YouTube Tuesdays - crazy bat trick!

Holy cow - watch this video. It's almost like an optical illusion.

Watch all the way to the end, he does the trick a bunch of times in a row.

Alaska sunset

Our last night sailing the 'seas' of Alaska.

The sun is setting behind us ... and it's probably about 10:30pm.

Got to love those really long sunshiny days!

Ice, ice baby

Our Alaskan cruise ended at 9am, and our flight wasn't until 9PM, so we had a lot of time to kill.

We signed up for a boat trip (small boat) that drove up close to a glacier near the cruise port.

Since it was still early 'summer', there was still tons of ice on the lake. The boat blasted thru some of the ice to get us closer to the glacier. The ice didn't look thick, but it really was!

Check out how think it is. And it's all crystallized. It reminded me of Superman's ice lair.

Seals

More Alaska stuff ...

Walking off our cruise ship in Whittier, AL, there was a big 'ol seal sitting on ... well I'm not really sure what he's sitting on.

But it's a seal! Cool!

Pee standing up?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/superpiipii.html

This is the greatest Wii game ever. What won't the Japanese think of next?

It's called Wii Pii Pii Brothers - get it?  Pee pee.

I love the jock strap thong thing that you strap your Wii remote to!

Pumpkins!

Since I don't really like eating veggies, but I enjoy CARVING veggies, I planted some pumpkins seeds.

After 1 week they were sprouting like crazy. After 1 month, they are out of control.

Pretty soon we won't be able to walk up the sidewalk to our house because it will be a pumpkin patch. Yay!

Beans

I planted some bean seeds and 1 week later they were growing.

One month later, they are huge! If I know anything about gardening (and I don't!), I believe the yellow flowers (which you might not be able to see from the photo) will turn into beans soon. Yay!

I don't even like veggies, but growing things is fun.

Disney's Treehouse Villas

Last weekend Jonathan stayed at the brand new Treehouse Villas.

This might be my new favorite resort.

The place was huge (full kitchen, living room, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) and it had a HUGE porch.

We were only there from 6pm until 10am the following morning, so we didn't get to spend much time there. I would be really fun to have a house full of friends of family and all hang out on that huge porch.

Each treehouse is nestled inside the forest, so outside every window is just trees, trees and more trees.

I highly recommend it!

More Disney photos at: www.wdw365.blogspot.com

UP characters

The day after we saw UP, we woke up early to make it to Disney's Hollywood Studios to meet the characters.

Russell wasn't there, but we met Dug and Carl. How cute are they?!?

Adventures with bias binding

Don't even ask me how many times I sewed on the bias binding (those black strips around the neck, arm pits and bottom). It was at least 4 times.

I would sew it on, realize it was wrong, take it off, then do it correct. Then the next day, I would sew on the arm pit holes, realize I forgot how to do it, and it's wrong again.

Etc, etc, etc. Grrrrr!

Again, more Walmart fabric. I just loved it!

The black belt looks pretty lame just hanging there, all limp. But when I belt it under my boobs (is that called 'empire waist'?), it's a pretty cute dress.

Again ... if I only ever wore dresses!

I can sew (barely)

So, if you've been following my blog, you remember I bought a sewing machine back in 2007, and I finally opened it a couple months ago.

I managed to sew something. I bought this fabric at Walmart for some low, low, super low price, and I made this tent looking dress out of it!

That ribbon wraps around my neck, and ties over one shoulder. And I used bias binding around the arm sleeves. Man, bias binding is a pain to use!

In typical Amber fashion, I cut off way too much on the bottom, so it's not as long as I would've liked, but it's still wearable.

Now if I only had a reason to wear dresses ...

English 101

Does anybody see anything wrong with the grammar on this t-shirt?

Jonathan pointed this out to me.

(photo taken at Epcot around 5/1/09)

Coral Princess

It was kind-of off to see a cruise ship next to snow capped mountains.

When I always thought of "cruise" I always thought "Caribbean" and "sunny" and "tropical"!

This is a photo of our cruise ship, the Coral Princess, in our last port, Skagway.

Red Onion Saloon

The Red Onion Saloon was around in 1898, when the big gold rush came (and went). I guess there were over 70+ bars and saloons in Skagway back in the good old days.

You can't really read the sign very well, but it says that the Brothel Tours are "$5 for 15 minutes ... just like back in 1898!"

Welcome to Alaska!

In Skagway, Jonathan took a train shore excursion and I took a bus tour. My bus tour went to the Yukon (in Canada), then back into Alaska.

We stopped a bunch of times for photo opportunities, and one of them was at the Alaska border.

Look out for bears!

I guess brown and black bears are everywhere in Alaska. When we were touring in a residential area, all the garbage cans (it was garbage day) were closed, and bungee cords were wrapped all around them.

The garbage cans in downtown were all large metal cans. They all involved a semi-complex way of opening (or maybe it was only complex for me).

Juneau

This was the scene we saw for 7 days in a row. Snow covered mountains were everywhere!  We never got tired of sitting on our cruise deck (in a lounge chair, all bundled up) and looking at the mountains.

One cool part of our cruise was the fact that we never cruised in the open ocean.  We were always really close to land, so there was always glaciers and mountain ranges to look at.

These particular mountains were in Juneau.

It's kind-of odd to be back in Florida and there are no mountains in sight.

You've got to hand it to Alaska, it was a very pretty, clean, and green state!  Now I'm motivated to plant some more trees.

Burger Queen

Check out this lovely burger joint we saw in Ketchican. The cute little Burger Queen.

Eagles!

We did a shore excursion in Juneau. One stop we made was near an old church with a great view.

While we were getting back on the bus, about 10 bald eagles put on a show for us. They were flying circles all around us.

Taking a photo of them was nearly impossible, but I wanted some proof I saw an eagle!

Mendenhall Glacier

The main shore excursion we did in Juneau was a trip to Mendenhall Glacier. I'm not sure why it is so famous, but it was a pretty cool glacier.

In hindsight, we saw about 10 more glaciers through out the cruise.

It's hard to see from the photo, but there is a bright blue spot on the bottom left side of the glacier. This is where a spot fell off the glacier over night. We never saw a glacier 'calve' (meaning, have a giant piece fall off), but when they do calve, it shows off the bright blue-ness of a glacier. I guess glaciers are so compact, that the only color that can penetrate thru them is blue. It's the same concept as deep underwater.

It wasn't very cold in Juneau, but when we got close to the glacier it was downright cold!!! I felt bad for the US Parks worker who was sitting right outside the glacier.

Ketchican

Our first stop was Ketchican, Alaska. We were only there until 1:30pm, so we had to hussle to see everything.

We didn't have any plans, but we found a walking tour map, so we started walking! Jonathan knows it's not a real vacation unless we walk a zillion miles around towns.

Each Alaskan city we visited had dock full of fishing boats.