Aunt Billie's and Cousin Herschel's Birthday Party

Yes, the birthday party/mini-reunion was mainly to celebrate Aunt Billie reaching the milestone of her 90th birthday.  (We wouldn't have had such ceremony for Herschel's 29th birthday.)  But since so many people from the Slosberg and Ellis families were together, it seemed like a great idea to add to the celebration.
Aunt Billie has six grandchildren, five grandsons and one granddaughter.  Five of the grandchildren were able to travel from California or Nevada to celebrate their grandmother's birthday, which is actually in September.  (My cousin Ricky and his wife Nancy figured more people would be able to come in August before the school year started than if they waited until September.)
From left to right is Gabriel Slosberg, Alex Marcus, Herschel Slosberg, Billie Slosberg, Andrea Slosberg Proulx and Aaron Slosberg.

In this photo from left to right are Nancy (daughter-in-law), Ricky (oldest son), Billie, Jeff (youngest son) and his wife Monika Slosberg.  Sadly, Phylliss Marcus, Aunt Billie's only daughter, had passed away in 2003 from cancer.

 

After Aunt Billie had already cut the birthday cake, Nancy brought a birthday cookie to her son, my second cousin, Herschel, who was celebrating his 29th birthday this week.  (Too bad I had no room left for the cookie.  I'd already eaten so much at the brunch plus had a slice of birthday cake that I couldn't fit any more food in.)

Nancy's brother and sister still live in the Chicago area, so she was glad to catch up with Ferne and Joel and their families.

And, of course, the "arm stretch" shot of Russ and me.  A trip wouldn't be complete without one of these photos.

Even with the crummy weather getting here, I'm really glad we made the trip out here.

Flight to the Chicago Area

My Great-Aunt Esther "Billie" Slosberg was celebrating her 90th birthday this weekend with a mini-reunion in the Buffalo Grove, Illinois area, which is a suburb of Chicago.  (Aunt Billie was my Grandmother Rose Slosberg Stoller's sister-in-law.  Billie was married to Harold Slosberg, who had passed away shortly before my birth.)
With Russ flying us in N75078, it should have been a 5 hour flight, including two stops for bathroom breaks.  Russ could normally make this a non-stop flight, but for safety will include one stop to top off the gas tanks.  (It would be very bad to run out of gas while flying over Lake Michigan.)  But for my comfort he'd planned two rest stops/re-fuelings.
Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas.  If we'd just been out for a pleasure flight, we would've cut the flight very short and headed back home.  But because I wanted to see my my uncle and his family, plus Aunt Billie and my other cousins, we pressed on with the flight.
Due to the headwinds and rapid development of thunderstorms, it took 8.5 hours and three rest stops for us to make this flight.  We also experienced some turbulence that left me very shaken up and Russ with a bump on his head.
I seriously hope the return flight is better.

Household Goods Delivery

 

Today was the second attempt for the moving company to deliver our household goods.  They'd come earlier in the week, but didn't have half of our household goods.  I think we figured out why they hadn't brought this half for the first part of the delivery.  (Keep in mind, our household goods had always been delivered in one attempt.)  The boxes were so mangled.  I don't think there was a single box that wasn't mashed or had chunks missing from it.  It's amazing that the shortest relocation I've ever had resulted in the worst amount of damage of the eight Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves I've made plus the four PCSs Russ has made.  Maybe our couches and ladder will make it with the next delivery. 

If you notice, each box seems to have a variation of Roslewski on it.  I didn't include all the boxes, but we saw everything from:

 

Roslewski (they got it right!)

