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!

Denali for the Day

Drew and I thought it would be fun to take an overnight camping trip up to Denali earlier this month.  We packed up all our camping gear, put the cross country skis on the car, threw the snowshoes in too, and headed up to Denali National Park.  Man did we choose a beautiful clear day to visit!

Denali from the south viewpoint in Denali State Park

Though it was pretty warm with the sun on us, there is still a lot of melting to go.
We would have practically had to  lay on our stomachs to look out those scopes.

 We drove four hours to the park and got there in mid afternoon.  Although some of the park road had been cleared, we could only venture up the first 13 miles or something.  The ranger at the visitor center talked us out of camping.  When we arrived the visitor center was filled with backpacks and camping gear.  In a few minutes about 40 or 50 eighth graders came bounding out of the adjoining room.  She explained it was "camp with the rangers night."  All the rangers looked really thrilled.  We decided we didn't want to join the fun, so she filled us in on the good things to do in the park that afternoon.  Drew was questioning and teasing her about wolf sightings, skijoring to Wonder Lake, and possible injuries he might incur while in the park.  Generally just being Drew.  At one point she looked at me and said, "You must be a very patient woman, ma'am."  That's my baby.  Inspiring other women to wonder just how I do it... :)

Anyways, she pointed us to this hike, which really we didn't need snowshoes for.  Just a pair of icebreakers would have done the job:

The hike was along a river that was breaking up.
Drew loved the icicles hanging off the ice into the river.

Oh Denali National Park...how I would love to see you not in snow.

 So in the end we drove four hours to Denali and four hours back, and we spent probably less than 3 hours at the park.  I was just saying on the drive up how the drive is half the fun.  We really didn't mind at all.  Drew and I love a good road trip.  There's always interesting conversation as we drive, and beautiful scenery along the way.   We had to pull over on the way home for a few more shots of Denali.  It just looked like a backdrop in a play or something.  So perfect:

We saw so many other beautiful landscapes along our drive.  Every time we cross over this one bridge it seems that the sun is always setting over the river there, and the sunset is always spectacular.  We both agreed that really we know of no other place that manages to be this ridiculously beautiful constantly.  Granted break up is probably the least beautiful of the seasons, but if you look up to the mountains or out to the water you don't notice the dead grass and trash poking through the dirty snow at all.  We have lived here for almost a year now and we still haven't managed to get over it.  It is just so majestic.  So mighty.  We love being surrounded by so much grandness.

What's New

Well we survived January.  It ended up being the 4th coldest January on record for Anchorage.  Glad we were here for it. :)  The average temperature last month was 2.5 degrees.  It's amazing how warm we were feeling yesterday when it was 21 degrees.   Positively balmy.  We also were getting 5 inches of snow an hour.   Drew took advantage of it and went skiing of course.  He's decided it's time to buy a pair of fat skis though.  When I heard he hit a hard spot of snow with his skis and flew off them and down the hill yesterday I was all about it too.  Luckily he seems to have just got the wind knocked out of him, bit his tongue pretty hard, and had some soft tissue damage.  He should heal up just fine.

In my world Drew convinced me I needed to get rid of a bunch of clothes I don't wear.  So I did, but then we realized that about 90% of the clothes that I do where are black, grey, white, or off white.  Drew says if he ever sees a girl with a creamy coat he just automatically assumes it is me. (Maybe that's cause I own like, 4 of them??)  I don't really know how this happened, but at some point I just stopped buying anything with color.  So he decided we should go shopping together and get me some clothes that I liked and that weren't  neutrals.  We only had time for one store today but we did pretty good, 4 new sweaters and 1 pretty top for 67 dollars.  Yay for sales!  And only one sweater isn't a color...(come on, everyone needs a grey cardigan!)

What else?  We braved the cold last weekend and went out snowshoeing again.  We are finding that people don't do the summer trails in the winter here.   At least not often it seems.  Both times we have gone we have gotten really lost following moose tracks instead of the trail.  It's really hard to stay on a trail that you can't see at all though.  So we had some fun getting lost, seeing the moose we must have been following, and generally freezing my hands off.  I think it was -4 that day.  Sunny, but my hands couldn't stay warm.  So I upgraded gloves this month.  Hopefully mittens will do the trick.

Drew has been working lots on the motorcycle.  I think he is learning a lot.  Last year in Utah we had a major oil leak on our car that he tried to fix and failed miserably at.  This year we have the same leak...and he's going to try and fix it again.  He has a little more knowledge and a lot more tools this year, so I'm hoping he can do it.  We've got to keep our little '97 Camry going!

I've been working out "a lot." (A lot for me, that is.) I got a little pass to go to a gym in Anchorage for 3 months from Groupon.  It has been good to workout and I have been trying to eat a little bit better diet.  Drew only buys me one box of cereal a week and believe it or not I can actually make it last all week.  (If you know me at all you probably think hell must have just frozen over...)  It's been good too.  I am back to weighing what I weighed when we got married and I was doing P90X.  And it just feels better to take good care of my body.

