Salmon, solstice and good friends

Today was a busy day. We had a lot of fun!

This morning we went downtown and walked around looking at the Wild Salmon on Parade. We really enjoyed all the different salmon! Some were gorgeous! Some were amazing! And some were hilarious!

We also got to go to an exhibit that is by the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts that has a large representation of the sun, and then throughout town and out the Coastal Trail for several miles are the markers that represent how far each of the planets would be from the sun. That was neat! Since today was the Solstice and we are the closest to the sun for the longest amount of time, Lora took a picture of the girls next to the sun on the exact moment of the Summer Solstice. That was fun!

We also went into a souvenir shop and the girls got to buy their postcards so that they can write to family and friends. We will get to go back later for other fun stuff, but for today we wanted to get the postcards.

We met Jordan and Isabel and Ivy downtown and we all had lunch together and then went to the salmon run. There is a part of the river that has walking bridges over them and you can see the salmon coming up the river from the inlet. There were fishermen lining the streams in droves, but they can't go any farther up than the falls. Beyond that, the salmon are "safe". We saw one big salmon in the river that looked like it was as big as Katrina!

After we came home we all took naps and when we got up the girls got to have a tea party under a net awning that Gma Kathryn and Gpa Herb had put up for the girls. They enjoyed that while Gma Kathryn read to them. She has been reading "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" by Eleanor Cameron. It was one of her favorite books as a child and the girls are really enjoying listening to it, asking her to read them three and four chapters at a sitting.

This evening Lora and the girls went to the home of the Vasiljevic family. Ellie Vasiljevic, now Martinez, and Lora were best friends in high school and have remained close over the years. It was great to see Ellie and her family! Ellie and Lora had a great time laughing and reminiscing about high school and reading the notes that they passed to each other in class, etc. It was a lovely evening. It's hard to believe that it has been twenty years since high school!

Katrina went down for her nap and for bed tonight without screaming, so we hope that we have overcome the problems of the last two days. Whew!

See all the pics here.