Alaska/Vancouver/Washington

     You know the Primary song that goes, "Oh what do you do in the summer time, when all the world is green..." Well my favorite answer to that question is, go on vacation! Eric and I really enjoy traveling, and we've tried to take full advantage of our limited breaks together over the past 4-ish years. We planned to go on a graduation trip during May, originally to the Mediterranean, and then to Pacific Northwest. After we planned the trip, we found out that we were moving to China. So what did we do...we decided to go on more trips! Because when you're planning an international move, you have UNLIMITED time (sarcasm). I still to this day don't understand how we managed to get everything done in the 2 or 3 oddly-pieced-together weeks we had at home. 

     Our first trip was to the Pacific Northwest. We flew into Vancouver and hung out for 2 days, then left for a 7 day Alaskan cruise. We then drove from Vancouver to Kamloops BC to visit our good friends Ferrin and Michelle. From there, we drove to the Olympic Penninsula, near Seattle and enjoyed the "sunshine". All in all, an amazing trip. I'm in love with the perfect combination of ocean, mountains, and greenery that the Pacific Northwest has to offer. I would definitely consider moving there some day.

The Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver

The view from the ship,
it looked about like this every day

The Mendenhall Glacier, near Juneau AK

Aren't we so cute

Juneau's port, taken from the tram ride up the mountain.
We had 4 cruise ships traveling the Alaskan coast at the same time

We went dog-sledding! Eric was so excited, he was ready to stay
on as a musher. Note the lack of snow, this is their summer training camp.

Margerie Glacier, in Glacier Bay National Park, absolutely incredible.
We saw so much glacier calving that day, probably 3 or 4 major events.

Remnants of the glacier, bright blue.

The Margerie Glacier is about a mile wide, our cruise ship
got within a quarter mile of the edge!

Sea kayaking in Skagway

In Kamloops with Ferrin/Michelle and clan

Our view from the AMAZING B&B we stayed at in Port Angeles

The Hoh Rainforest, a must-see if you visit Washington

EVERYTHING is covered in green moss

It's like something out of a Dr Seuss novel

Rialto Beach, beautiful black pebble sand with lots of driftwood

At Cape Flattery, the most north-west corner of the continental US

Cape Flattery

Mom, are we THERE yet?

 Welcome to our brand new blog! Take off your shoes, get comfortable, and stay a while. Eric and I are excited to share all our adventure with you: our family and friends. In the off chance that you've been living under a rock, Eric and I are moving to Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen is right next to Hong Kong, on the southern edge of China. We're very excited for the adventures ahead. When are you going to China, you might ask. That's a great question, I might answer. The plan was to leave this week, but we had some visa hiccups. We're waiting on the final word before we buy plane tickets. In the mean time, we've had quite a few adventures. First thing's first... packing up up the house. Holy cow, it was a crazy process. I really don't know where all this stuff came from, but apparently we have a lot.

We had the movers here last week. Eric's company had our stuff packed up and shipped to china in a container. Nice huh! The part that made it interesting, was that we had to sort through all the stuff first. We had to decide what went on the shipping container, what went on the air container, what got put in the storage unit, and what got hand carried in our luggage. After the china stuff got sent off to the wild blue yonder, we took several truck/trailer loads to the storage unit (pictures to come) with the rest of our furniture. June 30th was the last day in our house. Our entire family came to help us with the cleaning and other last minute projects. We were so grateful for all their support. We said goodbye to our beautiful house and handed the keys off to our amazing renter. Now, we're living at Eric's parent's house until we ship off. 

Our packing material, 2 foot roll of bubble wrap and 1 foot roll  of foam

Giant roll of plastic wrap

Completed wrapped couch

The "china" pile

We packed these containers with food

Allison packed these giant rubbermaids,
they had absolutely no dead space in them.

Moving truck