I don’t fish. It’s not that I have anything against fishing, I like to eat fish so I am glad that other people do it, just not my thing. I cannot imagine anything less entertaining than sitting in the cold/heat after putting a slimy worm on a hook and waiting for fish to bite.

Now sitting on the boat, drinking beer, and making snarky comments? That’s an activity I can get behind.

In the absence of actual fishing I also enjoy looking at fish and other sea creatures. So today, at around 7:30 AM I had the brilliant idea to load up the herd and drive 2 hours to Seward, AK to go to the Sea Life Center. It took a while to get the crew on board with this idea, but I dug in my heels.

Taryn was at a friend’s house, so I texted her. No response. I went through the caller ID and got the number to her friend’s house. Oops, wrong friend-sorry for being the weird mom. Once I got the right friend and told her we were picking her up in 1/2 hour she was…less than excited. She was also not excited when I told her we were headed to Seward. “But I don’t have my headphones!!” The terrors these poor children have to go through.

I like to think of myself as a laid back, fly by the seat of my pants sort of girl. (most people will say that neither the adjectives or the term girl actually apply) However, my husband is not at all a spur of the moment guy. He likes to plan. He likes to plot. He likes to over think most events down to the very last detail. While this comes in handy when we backpack across the tundra, it is irritating when I get a wild hair.

He insisted that we pack a bunch of sleeping bags, just in case the van broke down and we were stranded on the side of the road. I figured the 4 ziplock bags of goldfish, raisins (both plain and yogurt), and sleeve of Thin Mints I had packed was sufficient.

You are probably thinking that a 2 hour drive (each way) for a day trip is crazy. But this is Alaska and the 2 hour drive is pretty amazing. The snow and ice are breaking up and there are frozen waterfalls all along the way. We saw three moose and a helicopter that was either landing or taking off just a few feet from the road. This is how cold and often dark, Alaska has worked her way into the heart of this Florida girl.

Seward also has a barbecue place in an old rail car that is in my top 5 BBQ joints of all time. I ate like a pig. It was awesome.

Anyway, the Sea Life Center was swell. It probably would have been better if I could have actually seen the exhibits instead of just chasing the twinkies around and trying to keep them from killing themselves/each other.

I tried to get a nice picture of them. This is the best I could do.

Reese liked the crab tank. He thought it was Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob. Once I explained that SpongeBob was not also in the tank he lost interest.

Jackson liked climbing on the rocks outside. And throwing them. At strangers. One of those times I acted like he belonged to someone else.

It was a pretty amazing day in Alaska, sunny and 30 degrees, so I assumed we could document it with at least one sweet family photo. Instead I got this.

This

And this

Just forget it. Whose dumb idea was this trip anyway?