Day 2 Of Our Alaska Trip, March 17th

On the first day in Alaska we saw tons of wild animals at our hotel, The Millennium Alaskan Hotel.  I hope I get to see mountain sheep in Alaska.  

The Iditarod was in March.  It starts at the hotel we stayed at so we got to see the Iditarod map and the mushers.  

When I looked at this chart I saw all of the mushers, when they finished, and what place they got in the race.  

We looked them on the Iditarod website too.  A girl got second in the race.  I think it is really cool.  

I was so surprised when I saw the mountains for the first time in Anchorage.  I knew this was going to be a good trip. 

We found a little coffee shop and bakery.  I had my favorite....a vanilla steamer.  

We walked to Resolution Park to see the statue of Captain James Cook.

In 1778, Captain Cook was trying to find a passageway to the ocean.  He found it was a dead end so he had to go back.  

I love learning about history especially sports history.  

This park looks out over Cook Inlet which is part of the Gulf of Alaska.  In this picture it shows where Mt. McKinley is at.  Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America.  We saw it when we looked very carefully over the trees.  

 I also learned today we are only 63 miles from Siberia, Russia.

We looked for a beluga whale.  They have white skin.  They are still whales. 

Next, we went to a museum downtown called Anchorage Museum.  

You can read all about the museum if you click on this website.

We first checked out the Imaginarium Discovery Center.

I sat in this chair and pulled myself up.  

Dad pulled me up and let go, and I went down. 

 Me and my Dad tried to launch a rocket.  And it worked.

Me and my Mom are blowing up a balloon with hot air.  We made it go up. 

I made huge bubbles. 

This is Dad and I making waves liked a tsunami that went over little houses on the other end. 

I saw silver salmon.  This is the kind of fish that grizzly bears eat.  I bet they rescued the fish from the water.  

 There was a place in the museum that had old plane stuff and facts.  It was called Arctic Flight.

 I sat in the cockpit of a tiny plane.  I turned all of the switches on.

This plane was really cool!  

Dad told me that this was Russian plane that collided with another plane.  

I learned that America shipped planes to Montana to get them ready to send to Fairbanks.  They had blue stars but they painted over them with red paint for the USSR.  The Americans leased them planes. 

 I watched a video about planes.

I read a comic called Danger in the Arctic.  Mom and I thought it was the biggest comic ever.

They had a great area with lots of historical things from Alaska.  

They showed all kinds of supplies, weapons, and clothes that they made.

This is how they delivered the mail.  They put it on a big sled and took it through the snow.

This part of museum also had a lot of different houses people in Alaska lived in.  I thought the Russian Blockhouse was the coolest.  It had a canon in it and a bear right in front of the canon (but you couldn't touch it or go into the blockhouse.) 

 I walked under the boats.  They were really big.

 I found a sled like the ones the mushers used in the Iditarod.

In a few days we will go to Valdez.  We will see part of the pipeline.  The pipeline runs oil from northern Alaska to the port in Valdez.

It is huge!  

After the museum, we went on a drive to see the mountains. 

                            

This is someones view.  I would like that.  They get a ton of snow. 

We ate at Moose's Tooth Pizza.  It was really good.  I didn't have pizza, I had a turkey, bacon, swiss cheese, and ham sandwich.  We had lemon cake and it was special because it was called Lemon Love Cake.  

We had the best, best, best first day in Alaska ever.  

I can't wait for tomorrow.  

Alaska Is Awesome....The Story Of My Spring Break Day 1, March 16th

Hi friends.  I am back blogging. I have been busy with stuff like school. But I told my Mom I want to blog a lot again so here I am.

And it is a great time to blog because I am in Alaska on my awesome spring break trip with my Mom and Dad.  My Mom is going to talk at a library conference in Alaska so she asked us to come with her.  She is the teacher librarian at my school in Van Meter.

Our trip started in Minneapolis.  We drove from our friends John and Pam Carver's to Minneapolis on Saturday night.  We went to John's new school today. On the way to the airport we had dinner with Randal and Kitty. They gave me a cool book about oceans.

