This is the pool at our house
The back view of our house, on the water! (not the beach, just part of the canal)
Our rides for the week
Front view of our gorgeous palace for the week! 7 bedroom and 4.5 bathrooms! Pool, tennis court(we're not tennis players tho!), playground (sliver heaven), boat slip, short walk to beach, get lost looking for your bedroom...it was amazing
Hey ya peeps!! Sorry we haven't updated since our parents left.... here is what we have done.
We backpacked in to Symphony Lake w/ Erin, Shawn, and our dogs. It is a total of a 12 mile hike, including a boulder field! We stayed for one night, fly fished for grayling and backpacked out. We had a lot of fun! :).... even though Tundra was going through a "monster" phase and got into a lot of trouble--he was testing us!
Next we went dipnetting for red or Sockeye salmon. Each household gets 25 fish for the head of the house and 10 for each family member. You can dipnet from shore or a boat. This was our first time and we took our boat. This year was a crazy, record-breaking red salmon year and we hit it the first day the big rush came through. We had our 35 fish in two hours! :) It was chaos but so much fun. I will have Adam upload videos/pictures for the next blog update. It was very hard work, but totally worth it!!
Then Adam's cousin, Doug and his wife, Steph, came up to visit. We did A LOT of hiking---like seriously... 28-30 miles in the week they were here. And not flat hikes... mountain hikes! They got to see a lot of wildlife and we got into the red salmon pretty good. Since so many fish were coming into the river, they raised the daily limit to 6. So--we got 48 fish after two days of fishing! It was a blast and they got to take two full coolers home!
Finally...we went to Sanibel Island/Captiva Island in Florida for the Harris/Kucera family vacation! Our families enjoyed a week of sun and relaxing together.......it was amazing! I will start out w/ a few pics from Sanibel, then go in order!
Finally...we went to Sanibel Island/Captiva Island in Florida for the Harris/Kucera family vacation! Our families enjoyed a week of sun and relaxing together.......it was amazing! I will start out w/ a few pics from Sanibel, then go in order!
The whole family in one photo! :) Kucera's and Harris' together
Our attempts at jumping pics-- impossible w/ 20 people, including two toddlers! But it was a riot trying! :)
Another close one
Look at all of us hunched over and knees bent.... getting ready to jump!
Adam and I got to go parasailing..... look how high we were! :)
We saw stingrays in the water below us
They even dipped us down in the water....it made me a tad nervous!
Now on to the Symphony Lake backpack adventure. This is the boulder field we hiked over to get to the lake- you can kinda see us in the picture.
This is the other lake right next to Symphony...... we watched "hatchings" occur. The white blurs on the lake are some type of insect larvae hatching..........and no,that goodness we did not get bombarded with insects!
Beautiful view while around the campfire.
Family pic!
The ladies and the pups!
My first fish caught w/ my fly fishing pole! A lil grayling
Now on to Doug and Steph's visit..... the result of our two-day fishing trip...... 48 fish!
Our lil assembly line in the kitchen. We returned from fishing at noon, vac-packed 48 fish, packed for Sanibel and all 4 of us were on a plane at 9 p.m..... it was a crazy day. Thank goodness for Doug and Steph being awesome helpers! :)
Our first day's catch! :) Soooooooo much fun! 
Doug and Steph caught on very fast
A thumb's up for the cow and her calf (moose of course!)
This is Exit Glacier- we hiked up the mountain to the right to see the Harding Ice Fields. They estimate it should take 6-8 hours round trip. It took us 5!!!!! Including lunch and a snowball fight at the top!
Ah yes-- a jumping picture
The Harding Ice Fields.... feeds a large amount of glaciers (I don't remember how many... 40-some maybe!??!)
The Ice Fields.... looked like whipped topping or frosting or something spread between the mountain tops
Just hiking through the snow!
The top of the glacier ... falling from the ice fields
The glacier from the bottom
A nice mooser we saw on one of the 7 mile hikes
This is another mooser.... the massive bull that Tundra decided to chase. Luckily- the moose ran away from him which was not expected. Adam chased them both and tackled Tundra, leaving all kinds of scrapes on Adam's body. ----we have heard too many stories of dogs being trampeled by moose. We were lucky! (oh.. and Tundra is now being trained with a shock collar. The whole program and training with a shock collar is quite impressive and not nearly as "BAD" and "HORRIBLE" that I thought it would be. It is just too dangerous for a dog... and their owners in Alaska. Tundra is doing very well after only 5 days of training!)
