Toby

I have to relate the oft-heard story again: When Analyn and I realized through ultrasound that we were going to have a son, we decided to name him after my brother, Trevor. Our son was born on my brother’s birthday, and had the same birth weight.

The day after the wedding, we celebrated the two Trevors’ birthdays. I didn’t get may pictures of it, though. Another thing we did is pick up the fireworks for use on the Fourth of July, which at this time was still several days off. Here’s a partial list of the fireworks we got:

• 36 of what I call, “Mortars.” These babies launch from a tube and produce an explosion similar to what you see at professional fireworks shows.
• 50 large bottle rockets.
• 700 small bottle rockets.
• 8 “tanks” that are supposed to roll around and shoot sparks, but they’re somewhat dissapointing.
• 2000 firecrackers.
• 50 rosebuds.
• 10 “missile launchers,” each with 25 mini-missiles that shoot up into the air.
• 1 missile lanucher with 300 mini-missiles.
• 50 “bees” that are kind of like mini-rosebuds that launch into the air.
• 16 larger fireworks that are also like rosebuds that launch into the air.
• Only a single fountain. Fountains never impress me anyway.
• 12 large roman candles (real roman candles, not the stupid California-ized ones).
• 16 smoke bombs (the kids’ favorite)
• An uncounted large quantity of sparklers. Many of these were the cool magnesium kind like we used to have in California when I was a kid.

From Alaska June 2009

Saturday, June 27, 2009 is the day that “Auntie” (also aka “E.T.”) Evelyn Therese Richards became Mrs. Evelyn Therese Bass. What a beautiful wedding! I’ve got to know her husband, Ricky, and I like him; he’s a really great guy.

Of course, everything in my mind always comes back to my kids. Trevor and Ryana’s role at the wedding was to walk in front of the bride as she made her way down the aisle. Ryana threw flower petals (that we’d gathered earlier that day) before Auntie’s feet. Trevor blew bubbles. Ryana was especially excited to have her role. She was grinning from ear to ear the whole time.

Well, enough of my commentary. I’m sure that pictures are what everybody wants:

From Alaska June 2009

The wedding party: The best man (I forget his name); Ricky, the groom; Auntie, the bride; Madeleine, the flower girl; and, Dana, whose role I think was to make the picture look symmetrical.

From Alaska June 2009

Linda, the minister lectures the bride and groom about their vows.

From Alaska June 2009

More bride and groom.

From Alaska June 2009

Ryana tries on the veil.

From Alaska June 2009

Ryana dances with the bride.

Friday was the day that we got to go to Uncle Trevor’s work: The Juneau Fire Station. The kids spent quite a long time climbing around in and on the trucks. Uncle Trevor turned the flashing lights on, and the kids enjoyed sitting in the driver’s seat. Then Uncle Trevor put on his full fireman suit–oxygen tanks and all–which the kids thought was fantastic.

After that, we headed for the public (indoor) pool. Everybody loves swimming! I was happy that they have a sauna there as well. The kids also enjoyed swimming around in the deeper water with their life-vests on.

When Uncle Trevor and Madeleine’s kids were tucked into bed, I took mine to see the new Transformers movie. We all really enjoyed it, and it’s certainly one that I’ll be buying when it comes out on DVD.

From Alaska June 2009

Trevor “driving” the fire engine.

From Alaska June 2009

Grandma, Sage, Evelyn, and Dana pose in front of a fire engine’s control panel.

From Alaska June 2009

Ryana attends to me in the ambulance.

From Alaska June 2009

Uncle Trevor poses in his firefighter suit with Ryana, Kevin, Trevor, and Grandma (with Sage barely visible in the background).

Thursday brought surprisingly good weather. We took all of the kids to the local park. After that, we visited the Douglas Island Pink and Chum (DIPAC) salmon hatchery. They had a neat aquarium, and some smaller aquariums where the kids could pick up and handle starfish, hermit crabs, and sea cucumbers.

From Alaska June 2009

Ryana on the swing

From Alaska June 2009

Trevor in the giant play-house.

From Alaska June 2009

Ryana climbs on the climbing wall.

From Alaska June 2009

Evelyn, Grandma Linda, Trevor, and Ryana sit down for a snack. I have no idea who that kid on the left is.

On Wednesday, we took a raft from Mendenhall Lake down the river of the same name. There were some slight rapids–just enough to be exciting for the kids, but not enough to be dangerous. Everybody had a great time, and the scenery was gorgeous. Eagles were everywhere. At one point, an eagle swooped so low and close to us that I started to think it might attack us.

After the rafting trip, we took the raft back to the lake, which is fed by the melting of the Mendenhall Glacier. There are even iceburgs floating in the lake. It’s cold.

