You probably haven’t noticed because I scheduled a few posts for this blog while I was gone, but I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks.  My parents took us on a fabulous vacation to Alaska.  We went on a cruise for seven days and then spent three days inland at Denali National Park and around Fairbanks.

We started by spending a day in Vancouver, which is such a beautiful city.  We went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park and had so much fun.  There are lots of fun things to see and do there, but the highlight is the amazing suspension bridge which crosses the Capilano River.

The view was incredible, but the bridge swayed a LOT — not for the faint of heart.  One of my kids wasn’t too excited when he figured out that we’d have to re-cross the bridge to get back to the car.  My youngest wanted to cross it over and over again.

Our cruise was beautiful.  I loved the beautiful scenery, which is SO different from where we are in Texas.   The weather for most of our trip in Alaska was rainy and cold.  We had some sunshine every now and then, but for the most part, it felt like winter to this Texas girl — temps in the 40s.  But we just bundled up and put on our rain coats and didn’t let the weather stop us from enjoying the beauty of Alaska.

We were there for the Summer Solstice, and I knew before we went that summer days in Alaska are very long.  But I had no idea just how many hours of sunlight they get every day.  I don’t even think it ever got dark on some nights.

We took a rafting trip outside of Juneau for one of our excursions.  Here’s a picture of us with a view of the Mendenhall glacier (it’s on the left side of the picture), which is where our raft departed.

There was a group of approximately thirty Santas on our trip.  And I mean the real kind of Santas — no fake beards or hair in this group.  They were attending a class taught by the International University of Santa Clause (I’m not making this up).

They were a fun group, and we all felt like we needed to be on our best behavior while they were around.  So what does Santa wear on one of the formal nights on the cruise?  Here’s my youngest with a Santa on formal night.

So when I got back and got through a mountain of laundry (two weeks of clothes for five people), I hurried to my stamp room.  I hadn’t stamped in two whole weeks!  It took me a while to to make a card again, but it felt so good.

My dad has a birthday this week on July 4th, so I need to get this in the mail today.  There’s not a lot of stamping on this card, but the sentiment is from the photopolymer set, Endless Birthday Wishes.

Enjoy your Monday!  Thanks for stopping by!