Happy Anniversary :)

For our anniversary we went down to Alyeska ski resort in Girdwood, about an hour south of where we live. We drove down Saturday morning and checked into our room. Brant has his own














snowboard, but I still rent as I don't know if I really want to invest in a snowboard quite yet. I've only been snowboarding 3 times before, I'm not good, and Brant has been a great teacher trying to build me up so I'd be ready to go down the "big hills" at Alyeska. I have been practicing on the














ski slopes on base, which apparently aren't that big - they were to me! We rode the tram up to the top and had lunch a Glacier Express, 2300 feet above sea level - the view was amazing.

After lunch, it was finally time to test our skills on the slopes. I really did not enjoy snowboarding until this weekend at Alyeska. I really had a great weekend, the weather was gorgeous, and we got to spend two days out on the slopes. The best part was, I learned how to turn :) so I didn't have to spend the weekend on the bunny hill. I think I can get on most chair lifts now without busting my butt. Except for lift #1 at the resort - I only got off that once because I think I got whiplash.

I was able to snowboard on the same slopes as Brant all day. Well, he would either go ahead of me and stop to wait, or he would let me get a head start and then catch up with me :) I'm getting there. No major injuries incurred except for some large bruises, sore muscles, tender tailbones, and whiplash from getting off the lift :)

Saturday night, we went to the Double Musky for dinner. It has been featured in a lot of "Best Of" magazines and was recommended to us by a lot of people. It was wonderful - and we even had Double Musky Pie for dessert - yummy :)



Sunday morning, we slept in and had breakfast at the resort. We hit the slopes for a few more hours before heading home, whipped! We got home and had leftovers for dinner and our wedding cake with champagne for dessert - it was italian cream cake - and it was still wonderful after being in the freezer for a year :)

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 :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Brant and I made some last minute plans for our Valentine's Day weekend. Brant had Monday off for President's Day, so we decided it would be the perfect weekend to leave Anchorage, since we haven't been had time to travel much inside Alaska yet. We made reservations at a bed and breakfast in Talkeetna, AK and scheduled a guided snomobile tour from Trapper Creek, AK to the entrance of Denali National Park. We had heard a lot of people talk about how neat the town of Talkeetna was, but we didn't realize exactly how small it was until we got there. I'm talking smaller than Lakeview, MI -- for any of you from MI reading this :) There are only 1000 people who live there year round. This is the "welcome to downtown" sign for this little "hippie" town. There is 1 street considered "downtown" and it had probably 4 small restaurants and a few places to stay.

We rented snow shoes from the base and took them with us. We had a little time on Saturday when we got down there before it got dark to go on a short little hike. Brant thinks we saw Bigfoot tracks :) We ate dinner at Mountain High Pizza Pie - yummy! And we found out that our waiter went to Clemson!! It was really weird to meet someone that far away that went to Clemson - he probably thought the same thing though.

Saturday night, the entertainment in town was a Valentine's Day show put on by the Denali art's council called "The Complexities of Love." It was packed - I guess it was the only thing going on in town. It was a cute little show with a variety of people singing, dancing, playing the banjo, acting, etc. We were a little worried about what we were in for, but we both really enjoyed it.

On Sunday, we drove to Trapper Creek, about 30 minutes away, and met our snowmobile guide, Bob. We had a total of 7 people in our group. We rode about 3 hours north to the opening of Denali Park, and out in the middle of nowhere to a little cabin that served us lunch. You can only reach the cabin by ferry (when the river isn't frozen) or by snomobile in the winter. And people live there. We had awesome homemade turkey and dumplins, homemade bread, brownies, and hot chocolate. After we warmed up, we headed back a different route and arrived back to the cabin just as it was getting dark. It was a really awesome trip and I had a sore back for 2 days afterwards :)

Brant had Monday off, so we went to Hatcher's Pass with our friends Richard and Lori to hike with our snowshoes. We hiked up some really steep hills and around Hatcher's Pass to an old mining village. The snow was really deep - no way we could've hiked it without snowshoes! We had a great weekend and enjoyed being outdoors for most of it. And it is finally starting to stay light longer!!!