summer

After school ended, i felt like we hit the ground running.  The day after school ended keely and I went on our summer "girl scout" trip. Keely started in this troop when she was in the 1st grade. We were never a traditional troop and made it more of a mom co-op troop and traded off running it and finding more creative and adventurous things for the kiddos to do. When we hit the wall of the girls being too old for girls scouts we changed it into a mother/daughter group. We all agreed that the girls were so busy with other things that if they going to be involved in this we wanted to have something that we did together with our girls that was inspiring and creative and take risks that would foster our own relationships with our pre-teen daughters. So we decided on less is more and would get together 3 times a year. We do a community service, like this year we made over 300 hundred fleece hats and donated them to a few different charities. We do a backpacking camping trip in the fall or winter. We travel to a different southeast community every summer. So far we have gone to Klukwan (a Tlingit village outside of Haines), Sitka, and this year we went to Petersberg and Wrangell. 

We had an amazing time. We took the ferry with our bikes. (traveling by ferry and bike is the best!) After exploring Petersberg the next day we rode our bike 25 miles to a boat landing and got picked up by a water taxi and took off for Wrangell. We stayed at a hostel and the next day went up the Stikine River. (I honestly didn't think this was going to be exciting since I spend so much time on the Chilkat)It was amazing! we played on sand dunes, waded through the water and hiked a trail to get to a natural hot spring where the forest service has built some hot tubs! and where the Malaspina glacier meets the river is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. There were hundreds of ice bergs floating in the river and the smell/mist in the air was so refreshing, it was the loveliest experience. 

I was so proud of Keely on our 25 mile bike ride , we rode the last 8 miles together and pushed ourselves to go faster. We rode in wind and pouring rain and we did it together. I am very lucky to have a daughter like Keely, she is amazing.