Random Week!

We had a long week of work and hanging out. On Friday we went on a hike with our friends Kristen and Scott. It was beautiful scenery, awesome company, and we got some fishing in. 

we had to walk across a whole bunch of logs on the water to get to this spot (I am shocked that no one fell in)

this is the beautiful sunset that we saw on the way home

My little brother Danny sent this chocolate frog to me for my birthday from Bruge Belgium. It was the most delicious frog that I have ever eaten. So thanks Danny. Also speaking of Danny... Don and I are super excited for him and proud of him, he turned in his mission papers and finds out where he is going on Wednesday.

Here is a funny quick side story, today on one of my tours I took the sweetest old man on tour that was possibly baked (high) while he was with us. Nonetheless he was very complementary and had a crush on me. He kept telling me that I was God's greatest creation and that I am smart, beautiful, kind, and classy. He would tell me all of this while I was trying to get him off the platform. After all of these compliments he would say "ok pumpkin I am gonna go and I think I love you" then as he zipped away he would yell "I love ya". He absolutely loved the zip lines and was so grateful for everything we did for him. It was such a funny tour and definitely made my day different then the usual.

Good week to have a birthday!

This week was not one of our crazy adventurous weeks we mostly worked, hung out and relaxed. The weather here was definitely inside cozy up together weather. On Monday we went out for our friends birthday dinner at Ocean View restraunt. It was delicious and fun to kinda dress up again but heres the thing I don’t wear make up here or anything clothes wise other than t-shirts, kacky pants and rain gear because that is my uniform. So when we went out on Monday I kept asking Don if I was over dressed even though my hair was wet from the shower and I had no makeup on. I still felt weird being all cute. Anyways it was a good night. The rest of the days this week we went to work, came home had dinner, worked out,  and then watched a movie before bed or cuddled and talked.

Ok so you know how in the movie the Vow he talks about moments of impact in our lives that change it forever. Well I totally believe that is true and marrying Don was an amazing moment of impact in my life that I continue to realize more and more each day. The other day I was bothered by something and I was trying to hold it in and just forget about it instead of bothering Don. But my intuitive husband knew something was wrong and was so sweet. He talked to me about it even though it was probably not something that he wanted to spend an hour talking about while he was trying to sleep but he did. He held me and let me get my frustrations out (which was absolutely nothing he did it was something  I found out about a friend back home). I guess I just look back on my life not too long ago, and  a couple of years ago I thought

I knew exactly what I wanted and what I needed and no one could tell me otherwise. I thought I knew where I was going to be, what I was going to be doing and I thought I knew a lot more then I did.  Well all I can say is how grateful I am for a Father in Heaven who knows me much better than I know myself. I now can’t imagine my life the way that I thought it was going to be. I am so glad that my plans were not right for me and that someone had the right plan for me. I married not only my handsome best friend but the ultimate best friend that I need. Don is so passionate, caring to everyone unconditionally, loving, genuine, and a great example to me so that I can improve each day. Oh and he is sooooo fun to be with. That is my little tangent about my amazing man and I hope everyone someday can find someone that treats them as well as I am treated and loves as much as we love.

So today I was working on the docks as a dock rep because I asked my boss for a few more hours so now I am down on the docks a couple times a week. The docks are fun and the girls that I met today are so sweet and fun to be around. It was a little stressful with the schedules on the dock and it was really rainy and cold but other than that I enjoyed it. I love being able to learn new skills that I can use later in my life. I am so glad we came up here and are able to do the things that we are doing. This has been such an awesome experience.

Here is one more side note about Don. I have always found him very attractive obviously but it is funny to hear all of the people up here talk about him. He will drop them off at the ziplines and they will say “oh our bus driver was so funny and smart, and he was very cute” when they are describing him or if they find out we are married they say “oh he is so cute with his perfect smile and blonde hair, your a lucky girl” and I just say “YES I am”. But I found out today that a lot of the people on the docks also find him very cute. Some of the girls I work with didn’t know we were married and they kept saying how cute the bus driver in bus 197 was and they would fix their hair when he was around until they found out we were married then they just said how cute we were together haha it is so funny.

Don and I decided to celebrate my birthday on Saturday the 16th because we knew my actual birthday was a super busy day with cruise ships in port. When I got home from work on Saturday Don had bought a bouquet of flowers, a lasagna to cook with garlic bread (my birthday dinner request), and he made a cake for me that he decorated and everything. He is so sweet to me. We had dinner I opened my presents and we watched a movie with some of our friends. It was a great night. 

On my actual birthday we both worked till about 6 pm which wasn't too bad, my company is awesome and I had a great day with them. Don text me and told me to dress pretty because we were going on a date. He took me up to a restaurant on the mountain that over looks the ocean and we had a great dinner. We then walked around town and went to rent a movie then watched it while we cuddled. The movie "This Means War" is probably our new favorite. It was so dang funny I laughed until I cried at parts.

in the tram up to our dinner

I had an awesome 21st birthday and loved every minute with Don. He is so good to me and spoils me too much. I love him. I also got a package from my parents with gifts and other goodies. They are the best ever. Also I wanted to give a little shout out to the best dad in the world. He has taught me more than he will ever know and will be one of my hero's forever. I love him so much and admire and respect the man that he is. I was also lucky enough to gain an amazing second father when I got married. I love them both. 

