Waa-Hoo for Vacay!

So when Stephen and I were trying to decide where we were going to go on vacation we knew that one thing was for sure: we needed to either go on a cruise (where food would be endless) or to an all inclusive resort (where food would be endless)...do you see the trend here?  Let me explain, my husband could easily eat us out of house and home.  If we didn't go on a cruise or to an all inclusive resort, one of two things would happen while we were on vacation: Stephen would be in a constant state of hungry OR we would have to take out a loan to live when we returned home because all our money would have been spent on food to feed his appetite.

Just 10 months ago we ventured to tropical paradise in St. Lucia for our honeymoon and because of that, I was open to the idea of going somewhere COMPLETELY different for vacation.  That's when we decided to go to Alaska!  I had never been anywhere like it and I was pumped and clueless as to what to expect as a result.  When we decided to go to Alaska, I found myself telling Stephen's mom and sister and was pleasantly surprised when his sister got so excited and wanted to join us!  So we cruised with Stephen's sister and her husband and we had a blast!  I'll share a few pictures of our amazing vacation and I 100% recommend that you get to Alaska sometime before you die!

We started out in Seattle.  Not only had I never been to Seattle, I also realized when we were looking out from the ship that I had never seen the Pacific Ocean before!  I was really excited when I realized that I was already seeing something that I had never seen before :).

Next stop was Juneau.  In Juneau we went and saw Mendenhall Glacier which is on a lake as well as we went dog sledding at a musher's camp where Alaskan Huskies are going through summer weight training as they prepare to race the Iditarod.

The next day we stayed on the boat while we ventured to Glacier Bay National Park.  This was a fun and relaxing day because we could just stay on the boat AND we got this beautiful scenery to gawk at.  I'm telling you, I've never seen anything like this before at all.

(I played around on picnick.com)

After spending a full day checking out glaciers, we headed off for the teeny tiny town of Sitka.  You may have heard of Sitka if you have seen the movie, The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock.  Let me tell you, this town is itty-bitty!  We didn't even pull up to a pier and dock, no, they threw an anchor down and then we took little boats to shore.  That should tell you something!  In Sitka we walked around the rain forest (rain forest in Alaska?! - yep!) and enjoyed nature and totem poles :).

(We found monstrous slugs)

After Sitka we were off to Ketchikan where we took the city bus and walked around the town.  We saw LOADS of salmon and also smelled a lot of nasty dead salmon that hadn't made it in their journey upstream.

Our last stop before disembarking in Seattle was to Victoria, British Columbia.  Unfortunately, this was our shortest port of call as we were only there for 4 hours and they were at night time - boo!  I would love to go back and see more of Canada, and I'm hoping since we share the same land mass as that country, that I'll be able to revisit again soon, someday.

So there's our trip - it was a beautiful and scenic journey!  I'm sad that vacation is over, but I look forward to having a great travel buddy to share in all my grand adventures for the rest of my life! :).

Also, this trip helped me knock 2 out of the 3 states that I wanted to visit this year as one of my New Years Resolutions...Looking at that list motivates me to get back on the band wagon for a lot of the others!

What about you - where have you traveled that I should consider putting on my "To Go To" list?