study break

ben and i headed down to the chena river downtown tonight on a study break. pella was loving shaking all over me.
pella's signature belly flop after a stick.

check out Patrick's new blog, he also takes great photos.

Greg's B-day

Sarah and Vanessa toasting to Greg's big 30 birthday out on the deck.
here is greg with his birthday present- a dog! (wait a minute that looks alot like pella.)

it was a long week with two comps down and two to go. it was nice to end the week at Greg's birthday party. i learned yet another strange but fun game at the Petitto's. carpet croquet.
check out my game face!

a night at the pump house

we had a great celebratory dinner tonight at the pump house. everyone had dinner and/or stopped by for a drink, the weather was perfect..but man those mosquitoes are out in force already!

attempted sky cam shot.
chaos afterwards as the dogs ran wild in the parking lot and swam in the river.

the next two weeks will be pretty busy, i have two written comprehensive exams each week and then we fly out for the kidney transplant! thanks everyone for coming out! Dea

Transplant is a GO!

Well, we finally have exciting news today. Patrick is approved to be a donor. The transplant is scheduled for June 18th at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. This is coming up quick and I am sure the next couple weeks will be a whirlwind! Thanks to Patrick for his willingness to donate, I am so grateful!

Friday night Chena River cruise

Audrey and I about to head out on the Chena. This was the maiden voyage for the inflatable sea kayak. Audrey bought it for her upcoming field work on a remote river.
Audrey paddling as we took on water, the self bailing plugs for rapids were not plugged and we were soaked in a few minutes. Since this was technically a booze cruise, we were not prepared for this. The rest of the cruise 4 canoes and two kayaks were hooked together with the beer and tunes, we paddled full on in hopes of reaching Pike's Landing before we froze.
Then these guys offered us a tow and we took it. The rest of the cruisers did not get there until 10pm, good thing we hitched a ride and met friends for dinner at Pike's on the river by 8:30pm. It was a fun adventure and we learned a few things for our trip down clear water next weekend.

We ran the last leg of the Equinox Marathon course today. It starts out with a steep descent down a power line trail. Martin and Ben ran and I did a slow version of a run/speed walk and caught up with them later on. The trail turns into a really pretty wind down Ester dome. It was a hot one today, 65F. Look out the Nitrate Radicals are already training for our 3-peat this year!

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!

my mom and dad hiking in denali national park during their visit to AK. they are having a big party for my dad's 60th B-day on May 18th and we are sorry we could not make it!

we went on a great road bike ride tonight on to the Ft. Wainwright Army Base. they have good empty roads and stac lead the way to get on base. we planned a nice easy spin, but
then we ended up climbing to the top of birch hill downhill ski resort on base. above is our urban assault part of the ride.
the sweet dirt road climb we found. there was a few loose spots so ben's mtn bike was not a bad choice on the ride. it was great to be out riding with stac, it has been awhile. we have also heard from Patrick and so far so good. it is really an incredible thing he is doing getting tested to donate a kidney.

Stac , Julie and I last at our dinner party. Martin showed us pictures from the successful native whale hunt he witnessed at Gambell. The whale was 55ft long and the entire village helped out. Patrick was also at the party and this morning at 4:30am, Ben and I dropped him off at the airport to fly to Mayo Clinic. We should know how the tests go by the end of the week!

scotch and nines

Martin seriously kicked our butts at dominoes. That is what we get for making fun of how bad he used to be. A little Scottish whiskey, Irish Pogues and Martin (Englishman) really gives him an edge.

I picked up Julie from the airport from her awesome trip rafting and kayaking in the grand canyon. I ran into Tawna, picking up Martin just in from Gambell. (Island just 40 clear miles to Russia, check out his blog). Stacia is back too from her trip to the north slope, I think. Last call she was stuck in a snow drift in her truck and they were coming to get her. I am excited they are back and we are all looking forward to catching up at dinner this weekend. Nice view of Ester Dome from Mark's house , tonight. Caz and Pella reunited. My life is not as exciting, but it is finals week and then my written comps for grad school already...making progress!

Casner Creek

I kind of go crazy when I can not exercise everyday, so finally we got out of town Saturday for a hike at Casner Glacier. It was a crazy snowy day, but it was still fun to be out.
Heading up the creek was pretty wet and we had few crossing s up to our waste in rotten snow. You can see the beautiful view of the Delta Mountains behind me, not. Some caribou crossing the road on the way home.

This is a picture of Ben exhausted after a long week of taking care of me in addition to the three days a week he gets up 5am, makes breakfast and drives me to dialysis. He is the best husband in the world.

