Alaska {Part 4}

Today my Alaska post is all about our first full day on the cruise ship, which involved seeing the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip and probably of my entire life!

Day 5 - Saturday, June 21 - Hubbard Glacier, AK

Our first day after boarding the ship was a day at sea. I loved having a day at sea right away to relax after being so busy on the land portion. We ordered room service that morning and ate on our balcony. I loved seeing the ocean stretch on for miles!

This was our stateroom....

We also just walked around the ship. There's always so much to see and do on the cruise ship alone.

The outdoor pool didn't get a whole lot of use in Alaska, although I did see a few brave souls in there throughout the week.

The indoor pool was a little more crowded. We had thought about going in one day, but we never got around to it. There were so many other things to do!

You could see land from the one side of the cruise ship, and it was so neat because Alaska's coast is just pointy snow-covered mountains.

We then ate lunch in the Windjammer, which is a buffet where they have just about everything.

We went for a little walk around the top deck before I headed back to the stateroom for a quick nap!

After I woke up, it was time to head up on deck to see the Hubbard Glacier.

A few things about the Hubbard Glacier......If you are going on an Alaskan cruise, you must do one that takes you to the Hubbard Glacier. I saw a couple other glaciers throughout the week that were pretty, but they all failed in comparison to Hubbard. You can only see the Hubbard Glacier by plane or boat though. We were able to get our cruise ship pretty close to the glacier, which was awesome. We had to try to maneuver around a bunch of floating ice, but it was incredible to get that close to the glacier.

A lot of people have been asking me what my favorite part of Alaska was, and my answer is always the Hubbard Glacier! It was hands down the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Even the mountains surrounding the glacier were breathtaking.

The Hubbard Glacier has a lot of calving, meaning that pieces break off the front and fall into the water. We saw it happen multiple times while we were there. That meant that the water surrounding the glacier had a TON of ice floating in it.

I loved these seals just laying on the ice!

There's the Hubbard Glacier!

There was another cruise ship by the glacier when we pulled up, and it gives you an idea of how big the glacier is.

We had an absolutely gorgeous day too. Our captain was telling us that it was pretty much the best weather we could have got. The sky was clear, and it was sunny which made it not quite as cold as it could have been. This was the coldest temperature we had all week (probably in the 30s or 40s), but considering you're by a huge piece of ice, it didn't seem too bad.

This is the Kappa Delta picture I was talking about. I'm obsessed with the way it turned out!

Seriously? You need to see a glacier sometime before you die. There is just nothing else like it.

I stood on deck that day for over 2 hours just staring at the glacier. I didn't want to look away it was so beautiful! Eventually, the ship ended up turning around to leave the Hubbard Glacier, so we headed inside to get ready for dinner. That evening was our first of two formal nights, which are always my favorite. I love getting dressed up for dinner and getting your picture taken on formal night.

That night I had scallops as a starter, and for my main course I ordered roasted duck. I had never had duck before, and I figured a cruise ship is the best place to try it because if you don't like something, you can just order another entree. I ended up loving it though! The meat was really moist and flavorful. I'm a big fan of duck now ;)

I finished off dinner with chocolate souffle for dessert. Yum!

After dinner that night, we watched the Finish the Lyric gameshow in the Centrum, and then saw the show in the theater.

Our night wouldn't have been complete either without relaxing in our favorite spot- the Quill and Compass!

This was such a fabulous day. We did so many amazing things in Alaska, but the Hubbard Glacier was the highlight for me!

4th of July

I'm taking a break today from my Alaska posts to write about last week and the 4th of July!

Getting back into the groove of things after coming back from such a long trip took a little while to get used to, and I had a busy week on top of it.

Last Tuesday I went swimming with my cousins. I definitely feel like the older I get the less time I have to swim in the summer. I can remember years where I went swimming at least once a week, but I had only gone swimming once prior to Tuesday. So crazy!

On Wednesday night I went to dinner with some friends. We've kind of started this Wednesday night after work dinner/hang out thing. It always makes the work day go a little faster when you know you have a night with some friends ahead of you. We stopped at Yagoot last week, which was even better ;)

I snapped this picture of a deer out my front window at home. I walked by the window, saw something out of the corner of my eye, and when I did a double take, I saw a deer just staring right back at me. I thought deer were supposed to be afraid of people?!

I decided kind of last minute to make some 4th of July cake pops for a party we were going to. I figured I had a bunch of red, white, and blue sprinkles that I might as well take the opportunity to use them. I worked on the cake pops Thursday afternoon, and I thought they were very patriotic!

That night, we went to a local fireworks display that we go to every year with family friends. There is just something about fireworks that makes it feel like summer.

Coco was my patriotic puppy on the 4th with her bandanna!

I had such a great 4th of July. My family and I went over our friends' house and relaxed by their pool all day. We were the only ones over there, so I spent a lot of time getting a tan and cooling off in the pool. We grilled out and had a ton of yummy food. In the evening, we had our annual Uno competition, sat around a bonfire, shot off Roman Candles, and did sparklers. It was absolute perfection!

On Saturday my family took a last minute trip down to Findlay Market. I love going down there because they sell the best stuff! We shared a waffle down there and just walked around. Such a fun thing to do in Cincinnati during the summer.

I also picked up a cookie that I enjoyed later. I'm a sucker for sweets ;)

I spent pretty much all day Sunday at home getting a lot of stuff done. One of the things I finally accomplished was transferring a bunch of dates to my new 2014-2015 life planner!! The nerdy/organizational side of me was so happy about that. Ha!

Such a fun summer weekend back at home!