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Alaska; Kodiak Island, Katmai, Seward

Alaska trip felt like a National Geographic expedition. Vancouver to Anchorage (overnight in a weird airbnb), Anchorage to Kodiak Island by plane (Goal:10 foot Kodiak bears – fail;  instead we saw friendly Cross Fox). Back to Anchorage by plane, train to Seward, boat to Glacier, (Goal:whales) back to Anchorage by bus. Anchorage to King Salmon by plane; Brooks Camp (Goal: bears and celebrate 100 years of Katmai NP) by float plane. South from Pilot Point by bush plane (Goal: walruses).

In this post you will see a handful of pictures of me and 240 pictures of bears and haul of walruses.  Bears from the front, side, upside-down, close, far, big nose, small nose, with fish and without. I should do a challenge who will last through all the pictures.
Category: over 7, over7, trips  One Comment
Cook Island
Mom finally found the time to upload the pictures and post about Cook Island. The trip was incredible, sandy white beaches, crystal clear 30 Celsius turquoise water, and pretty much nobody but just us.
 
We spent 5 days on the main island in Rarotonga and a week in Aitutaki. My highlights was hitchhiking on both islands and meeting locals. In Rerotonga we stayed in Joe’s house. In the airport we were welcomed by emigrations feeling puzzled but than we found our that Joe works as emigration officer and he told everybody to look for us :). Joe’s farm was special. There was a pig that was raised at home like a cat until she just got too big, chicken that thinks he is a cat and walks behind me where ever I go or sit, he sleeps in the basket at home and eats with cats. Just priceless.
 
We did a cross country 3 hour hike, pretty challenging in my opinion. We ate at the night market, went to see sunken boat, mom drove and we both snorkelled a lot, I tried every possible fruit.
 
On Aitutaki we met Olaf, Mara and Flow and we spend few days all together and in the end celebrating mom’s birthday. We saw them again in Vancouver a week after when they started their big Vancouver -Anchorage journey by bicycle.
 
Mom tried to be smarty pants and found a guy with a boat who would take us at 9am to the lagoon and sandy tiny patches of islands as apparently other tours come at 12, from 9-12 we were all by ourselves, a bit creepy and it felt like we were in the middle of the ocean on the small sandy patch. At 12 one boat arrived and 2 people were in it :))) All of mom’s effort to escape the crowd was wasted 😉
For two days we joined a kiteboarding camp on one of the tiny island and we had a blast there.
I was very pleased with myself as I went kayaking by myself several times.
Everybody was so nice and welcoming, so far mom’s fav place to travel and maybe one day to live.
PS. Posing pictures are in my communion dress it required lots of my patience to make mom happy while taking photographs, but I was melting.
New Zealand 2018 or 1820

Over 5,000 km around two islands in a not-the-best camper van. We started our adventure with a visit Hobbiton, to our surprise all members of the family had a good time there. New Zealand’s nature and wildlife is priceless, from massive sea lions, albatrosses, dolphins and penguins all in just few days.  Beautiful coast lines, beaches, mountains, volcanoes, and more sheep than people, New Zealand you have it all!  Even the grass is greener there and the rainbows are more colorful. Milford Sound was spectacular, people were kind and friendly, living in peace and harmony not worrying about tech, gadgets and faster internet 😉

Category: over 7, trips  2 Comments
Yellowknife 2018

Yellowknife: -33 degrees check!, dog sledding check!, ice fishing check!, northern lights next time 😉

Four days in a very cold and peaceful land of Northern Territory. The warmth of the locals stole our hearts.  Met Snow King who builds ice castles since 1995 as a gift to the community, drove on a ice road, ate fish from frozen, Slave Lake and visiting the first nation communities: priceless. Visited Giant (closed for public) Gold mine. We even had chance to g to emergency 😉 . We will be back !

Sun Peaks with my girls

Sun Peaks was epic. Four girls on skis followed by parents. Despite -17 at times we had a blast.  We had great convincing power and got permission to ski on Disaster! (blue run)  and sleep overs with all my friends in a room. We had the best ever (well first ever) two sleeps overs and we did really well, our parents never complained. We didn’t run out  of energy until the very end. Skiing followed by sledding, movies, sleep overs and repeated again..three days non-stop. Elsa the dog was with us most of the time and I miss her a lot. I am looking forward to another great trip like this one. Only phone quality pictures taken by all the parents.

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Japan 2017

Seems like November has become a tradition to go to Japan with Dad. Mom joined us after a week as she was busy with the Culture Crawl art show during that week each year. We started off with a big 15km hike up Mt. Takao and Matsumotyo Castle. We did an Udon Noodle class in a funky little shop in Asakusa. We saw the Emperor’s carriages one morning and the Empress drove buy us in Ginza the next morning and waved. I think she must have recognised us. Since we had the JR pass, everyday was a train adventure to a new destination.

Mom arrived and visiting continued through Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kurashiki, Nara and Yokohama.
There was time for art as well, we got big sheets of paper and we traced art from manhole covers.
In Osaka we met a lovely family with two kids and they invited us for a dinner to their home. We had very nice time and we hope they will visit us in Vancouver.
Nara was a dear fest! ..and I met two Angels in Osaka and Totoro in the mountains.

Cook Island

Cook Island was a bit different than planned. We all went to airport but only me and dad managed to fly to the island. Well mom got a new passport now valid for more than 6 months.

We had a blast, feeding chickens in the morning, eating bananas from the trees, hunting for treasures and snorkling.  Cook Island runs on their own time ( slow motion time) but it is charming except when you have to wait for breakfast (toast and eggs) for more than 40 minutes.

We rented Quad bike and joined a tour, dad went wild.  We saw lots of geckos in our house.

Birkenhead camping trip
Last trip of the summer was camping at Birkenhead lake. It was bunch of us and lots of kids. I had a blast with lots of freedom every day, mom said it was like “the olden days”  I biked, walked around, went to the the beach and had very little parent supervision. Koben and I even saw a bear on one of our walks in the forest.
We did lots of canoeing on both days, swam and hung out with friends on the beach. The parents were very happy to have time for themselves too just sometimes we had to do kid search when everybody realized that somebody was missing. 😉 and I have no clue how it happened that organizers of that trip are not on the pictures.
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2017 London, UK
London was triple special! I met my dear Aunty Liz (Lizzie) and we a had fantastic time together. I miss her very much. Mom met with her childhood friend ( they knew each other since they were 5 years old) and they haven’t seen each other for over 25 years. I spent some time with her daughter Mia and I am hoping to visit her again. London was just too cool, awesome and fabulous, it was very special for mom to be back.

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2017 Prague

Prague was short and sweet. My sister Amber flew to see us there with Josh Posh. We had great time together visiting places, eating out and chilling with good beer. I was allowed to taste some beer when we went to the beer museum. Communist museum was interesting, it is hard to relate to it, but mom was a great tour guide. Enjoy!!!

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