If you are an inexperienced hiker, you have small children, or you don’t have a lot of time to spare I totally understand wanting to find a place that is beautiful, yet doesn’t require a lot of walking. In addition, due to the somewhat intimidating wildlife in the area, I like to keep a list of places that I feel comfortable going to completely on my own. These three locations fit the bill!
From The States
Adventures in Travel and Education
We have photos of my husband reading Jasper his very first book, days after he was born. In addition, Jasper was the Very Hungry Caterpillar for his first Halloween! Books are extremely important in our family. My husband and I both harbor a love for reading and, at two-years-old, we have successfully passed that love onto Jasper. Jasper can sit quietly in his room for over an hour looking at his books. He loves to see the pictures as much as he loves being read to.
The second hike we did after moving to Alaska was Thunder Bird Falls. In April of 2017 we climbed the ice covered paths to the viewing deck overlooking the falls. At this time we were unaware of what microspikes are. We slipped and slid with Jasper strapped to my husbands back. It would have been so much easier with microspikes!
Easter Events in Alaska
Jasper’s first Easter egg hunt was last year, in 2017, a few short months after we moved to Alaska. A church in our town puts on an egg drop for the local children. This means that a helicopter flies over a field next to the high school in town, and drops tons of eggs all over while everyone watches. Then the children are set free to go collect the eggs like a normal Easter egg hunt. Children have to be four before they can participate in the actual egg drop hunt, so Jasper was and still is too young to participate. However, that year he was able to have fun at the toddler egg search, and we all enjoyed watching the helicopter drop more than 30,000 eggs!
We live in America. So like many people here, we are a little bit of everything. I have a tiny bit of Irish in my Ancestry, in addition to Polish, French, German, Slavic, English, Scottish… My family has been in this country for quite a long time, I could go on and on. However, you don’t need to be Irish to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Of course there is a certain crowd that celebrates with lots of drunken antics. That’s fine for them, but we start the day with the “traditional” kid St. Patrick’s day breakfast, Lucky Charms and green milk!
Being a former daycare teacher, I love to do themes! I think teaching with themes helps your child to explore the world in different way than they normally would. Yes, we paint a lot, but under this theme we are painting on snow! Sometimes I let Jasper help me with recipes, but now we are incorporating snow into a recipe! Below is everything we did under the winter “theme” this year!
Are you looking for some cute t-shirt designs? What about some twinning shirts so you can match your little one? Hop on over to Foxy Mountain and check out their gear!
The first time we visited Eklutna Lake was in the summer of 2017. With Jasper strapped to my back, I approached a lake that was a good distance from the path. Some areas of the bank were dry and cracked. I had never seen mud cracked in patterns like that
