Our Weekend

Saturday we headed out to the Knotty Shop. Lots of cool pelts, souvenir-type gifts, and wood carvings… we want to get a wood carved ‘Welcome Moose’ before we leave.  While we were there, they had these large wooden bugs… of course we had to get a picture by the Alaskan State Bird – the MOSQUITO!!!

Here are some more bugs/animals

 

Then we headed out the Chena Hot Springs.  We didn’t get to go in the actual hot springs, they only allow 18+ and we didn’t bring our swimsuits anyway. But here are some ducks and ducklings enjoying the warm water!

 

And the girls feeding the resident goats, Bert and Ernie

 

And inside the world’s largest year-round ice museum. They have 4 bedrooms where you can pay $575 a night to spend the night in the 20 degree hotel ice room!

Here is the workshop where the husband and wife team carve everything for the ice museum.

 

The ice bar where you can have an Apple Martini in a carved ice glass!

 

Here are some of the beds and ‘amenities’ in the ice rooms. The beds were covered in caribou hide.

 

The igloo with a Coke-a-Cola Polar Bear

And thankfully they provide the parkas! Maddie is snuggled in the sling underneath my parka! Karis kept saying she was cold and wanted Daddy to hold her. Puh-lease, it was warm – only POSITIVE 20 degrees – phssh! We can do that no problem!

 

Then on Sunday, after church we headed out to the Chena Riverboat Discovery in Fairbanks. We got to ride a Steamboat down the river, see a float plane take off and land, see Susan Buchers’ Iditarod dogs and kennel, and then there was an hour stop in a faux Chena Indian village where we learned about the Athabascan Indian traditions. It was so cool! The guides were young (18-25) but they were taught the native traditions growing up and plan on teaching their children.

Pictures of the boat

 

Traditional Chena Indian Parka

Some Reindeer

 

The girls by a large stuffed moose!

The float plane we saw take off

 

The dogs and the kennel. We even got a signed copy of the book Granite – who was the lead dog on Susan Bucher’s team for the four years they won the Iditarod

Here they are getting ready to pull this ATV around the track

 

So we had a jammed packed weekend – and Karis was a MONSTER on Sunday. We let her sleep in today and the little bum didn’t get up until 11am!!!

I’ll have more pics of the girls later – this post is already long. But Maddie had a well baby and Sierra has Cheer camp this week, so look later this week for an update.