On Sunday we went to the Oakland temple to walk around the grounds and see the visitor center. The grounds were so beautiful! I loved all the Palm Trees and Tiger Lilies..my favorite!

The visitor center was really nice, and we were lucky enough to see a limited sculpture exhibit of different scenes depicting some of the most memorable stories from the bible and LDS history, from Christ walking on water to the first vision. A sister missionary took us through the exhibit and talked about each sculpture, they were absolutely amazing, and so detailed and expressive. It was a very spiritual experience!

It's a traveling exhibit so if you ever here of it coming your way I would recommend seeing it. (The exhibit is called "The Healing Power of Jesus Christ" and the sculptures are by Angela Johnson).

Jackson and I are back from our trip to Alaska, and as fun as it was, it's sure good to be home! This trip really made me realize that vacation is just not as fun without your hubby! Every day I just kept wanting Nathan to be there. But I'm glad I got to take Jack on his first trip to this beautiful place that I love so much. On our last day we went to Homer, which is a little town on a small peninsula. It's such a beautiful place and we have had many kayaking and halibut fishing adventures at this place. We spent a few hours looking through the shops and boat docks, and bought some cool stuff.

We had a few really busy fishing days while I was in AK. Our biggest day we caught about 53,000 lbs. of salmon and the crew worked until about 4:00 A.M. On the last fishing day that I was there, it was really windy and the water was really rough. A few people from the crew got sea sick, one of the boats almost sank, and one of the boys from the crew got stitches in his eye from falling in the boat, (he thought it was the coolest thing ever)! It was an eventful day! We should be on the Deadliest Catch!
I really didn't get very many pictures while I was there, and I didn't get any of our fishing because it was just so busy. But I got a few cute shots of Jack...of course :)

I have been at our cabin in Alaska with my family for a week now, and it's a FULL house! We have two little cabins, and our big sheds that hold all of the tractors and fishing equiptment, and we have so many people up here that every inch of space is filled. My grandparents are here, my brothers Paul and Alan, (My other brother Mike comes up next week), my two sister-in-laws, Nina and Ali are here with their kids, Lauren, Sarah and Wesley, and then we have three guys who are working on the crew who are living in the bunk house in one of our sheds. They are really cool guys from Centerville and they fit in great with our family! When we sit down for meals we squeeze 10 to 13 of us around the table, and we have to cook ALOT of food for this hungry, hard working fishing crew!

We haven't been able to be very adventuresome up here because of all of the kids, but we did go to our favorite Lake to have a picnic and do some boating. It was kind of hard because it was past all of the babies bed times, but we still had fun, and Jack had his very first boat ride. We have taken the kids on the beach a few times and rode behind one of the tractors, which was one of my favorite things growing up.

My dad, the boys on the crew, and Alan and Nina all did the river rafting trip that Nathan and I did up here a couple years ago. It is one of the top 6 river rafting trips in the nation, it's a very technical creek of class 3, class 4 and class 5 rapids, and it's pretty intense!! You have to pass a test swim and you are geared up in dry suits and helmets, it's totally crazy! (It was the highlight of Nathan's Alaska trip!). Anyway, when Nathan and I went our raft flipped at the top of the class 5 rapids (If you wanna know more about it, Nathan loves to tell the story!), and I couldn't believe it when I found out that the raft my dad, Alan and Nina were on also flipped in the class 5 rapids. Everyone was so glad that my mom decided not to go at the last minute. Smart move mom!

We had an eventful day yesterday when we came home from church and found a grizzly bear in our yard. Crazy huh! We see lots of moose, but in 42 years there has never been a bear around here, (we are not in that rural of an area). It roamed around all day and ate some of the left over pieces of fish from the fish fileting the guys did earlier. We haven't seen it yet today, so hopefully it's gone. I wanted to get a picture, but I didn't. :(

I had to post this picture of Jack because it is hilarious! I can't believe how chubby he looks in this pic. Is he really mine? He looks like a sumo wrestler :) This one is for you Nathan. We miss you and love you much babe!!

We really didn't get to do much for the fourth of July because Nathan had to work most of the day, and going out late for fireworks seemed a bit complicated with a tired baby. But on Saturday Nathan finally had a day off of work so we spent the day in San Fransisco, and had so much fun! We went to Fisherman's Wharf and walked through the Farmers Market and got some really yummy fruit to eat while we walked down to Pier 39. Then, we went on a boat tour around the bay and saw beautiful views of the city and the bay area. The boat tour took us by the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. So very cool!! It was a beautiful and warm day and we got a little bit toasted on the boat. Oops!

After our boat tour we walked through the pier browsing the many restaurants to find a good place to get some seafood. They were all packed because of the 4th of July weekend, but we ended up getting into a little seafood restaurant called the Fog House without having to wait, and we even got a table with an amazing view of the bay and boat docks. We each got clam chowder and we shared a whole crab... Yummy! We love crab. It was really good, but Alaskan King Crab is still my favorite!

By the time we were done eating is was already time to head back so that I could get Jackson ready for bed. He was really good on the trip but playing is definitely more work when you have a baby!