Thriller, Thriller Night

Halloween again, and we did costumes and pumpkins.
I re-used a costume I made several years ago, partly because I didn't have the energy to make something new this year (I used all that energy helping the girls with theirs!).  Christine has really gotten into Legend of Zelda video games, especially Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, so she dressed up as Link, which took a bit of sewing.  Ashlee dressed up as Indiana Jones (or Indiana Joanie?) which mostly required going through the racks at a thrift store, though I did make the leather satchel, which doubles nicely as a candy collecting bag.  Ashlee decided to go trick-or-treating with her friends, and Christine had a couple of friends over to hand out candy and hang out with.

Oh, and I was able to convince my team at work to buy Star Trek polo shirts and wear them for Halloween (as well as two home made shirts, to mix things up).  They are not as big of geeks as I am, so it took a little convincing.  I am the alpha geek, I guess.

My pumpkin and Ashlee's pumpkin

Christine's pumpkin

Christine's pumpkin in the dark

My pumpkin and Ashlee's pumpkin in the dark

Indiana Joanie

Link, the Hero of Time

Captain Pretentious

My team at work

North to Alaska

For our summer vacation this year we took an Alaskan cruise.  We had been talking about doing one for a while, and the price was right for us to do it this year.  We had a lot of fun, but we are sure glad to be home.

The view of the Space Needle from our hotel room

The duck boats are old WW2 era amphibious vehicles that take you on a tour of downtown Seattle by land and sea, and the drivers are hilarious.

They were going to charge me $30 to download the full resolution version of this picture, so I just copied the thumbnail

Captain Tuck'n'Roll

On the duck boat

On the duck boat

The duck boat in the water

In Seattle, we visited the EMP Museum, which included displays on science fiction and fantasy.  They had Captain Kirk's original chair, costumes from the Princess Bride, and the Terminator's skull, among other stuff.  It was small, but pretty cool.
 

Captain Kirk's chair

Maybe if I suck in my stomach a little, I can fit in Christopher Reeve's costume

We set sail from Seattle, spent one day at sea, and then visited the Tracy Arm Fjord, Skagway Alaska, Juneau Alaska, Ketchikan Alaska, and Victoria British Columbia in Canada before coming back to Seattle.

Mount Rainier from the Seattle port

Our cabin on the Miracle (the wide angle makes it look bigger than it was)

The view from the deck of our cabin - out at open sea

Sailing into the Tracy Arm Fjord

Looking back along the ship in the Tracy Arm Fjord

The Sawyer Glacier - a literal river of ice

A sea lion and her cub watch us sail past

Panning for gold

Eureka!

Panning for gold

Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but it's really tiny.  Also, you can't get there by land!

Christine demonstrates her favorite part of Juneau - cell phone access so she can text

Picturesque mountain streams in Juneau

A wall-like mountain range on the coast of Alaska

This little towel man was made by the cleaning staff

Christine made this little towel elephant.  I called him a towlephant!

A whale tail!  We saw a lot of action from whales off the side of the ship, but it was really hard to catch anything with the camera.  I have hundreds of pictures of open ocean with a little splash in the middle.

Spouts from breaching humpback whales

Welcome to Canada!

A photo opportunity in Canada.

All You Need is Love

Ashlee's on the middle school tennis team this year, and she seems to be enjoying it.  She's playing doubles with one of her good friends from school.  For her most recent match, the weather wasn't great - the wind was gusty and it was cold.  I got some pictures anyway, so enjoy!

So much to say, so much to say...

Got a couple of different things I've been meaning to post about over the last couple of weeks, so I just figured I'd get them all out here.

First off, couple of weeks ago was Christine's birthday, and she got a little pampering session for her birthday - a haircut and a manicure.  She had fun, and the results look cool.
Also, she decorated her own cake, and it turned out very cute.

Second thing - Ashlee had a school project where she needed to create an immigrant character, with a little story about why she left her home country and her experience coming to America.  She had to dress up as her character.  She decided on a woman who left Germany as a result of World War II.  I spent all weekend sewing a mock dirndl-like dress for her to wear, and I think it turned out pretty well.  I probably went overboard with the time I spent, but that's how I am, I guess.

And finally, Teri has spent some of her spare time over the last month or two working on refinishing our dresser, and it came out looking really great.  She sanded it all down, stained it, and replaced the handles.  I helped a little, but she did most of the work.  Sadly, I didn't think to get before pictures, but here is the final result.