Fishing and Lots More!

On June 6th Don and I decided to go out deep sea fishing (which neither of us have ever done) so we rented a 14 ft skiff and headed out to the open sea. I am not gonna lie I was a little nervous at first because of all the stories we hear up here about killer whales and sea lions and all that. I was also nervous because an average halibut up here is about my weight.  That is freaky to pull in a halibut that could eat me on a little skiff. None the less I went with Don because he wanted to go so bad and I didn’t want him to go alone. We woke up at 6, made lunches and got all of our stuff together. We headed out and got on our little boat. The people at Knudson Cove said we would be safe as long as we knew how to drive the boat, we had them give us a crash course on how to drive it and we were off.  We got out there and dropped the line, and then we waited. While we were waiting we saw plenty of seals and sea lions right around us, little fish and huge humpback whales. I was turned around and I saw Don’s face looking right behind me and then he said “babe turn around there are whales right behind you” I turned around and about 100 ft from our little boat there were probably 9 humpbacks headed right toward us. Seriously I think both of our hearts sped up a little bit (they were gigantic). They were spraying water out of their blow holes and then they dove down and we could feel the waves from their tales it was pretty intense. Later on we saw a few more a couple of times but not as close. As for our fishing we had something on the line and it broke away, Don realed in his line and our bait was gone except for the head (sneaky fish). So we weren’t able to catch anything because I had to go to a meeting and training for work. But we had a great time.

          A side note to our fishing experience: we were walking off the docks when we saw an eagle flying really low to the dock. It dove down to grab something right off the dock and when it got back into the air it was carrying a man’s bait along with his whole fishing pole. He flew away and the guy that lost his fishing gear was a little irritated to say the least.

                After fishing we went to my work for my training and when I finished training we had 2 hours to kill until the meeting and bbq so I took Don up on the ziplines. We had so much fun just hanging out up there and taking pictures. Then we had a good bbq with my work and headed home to relax.

               Oh and we finished our painting yesterday. It turned out better than we thought it would.

 On June 8th Don and I had a great day we went out and fished off the docks for 5 hours. It was a beautiful sunny day so I just layed on the dock talking to Don while he fished. We had a great time being together and talking about our lives and what we want for the future. Being with Don is bliss, he is so easy to be with and to talk to. We have so much fun and love spending time together. After we got home we went out to dinner to a chinese restraunt that we have never tried before and we loved it. Then we walked around the shops for a little while and of course I found another jacket that I fell in love with. If you know me I have a slight (when I say slight I mean HUGE) addiction to cute jackets. I can never have enough. After that Don and I went to a cute local store where they make soaps and don bought me some blueberry patch soap, which smells sooo good. 

 

There are 9 eagles in this picture (good luck finding them all) the juvenile ones blend in on the right side of the picture pretty well. 

 

I love our nights here together, we are so relaxed here and have so much fun just spending our free time together. We watch movies every night and cuddle (which are my favorite times). We are so lucky to be up here and be experiencing the things that we are. There isn't a day that goes by that we don’t love. 

Don wanted me to put this on here because it is my other addiction ...... Ovaltine! I drink it every night before we go to bed (yes we are about to go to bed and it is light outside).

Days Off

This week was awesome. That is really all I need to say. We worked a lot this week but it is all good because we both really enjoy our jobs and we get off with enough time to do whatever we want. 

After work on Friday we walked around the shops downtown and went to the Sweet Mermaid Cafe to get hot chocolate and yummy pastries. Deliciousness. 

Thank goodness for our day off on Saturday though. It was much needed.  We went to sleep super early the night before, so we woke up at 6 and watched a little bit of a movie in our bed, then we went on a float plane tour to Misty Fjords (the National Monument) it was awesome. Don was in heaven being inside the plane and looking at the scenery and it was seriously the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I loved it. After we got off Don and I decided some day he will get his pilot license and we will have a float plane....(we can dream right?).

This is where I work. Straight inland from the cove.

Beautiful Ketchikan

Standing on the floats in the middle of the water.

After our plane ride we went up to our favorite spot at Ward Lake and had a BBQ right on the water side. We roasted hot dogs on sticks we found and it was so fun to be with Don and just relax. The food was great then we decided to take our new kayak for a spin. We literally took it for a spin we are both used to being in our own kayaks so we were not very good together in an inflatable kayak, we couldn't figure out how to go straight for a little while. We got the hang of it eventually after I soaked Don and he accidentally hit me in the head with the paddle. :)

Later that night we went to our favorite restaurant Ocean View and came home to a double rainbow and then a full moon outside of our apartment. 

Don and I have some new hobbies that we have discovered up here. Because we don't have internet or a television we find new fun things to do. We tell each other stories a lot, cuddle, and go exploring but the other day we found some "paint your own picture by number" kits and we have started painting our very own masterpiece. They claim these kits are for 8 years and older but I don't know how an 8 year old would do it personally. Don and I are working on one together and it is pretty hard. We are pretty proud of how it is looking as of right now because normally both of us feel artistically challenged. I will put a picture up as soon as it is done.