Las Vegas and a little time at home

Well, I flew to Las Vegas a few days ago to spend some time with my family in this time of need. For those of you who don't know, my wonderful, beautiful grandmother passed away. Of all times, I feel like I need to count my blessings because I work every week on the cruise and have no more than two days off a week, so going home is near impossible. This week, and next week I happened to have time off becuase the christian charter brought on their own entertainment. It's so hard to lose a loved one, but my grandma must have known I needed to be here. I feel very blessed to be able to come home. After I see my whole family this weekend, I am driving back to California to see some familiar faces. Then back to Alaska with Shannon, one of my dearest friends. And then, before you know it, I will be off to my grand voyage to Asia and Australia.....Life is a gift. Savour every moment.

Homer- DOH

Homer July 16th

Today, Jessica and I rented crew bikes from the ship. Luckily it was a really warm day, so bike riding was the perfect thing to do. We biked around for about an hour and then we stopped to get some coffee at this adorable coffee shop that sold things from Peru. I thought it was sort of funny that I was just in Peru, and now, in alaska, I see the same knitted hats from lima. Life circles, doesn’t it? We sat in the coffee shop, wrote a song, and continued on our journey.

After that, we biked further into town, and we stopped in the yarn yurt. It literally was a yurt. The women who owned the store were just precious and it was aptly named “Commu-knitty stash”. We got to knit a giant thing of duct tape too. With huge plastic pipes. Sounds weird I know, it was awesome though. My good friend Anya, (our awesome librarian) got me addicted to knitting. It’s quite relaxing for me :) However, knitting is no longer allowed for crew members! We actually got in trouble for knitting! Oh well, now we must form an underground knitting club :) haha of all things!

After our stop at the yarn store, we stopped to take a look at the yurt next to it. There was this really friendly man there. Such an Alaskan (grey long beard and a hat and dirty jeans) He was carving ivory and enjoying the day. He began to talk to Jess and I about our spirit animals. He asked if he was getting too deep, and we both said “are you kidding?” we are studying so much about spirits and natural healing right now. It was amazing to hear these words randomly brought up in conversation. He was talking about bears and the nature of them and if you feel a connection with a certain animal, you should really research their patterns and relate them to your life. I have always been in love with sparrows. I think the sparrow is my spirit animal. Whenever I see them, I connect to them. And jess connects to bears. Also, we are thinking of our band name, and jess dreamt the band name “sparrowbear” I think it works :) So watch out world, sparrowbear is on it’s way! He was so cool, I am thankful we met him. 

We then biked to the street faire, and saw some belly dancers perform and a guitarist. 

It was such a pleasant day, and this entire cruise has been gorgeous. How lucky are we???

juneau....not the movie, but the city in Alaska :)

Juneau july 12th 

Today was a fantastic day here in Juneau. Since I got the computer, I was able to skype with the baby girls and Jessica. It was so nice to see some faces. But Evy was stubborn and didn’t stay by the camera and Kaela was looking at her own face the whole time making weird faces....(not gonna lie, I was too ) And for those of you who don’t know yet, I have a nephew on the way as well! I won’t be there for the birth, but some time in september or october he should be arriving. I cannot wait to meet little Jameson :) or Jamison.....not sure how they are spelling it. 

Well, anyway, back to Juneau. After coffee in the morning and internet, I went back to the ship to grab a bite to eat and get ready for my dog sledding tour. I was calling it sled dogging all day...haha whoops. Right as I sat outside the ship and as I was getting ready to go on the bus, I met an adorable couple, that commented on my boots from Chile. (well the wife did:) turns out, they were one of 5 couples traveling together. I met the other couple on the bus as well, and since I was traveling alone and we were supposed to go in a group of 6, they invited me with them and they claimed I was their adopted daughter for the cruise. They had kids and grand kids so I am sure, they were missing them. They were the sweetest, and California natives, so it was nice to hng out with them. The dog sledding tour was great too. The dogs were adorable and so trim. I guess like any athlete, pulling all that weight they had to be thin. They had about 160 dogs in that camp. Seems kind of intense to me, but they were all really cute. After we took the ride, we all got to hold the sweet puppies that were only a month old. I was dying. They were just adorable! So, I didn’t say goodbye to the sweet couples, instead, they invited me to the dining room for dinner tomorrow, so I am looking forward to that. 

After the dog sledding tour, myself, and a few others decided to take a late hike up the mountain. Since I am not much of a hiker (with every step most people take, I take 4) , I was kind of hoping for a fairly moderate night hike. Nope. This was literally climbing a mountain folks. I kid you not, it was incredibly steep. I was praying the whole time we would be done. The view was gorgeous, but I spent most of my time looking down, making sure I didn’t trip :) When we got to the top, I was so happy. I have never finished hiking all the way to the top of the mountain. I felt like I conquered it....with the help and encouragement of my fellow hikers :) It was a good crowd to go with....and I will post pictures soon of the incredible, breathtaking view from the top!

ketch-( me )- i-(f)(you)-kan alaska

so ladies and gents, this will be the last blog entry on my phone as i have decided to buckle down and get a dern computer. but good newss now i will have skype that works, so skype  me please :) awildish is my username.

so, life has been great lately, alaska is gorgeous and i have really enjoyed the inspiring nature. music has been really something that has kept me going. jess and i are really trying to make something good. sometimes inspiration hits soooo big, and sometimes not so much. so i am hoping for some more great ideas for songs to come our way.

i have to admit, not having a comp has been somewhat freeing. so with this new computer, i am still not going to keep my nose in the computer all the time, but i will be able to keep in contact when im in asia :) and blog more haha.
this blog has no  real purpose except to say that i miss everyone terribly and that life is really wonderful also, today in the coffee shop i saw a girl who was in the coffee shop i was in in sitka alaska. she said alaska is like a big little town haha pretty funny.