For the last 10 days we have had Jeff's grandparents, Tip and Lola here visiting. It sure has been nice to visit with them. Take them away from reality and Tremonton, and you have 2 totally different people :) I have never seen Lola so happy, hilarious, and full of sarcasm. I've seen her laugh (to the extend of crying) more these past 10 days than I have over the 2 years of knowing them. So needless to say, we had an incredible visit and I would have them come back and visit us ANY day!!!
So for the first few days while they were here we just hung around town. Josh, Jeff's oldest brother, had a Caribou hunt in Prudue Bay, AK so he flew into town 2 days early to spend time with us before he took off to the northern part of Alaska. Gosh, I can't tell you how much we miss seeing Josh. Jeff unfortunately had to still work nights and sleep as much as he could(2-3 hrs a day) so Josh and I hung out, ran errands late at night, stayed up talking til 2 am... it was just the best 2 day visit ever.
The first night Josh was in town, we went cruising around Anchorage, showing him why we love it here so much. We sure had fun rubbing it in his face all the deals we get for being residents. He has a hunting consulting business and he was sick when he heard all the free hunting tags we get. It won't take much to convince him and Sheridan to move here with us :) Josh was just in awe at how beautiful it was everywhere we went. It helps that it's been raining for nearly 2 weeks, so everything is so green and gorgeous. It was just clearing up as we were headed home and we saw the prettiest double rainbow. I have seen more rainbows here over the summer than I have seen my whole life.
The next day we took off and headed down to the Russian River to do some fishing. Josh is an avid hunter and fisher, but what he was about to experience was nothing like he has ever done before. He was getting pretty discouraged after seeing Jeff reel in about 4 or 5 fish before he could even snag one but once he snagged his first one, he was on fire. We caught about 30-40 fish that day between the five of us. We didn't keep any Red's, due to the fact that they have already spawned (hence the reason they look so ugly with their humps and pirana like teeth) and are about to die, so the meat at this stage is just mush! Grandma stayed back and hung out in the camper with the dogs. I wish I would've got more pics of her and the puppies... she sure loved them. She took them for walks, took naps together, and even shared her popcorn and cheetos with them... they sure were spoiled with her around.
See those pink spots everywhere, those are all fish. they were literally 5 feet in front of us.
That dark spot in the river are fish too... probably hundreds of them, just waiting to die since they all spawned already.
The Russian river is just gorgeous. We actually were fishing right where the Russian and Kenai river join. We had to take a ferry across the river to fish. It was our first time being on this part of the river and it sure didn't disappoint.
I didn't fish as much as the guys did, over time I loose patients. But I love netting them. But these suckers weren't easy to net... at one point I was walking backwards to net one of Josh's fish and I totally fell in the water. Josh at the time was filming for his hunting company, so I'm sure that will make a great blooper.
This pic of Jeff cracks me up... he looks like he is rocking the fish and adoring it like you would a baby! But really the fish was flopping around all over while we were trying to get pics that my camera caught this one in action.
Here I am trying to nurse my fish back to life... I kinda had it out of water too long. to be honest, I don't know if it made it but even if it did it was about to die in a few weeks anyway.
Sadly we had to saw good bye to Josh, but only for a week. He will stay with us one more night once he flys in from his hunt and then he will be back up in October for a Grizzly hunt... so we look forward to spending more time with him. And hopefully he can bring Sheridan so we can have some much needed girl time.
The rest of the week went by pretty quickly. We borrowed our friends motorhome for Tip and Lola and we sent them on their way to explore Alaska. I had to stay home and work but Jeff was able to meet up with them for 3 days on his days off. They went to Homer and went out on a Halibut Charter. Guess Lola was just a riot to be with and was making everyone laugh. She wasn't fishing but she still got her limit :) Jeff said everytime him or Tip would pull up a fish she would say, "Is it a big one? If so, put my tag on it!" Oh she is too funny. After that they drove back up to Kenai, did a little more fishing and then drove to Seward. Sadly, it poured in Seward the whole time so they just hung out in the camper and relaxed. So since I wasn't with them, no pics were taken :( Lola said she never takes pics, she just buys post cards to remember!
Once they came back into town we took them to Alyeska Ski Resort and had an incredible dinner at one of the best places in Alaska, The Double Muskey. WOW, it was good. Jeff and I have been here a couple times and we were glad Tip and Lola enjoyed it too. While we were waiting for our reservation, we drove to the Ski Lodge and went up the Tram so they could see the lookout. Lola refused to go, but we made her anyway :) She is terrified of heights but she did so well and really appreciated it once we were back on ground.
This pic kills us... only because of the event that took place just seconds before it was taken. I told Lola I needed more pics of her to blog about and I told her to pose by the bear. Well I didn't realize that a family was getting ready to pose by it too. So I let them go first, but then I looked over and Lola had her arm up the bear posing... with another family. We kept telling her to get out of the pic, but either she didn't hear us cuz we were laughing so hard or she just ignored us... it was priceless. But she was facinated at how tall it was, so she wanted to show it in the pic I took.
Lola was checking off things on her bucket list all week. I told her she could check off that she has been to the only ski resort in the WORLD where when your at the top you can see the ocean. She thought that was pretty neat. She also hates to take pics, so everytime we would try, she would make the funniest faces. Gosh, I'm going to miss having her here. Her and Tip made us laugh all week.
The best grandparents ever. Thanks for an incredible week. Not only did we laugh until we cried, but we shared many late night talks, cooked and cleaned together, got to hear Lola share her testimony to the missionaries (very very touching) and I got to witness what a good pair Tip and Lola are... 53 years of marriage, what great examples they are. We love you guys.
Jaime and I loved the pigs, we both wanted to take one home, as long as it stayed small and never grew :)
