trip of a lifetime!!

It's all coming together, just booked a ticket...I'm going to raft down the grand canyon next month!!! People are on the waitlist for a private permit to do this trip for years... decades!! I am so lucky to have gotten on this trip, I am SO EXCITED! And with a bonus stop in Durango... I seriously can't wait!!

yeah yeah i know the photos below didn't work... i'll fix it one of these days.

white mtns

white mtns

I have been looking forward to a long ski tour of the white mountains for YEARS now, but especially the last few months I was SO excited for this trip... but mother nature wasn't very cooperative and we had to cancel the trip. It was much too cold for Kristen and Ned to travel with the baby, and while I thought about going alone - I only lasted ~ 10 miles in the brutal cold wind before I bailed myself. But it wasn't a total bust, the wind finally died down and I went out for the last night of the trip and skied a 38 mile loop (the original trip plan was 75 miles/5 days). The trail conditions were awesome - no backwash! just great skating.

It's hard to explain the appeal of the white mountains... they're nothing like the white mountains in my backyard in Maine. The landscape is vast - 1 million acres of wilderness. And at any particular point it feels like the view goes on for at least 1/2 million acres. Just rolling hills, and motley and monotous stands of black spruce. In March, the sun reflects off that million acres of snow and the warmth is intense. For a deprived Fairbanksan, it really thaws you somehow, and makes the winter misery seem easily worth it.

move over armstrong...

there's a new Lance, another cancer survivor.. and what he just accomplished makes a few tour de frances look like a sunday bike ride through the park. Running - let alone winning - 2 thousand mile races in one year is just phenomenal. Not to mention the weather was absolutely brutal this year, on both races. Check out Martin's blog - he's lucky enough to be in Nome this week for work, and got some cool pics.
meanwhile, here's my couch potato dog - in hiding! not too sure she's sled dog material...

Balance

I just finished taking a 5 week seminar on balance. Taught by a local yoga instructor it was really more about anatomy of the spine, and culture - how back pain has become an epidemic - but only in western world. There's lots of good info on this website and this book looks good too if you're interested in this stuff. this is what i want to look like in my old age (especially the flip flops part)....

when i grow up...

i want to be a raven biologist like stacia! so says at least one first grader at woodriver elem. i volunteered as a science fair judge this week. normally when i do this i learn all sorts of cool stuff, but this year i simply learned that 5th graders are a lot smarter than me. not so cool.

another birthday

caz is one! she celebrated alone last week - by eating half a batch of peanut butter cookies off the counter. so, she's getting mouse traps for her bday present. go ahead and report me to peta but i swear they are the best invention ever for puppy training. funny that one reason i got a female this round was because they 'mature faster' - ha! i got a few more years of crazyiness to go i'm sure...
one ear back, this is caz's gangster look. tecate still the ringleader of the gang of course. these photos are almost exactly a year apart...

Wyatt's world view

i don't know... would these faces elicit a smile from you?

Shi was in town so we headed out to visit the masons saturday. Quick visit, but they fed us an incredible AK style surf and turf meal - caribou and crab, and of course wyatt provided endless entertainment (as did shiway!)
 

happy birthday sis!

don't feel too old...this photo is only what? ~ 30 years old?

hey spence - please deliver a birthday spanking and a kiss on mommy's belly for me. thanks bud. have fun in maine. love you guys, j.