NANA NELSON: Jim 's Turn's Sixty....What Sixty????- A Surprise Fishing Trip to Alaska

Jamie's family heart-attacked our yard & Jim's truck the night before his birthday...everything was so cute!

This is what he woke up to

Kneaders birthday breakfast with the littlest of the littles

We feel very blessed!! We had a wonderful night celebrating Jim's 60th at the Landmark with all four of our kids & their spouses. We are so grateful for every one of them & what they bring to our family, we love each of them so much!!

He had no idea until that night that I was taking him to Alaska to fish

Flying in to Anchorage

Our Alaskan vacation got off to a bumpy start. The plane was 2 hours late leaving Phoenix due to mechanical problems (1 1/2 hours stuck in the plane), which made us miss our connecting flight to Seattle. The flight attendants whisked away our two carry-ons & put it with our regular luggage, they said there wasn't any more space available in the upper bins. No time to take the most important things out. At the end of the flight we let the flight attendants know that we would be missing our connecting flight. They told us there would be a person at the kiosk as soon as we got off the plane in Seattle to help us. There was, but she said she couldn’t help us & sent us to a gate far away (we ran). That person at the kiosk said she couldn’t help either. At the last minute someone helped us & we quickly got onto a plane. But leaving there was definitely unsettling not knowing where our luggage was. We finally got to Seattle, but none of our luggage was on the carousel . Alaska Airline employees were very helpful. We spent a few more hours waiting for our luggage, the 3 pieces came on 3 different flights. It’s into the early hours by now & we had a two hour drive to our cabin. We were determined we were going to get there. But then we learned the road was closed due to an accident. At this point we had to find a motel. We ended up in a seedy motel getting a few hours of sleep. Needless to say we won’t be flying with American Airlines/US Airways again!! This picture was taken on the 4th of July as we were leaving the Puffin Inn (tired puffy eyes).

We quickly forgot about it & HAD SUCH A WONDERFUL WEEK IN GORGEOUS ALASKA!! We realized how fortunate we are, this was the 5th trip to Alaska for both of us!

We enjoyed the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, even though it was very rainy, windy & cold. We especially loved the bears (I am sure that's because they were behind an electricl fence)

This is our rental car & the cabin we stayed in at Gwynn's Lodge (Cooper's Landing)

Kenai Lake, the Kenai River & the Russian River has amazing blue-green water, it's beautiful!

Salmon fishing in the Kasilof River

Night 1: sushi

Night 2: grilled salmon

More exploring

Exit Glacier

We hiked to the Russian River Falls. This place is known for bear sightings, who go down & feed. A bear was on the trail, about 300 yards in front of Jim. I was a little behind him & I missed seeing it...fine by me! It's so crazy because we were coming in from our hike at 11:00pm & it was still light out.

Kenai Fjords 6 hour cruise...amazing!

Sea lions

Puffins

Mountain goats

Whales

Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture but six whales breached all at once, opened their mouths & went back in. It was awesome!

Glaciers amaze me

Jims very own iceberg

If you go to Kenai it's a must to go to the Burger Bus

This was the place where Joey spent a summer (before his mission) commercial salmon fishing. The Johnson's owed it & now the Markham family owns it. The Markham's have been patients of ours for a very long time. Little did Joey know then, that that job was a huge plus for him getting into medical school