Land Legs and a Birthday Party

We are home from a wonderful trip.  We have gotten our "land legs" back.   This was our second cruise,  and both times it was interesting to note that being on the ocean for a week or two will cause your balance to adapt to the swaying, and when you get back onto solid ground again, your body is still feeling the swaying until it re-adapts to the land.  We got in yesterday, after flying overnight from Alaska.  It was a 12  hour return journey from start to finish; although the flight from Anchorage to Denver was only 5 hours.  We were home by noon; had a nice lunch and took a long nap to help us get over the lack of sleep in flight.  Today I am  catching up on laundry and odds and ends, and feeling the sweet peaceful joy of being home again.  I don't know about you, but I have a love and a longing to go places all over the world and see things, but also, always feel the joy of coming home.

Alaska was beautiful, and Steve and I had such a mixture of thoughts and feelings when we were there.  Feelings like:

"Could I ever live here?"  "yes, I believe I could"...."its probably a good thing we didn't visit here when we were young, because we probably would have moved here"... "our relatives wouldn't like that"... "perhaps its too cold, too dark in winter,"  "no, we couldn't live in the cold and dark... "  "well maybe we could"... " its so beautiful; its the last frontier", "there is still so much of the pioneer spirit alive here, people help each other and work hard and overcome so many things; its so admirable" "and after all, it may be dark all winter, but its light all summer, I mean think of that.  That suits just fine; I like it to be light all the time; I prefer the light"   "you can grow amazing gardens with all that light;  huge vegetables and enormous rhubarb plants... you know how hard you have tried to grow rhubarb ", "no, don't even think such things, I could never be so far away from the kids, and the parents, and its way too cold and dark in the winter... but the summer, its so beautiful, you can grow great gardens (yes I know I said that already... but the grasshoppers ate our whole garden this year didn't they, and I still feel the wound), You could hunt and fish and even find gold in the rivers... I mean, we did find a little didn't we... a few flakes; they even told us we had enough to buy a Happy Meal with...."  "We could spend the winters in Florida or Phoenix after all;  all we need is to find jobs that would allow us to do that like those young people did... they were able to do it after all, why couldn't we?"  "no what a crazy thought; you are no spring chicken any more.  Your pioneering days are done!! done I tell you".

 Ha ha ha... so yes, those are some of the thoughts that we thought and the things that we spoke to each other on our trip.  I think Steve and I do have pioneering hearts, which is why we  often feel things like that.  I have some great pictures to post, and want to journal a few things so I don't forget; I am excited to share it all with you.  I will probably post them in two or three parts after I have had a chance to go through the pictures.  In the mean time, I wanted to share my pictures of the last of our visit with Marie, and I will also post a recipe in the next day or two as well.  I mentioned in the previous post a little about Zane's birthday ; Here is a look at some of our fun.

 How to have a big fat, amazing, wonderful, campout, belly button birthday party.... According to Zane and Ezra.

Ingredients:

Two or more bellybutton boys,

 One wonderful, dark cloud covered sky,

One nice old camper trailer,

 3 Pine Logs and a match

Four or more pigs in a blanket.

One new sleeping bag...

... with drawstring cover,

One compass

that clips onto a belt loop,

Two or more lanterns....

 just the right size, 

Add another dash of cloudy sky,

 One lovable grandfather,

 one snuggly Mama ready to sleep in camper

 a pinch of patience,

 and a pillow.

Instructions:
Mix all ingredients together with love,  laughter and joy and kisses.

And there you have it the big fat, amazing, wonderful, campout,  belly button birthday party.

We don't have to go to Alaska to find gold... we already have it in all of our children and grandchildren.