Fur Rondy 2009

Last weekend, we went downtown Anchorage with Richard, Lori, and Avery to the 2009 Fur Rondy Festival (short for Fur Rendezvous. It is a 74-year old tradition that celebrates life in Alaska. We got there early for the parade...it was freezing. Luckily, we were standing right next to the coffee shop and they were loaded with hot chocolate :) We took advantage of that! We watched the parade for about an hour then watched the Sled Dog Races for awhile. We were up close and personal watching from the starting line, and they had streets blocked off all around town for the race. The actual Iditarod race doesn't start until March 7th, so


these were the sprint races.

After we were done watching the races, we went down to the ice sculpture contest. This was my favorite ice sculpture...Scrat from "Ice Age." All of the sculptures were amazing and so detailed! After browsing around the sculptures, we were all getting pretty cold, and Avery was getting pretty tired, so we walked back to eat lunch at the Glacier Brewhouse - one of our favorite restaurants in Anchorage.



On our way, we had to walk through the fair. Yes, it was probably 15 degrees, snowing, and there were people riding on the ferris wheel and the pirate ship, and the potato sack races. I guess they don't know any better, and we couldn't think of anything more miserable! After filling up and warming up at the Brewhouse, we drove to the airforce base and went snowboarding from about 5-8PM. It was my last chance to practice on the 'small hill' until we headed to the 'big hill' on our anniversary. I took advantage of it :)