on the 8th day GOD created Alaska

I arrived in Alaska the 8th of September. It has been a non stop whirl wind of work and play.
My host family as I call them have been the ultimate tour guides.
The weather here has been nothing short of spectacular.

The Cook Inlet

McHugh Creek Falls

More of the Cook Inlet

A Farm run by the LDS church. It's a U Pick it. They have everything you could imagine.

This was a good time, I made a picnic lunch for the fam and dug up taters until the sun dropped.

Yummy red potatoes. Did you know if you don't wash them and let them dry with the dirt on them, put them in cold storage they will last for 4 to 5 months? Cool little tid bit.

The farm was surrounded by these mountains, just amazing the scenery everywhere you go.

Well this wraps up the first 4 days of my new life. I will only have sporadic access to a computer for another week or so.

I miss all my blogger peeps and look forward to getting back to everyone soon.

JP~ OUT

Splash Zone

Sorry for taking so long to get these up, but we BOTH had cameras and took a Tourist-load of pictures! These are all from Shawn's camera, mine was not fast enough to get the good shots.
We are sitting in the "splash zone". Which means you sit here , you are getting wet.
The whales make sure of it! Shawn and I wanted to be CLOSE as possible, so there you sit waiting to get drenched for the sake of good pictures!

We were in awe, such amazing and graceful creatures.

The trainers are no longer allowed to swim with them since the accident early this year. You should see the gates they open and shut between the show pool and the holding pools. Wow, imagine a baby gate for a whale !

We couldn't believe that Shawn got these pictures, we get all excited when we get good shots. It's like capturing a memory for eternity and since we love animals so much 99% of our 1000's of pictures are of animals!

This is how they got the whales to come by and splash, they would swim by and smack their tails like boat oars . So gross, salty nasty water, but totally worth it!
You can't see it here, but that pool is DEEP and I mean DEEP.

I thought this was a cool shot. Can you imagine standing there and having that whale come full speed and slide right up next to you? I would have to change my shorts for sure.

So one of the things I was excited about seeing was the Gators... We are in Florida right??

Well, no such luck, I only saw one big wild one at NASA, and these little critters at Sea World.

Shawn promised that on our next trip he would take me Gator Watching, kind of like Whale watching here in the NW :0 Yipeeeeeee.
I think this guy would make a cute belt .... kidding...

Sea Dragons, oh how I love thee. The males do the birthing and raising..
Shawn took some amazing pictures of these animals. You should have seen us snapping away like we've never seen a sea creature in our lives.

This was so cute, a Mamma and a calf holding flippers while taking a little nap.
Funny, this is how Shawn sleeps too.

We didn't go to the Dolphin show, but we went and saw them in the tank instead.

Out of 20 pictures this was the only good one.

ahhh The Manatee. Need I say more? These Manatee's actually belong to the State of Florida and are being rehabbed( from sickness, human negligence or what have you) at Sea World. If the State comes back and says let them free, then Sea World has to let them free.

Let me tell you they are bigger then you think.

We went and watched this cute show, for us we have seen many many sea lions, but the trained ones are much cuter than the naughty, fat, lazy ,barking ones we see at the condo in Newport.

Well, another end of a long day. We had a great time, and can't wait to do it again!

I promise I will get back to everyone's blogs when life slows down a tad!

Love like no other

I was in my car coming up the driveway, so I stopped and called her name and out she came

Then she whinnied and met me at the stall door .
I sure do love that horse.

Where have I been?

Well, we ran off to Florida for a quick trip. The Air Force has a program called the Yellow Ribbon Program. It helps returning soldiers and their families reintegrate after long deployments.
So We went to Kennedy Space Center. For a TREKKIE like myself this was super cool.
I am a total nerd, I know....
This was the actual mission control Center for the Apollo missions.

IBM.. Does anyone remember them? I do, but I'm OLD..

Launchpad, this was 3.5 miles away from where I was standing, so that tells you how HUGE it really is.

This is the actual rocket/shuttle building, the shuttle and rockets will be assembled together and then moved out of here by the "Crawler".It is the largest building in the world. All under one roof.
The stripes on the flag are 8 feet across.

So, this was day one of our holiday. We never had a honeymoon or ever been on a real vacation, so this was fantastic.

All I wanted to see were Alligators, but nooooooooooooooo. I only saw one!

Where did I see the one gator? On the Nasa/Cape Grounds.Of course.

This was my favorite part of the trip. Shawn loved Sea World I will post those soon.

Tuesday Tip.. on Wednesday!

Someday when my life is back to normal I will post on the correct day!


OK so my tip of the day is:


Follow your dreams even if they are little ones.



I have ridden on the beach, I took my mare Blu to the beach a few years back and it was the time of my life. Albeit , it had your typical drama but all in all it was a fantastic time.

I want to take Star to the beach before we move to Alaska. I was having a hard time getting any takers to go with me as I want to go during the week, as I am now unemployed. So, if I can't get anyone to load and and go , Shawn said he would drive me and I would ride alone for a couple hours while he and the dogs played in the surf. I AM GOING to make this happen. I will not leave the State of Oregon without making this happen.
email me at jocelynmpayne @ gmail dot com if you would like to join in !

Aren't I supposed to be on vacation?

We had one of two garage sales on Saturday.
I tried to sell the cat and didn't have any takers.

So then I lowered his price...

He was a hit at the sale and was a good helper. Guarded the money box and walked customers out to their cars.

He approved of my merchandising skills.

Can one family have too many tv's? Clearly they can.

The love shack didn't sell.
Bummer as it really needs to get the HE** out of my driveway. Someone asked if the motorcycle was mine. Ummm no...

Overall it was a success as I got rid of alot of extra stuff I didn't want to pay to get schlepped via barge to Alaska.

I have also gone trail riding with friends three times this week! Star had a long vacation and it showed until the third time out and she was back to her normal trail pony self. It's amazing how quickly they can forget their training when given a long break.

Well, that list of "to-do's" just keeps getting longer....

My departure date is getting closer!

This is no vacation... :(

Tuesday Tip of the Day... on Thursday

Come to my going away party!!!


August 21st at 4:30 pm.

Bring a side dish if you like, BYOB and lots of tears so bring a hankie...

Please no blackmail photos of me in varying states of drunkeness, nakedness or injured.

Directions:

http://www.co.clackamas.or.us/parks/barton.htm

be there or break my heart.... :)