The East Coast is HOT in June!!! 🥵

 This June we went back East for our nephew’s graduation. We flew in a bit early to North Carolina to spend a few days on our own to check out the town of Wilmington.

The first day we checked out historic downtown Wilmington on the Cape Fear River, including an AMAZING brunch at the Dixie Grill. It rained while we were downtown and the humidity after the rain was intense for these Alaskans.

Delicious strawberry, banana, pecan french toast!

Day two was expected to be ”excessively hot”, so we did some sightseeing by car and checked out the Wrightsville Beach area (and brunch at Sweet ‘N Savory). We ended the day at a bar called Fork ‘N Cork (both restaurants were featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives)! 

After dinner we walked around a slightly cooler downtown.

Our last day in Wilmington was still very hot, so we drove down to Carolina Beach for Britt’s Donuts on the boardwalk. 

We then drove further south to check out historic Fort Fisher. (We spent a lot of the day in air-conditioned car and buildings!) 

We ended the trip with dinner at the wonderful Wrightsville Beach Brewery.

I had to get a crab cake meal in!

The next morning we drove north to Virginia and met up with the family before we all drove down to Virginia Beach for a Kenny Chesney concert (Carly Pearce opened for him) - an early Father’s Day gift for our dad!

Thursday morning we met up with our friends the Hunters who were in our life group in Alaska but moved back to Virginia. It was SO great to see them again!

Friday was the big day. My sister, mom and I spent the day doing some graduation gift shopping (and got pedicures). Then Friday evening was graduation and then dinner with the family at Tucanos Brazilian Grill.

Saturday we had a delicious omelet bar brunch and our nephew opened his gradation gifts. 

Sunday was Father’s Day and after a family brunch (more delicious food by my sister!), we went on a bike ride through historic Yorktown (with stops at Mobjack Coffee Roasters and Ben & Jerry’s).

That evening we went to a Lionsbridge FC soccer game (a semipro team) at Christopher Newport University (with a quick stop at a brewery and cider works). My first soccer game since I played at age 4 - ha!

Monday was our last day with family so we went to Top Golf (another first for us). 

Tuesday we said goodbye to family and drove up to the DC/Dulles area to check out the Steven F. Udvary-Hazy Air and Space Museum (which has been on our bucket list for years). Andrew loved it!

Video docents

Then we had dinner with my cousin Andre, who lives in the area.

It was a great trip visiting with family and experiencing an East Coast heat wave, but we sure were glad to get home to Alaska… where it was a surprising 80 degrees!

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Ketchikan for Graduation!

Earlier this month we flew down to Ketchikan for a long weekend to celebrate my sister-in-law's high school graduation. After overnighting in Juneau, we got into Ketchikan Saturday morning. It was a slow-cruise ship day, so we had breakfast at Sweet Mermaids - my favorite place to get breakfast in town. After breakfast we went up to the cemetery and visited Andrew's grandparents. We also saw three deer, one of them quite close.

Then we headed up to Andrew's mom for a delicious family lunch and some time looking through old family pictures.

After lunch, we checked into our hotel - a nice place on the water and took a nap. Still full from lunch, we then headed out to A.J.'s (formerly Rose's Caboose) for a snack/dinner with my sisters-in-law. Then we all headed out to Harriet Hunt Lake for a walk.

After Harriet Hunt, we headed down to Sunset Beach and had a blast walking the shores and taking some pictures.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed downtown to walk around the shops. We then had a small lunch (crab and brie!) before we headed to graduation. It was a great ceremony - now all three siblings, Andrew's mom, grandfather and great aunt have all graduated from Kayhi! 

After graduation, we dropped the graduate off for her senior cruise and then headed back to the cemetery to lay a few more flowers with some family friends. 

The flowers were so vibrant and plentiful on this trip!

Monday morning we packed up and had one more breakfast at Sweet Mermaids. It was a busy ship-day, with three regular-sized cruise ships in (with a capacity of approximately 2,000 passengers per ship), plus a "PanaMax" ship in - one that goes through the Panama Canal (with a capacity of approximately 4,000 passengers per ship!).

Since the lines were so long for food downtown, we grabbed lunch at The Landing - in a downpour and said goodbye to the family. We then got back on the ferry to the airport and headed home, through Sitka and Juneau. It was a quick, but great trip! 

The view in Sitka from the plane

**All photography on this blog are property of the user.**

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