a tall personality

darn this picture was supposed to go at the bottom! This is solomon gulch fron the back, that's suglarloaf on the right. The dam on the lake was overflowing like a banshee! The nice little trickle that make the waterfall we take the summer fun kids to was a torrent! The far side of that lake is where the pictures of me walking on the damm (later in my blog) were taken

The fam squeezed into an elevator

Us three after our cousin Mindy's wedding. When did Casey get so handsome?

Probably only Kaela will squeal with jealousy at this picture. We got to go to church with the Olkjers! This are the coolest little boys and girl I have ever known. Left to right: Logan, Peyton, Satch (holding the paper), Annie, Michaelin, me, Grant.

The first thing we did when we got home is went into the back yard and picked 5 bowls of raspberries! This took us about 1/2 an hour, I couldn't believe it. About every 3 or 4 days we pick like that. Annie and I made jam out of a few of them, but the majority go to making wine.

This was our crazy frisbee game the day after we got home. It was pouring down rain, and the soccer field was one giant puddle, but did that stop us? I think not!

Silly me, that's an iceberg not a salmon! No, we needed ice for the cooler, well first, we found a bigger iceberg, and what did we do? We shot it with a gun to make it smaller! Only in Alaska. Later we found this one and since I was already a pro at fishing for ice because I did it every day last summer, they let me do it. I've still got it in me.

filleting the silver salmon Annie and I caught. It's not a trip to Alaska unless you've been covered in fishblood

Just in case anyone forgot I am Sarah from Alaska, we shrunk Alaska so that I could stand on it. Don't worry though, we restored it to its original size.

Me walking on the dam at Solomon (there is a picture later of solomon gulch from the air, keep your eyes open for it). There's about a 6 foot drop on either side, one side onto razor sharp rocks tipped with poison and on the other side, into a swirling lake of near freezing water of death! Ok so it wasn't that bad, but the path was nonetheless 'strait and narrow'

Me jumping over a post on the spillway at solomon gulch. We decided to go geocaching with our dad and aunt Katie before we went to the pass.

This is me walking on the streambed to the tree of life (the one and only tree we saw on the whole hike) We're hiking Oddesey by the way. We started at the top of the pass and hiked up the ride more or less. It was foggy so we couldn't really tell where we were going, we just tried to keep going up. We ended up just above the stream the cat trail takes in the winter

This is Annie about where we stopped, you can just see the road making a hairpin turn on the left side of the picture in the clouds. We turned around before the top because a. it was super foggy b. we had run out of time and c. we thought we heard a bear and both of us looked at each other and said "good feeling gone", and we were out of there.

This was the route we decided to take back to the road instead of walking along the ride we walked up. Not the smartest thing we've ever done but it did get us out of the fog (and frankly I was a little afraid of getting lost). That curvy thing way down there by the lake is the road

Some flowers in the pass

This is the Valdez Glacier Lake, my dad, my sister, Bonnie and I went kayaking out there one rainy and windy day. The ice bergs were huge and mobile and we were trying to be quick and get between them, it was like being in a maze were the passageways were almost imperceptibly shrinking. My hands were freezing cold because, like I said it was windy and rainy so I didn't take many pictures. It was beautiful though, a great adventure!

That's Valdez folks! I wasn't joking when I said it's a little shelf of land between the mountains and the ocean. I wouldn't have it any other way

Doesn't that mountain look formidable? And don't we look like we're flying awfully close to it?

the lake right under the clouds I thought would be a perfect place to go camp or build a cabin or something. A glacial lake, so the water would be good, there was ice next to it, it's not far from the water, there's a flat green spot behind it, not to mention the unbelievably pointy mountain in the distance! Perfect!

a light bulb we found on the beach. We were puzzing over how fragile light bulbs are and how in the world one coudl have survived the storm and ended up on the beach intact!

