End of our Alaskan trip #15

Last post for this trip! We finished up our trip with yummy food at a Salmon Bake in Fairbanks, joining up with an old friend, Hans, at a restaurant (he was in Fairbanks for business but lives in Hawaii), eating ice cream at Hot Licks,

enjoying cousin/aunt time,

and taking an awesome Paddle Riverboat ride in Fairbanks. The riverboat experience included watching a seaplane land right next to us, seeing a sled dog camp and presentation, and getting off to explore a Chena Indian Village. I really enjoyed the village...

Natalie is thinking, "Is that a real moose?" (It wasn't, but I think EVERYONE did a doubletake when they saw him).

My favorite part was going over to the sled dog area in the village. The dogs were fascinated by our little kids and they whole group of 8 or so ran over to them and kept trying to interact with the kids. Even when we moved, the dogs kept following us around the kennel area. Everyone in the crowd thought it was hilarious the dogs were so enamored with our young kids. Their trainer said they loved younger children because they were their size, their speech was higher, and their movements more unpredictable. The kids loved it.

It finally came time for us to leave. We were a little worried about getting out, because smoke from several forest fires made the whole area very hazy. We were a little bummed by the smoke because we couldn't go on some hikes we had wanted to, and one night, you felt like you were breathing only smoke! The smoke had even permeated into the movie theater and grocery store.

Luckily, after a 2 hr delay and our flight's 3rd attempt to land in Fairbanks so we could get on it, we were finally able to leave. We had to make our own fun in the airport while we were waiting:

Our red eye flight from Anchorage to DFW was one of the worst...Natalie screamed and cried for the first hour and a half and we got death stares from a couple in front of us (Josh and they had a not so nice chat in which they said that maybe throwing our child off the plane might be a good idea! Luckily, the stewardness backed us up and Natalie FINALLY fell asleep). The other 2 and I only got a minimal amount of sleep with Josh not sleeping at all. Needless to say, we were all completely wiped out when we got home and were grateful to walk into our door after being gone a month!

Alaska was such an amazing trip and I definitely recommend it to all. Definitely save up...it cost a lot more than we lot it would! I'm so glad we got to go, thanks for sharing our trip with us through our blog. Now I think I need a vacation just Josh and I...