos later.

Memorial weekend in PWS 4

We stopped in this area to purify some water at the waterfall (from melting snow high up in the mountain) and check out one of D's old bear baiting sites.

We really got lucky with the weather. Very warm and sunny all day Saturday.

An eagle soared very high above us. It made at least 10 revolutions around its nest before I stopped watching.

Tromping through the wet, marshy muskeg. It was crazy hot by this time of day. Saw some bear scat over here too, I think.

D spotted some fiddle ferns (an Asian delicacy) so we went back to the boat for garbage bags and then started picking! We have seen these ferns in PWS and near Homer - probably never been picked before. I kept them on ice in the cooler until we arrived home, then boiled them quickly and dried them outside. Will mail half to my grandma and half to my mom.

Memorial weekend in PWS 3

More photos...a lot of these are posted to my Facebook account as well.

I was snuggled up all warm and cozy in my sleeping bag when this photo was taken from the door of our tent. Good morning! We had a leisurely breakfast of scrambled eggs and fruit as we watched boats go by.

A really great first haul of shrimp for the weekend (and my engagement ring too.)

The dog gets pretty freaking excited when D pulls up or drops the pots.

D has been soaking the shrimp in seawater before shucking - seems to clean them out a bit.

Some of our biggies...guess what we had for dinner when we returned to town?

Just kidding, I didn't eat it. I'm not that crazy. Even the dog is weirded out!

Crab that crawled into our shrimp pot - we threw him back since legally we're not supposed to keep crabs. D says there is some way to tell whether it's a male or female by looking at the back?

D put the crab down so I could photograph it and it scooted clear across the surface!

It's no Alaskan King Crab, but still the biggest one we've ever caught.

Memorial weekend in PWS 2

After dropping the shrimp pots and setting up camp we headed over to D's bear bait station in the woods, which was about an hour-long boat ride from our campsite.

The puppy rides up front and his ears tend to flop around in the wind.

Tide was still going out so we had to make sure the boat didn't get stuck on the beach. Otherwise we would have had to sleep overnight in this area and wait for the tide to come in and float the boat again!

A cruise ship on its way into Whittier harbor.

Memorial weekend in PWS 1

This was my first trip on the boat since last year and I was looking forward to getting out of town. The sea forecast for the weekend was really good (seas at 2 feet) but the weather didn't look that promising. However we've been tricked by the weatherman before and packed both rain and sun gear this time.

Going through the tunnel to get to Whittier and the boat launch.

Some views from the water's edge.

The tour operators, glacier cruises and marine ferry all dock on this side.

Motoring out of the harbor area. That big building in the photo below is the Inn at Whittier. I tried to get info on their wedding packages but no one ever called me back!

Finally arrived at our home for the next couple days - from this beach we have a good view of our shrimp pots in the water. It's a good idea to keep an eye on them since very bad people sometimes steal pots.

It was difficult to get the dog out of the water. He just wanted to play in the surf the whole time.

Played around with the macro feature on my camera again.

A better look at one of the mini crustaceans that stick to the rocks.

Neat things pop up at low tide.