Socks and Scotch and Brown and Cob's

we had a great night of scotch and socks. Brown finished my socks and they are awesome!
Brown, me, and the socks. They are the sweetest knit socks I have owned, they have a very intricate leaf pattern.
close-up of the leaf pattern.

as the night went, the boys drank more scotch and we took out more yarn. i came up with three new projects to take me through being at Mayo for the transplant. I leave in a week. Brown gave me this cool hank of yarn that is from a local sheep named "Jessie", it's for a scarf for Ben...it is great to know where your wool comes from.

skijoring

we found a great new skijor spot that Ted told us about. Pella was fired up tonight and pulled the entire time. the trails were sweet and of course no one was there.

Happy Birthday Ed!

we went out for a nice dinner to Lemongrass to celebrate my good friend Ed's birthday. Ed is a seriously generous and adventurous friend. if you have not become a fan of his blog about his adventures than you should. he lives the quintessential Alaskan life and i love his energy for life and the crazy trips he goes on(once in awhile with me). of course after our trips, we "hang out" at Ed's, his house is almost as famous as his "into the wild" blog post about going to the bus....if you have not read it, click this!
Ed skiing out after a trip into the wild, bus 142. Ben and I are so glad we have become great friends....not bff's, cause i can not become obsessed with Coldplay :-) i am looking so forward to our next packrafting trip!

Colorado Creek Cabin

ben and crew starting out our 14 mile ski into Colorado Creek Cabin in the White Mountains. we had the most unbelievably warm weather for Jan. in AK and the trail was a little icy. Pella has not been on a trip since our 50 below Tolovana ski and she was loving it! Ann arranged this cabin trip, it was her birthday..so we had a little party too. It was a big trip for me, the first one without a catheter in my neck. Ben did not have to carry my gear, I was able to carry a backpack and push my skiing. I can not imagine living somewhere you could not do this stuff every weekend!
Tina and Fernie near the start of the ski.
this is the view from Colorado Creek Cabin!
the four girls getting ready to ski out and onward. Tina and Ann were heading farther into the white mountains to another cabin and another 30 miles. Kat, Ben and I came in and out the same 14 mile trail to the cabin.
Ann is wearing the purple and yellow pimp hat, Kat drug the hat all the way out here..among other things.
Ben dealing with four girls having a birthday party and talking about relationships. he did read us the Cremation of Sam McGee, a classic.

Pella and I skiing out today.

Carl Sandburg High School

Carl Sandburg High School, were I went, was selected to play at the Inaugural Parade! I was not in band or anything, but still pretty cool.

Facebook

Trevor is my facebook wingman, I had some questions tonight and he fixed them. Now we are all watching Weeds, again.
Believe it or not this mess is becoming an ear flap hat with cables.

knitting party!

Love the knitting parties. The catheter removal went soo smooth, I am enjoying my first shower in years today among other benefits of not having the tubes hanging out of my neck. Time for a nice sexy outfit with a v-neck too!

still -42

seriously long cold snap. square tires this morning as i drove in to UAF. i think we have relief by this weekend. Pella will be glad not to be wearing her booties.

Alyeska from Dean

Alyeska

we decided to get out of town this weekend and ski Alyeska. we had a blast, there was no one skiing and half the mountain was closed due to low temps, -12F without a wind chill, come on that is warm! it is still -41 tonight in Fairbanks and no let up for another 10 days, very long cold snap....so we were thrilled to tele ski in the warm weather!
i have no pics skiing because my camera froze up from the wind. we did traverse and climb to the very top so we could find some powder. this is the view from the top, you can see Cook Inlet at the bottom!

Kristen(above), Trevor and Mark (Ed's 14 year old nephew visiting) were on snowboards and the rest of us telemark skied. Mark sure is one adventurous kid, he has been flying up to Alaska for years to go on crazy adventures with Ed. no complaining either, he is a fun kid.
birthday boy Ben heading towards Max's Face. Ed and Kristen had furnace problems while we were gone skiing, the pipes froze, the whole mess...Fairbanks can be trying with weeks at -40 , but we still love it.

Happy New Year, 2009!

we rang in the new year, still in this cold snap at 40 below. we had great pasta, wine, some had good scotch and of course fireworks.
Brown knit me this incredible lace leaf sock! the other one is coming soon.
outside for our personal fireworks show from their neighbor Jamie.
Ben photographing the smoke after the fireworks with my old cheap camera, it has a huge delay.
well here is one, what a fun way to ring in the New Year and we also knit for a couple hours.