Nemmers in Alaska

In mid August we sent Emmy off on her own to meet Beth's family in Anchorage for an Alaskan adventure.  And an adventure it was!  About an hour after Emmy's fight took off Beth called us to say her flight had been delayed...then a few hours later canceled completely...she wouldn't get there till Tuesday night and it was Sunday night.  (This was all due to the global IT outage caused by CrowdStrike earlier in the week.). Well Greg and his sisters all started calling and texting old friends to find someone to meet Emily at the airport at 1:30am in Anchorage.  We called Emily before she boarded the plane in Seattle.  She was super calm and seemed unfazed in spite of having no clue who would meet her in Alaska.  We told her we would text her once we figured it out.  

Miraculously, Greg's elementary school friend, Bill, was on a plane from Utah and landed two hours after Emmy.  So she waited for him then went back to his house and stayed the night.  The next morning Laurie's good friend, Shannon, picked her up and Emily played with Shannon for two days.

They went shopping, saw a huge chocolate fountain, went to the zoo, ice cream, and spent lots of time talking with Shannon and petting their dog.

Oh yeah, and she did some online homework- I think...Hope.

Then Beth and her family arrived and took her away to Denali where they went on a guided ranger walk, looked for animals but didn't see much, washed their hair in a freezing cold river, and enjoyed time together.

Then back to Anchorage where they met up with Shannon again as well as Brett, Laurie, Greg and Nani.

The next morning Nani, Greg, and Emily flew off to Nome in search of musk ox and adventure.

The helicopter ride exceeded expectations.  

It was especially cool to spot a moose from the air.

Back on land they spent a few days driving the three roads out of Nome to see all they could see.

Lots of old abandoned dredges.

The rental car got pretty dirty.

They found a baby spotted seal just posing for pictures.

And lots of musk ox, even babies.

And a caribou.

Abandoned vehicles in the middle of nowhere.

Emily also managed to roll her hair into the window.

Can't get enough fireweed and snowshoe hares.

This is the final check point of the Iditarod.

Old train to nowhere anyone?

Lots of moosies to make Emily happy.

Then they flew back to Anchorage for Beth and Ric's sealing.

The kids did baptisms in spite of Emily not having church clothes.  Emily loved her trip, time with Shannon, Piper, and all the animals.

The First Academy of Enterprise: 4th Gen Education Week

We started the day out learning about Woodgrain then heading off to Emmett to see the sawmill.

With the heat wave over 100 degrees everyday we were nice and sweaty at the end of the tour and ready for lunch at Fiesta.

Tuesday we toured millwork and learned about distribution at Home Depot.

The cousins had lots of fun times together.

The rafting was a high point for a lot of the kids.

Overall it was a great week in spite of kids coming in late due to the computer system failure that shut down the airlines.  Eventually they all arrived and they all learned a lot and had some fun.  Kelly and Evelyn hosted a pizza night for our farewell dinner.

McCall was a trooper representing the Kelly Dame family.  She earned her "favorite second cousin" award.

Lily and Luke didn't get to participate this time but we loved having them join us for some of the fun.