I was excited to get to the airport. 

We didn't leave until 9:30pm.  We had time to play checkers and hangman in this cool place at the airport.  

Mom thought it was cool too how many iPads were in the airport. 

Mom and I sat together on the plane.  Dad sat right in front of me.  We had lots of things to do and I had my iPad.  Mom bought snacks at the airport too.

On this plane we could look at a map to see our plane and where it was at.  We had a long way to go.  It took us 6 hours to get to Anchorage.

 I got to pick out movies to watch.

I only get ginger ale when I fly on airplanes.  I had two this time.

We got to Alaska at 12:30am. But it was really 3:30am our time in Iowa.  I liked the giant birds in the airport. 

 We found a cab to take to our hotel....I couldn't wait to get there.

We are staying at the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage.  When we walked in there were lots of animals to look at.   And lots of Iditarod things too.  This is the hotel where the Iditarod race starts.  I was excited to look at this in the morning.

I can't wait to tell you what happens on my first day in Alaska.

I am having a great time so far.

An AWESOME Week....Sleep Over With Easton, Making Sock Puppet Movies and Clifford Day!

My friend Easton and I had a sleep over last night.  I like it when Easton comes over because I have someone to play with.  He is cool and one of my best friends. I have known him since preschool at Country Kids Club.  

We played with my LEGO world downstairs.  I stacked all of the little people up around the room.

Easton and me played with LEGO's for four hours straight.

Yesterday in the library, Mom taught us about the Sock Puppets app after we read Cece Bell's book Sock Monkey Boogie Woogie.  I noticed right away that it was the same illustrator and author that wrote Bee-Wigged.  I love Cece's books.  

In Sock Puppet, you can make a puppet show.  You choose characters, your stage and you can make the puppets talk.  When you are taping, they are saying the same thing you are.  When you are finished with your puppet show, you can listen to it and share it on YouTube with your classroom or on a stage.

Today, Easton and I made a Sock Puppet play.  It was about detention and the library at school.  It was super funny.

After Easton went home, Mom and I put the Sock Puppet app on her iPad.  I made more plays about the sock puppets in space.

Yesterday was also Clifford Day in first grade.  Miss Edwards, our class helper, made us all Clifford hats.  We ate lunch in small gym with our families.

We did a play about having good manners.  I had a part in the play.  I read books to my Dad and Mom.  I read Clifford Pal's to my Dad.  

And we even had a special guest.....Clifford, the Big Red Dog.  I think he looks a lot bigger on the cartoon.  

This week was awesome!

In My Basement I Have An Awesome LEGO World

One of my favorite things are my LEGO's.  I have a ton of them.  

For Christmas this year, that is all I wanted.  I got four boxes....three were really huge.  After I started adding them to my other sets I decided to move them all to the basement.  I call this my LEGO World.  Jaden and I set it all up.  

I have different tables that I can sit at to build them and play.  My Mom put a book together with all my LEGO directions.  I read them to build more.

I love my Castle LEGO's.  

 And this new Medieval Village.  It is really really cool because it looks like a real village.  

 My Kingdom LEGO's are awesome too.  I have two castles.

When my Mom went to Washington D.C. on a blog mission she bought me this White House LEGO.  It really isn't LEGO brand though....I hope she gets me the real one someday too.  

I really like playing with all the little LEGO people.  My brother Brady had a lot too.  I order them online and buy them in stores but cannot tell what they are until I open them up.  I set up a LEGO speech on the basement store.  They are telling a speech about how they might win or they might not win the war.

Last weekend, Jaden and I made two LEGO ships.  They are called the Black Pearl and Queen Anne's Revenge.  They are from Pirates of the Caribbean.  

 Jaden built the Black Pearl and I helped him with a few little parts.

My pirate ships is my fifth favorite LEGO's.

My favorite is my Kingdom Castle.

I hope you like my LEGO World.