After another trip to the hospital this week and some really strong steroids and other drugs, I am finally feeling better. This week was pretty frustrating, scary and doubtful. It was harder to stay positive with the beautiful weather here in Fairbanks. So far the rejection is under control and we hope we are in the clear, for now.

short walk today, i feel a little better...but i have good drugs.

we had a funny walk at birch hill the other day. which one is pella?stacia and i trying to get a hold of the dogs.
this is a funny pic from the heavy metal party i could of attended friday, but instead ben and i spent it in the ER. i have some kind of infection in my transplanted kidney and they may have to do surgery next week to remove it. not fun or good timing, but sometimes you just can't get a break. so for now ben and i are just hanging out and i am trying to recover.

slack line party and barbacue

hanging out on the deck at Martin and Tawna's.
Tawna is a pro at the slack line, well it is her slack line.
i gave it a shot about 25 times, i am not so good at the slack line.

such a busy weekend, from a nice road ride, more wet trail dog walks on the cripple creek trails and of course the slack line. most of pics were pretty bad so i'll just put these. the road ride was tuff but great. it you don't pee, you can't drink...which is hard after a long ride.

Our good friend Patrick is flying to Mayo in a few weeks, hopefully the evaluation to be a donor will go good. Once again, I am so darn lucky to have such good friends and family.

ben and martin on a run yesterday on the still pretty wet trails.
the trail actually runs behind ben and i and martin and ben were soaked after running through. tawna and i opted for the extra tuff boot walk instead. headed out for a road ride today, finally.

didgeridoo

Ben playing the didgeridoo at Sarah and Greg's on Saturday. Greg and Ben consumed a little scotch (ok, maybe alot) and it was a superfine evening with eggplant mousaka and rhubarb pie.
This is Greg and the view from their place, overlooking goldstream valley.
Break up boots are out again. Our walk at creamer's field was totally wet.

I went to see Sarah Hanson last night at 2 street station a cool coffeeshop downtown where few UAF folks venture. It was a great venue, a benefit concert and only about 30 people were there. Stacia, Tim and I enjoyed the music...I heard my favs like jake' going to the well and fairbanks.

kidney transplant update

well, we got some bad news from roger today at the mayo clinic. he can not donate his kidney. i am still very gratefull that he went through this for me. i guess it is back to the waiting game here, oh wait that is all we have been doing. ben are i are still staying positive. dialysis is of course not fun and it was a ruff week this week(rxn to meds, getting sick and the usual crap), but what can you do? keep living it up in AK!
i finally have my camera back from dan who took it too this ice camp 170 miles north of prudhoe bay on the beaufort sea in the arcitc ocean. the ice sheet was moving 5-10miles a day, the trip looked awesome from the pics anyway. above is the ice camp at sunset. dan and bill from our lab group went on this trip and collected snow samples, but this is the dive hole other researchers went in and it is moving so they had to swim with flippers to keep near the exit-man that would freak me out, the ice was moving so fast they could barely keep up.

Easter

We had an Easter feast Sunday with lots of Polish food. We made the usual kapusta (polish sour kraut) and horseradish and beet sauce. The beet sauce is for the egg as pictured above, yummy.Well still feast around the coffee table here at the Huff house. Ben's big toe made this pic too. Thanks all for coming, and Julie for her G-Flush story.

Spring came so suddenly, from 20 below to 50 everyday. Ben and I decided to get our last skis of the year in. Friday we skate skied Creamers Field (already plowed for the birds) and Saturday hit the backcountry at Clearly summit for some tele turns.Hiking up from the Steese. It is a quick and steep ascent , you can earn your turns pretty easily .About to ski and the view was great on and off as some clouds rolled through.

Pella met a friend within two minutes of our hike. He skied with us all day, he was a local, and didn't want Pella to leave.

4th Annual Ski for Women Race

Julie and I after the 3K race. Julie was up with the leaders and I finished way later. Former Olympian skate skier Aelin Peterson led this fun race today for the domestic violence shelter. 150 women skiers of all ages(one around 4yrs old, she did great) and most with costumes showed up to ski. We had a blast and after there was a huge buffet lunch and prizes.The top prize was free pair of skis and I won them! Can you believe it? It was a pretty exciting day.

After I dropped Dan and crew off in Nenana, Ben and I skied from the finish towards them. This is Ben's cool hairdo, because we are finally skiing with our hats off, I think I even have sun burned cheeks. There was headwind toward Nenana(as usual) and their 5 hour ski turned into 10, so we never ran into to them.Here is the finish at the Pump House, usually we are sitting on the deck looking out at the Chena River, but it is going to be awhile yet. Ben then took me too a photography friends birthday party. Dennis also heads up the fuel cell center at UAF and we had a lot in common from my last job working on oxygen separation membranes. We then stopped by Balshi's for a grilled salmon feast and Ben ended up playing this ridiculous xbox driving game where you can buy Ben Sherman clothes, cars, houses, model's ect....