The sun is back.  It's still more of a winter darkness, but it's not noticeably darker here than I feel like it would be if we were in the lower 48.  I don't stagger out of my apartment in the middle of the day when I have been sleeping after working all night, just to stand in the freezing cold and feel the sun on my face for a few minutes.   That's no longer necessary.  So I feel like the worst is behind us!

How's your winter going?

Flat Stanley Comes to Alaska

My nephew, Isaac, sent us Flat Stanley in the mail this month.  I had never heard of Flat Stanley, but Drew knew all about it.  I guess it is a pretty common activity for young kids in school.  They all send out their paper Stanley to different places and then they come back with pictures and postcards and stories about what they saw and did.  Isaac's Flat Stanley was dressed in a Laker's jersey.  (He's a big fan, which is a huge embarrassment to the rest of the Stephensons.)  Turns out his first choice was to send it to Kobe Bryant.  When my sister vetoed that one, he settled on his aunt and uncle in Alaska.  We're second choice, but hopefully we weren't second rate!  My sister made it very clear that we had to do a really good job.  We certainly tried.  We drove for three hours one night hoping to get to an area clear enough to see the Northern Lights, to no avail.  We also braved sub zero temperatures with bare hands several times setting up Flat Stanley for pictures.  (I think Flat Stanley should be named Flimsy Stanley...or maybe Overly Reflective Stanley.)  Isaac also requested of us near the end that we take Flat Stanley to Denali National Park, because he had read a book about it.  We didn't come through on that one either, but we did take some pictures (and get some postcards) that are probably just as good. :)  It was really fun though and it seems like such a great way to teach kids about all kinds of things.  I would love to see where else Flat Stanley went with his class.  Here are our contributions:

Flat Stanley saw how much snow Alaska gets, and that it piles up because it  doesn't get warm enough to melt all winter long! 

This is the sidewalk, which gets plowed by a miniature bulldozer.  You can't even see over the snow to the street on the left.

 Flat Stanley saw people shoveling the roof of this building because there was so much snow on it , it might cave in. 

Flat Stanley saw that lots of people build their buildings like triangles so that they don't have to worry about shoveling the roof.  All the snow just slides right off.  When it goes, it sounds like thunder right above you.

*Side note:  This is our church, isn't it so cute?!

To get around on top of all the deep snow you can wear snowshoes.  This lets you walk on top of the snow without sinking in.

 

Flat Stanley learned that Alaska is very big...more than 14 times bigger than Pennsylvania, but has less than half the people living there than live in the city of Philadelphia alone.  Most of Alaska is wilderness, and there aren't roads to get to some of the towns that are very far away.  You can only get to those towns by boat or plane.  Lots of people in Alaska have little planes like this one to get to travel to places in Alaska where there aren't any roads. 

Flat Stanley learned that there are lots of animals in Alaska, like bears, bighorn sheep, wolves, bald eagles, and moose.  We found moose tracks along the same sidewalk we were on one day.  Moose are very big and sometimes mean so we decided to go back to the car.

Later on we saw a little baby moose from the safety of the car.

Flat Stanley learned that people used to travel through Alaska on sleds pulled by dogs.  Now people still go dog sledding, but just for fun.

Flat Stanley spent a day on the slopes with Uncle Drew.  He took the tram up to the top of the hill...

...and skied down.

Flat Stanley met other skiers on the mountain too.  This skier has a white cross on his chest.  That means he is part of ski patrol and can help you if you get hurt.  

*Thanks Rich!

Flat Stanley and Uncle Drew helped people with disabilities ski.  This girl is learning to ski on a sit ski. 

*Thanks Challenge Alaska!

Flat Stanley saw the ice sculptures in downtown Anchorage.  They sit all winter long for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks for the fun, Flat Stanley!

We hope Isaac likes everything we send home with Flat Stanley.  We thought this was better than taking Flat Stanley with us to work.  Maybe my work would be better for an older sex ed class or something.... (Flat Stanley gets a girl pregnant.... Flat Stanley goes to prenatal appointments.... Flat Stanley coaches said girl through labor.... Flat Stanley sees a placenta...  Flat Stanley is a Dad...  Flat Stanley learns about breastfeeding.)  Drew's work wouldn't be much better.... (Flat Stanley feels depressed.... Flat Stanley stands on the edge of a bridge....  Flat Stanley decides to call the crisis hotline... Flat Stanley gets picked up by the police... Flat Stanley gets a visit to the Psych ER...  Flat Stanley in restraints...  Flat Stanley gets a dose of Haldol... )  Yeah... better to stick with the pictures of cute baby moose!