Roslawski

Roskaski

Rowleski

Rowlaski

Slolewski

Return to Reality

The flight back from Alaska was extremely long.  For some odd reason, almost every return flight from Alaska is a "red-eye"/overnight flight.  So our departure time was 10:30 p.m. with a morning arrival.  Our arrival in DC was not without its problems.
First, I left my sleep mask in the seat pocket on the airplane.  Though I quickly realized this after deboarding the plane, the airline personnel were less than helpful in retrieving it for me.  So there went my $35 Tempurpedic sleep mask.
Second, we waited over 40 minutes for the first suitcases from our flight to start coming off the luggage belt.  Needless to say, our luggage was NOT among the first suitcases that came off the luggage belt.  So, a little more than 50 minutes after landing, we finally retrieved our luggage.  We will NEVER purchase tickets on US Airways again for perosnal travel.
The third flaw to our arrival plan was transportation.  My sponsor to my new assignment, Capt Marc Adair, had dropped us off at the airport.  We had left Russ' truck at my work parking lot at Bolling AFB.  Well, Marc's wife had her baby earlier than expected, so Marc was on leave.  My new supervisor, Lt Col Karen Cox, said she'd come pick us up at the metro near Bolling.  For some reason, we could not find each other.  After three phone calls and her saying she was at the metro without us seeing her, Russ finally started walking to the base.  (There were no cabs to be had at this metro.)  Keep in mind he was dressed for 50-degree Alaska weather and it was already in the 90+ degree mark.  On top of that, the area surrounding Bolling AFB is in the slums of DC.  We were both very greatful he wasn't mugged on his trek to the base.
So nearly 3 hours after landing, we were finally on our way back to the base lodging office.  We were wiped out, me especially since I'm incapable of falling asleep on an airplane.
Fortunately, our vacation had gone much better than our return to DC.

Earthquake Park

After all the hikes and searches we'd made looking for moose, we finally saw some up close on our way to the airport.  We stopped at a place called Earthquake Park.  (I'd seen some documentary shows that included information on this earthquake, which was the second strongest recorded earthquake in history.  It's kind of eerie walking along paths where homes once stood.)  Right off a trail by the parking lot were two young moose, who didn't seem at all phased by our presence. 

 

About the biggest response the moose gave us was looking in our direction, likely a result of the camera flash.

It was a great end to a great vacation. 

Seward Sea Life Center and Exit Glacier

It's true, some men are capable of change!  The reason Russ and I were laughing so much was when we were at the aquarium in Virginia Beach, Russ and Chad had reached into the water to touch something when a sign had been clearly posted NOT to touch.  The aquarium staff member, not to kindly, had mentioned no one over the age of 10 had failed to read the sign before Russ and Chad's arrival.  So here at the Seward Sea Life Center, Russ DID notice the sign and managed to keep his fingers out of the water.  I'm so proud of him!

 

 

We saw seals, birds, Alaskan king crabs and more at the Sea Life Center, but I didn't think you'd be too interested in seeing a bunch of photos on animals.  So back to us...here we are at one of the outdoor exhibits of the Sea Life Center.  It seems wherever we went in Alaska, there was always an impressive natural backdrop for our outdoor photos.

 

 

After the Sea Life Center, we stopped at the Exit Glacier State Park.  You can sort of see the glacier in this photo ... it's the white blob above my head.

 

From this photo you can see how much the glacier has receded.  There was a park ranger who explained that just in the last 2 years the glacier had receded the length of a couple football fields.  Some new trail markers were set up so we could get pretty close to the glacier.  (And I managed to do this without injuring myself.)

Kenai Fjords Tour in Seward, Alaska

We had a hectic drive getting to the tour boat on time.  We'd been told it was approximately a 2 hour drive to get from Anchorage to Seward.  So we left 3 hours prior to the "dinner cruise".  Well, with summer construction, the 2-hour drive turned into a 3 hour drive.  (And since we pre-paid for the non-refundable tickets, we had a great incentive to get to the boat before it departed.)  We arrived at the marina and ran to get on the boat, which departed less than 2 minutes after our arrival.  (We'd been the last passengers to board.)

 

While it was very cool and foggy at the beginning of the tour, we didn't feel very cold.

 

 

As you can see, we were aboard the Tanaina.

 

It's amazing how one's appearance can change so much in an hour.  We were pretty frozen by this point, even with the added extra layers of clothing we'd brought with us.

 

This picture was taken after dinner, so we'd had a chance to warm up a bit.  You can see the glaciers in the back ground.

On thing photos don't capture is the noise.  It was very eerie hearing all the creaking and breaking of the glaciers with huge ice chunks falling into the water.  The splash in this picture was caused by a chunk of glacier the size of a small house falling into the water.

We also saw lots of wildlife -- otters, bald eagles, dolphins and a smack of jellyfish, something neither of us had seen before.  It was a great cruise, but I'm glad we took the shorter cruise rather than the 8-hour excursion.  I would've frozen on a trip that long.  Plus, after an hour or so, all glaciers tend to look and sound alike to the non-scientific eye.