Hey! We made it to 50. I can't say the blog is going strong, but it's still going! February brought us a little more snow than January, but I think we're still on track to have one of the worst year's for snow on record. Trying to post monthly is at least helping me capture the little things going on each month. My dad's extended family has had a monthly family newsletter for years and lately they have been encouraging those of us from our generation to contribute. I like to think that keeping the blog updated on a monthly basis counts as my contribution. :) February wasn't too exciting. Drew passed his exam to become an official professional ski instructor. He learned a lot of good techniques for himself. It even helped me out a little since I went skiing TWICE this month. If you don't know, I never ever skied before I met Drew. Our first day of Drew teaching me to ski started out with a lot of laughs (which I think you can still see videos of on my Facebook page) but ended with Drew's first introduction to my hotheadedness (not featured on Facebook but you can bet it's one of Drew's favorite stories to tell people about me.) Luckily, he stuck with me despite my flaws and inability to ski, and every year since I've gone skiing exactly one time a season. It usually coincides with Drew's birthday as his birthday wish is always, "I want to go skiing
with you." This is enough of a guilt trip to get me back on the hill, vowing again to not lose my temper and make his birthday any worse than just having to wait for me to get down the bunny hill over and over again all day. Unfortunately, I don't have enough self control to stop myself and most of his birthday ski day memories include that time I impaled him with a ski pole/threw a ski/yelled profanities at a well meaning skier passing by/threatened to throw myself off the chairlift/etc. Every year it gets a little better, and last year I could actually say I had fun for most of it. So this year Drew took it a step further and bought me my own set of skis. We actually had a pretty great time when we went, and I decided to go a second time the next week. Drew skied mostly with Rich, and I just stayed on Chair 3 and tried a chair 4 run at the end with Drew. I skied for like 6 hours and had a great time, once I figured out how to get my skis on. I'm hoping to go out a few more times this year, but I've been so busy it's been hard to commit a full day to using a ski pass and getting on the mountain again.
For Valentine's Day I knit Drew another custom handle mitt for his cast iron and Drew made me this awesome white chocolate/peanut butter frosting cake inspired by my favorite candy:
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| Delicious..but super rich! |
I've also been a more social cross country skier this month and went out a few times with friends. I am excited because even Drew decided, without my even pushing him, to get his own pair of classic skis. Maybe we'll even go together one day! My friend Sam also bought cross country ski's this year and we got Drew to take her older kid downhill skiing while we took the younger one out in Moose Meadows. It was beautiful, and Sam rocked it. It's got to be so much harder with a little one on your back!
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| Have I mentioned that I love where I live? |
I also had my spring concert with the
Alaska Chamber Singers this month, which was all Johann Sebastian Bach. It was good music, but it was a heavier concert for the boys to sit through. I'm looking forward to resurrecting our fall concert program, Darwin Sings: The Evolution of Choral Music, for our tour to Homer and Cooper Landing in April. Drew baked up some amazing snacks for my choir and for work. He made peanut butter and chocolate cookies, as well as croissants, some stuffed with chocolate. He's pretty amazing.
I also ran in the Frostbite Footrace during Fur Rondy this year. It's only the 3rd race I've ever done and the other two I waited for over an hour just to start running. So we were like 10 minutes late getting there for this one which I assumed would be no big deal. Oh no, it had started already. Which meant that I got to bust through the people on the sidewalk and start running right in front of the funny guy with the mike that gets paid to make smart alecky comments as all the runners come by. You can bet he loved making fun of me. :)
At first I felt like a total loser cause I was being passed by EVERYONE and I was huffing and puffing. I finally gave up and slowed my pace to something I could handle. It was a loop course that you did twice. When I came around to start my second lap while everyone I'd been with cruised to the finish line I realized I was running with all of those competitive athlete people. I came around the corner and there were all of my people, jogging at a much more sane pace. :)
I'm hoping to do 3 more races this year, so this was a good warm up one. Next time I'll try and be on time for my start. Hope you got through your February OK. I guess it won't be too long before I'll be late for a posting in March...better late than never!