Because it has been stormy for the last month with a Southern wind, the beach was covered in fun stuff! I tried to take home a perfectly whole little dead crab but dad said it would stink. He wouldn't let me even after I offered to give it to him! That's our little plane there in the middle. It should have a name, it certainly has character, but for not we'll call it 801bw (read 801 bravo wiskey of course)

A little salmon stream that comes out on the West side of the beach, I wanted to wade across it and go out to that point and stand on the rocks as the waves were crashing into them like the Little Mermaid, but the weather was rolling in so we had to turn around.

Dad and Annie on the beach, those clouds rolled in out of nowhere. We were walking around, dilly dallying, enjoying the beautiful day. We turned around and saw the weather and decided it might be time to head back to the plane. Once we got there Annie and I were getting situated and brushing the sand off and my dad said "girls, get in NOW we're leaving" so we hopped in and off we took!

Hook Point and the beach (where we were walking) after after takeoff looking East. Notice the clouds that were not there before.

This is is the gap in the clouds we flew through to get over the island, the way we came was completely covered. It was absolutely beautiful after we got through here

This was on top of Hinchinbrook Island after we flew under the clouds, it was beautiful! I could spend months there! As long as they were sunny months. We saw about 7 deer by that lake!

On my honor, I promise that I have not touched this picture with a photo editor, the lake was really that color. I don't know how He does it.

The spot of water in the middle is the Port of Valdez, we were flying home from the South through the mountains. I had never seen Solomon from the air before, the lake is HUGE! And there's a copper mine a ways back there I didn't know was there. If it wasn't nearly completely inaccessible I would want to go explore it, any ideas?

This is a picture of the pure joy at 4 in the morning when Annie and I were reunited! Yep, that's what pure joy looks like.

I wanted to keep this strictly to weird pictures of me, or the closest to normal pictures I could find rather. This one though is so awesome when I found it, I couldn't help putting it up too. This is what I did on spring break my senior year. That's what March in Valdez looks like.

So this is where it all started. This is probably my favorite pictures of me as a baby, my sleeper in unbuttoned like Elvis, and everything about my face is saying "huh?"

Annie is the cute one on the right, my dad is in the middle, and I am the weird looking baby on the left.

Me again, surprised! I never noticed before that my mom was wearing a flower. There are several pictures of me with that dinosaur...that's kind of weird now that I think about it

Lillian said she wanted some pictures of me since I was always the photographer, so we spent a whole night (from 11-2 or something) just taking pictures, and this one is the most normal we could muster

This might have been cute if I hadn't been trying to bite Chelsea's ear

My sister and I dressed up like our parents having dinner at my friends house, we even tried to sit on the couch like they do

Me asleep on the Spanish steps in Rome and Brian making fun of me. I hope you can imagine the potential for great pictures, the Spanish steps are beautiful. But do I have any? No, no I sure don't.

Chelsea and I before we dove into some salt mines in Hallstatt. We were wearing clothes over our clothes over our clothes and as you can see, we were darn happy about it!

This is Rome, Lauren and I were very lost and we decided to take a picture of how sad we were to cheer ourselves up. Out of all my Italy pictures, this is probably the most normal

This is in a former prison in Prague, I think I was being imprisoned in my bed at least for the moment. Look at that face, is that not the face of a prisoner who has learned her lesson?

My best friend Katie and I at some dance in highschool. Instead of having our pictures taken like everyone else, we found this big wooden thing and just took our own picture! It kind of ruins the intended effect of the board, but fits nicely into the plethora of odd pictures of myself

This is my coming home from Europe the second time. No joyful reunion with my family pictures, just me sitting in the back of my dad's plane looking goofy

Ok this one was totally appropriate but still weird. We were staying in a hostel that had been a prison during the revolution in the Czech Republic, I must admit, I am proud of these, there's no better place for weird pictures than in a prison

The most famous park in Vienna next to the Riesenrad, a historical site. And here I am hugging Chelsea's feet

This was in Austria in a REAL Austrian restaurant in Salzburg, perfect place for a picture to remember forever. What am I doing? Holding a wooden knife and a giant beer mug (had water in it)

This was a beautiful hike I went on with some friends. The clouds made that shadowy pattern on the mountains, it was a beautiful bluestery perfect day, and what did we take a picture of? Me putting on my sweat shirt. Two thumbs up.