We were very cozy inside the Colorado Creek cabin, just a few over the max amount. It was no problem though because a snowcave was built and Ann slept in there. It was great ski into the cabin and only 6miles. On the way out we went up Compeau Trail to the ridge.
Ben skiing on the way out.
Fernie in the snowcave with Ann.
Trevor is in town and we had super fun party on Christmas Eve with polish food and wine. What a great holiday to celebrate with Trevor in town, Trevor donated his kidney to me and it has been almost a year!
The girls in front of Brown's amazing chocolate dessert.
We all walked down the trail to John's house for the dessert and champagne.
Ed and I skied the trails behind his house on Christmas, I love the winter wonderland of Fairbanks skiing.
I was at AGU in San Francisco for a week and decided at the very last minute to fly to Chicago for the weekend before my regular every other week Mayo visit. We headed out to the North Ave shops and met up with my brother Jeff and his finance Jen.
Later that night, we drove to New Buffalo Michigan to visit my brother Tim and his girlfriend Jill. We ate at the usual Skips and then went down to the beach for a huge snowball fight. It was such a fun time and we all laughed a ton. I even took a video of the event, but you can not see much in the dark. Jeff, Tim and I raced to the lake and back...Jeff won. Jen's sister Beth threw a crazy snow curve ball. I am the dork with my new backpack on.
Sunday we went to Babcia's house to make uszka. Babcia made the dough and mushroom filling before we arrived. Here is my mom rolling the dough.
Moja robzinia uszka. Babcia ma doswiatezenie jarobicz uszka. My grandma passes along the tradition of making the uszka for the borscht. I am making borscht in Alaska for a Christmas eve for a group of friends, but I may have to buy mushroom tortalleni instead of homemade uszka.
We then boiled the uszka for 5 minutes and cooled.
The final uszka ready for the soup that will be cooked this week. The cooking takes days and it is all for Christmas eve.
I went to the AGU conference for a week in San Francisco and saw a ton of science talks as well as other colleagues. My lab was there showing posters and giving presentations. It was also a time catch up with old friends....
Megan and I hanging out at a fancy Italian restaurant downtown. We met bike racing in Boulder Colorado, but she is also an Atmospheric Chemist and was attending AGU.
Michelle and I met ice climbing in Colorado many years ago and now lives in San Francisco. We had so much fun seeing the city from the local point of view. She lives in Bernal Heights and we hiked to see great veiws of the city as well as hooping and hanging with Nina eating Indian pizza.
Dan and I on a coffee run to Peet's from the conference. Dan is overlooking the Moscone convention center where the conference was.
The is Richard's cabin in the now famous White Mountains from all the publicity from Ed and Ann's White 100 mile race that was out on AP from Washington to NC. We skied in at night 21 miles one way on a unknown trail and I still have a cast on my broken wrist! Kristen and I skied in together and it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, but of course super fun.
Kristen and I started skiing in at 2pm up the 5 mile climb from the McKay Creek trail head off the Steese. It was dark in about an hour and the rest of the long evening was dark. I am glad I have my new 3/4 metal edge waxable backcountry skis, the trail was steeper then we thought & we had some fun descents on skinny skiis.
Ed, Dan and Lisa skied in later that night. This is Dan the next day on the ski out. He brought Sky in and I was so thankful to have a skijor dog for the ski out.
Sky pulled like a champ. I stopped to take a self portrait and give her a ham sandwich.
We all went out to Chatanika Lodge on the drive home. Richard's cabin landscape is diverse with overflow on Champion Creek and old growth spruce trees, a real treat in the Whites.