I decided that I wanted to jump in. Young Trevor kept asking me why I wanted to do that. I said, “I want to be able to look back on my life and say that I did it. Once I do this, I’ll never be the person who didn’t jump into the freezing lake.”

Our cousin, Wayne, turned to Uncle Trevor and said, “I can be that person!”

Below is a video of me jumping into the lake. You can see the glacier in the background. At a glance, it looks like part of the mountain, but it’s bluish, and flat on top.. I told myself that I wasn’t going to swear (so that the video would be G-Rated), but as soon as my body hit that water, that was forgotten. So you’re warned: if you watch the video, you’ll hear strong language.

People have asked me what it felt like. Honestly, I don’t remember. All I remember is being desperate to get out. Once back in the raft, I was warm again–hot even–as soon as I got dry. The 65 degree air was quite warm compared to being in that water.

From Alaska June 2009

The kids get ready for our rafting trip.

From Alaska June 2009

Rowing toward the river.

From Alaska June 2009

Here I am as I struggle to get back into the raft.

On Monday, we didn’t have any luck with the crab traps. Not a single keeper was caught. After a disappointing morning, we decided to take the Mount Roberts Tramway up the mountain.

The view from the tram and from the top of the mountain was beautiful. We wandered through the tourist trap at the top of the mountain, and found that they have a bald eagle in captivity. Someone had shot this eagle through the eye, so it’s now cared for at the top of Mount Roberts. Juneau is eagle central. We saw eagles every day, but to see one up close was amazing!

The kids quickly got tired of the eagle, so we took a hike further up the mountain. We found some left over patches of snow that the kids were only too eager to play in. Before adding some pictures, I’ll end with this quote from Ryana (who had never seen snow before): “Daddy… this is cold snow!”

From Alaska June 2009

Here’s the view from Trevor and Dana’s porch. The camera did a poor job of stitching this scenic mode photo together, but you get the idea.

From Alaska June 2009

This is what happened when, after the previous photo, I pointed the camera a bit farther up… and zoomed in.

From Alaska June 2009

Riding in the mountain tram.

From Alaska June 2009

Looking at the eagle in captivity.

From Alaska June 2009

Playing in the snow.

One father dared to take his two young children to Alaska for two harrowing weeks. This is his story.

We arrived in Juneau at 9:30 PM on June 20, 2009, and after saying our hellos, went straight to bed. The first thing we did on Sunday was to take the kids out on Uncle Trevor’s boat to check the crab pots. We had a great catch; it was enough to fill a large bucket with just legs. For the rest of that day, we just hung out with family.

That evening was Ricky’s batchelor party. If you’re just tuning in, part of the reason for this vacation is my sister, Evelyn’s wedding to Ricky Bass. Ricky really likes poker, so his batchelor party was a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. We all had great fun. I enjoyed taking one person for everything when I had four 7′s by raising only a little bit. She thought I had a mediocre hand, so she raised me with everything she had. Of course I matched her bet and won!

From Alaska June 2009

Trevor driving the boat.

From Alaska June 2009

Ryana driving the boat.

From Alaska June 2009

And Sage drove the boat, too.

Last week, Uncle Trevor and Aunt Dana brought their kids down from Alaska for a visit and Grandma’s house. My kids and I took the week off to spend time with them. We had a great time! We went to parks, the zoo, Chuck E. Cheese’s, and more. We even celebrated Ryana and Evelyn’s birthdays. The full album of pictures is here. Below are some of my favorite pictures…

On our trip south, Trevor and Ryana hold Blue under one of the historic El Camino Real bells.

Trevor and Sage race across a bridge at the park. I play the Troll under the bridge, trying to get them.

Evelyn enjoys a slide.

Ryana always loves to swing.

We bought all of the kids sunglasses at the LA Zoo.

Not many of the zoo pictures turned out well, but here’s one with a Giraffe.

This is my first “panorama” style picture. It is taken at Lunada Bay, which is two blocks from Grandma’s house.

Here are Trevor and Ryana at the bottom of the Lunda Bay cliff as we get ready to explore the tidepools.

Analyn was giving me a haircut Saturday night. Each side got shorter and shorter as she tried to make it even. Here I am today with a military regulation cut again.

Since I last checked Friday, I now have 419 new comments on my blog trying to sell me Viagra and other things I don’t need. I’m going to do a bulk delete, so if your new comment gets deleted, then I apologize. I think that I’m going to turn off comments. All my readers ought to know my e-mail address anyway.

Sometimes, watching my kids play is like watching an episode of “Jackass.” Here are three videos to show you just what these little masochists think is “fun.”