Mario and Angie Apreotesi: June 2012 (part 1)

Mario was sworn in to the Texas Bar Association by his boss, Justice Dan Winfree of the Alaska Supreme Court. It’s official - “He’s a LAWYER!” And a Texas lawyer to boot! The clip below is not a joke, it's an actual commercial. Mario is considering growing a mustache so he'll fit in better in Austin. :) The second clip is Josh watching the first clip.

We are super exciting married people, and here’s your proof! This is what we’ve been doing for fun a few evenings a week for the last couple months, and we finally finished it. Like I said, super exciting.

June also brought the return of adventure to the Apreotesi family! We went on our first trip since our awesome dogsledding outing in March. My mom came up, and pretty much anytime anyone visits us wherever we live, we use it as an excuse to get out and have some fun! As this would be one of our last Alaskan adventures, we had some fun new stuff on our itinerary.

Jed and Crystal most generously let us borrow their new motorhome for our trip. The kids LOVED not being in car seats! We packed up and headed southeast to Valdez. You may or may not remember that we went to Valdez once before on this trip. As it was completely socked in with clouds (so much that we could barely see the water let alone the mountains on all sides), we were not impressed at all. This time, though, it was immediately apparent that Valdez was going to be amazing. It was really gorgeous.

Valdez on a clear day - stunning!

We had made arrangements for Mom and Mario to go sea kayaking the next day. They headed off into what seemed like could turn into a pretty rainy, cold day. Within an hour of their departure, however, the weather gods smiled on us once more and the sun came out. Their trip entailed taking a water taxi for about 90 minutes to the face of the Columbia Glacier where they unpacked their sea kayaks and started exploring. Because the bay was so choked with icebergs calved from the glacier, they couldn’t get very close to the face of the glacier itself but it does look like they had a pretty good time anyway.

While they were gone, I tried to entertain myself and the kids in the very, very small town of Valdez. One of the things we did to amuse ourselves was walk to the nearby boat harbor and wander around the docks. Perhaps some of you know that our trip to Alaska two summers ago wasn’t my first time visiting this state. My Grandpa Josephson owned a sail boat and taught me how to trim a sail, how to come hard-a-lee, what it really means to heel, and how to enjoy the ocean from the deck of a sail boat even while positively green around the gills from seasickness. He had his cat, Chili Pepper, not to be confused with his first sailboat, the monohull Moby Dick, up here in Alaska for the most part of a summer back when I was in high school. I came up to visit G and G (as we call my Josephson grandparents) for a few weeks then. When I was here with him and my grandma (who is also awesome!), we sailed out to a glacier near Juneau. On our way, we encountered a breeching humpback whale. We sat there on Chili Pepper on that freezing, deep blue water with little icebergs bobbing around us marveling at the wonders we were enjoying. My grandpa passed away of a stroke when Josh was 10 days old. Having such a young baby and living far away, I wasn’t able to go to his funeral. He was a wonderful grandpa, not just because I got to see Alaska with him. He and my grandma traveled to my soccer games from states away. He loved to cook and was our go-to family barbeque chef. His unusual taste preferences and unabashed enjoyment of delicious food were my first introduction to foodie-ism. He often told me how he knew I would do great things, and that I was fully capable of going to medical school or anything else that would make me happy, and indeed he expected nothing less of me. Walking around on that dock, surrounded by the creaks and taps of all those boats, the particular smells and sights of a marina, I missed my grandpa so much I couldn’t help crying for a few minutes. Through the haze of my tears, I could almost see his catamaran in a slip down the dock somewhere, smell his very unique, sweet and particular grandpa smell (and those of you who knew him definitely know what I’m talking about!) and feel his goatee on my cheek as he hugged me.

Grandpa Josephson

I’m sad my kids won’t meet him in this life and get to learn about the world from the bow of his boat. I’m so thankful he was part of my life, though, and that he made such an effort to be a part of it.

Valdez Harbor

The next day we left the kids with Mom, and Mario and I got to go on our first adventure alone together since Josh was born. That was only the second time I’ve left Josh for more than a few hours (the first was the night Mia was born), and the first time I’ve left Mia for more than two hours. Mario and I got outfitted with our gear and packed into a van for a short 15-minute ride just out of town to the Valdez Glacier. It sits at the far end of a lake that drains to a fairly small river. Although it doesn’t look like it, this little lake is at least 900 ft deep according to our guide, which was a bit unsettling to think about since the water’s visibility was about two inches because of glacial silt. We put our boats in the water and soon encountered one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty cool things.

This ice cave is on the un-submerged portion of an immense iceberg. Although I didn’t get any really quality pictures of it, you could hear and see water trickling down through the network of deep blue ice. It was like a living thing. It was amazing.

We continued on, finding a short maze of channels through the ice and generally enjoying our day immensely. We lunched on the glacier

During lunch, we spotted our next stop:

See the ice cave in the distance straight ahead?

Entry is choked with icebergs.

Mostly-submerged bergs choked the entry to this awesome ice amphitheater, and our guide said it looked like we might not be able to get in, but I convinced Mario that maybe with a little poking and prodding we might be able to push a few out of the way and actually get under the overhang. It was a smashing success!