Erin is Engaged

This summer, Erin and Jacob Fagersten began corresponding with one another via their phones and texts.  He moved from St. George, Utah back to Iowa where he moved in with Matt and Becca Fillmore.  Becca and Jacob are siblings.  

They saw one another a couple of times and he decided he needed to live closer so they could see where their relationship would go.  Just after we got back from Alaska, we had a picnic at the Gourley house where Jacob proposed to Erin.  I went but kept my distance due to the positive Covid test.

They are so good together.  He is chill and I think will compliment her beautifully.  She is stable and practical which will be good for them.

It's interesting how well he fits into our family.  Anyone she previously dated just didn't fit.

Erin has waited for so long to get to this point in her life.  I have prayed for her for years to find her person and leave the one that wasn't right.  Prayers answered in Jacob!

He currently has taken up residence at the Fillmore home and found employment at Seagrave.  It may not be his forever job, but it pays the bills.  

We love him and we love that Erin loves him!

 

Anchorage & Seward

Anchorage is a big city.  We took a tour of the city on a bus.  It was pretty interesting.

For instance, the photo below was commissioned by the high school class of 1971.  They had this put on the side of their school building and hired the painter to hide "71" in the mural.

Peggy Crowe came and got us on Saturday and we went touring to Seward with her.  

We rode up a mountainside via tram and got to see some beautiful vistas.  

I love the green of this mountainside.  

Peg drove us to Seward where we did a pretty easy hike up to see a glacier.

This glacier has receded a lot in the last 100 years.

  

Just before leaving for the airport we had breakfast at Gwennie's.  I had French toast and reindeer sausage again.  They gave me so much sausage that there was no way I could eat it all.  

This is Jen.  She was our tour guide for a week.

On our way back from Seward we saw this mama black bear with her three cubs just off of the road.

I love how the glacier has so much color and texture.

We spent our Sunday by going to church with an aunt and uncle of Erica Hoffman.  Later in the day, Jay and Peg picked us up and took us to their daughter, Janelle's home.  We spent our afternoon and evening with the Crowe family.  It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed being with family.  We laughed and talked and just connected with family we didn't know.

It was an amazing trip.  I'd like to go back again some day.

 

Train to Anchorage

We left Fairbanks for Anchorage aboard a train.  Everywhere we looked there were beautiful views.  

We didn't have a meal aboard the train.  We sat in the back of the car and read our President Oaks book.  The tour guide on the train was a student at BYU.  He noticed our book and we had a nice conversation.

It was a long, all-day ride but the views were great!  Pat had a very runny nose during this part of the trip.  It seemed like a really bad cold.  We found out that there were others who were not feeling well.  When we returned home we found out that it was Covid.  I got lucky and developed symptoms when we got home.  That was the only down side of the trip.
 

Denali

Denali did not disappoint.  We took a ride through part of the park.  There was a land slide which didn't allow us to go further.

We saw some wildlife.  Reindeer or elk were plentiful.

Breakfast the first morning was amazing.  Stuffed French toast.  It was so pretty I needed to capture it.  I had that with reindeer sausage.

Our bus driver/tour guide was great at finding the animals.  He had a scope that he could zoom in and we could look at the screen above the seats to get a closer look.  

There was a stop on the way into the park where we could use the pit toilets.  This deck was massive!

We saw this mama bear with her three cubs.

The views were just breathtaking!

This moose was the first animal we saw.  It was just in the riverbed just off of the road.

Mama bear.

Lots of elk/reindeer on the ridge as we were coming back out of the park.

Our last adventure in Denali was zip lining.  It was much colder than when we did it in Hawaii.  It was a little disconcerting when we climbed a rope bridge to a platform without any rails.  

Fortunately we didn't get rained on.  It was dark by the time we were finished.