Check out this bore tide! Not very big, but still very cool to see! (shifting of extreme low to extreme high creates this "wave" across the inlet)
A beautiful day for a 7-mile hike! Oh and Adam and I went directly to our softball game after this!
A very young black bear that we were lucky enough to watch for awhile. We kept expecting to see mama, but never saw her. 
We found a geocache (well, two actually...... like 5ft from each other. it was weird) We hiked up Mt. Baldy and then to the second peak. It was gorgeous until we got half way up the second peak, then the clouds moved in. By the time we got to the top, we were surrounded by clouds (couldn't see Baldy below us anymore) and it started to rain and HAIL!!!!! It was craziness, we couldn't even see the path on our hike down, which we basically did on our butts because it was so slippery. ..... after finally reaching the bottom, we decided we had a blast! :)
Adam and his best buddy, glassing for wildlifeOkay- on to Sanibel again!
Our beach scene every day. Adam and I took this alcove to set up for shade for the kiddos. We also hauled chairs from our house and all kinds of floaties each day. Luckily the walk from the house to the beach was short!
The crew walking to the beach!
The girls loved swimming, loved looking for shells, loved hopping over waves, loved making sand castles......but I think their most favorite was sitting on shore and letting the waves crash into them. We had to empty their sandy swimsuit bottoms each time we left the beach! (aka-"dirty diapers")
Jeanette and Kevin were super kind and watched the kiddos while the rest of us went to the crab races. $5 buys a crab--- the winner won $300-some dollars.. The guy is very entertaining and it was a great time.
And they're off!!! We were cheering for JD(Jack Daniels), George, Al, Sugar Tits, Fly, Frito, ....hmm and I can't remember the other 3. We obviously got to name them-- it was fun.
Just a couple of the shell piles picked up by the girls
Breanna found this rare "brindle star fish"... she said, "I just put my hand in the sand and it jumped right on!" She didn't even know it was there! Quite amazing
After the crab races, some of us went for our own crab races with flashlights on the beach. We were chasing and catching these crabs for...like...ever- because it was SO much fun.
One of my brothers and their pincher wound!
This was our day, every day! Drinks and relaxing at the beach!
Check out the lightening streak in the distance
Here we are at Bubble Room. Our crew took over a room in the restaurant. The Bubble Room is a MUST on Sanibel Island because of their crazy good and crazy HUGE deserts! :)
Our beach scene every day. Adam and I took this alcove to set up for shade for the kiddos. We also hauled chairs from our house and all kinds of floaties each day. Luckily the walk from the house to the beach was short!
The crew walking to the beach!
The girls loved swimming, loved looking for shells, loved hopping over waves, loved making sand castles......but I think their most favorite was sitting on shore and letting the waves crash into them. We had to empty their sandy swimsuit bottoms each time we left the beach! (aka-"dirty diapers")
Jeanette and Kevin were super kind and watched the kiddos while the rest of us went to the crab races. $5 buys a crab--- the winner won $300-some dollars.. The guy is very entertaining and it was a great time.
And they're off!!! We were cheering for JD(Jack Daniels), George, Al, Sugar Tits, Fly, Frito, ....hmm and I can't remember the other 3. We obviously got to name them-- it was fun.
Just a couple of the shell piles picked up by the girls
Breanna found this rare "brindle star fish"... she said, "I just put my hand in the sand and it jumped right on!" She didn't even know it was there! Quite amazing
After the crab races, some of us went for our own crab races with flashlights on the beach. We were chasing and catching these crabs for...like...ever- because it was SO much fun.
One of my brothers and their pincher wound!
This was our day, every day! Drinks and relaxing at the beach!
Check out the lightening streak in the distance
The crew at sunset
Here we are at Bubble Room. Our crew took over a room in the restaurant. The Bubble Room is a MUST on Sanibel Island because of their crazy good and crazy HUGE deserts! :)We saw a lot of wildlife and the girls loved it! We saw lizards, geckos, several kinds of crabs, snakes, jellyfish, stingrays, a baby shark, sea turtle nests, a land turtle, and MANATEES! I am trying to upload two videos--it's not working. I'll try again soon!
