Planes, Trams, and Automobiles

OK, so there were no trains...
As I mentioned in another post, it has been a busy month for us in a traveling way. If this gets a bit confusing...please pardon an old man. I had a continuing education meeting to go to that was required for the new optometry law here in Alaska. For 4 days every optometrist in Alaska was at the Alyeska Resort outside of Anchorage. It is a ski complex and with the long hours we put in very few went skiing...I wasn't one of them. However, this is where the Tram comes in. Dinner one night.. provided by one of our sponsors... was on the top of the mountain and we had to take the ski tram in order to eat. I have no pictures of this event because I lost the camera when I returned the rental car...must have left it and it either got thrown away or someone has a nice camera.
But, the next part of the trip involved 2 cameras... Anna's and Anneka's. My CE trip was just before our spring break trip to California. Lori, Meg, Charles, and Anna flew down on a Sunday and I flew overnight that same day from Anchorage, getting into Seattle at 3am and not leaving till 8am. Even that busy SEATAC airport was practictally empty at that time of night.
Richard flew down from Utah on Monday and Anneka, Mike, and Samantha came in on Wed. nite. Oh, we took D'Artagnan with us with a great haircut...a mohawk all the way down his back!! He fit right in in California.
It was weird to think that this will be the last time I'll see the house I grew up in as our family home. My mom now has it on the market and plans to move to a retirement community. Depending on how my dad does... that was very hard to see... I may have to wait till the next life to see him again. Mom seemed to enjoy the chaos that we all bring when we come. Lori arranged for us to do family pictures since all 6 of us were there. The previous post has some of those. First time in 4 years. I'm sure Mom was relieved to have a quiet place when we left. Oh, we also had staying with us at Mom's a friend of Meg and Charles...Ben. He is from Haines Alaska and Meg met him when she was on her way to her exchange...Ben went to Spain. He is on a "road trip" and was in Calif. when we were.
We went to the beach and D'Artagnan got to romp in the surf, went to Magic Mountain(a Six Flag park), Disneyland... Anna's first visit..., my mom treated us to a show in Hollywood- Wicked, we saw my dad, and just enjoyed mid-70s and sunny skies. We also got to see my cousin Josh and his family, my Aunt Susie and Bill, Mike got to eat at a South African place that Lori found(he was a missionary in Durban), and on our way back with a long layover in Seattle we spent some time with my brother David and his girls as well as another cousin...Luke. My sister-in-law, Debbie, had to work and we missed her. David fixed Lori and I an Easter dinner since Charles, Meg, and Anna went visiting with a friend. We also got to see David's gym. His so rightly proud of what he is doing there.
Since we got back from California I have been on a work trip to Klawock and now Charles and Meg are in Juneau for a state wide student council meeting and Anna is in Ketchikan for a track meet(she does shot put, discus, and sprints). Right now I don't even want to think about the crazyness in the next few weeks....more on that later.