Alaska

Feeling on top of the world!


We definitely took a break from the temps in the mid-ninety’s in Ohio! Thank you for your awesome guesses!! We spent eight glorious days in Alaska and Canada! I would never have even thought of it, but Shayla had the inspiration for the trip.

Last September, I took Shayla out of Christi’s hospital room and sat her on my lap in the lobby of CHOP. I explained to her that the doctors could no longer do anything to help Christi get better and that most likely she would die within months, weeks or days. I wanted Shayla to make the decision as to if she would stay in Philly or return home and get back to school, after missing an entire week. She immediately burst into tears exclaiming, “I don’t want to be an only child,” and then she cried, “We’ll never go on vacation in Philadelphia again.” I explained to her, it had been anything, but a vacation. When you go on vacation, you go places you want to go to, not places you have to go to and not to get medicine. She perked up a bit and in her funny little manner with tears still streaking down her face asked, “Like Alaska?” I said, “Like Alaska!”

Well, I didn’t think anything else about it and our cold weather, Balto loving Shayla saying that – until……we put Christi in the ground on Saturday and on Sunday morning Shayla came downstairs and said, “Are we going to Alaska today?” I said, “What???” She said, “You said if Christi died we’d go to Alaska.” It all came rushing back to me. I kneeled down on the kitchen floor and hugged her and cried and said, “Shayla, I don’t know how expensive it is to go to Alaska, and I know we can’t go until summer, but I will start making some phone calls and see what we can do to try to get you to Alaska.” I realized at that point that if Christi ever would have said she wanted to go to Alaska we somehow would have made it happen for her, this should be no different for Shayla – she’s suffered terribly too.

Despite my numerous attempts, I was never able to use any of our frequent flyer miles to get Christi and I to Philadelphia. The free seats were always already taken, or they said for whatever reason I could not use miles and had to buy, often very expensive, plane tickets, instead of using the miles we were accumulating. After checking our frequent flyer accounts in October, I learned Shayne, Christi and I had enough miles to get us to Alaska – but Shayla did not. I called the airline and said, “I have two daughters. Only one is going to be able to make the trip to Alaska this summer. Can Christine’s miles be transferred over to her little sister?” Amazing! I couldn’t believe it! It was as easy as snapping my fingers together! Over the phone, I booked our three free flights. I couldn’t help but feel I had the assistance of a very special angel donating her miles to get her sister to the place she’s often talked about – Alaska!

Next, I found a cruise and booked what I thought was a reasonable price for a cruise - $899 per adult and Shayla’s fare was less. About a week before we left, my mom was checking into going because she checked and saw the fares had dropped to $450.00 per person. I called Carnival and told them I booked in October and they told me if the price went down they would refund my money. Of course, it was less than a week from sailing so they wouldn’t put it back on our credit card; however, I was very happy with their resolve. They gave us a shipboard credit to pay for excursions, tips, and Shayne’s bar bill (hee hee). They also upgraded us from an inside cabin to an outside cabin with a balcony. It was an incredible cabin! Unfortunately, for my mom to try a week before we left to get on our same flight would have been $3,000 so she didn’t join us, but her checking into it saved us a bundle and gave us a great balcony stateroom!

The highlight of everyone's vacation: DOG SLEDDING ON A GLACIER, ONLY ACCESSIBLE VIA HELICOPTER. AMAZING! Shayla summed it up best when she said, "It was like going to another world." At one point, as we slowly floated up to the camp, we were surrounded by total whiteness (white mountains, clouds) and a few very light streaks of the sun peeping through the top of the clouds. To me, it was like we were floating to Heaven. I could only wonder if this is how Christi felt as she left her body, nine months ago and danced into Heaven. It was incredibly peaceful and I've never experienced anything like it.

This is what three thousand years of ice looks like!
At a dog sled camp up on a glacier, only accessible by helicopter. Shayla's smile was incredible and never left her face!
Shayla's mushed. I read. (wink) You can't exactly relax when Shayla is your musher!
If you're not the lead dog, your view never changes. (hee hee).

OTHER PICTURES:

at the cultural center in Sitka, Alaska
Our first "formal night" on the ship. Shayla LOVED getting "fancied up" for dinner every night and being treated by our wait staff. What a hoot! She was little miss polite and grown up. Precious and charming!
Enjoying the Summer Solstice in Alaska - the sun never set! 24 hours of light was very odd to us. This photo was taken about 10:30 PM! We didn't seen total darkness until we returned home. Wild!
I guess I forgot to tell Shayla that the life boat drill was to be taken seriously.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Ketchikan, Alaska
In the Yukon (Canada) after horseback riding.
Skagway, Alaska

A breathtaking day at sea made it hard to leave our balcony cabin. Check out this incredible view!
There were very few orbs (310 photos and only two orbs!) in our pictures, but here's one on Shayne's PENN shirt as he enjoys "high tea" onboard the Carnival Spirit.
The other orb was noted above Shayla's little roll away bed while she slept on our first night in Anchorage where we met up with Marty and Jeff.
Goofing around on the "World's Smallest Desert"