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We were blessed enough to have a few hours with Dot & Pop during the Juneau stop of their Canada-Alaska adventure. Since our visit to Europe last spring, Meadow has talked often of Dot & Pop, and can't resist mentioning them every time she hears a British accent.

Both Laura and Dot have injured knees, so Pop and I sat in the backseat with Meadow. We got to geeking out about airplanes and GPS and other fun stuff when Meadow got tired and hollered out "boys! boys stop!".

We got to have tea with our favorite couple from across the pond, and have already started plotting how we can make it over their way again.

(For more about Dot & Pop read back through the posts made during our trip to Europe in March '08).

At the tail end of a wonderful week I went up the tram with mom and MJ. The nature center on Mt. Roberts is filled with wildlife, which as you can see are quite friendly. The moose even talked!

We had a jam-packed 4th of July. First we woke up early and drove two cars over the bridge to Douglas. We left the truck there at the Bosmero's and then drove home. Then Laura got the rest of our supplies together while I made sure Meadow had a good breakfast. Then we hopped on our bikes and rode downtown for the first parade. Meadow clapped along, and cheered, and picked up the candy thrown from all the paraders. After we hopped back on the bikes and rode over to Douglas. Meadow fell asleep during the ride, and a good thing she did as it was the only nap she got all day! Once into Douglas we dropped off our bikes at casa Bosmero and switched to the stroller. We walked up to the Methodist church, hooked up with the Schmidts, and had deep pit BBQ (Austyn and Ryan had seconds!). Then we watched the Douglas parade a bit but not in its entirety because we wanted to hussle down to the ball fields for the 2yo 10-yard dash. Meadow came in 1st place in her lane! ;) Then we strolled the food court and bought a ridiculously humongous rice krispy treat, which we ate while strolling back to Bosmero's, where we hung with friends, played on the swing, didn't nap, and just downright enjoyed the day. At about 8:30 we drove home and MJ was asleep instantly. Mommy and Daddy shortly followed.

Here's a slideshow of the day's fun:

Recently on Facebook I linked with some old friends. This got me digging up the photo album and scanning a few 10-year-old pictures. While I was at it I found a few more gems. Like this one. Lu, Myself and nephew Joe were at Thane beach during the summer: built a fire, roasting hot dogs, skipping stones. Joe was at that fantastic age where everything is a wonder and discovery. He couldn't stop asking questions, including "Why did God make guitars?", "Why are there flowers?" and my favorite: "Do rocks burn?". (Those who know me should be able to guess the answer I gave him. :))

We've had a goodly amount of snow recently and it's one of Meadow's favorite things:

In fact, she was NOT happy we had to go inside:

Meadow enthralled us at the cabin with the telling of our epic adventure. She sensed we didn't quite grasp the moral of the story, so she was forced to repeat it with increasing ferocity all evening. And a little in the morning too. :)

Meadow made the excursion so much fun!

It's a lot of responsibility taking that 19-month-young baby through the Alaskan wilderness, in 30 degree weather, in up to 2ft of snow, with survival gear for three on a sled that isn't behaving. When the road got rough and too long, Meadow started to get fed-up with being in the backpack.

Thankfully my partner is "the bomb" and as a team I can't imagine anything we can't do.

We put our heads down and trudged through the snow and low light. The 2.5 miles took us 2.5 tiring hours. But once we arrived at the cabin Meadow bounced back with a big smile and big energy for the party.

This year, for our annual hike to/from Cowee Cabin for Bill's anniversary, since we have the baby we had to figure out a new way of lugging all our overnight gear. So we borrowed a harness and made use of Url's boundless energy. On the way out he didn't fair so well in the insanely deep snow, but some of that was our fault for being newbies at the sled thing (it kept wanting to corkscrew). On the way back the rain had packed the snow down nicely, plus I installed some stabilizing straps on the sled to allow us to control its torque and Url championed that thing! Good job Url! You earned mega points and an "A" grade for your performance.

Here's some footage of the stroll:

This year we did something very special for Christmas. We bought tickets to visit my family in Spokane, but didn't tell them! We showed up on my mom's doorstep Christmas Eve, my dad's Christmas Morning, and my grandpa Tom's a couple days later. No one knew and we successfully pulled off one of the biggest surprises we've ever done!

We put together a video of our visit. Click here to view the high-quality version:

Or, if you don't want to watch the high-quality version, here's a YouTube version:

Here's a fun lil E-Card wishing you all a Happy Holidays from Ryan, Laura, Meadow, and of course Url the dog.