Joe and Rachel Visit

My brother Joey and his girlfriend Rachel bought tickets to come up and visit Alaska 6 months ago.  When we told them to come the first week of April we thought for sure there would be plenty of snow but also hopefully more sun.  It might even be warm enough to pull out the kayaks.  We spent the whole winter sweating it, thinking maybe we'd told them to come too late and there wouldn't be any snow for them to ski.  It was definitely spring skiing, but we got two days of beautiful sun and a fairly empty mountain to ski on.  I think we packed a lot into the week they were here.  I had asked for one day off of work and then finagled my way into getting put on call another day so I only had to work one day while they were here, and then I left on their last day to go on choir tour.  They were really fun to have visit because they wanted to do a lot of things that we like to do anyway, and they wanted to just see how we live up here.  With good weather and that as the requested itinerary, how could we go wrong?

Day 1, Saturday:  Picked them up in the evening after a long travel day.  Although I wouldn't wish it on anyone, I kind of like it when people do the trip up here because it gives them some understanding of the dread that I have every time I get on a plane to go to the east coast.  Drew's sister recently flew home from Ecuador and we were kind of surprised to hear her flight was way shorter than ours was when we fly back to see his family.  They made it home for some pretty sunset time and lots of pictures our the car window of the drive home:

Drew had dinner waiting for us when we got home and we planned out the week, Rachel made a chart and deemed what was nonnegotiable and what wasn't. :)

Sunday, Day 2:  We talked Rachel and Joey into attending the branch with us, if for nothing else than people watching, but then ditched after sacrament meeting to get in our first ski day: 

It was the warmest weather I've ever skied in and being a Sunday, the busiest I'd seen it all year.  We had a good time though.  Joe borrowed Drew's snowboard and Rachel rented demo ski's from the local ski shop.
After a good day of skiing we met up with some friends for a barbecue dinner out on the flats.  It definitely got chilly, a bonfire would have been nice, but the sunset was really pretty and the tide didn't get us.  Everyone took a lot of pictures that night, especially of Wren, the always adorable dog.  It was fun to introduce Joe and Rachel to our closest friends here in AK.

Monday, Day 3: I had to go to work, unfortunately, but they had a beautiful sunny day, and Drew was off so he took them to the Conservation Center to see some Alaska animals:

Yes, that is Snickers in a tree! 

My favorite, the musk ox.

They also stopped and took a quick peek at Portage Lake, which was still frozen over.

They eventually made it through the tunnel and pried the plywood off the windows so they could grab some kayaks for an early season Kittiwake tour.  Looks like they couldn't of had a nicer day:

Tuesday, Day 4: I ended up on call and Joey and Rachel's snowmobile tour didn't sound so cool without a lot of snow so we spent a chill day in Girdwood doing some interneting and checking out the town.  We got out in the afternoon and did some cross country skiing.  It was really icy and tracked out, so it wasn't ideal.  It was Joe's first time, but he was a good sport. 

Wednesday, Day 5: From today on both Drew and I were off from work.  We packed up and headed north, stopping in Anchorage to pack up on food for the night before heading up to Denali State Park.  We rented a cabin on Byer's Lake, and stopped at the south viewpoint for a perfect clear view of Denali (Mt. McKinley).  

We brought snowshoes, but we didn't really need them.  We dragged a sled with all our food and wood for the stove, we each had a backpack, and we cut across the lake for a very short trip to Public Use Cabin #2:

The cabin had a great view of Denali from the window:

We dropped our stuff and went our for a stroll on the lake:

Taking credit for a half melted snowman.

Testing the ice over the stream...

We came home, got the fire going, dinner going, played some cards, read the cabin journal, and took lots of pictures of the mountain, the sunset, and the moon.  We had a perfectly clear night, but unfortunately no northern lights.  We've barely caught them at all this year.

Thursday, Day 6:  We walked back on the trail pretty quick and drove back to Anchorage, stopping at Talkeetna along the way.  We did some souvenir shopping, ate at the roadhouse, and checked out the Denali Brewery Company, the first of several breweries we hit up that day.  Drew and I ended up having a lot of root beer that day. :)

Rich caught up with us for the last two brewery stops, the very last of which was Moose's tooth.  We went crazy, ordering 4 pizzas, 8 flavors.  We finished it off with dessert. 

Friday, Day 7: We got in another day of skiing.  It was a bit cloudier but still nice, and the resort was practically empty.

After skiing we did a potluck dinner with the usual suspects.  Rich hosted us at the bed and breakfast where he lives, which is always a treat.  Afterwards we got a soak in at the hot tub.  Everyone made something delicious to be sure.  

The next day they took it easy and took off for Philly.  All in all we thought it was a good time had by all.  Maybe we can even convince them to check out Alaska again another time!  Hopefully we'll have a real bed and a real room to put them in next time!

February: Walking the Line's 50th post!

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: 

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!

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!

A Weird January...

We had a crazy January this year.  It got as warm as 55 degrees in Girdwood and almost all the snow melted.  That has inspired me to start winter running, and I've been at it pretty consistently three times a week.  I will usually just run with ice grippers on my shoes but by the end of our month and a half without snow I didn't even need those.  It was fun to get out and enjoy the sunshine and warmth, but I didn't feel like I'd really paid the price of a long winter to appreciate it as much as I normally do. We started out OK in October with this:

 Unfortunately it didn't last.  And then all the rain we got while it was warm really washed any snow we had away.  Drew took some pictures to remember our year it hardly snowed:

Needless to say we haven't exactly had to break out the snowblower much...

Usually the bike trail along this mountain is closed for avalanche danger.  It was wide open and ice free.  I even broke out my bike a few times.

One positive of all the warm sunny weather was that we had some beautiful clear days and nights.  We drove up the arm one night after we'd each spent the day outside (hence the clothes) just to take some pretty pictures at sunset:

Despite the lack of snow I did get in a cross country ski day or two early on, and Drew kept skiing the ice whenever the resort was open.  He took a professional ski instructor class this year so he is official now.  He's been having fun volunteering at the adaptive ski school and he found the classes really helped him with his own technique.

I love getting to spend a morning or a sunset afternoon cross country skiing here. I like to go alone, listening to classical music on my Ipod.  It's totally peaceful.

It's been really fun having our friends Tim and McKenzie here in Girdwood this year. (They own the dog we watched this summer, Wren.)

Gotta love the water view from the top of the resort.