Adventures in babysitting

My friend Lindsay and her husband went out of town for a few days, and she asked me if I could watch her kids (ages 11, 9, and 5) while they were gone....Sure!  Why not?

Well, we all have survived!  :)  And we even had some fun along the way...

Wednesday.  Day one.  Hiking group, bike ride, and cupcakes.

Hiking group has started back up again (after taking 2 weeks off for 4th of July and Activity Day Camp).  We went back to the North Fork trail.  And to our dismay, the wonderful peninsula the kids played on last time was now an island.  However, that didn't stop some of the kids from making their way through the shallower parts of the freezing glacier water.

 One little kid in the group asked me if I would carry him across the water.  I told him "no way!"(...besides go ask your mom...not me!)

Needless to say, we didn't stay as long as we did last time.

Here are some cool things we saw along the trail.

Some berries.  (Berry season is coming!)

Caterpillars! (although...I don't think they are the nice kind...)

After we got home, we ate lunch and then went on a bike ride to the "bridge".  (I call it the "Welcome sign bridge".)

After that, we went out to buy cupcakes from the cupcake truck.  I bought one of every flavor, and they were all very delicious!

Thursday.  Day two.  Sand dunes, McDonalds, and movie.

I saw on Facebook that my friend was taking her kids to the sand dunes in Anchorage.  I was intrigued by the thought of there being any such thing anywhere in Alaska.  So I googled it.

I made plans to head down to Kincaid Park.  The kids whined: "we're going to drive all the way to Anchorage to see a pile of sand?"  Skeptics.  They had no idea the fun that awaited.  (I didn't either...I had my fingers crossed that we could actually even find them...and that it wouldn't be lame...)

Well first of all the sand dunes are located by a motocross park.  So they got to see motorcycles doing jumps and stuff.  They loved it!  (And now they all want to ride motorcycles.  Lindsay-you are welcome...)

Eventually we made it to the top of the sand...(which was directly behind where we were standing while we watched the motorcycles...)

Lovely view of the mud flats...and ocean.

We walked to the north side of the sand dune and soon the playing (running, jumping, rolling, digging) began.

The pictures don't do the steep sandy hill justice.  I ventured down half way...and is it what it looks like when you turn around to come back up---

Here is a picture looking across the Cook Inlet to Point McKenzie.

We stayed for 2 hours or so.  (And for future reference...have kids take extra clothes when you go here. I had them take extra shoes and socks...not clothes.  Oh well.  You live you learn.)

Oh this is what the trail looks like on the way to the sand dunes...  You go from forestation...to desolation...it's so weird!

And then we were off to find the closest McDonalds!

After lunch we went back home and the kids showered and changed, and got ready to go to the movies.  We saw the new Ice Age movie.

It was a very fun day!

Friday.  Day three.

I wanted to go to the park, but the kids didn't...  Weird.  Whatever... They were probably still trying to recover from yesterday's awesomeness.