Recently

Summer is officially here.  The summer solstice was on June 20.  I think total daylight was about 21 hours.  The day came and went without much fanfare.  Now the days are officially getting shorter, but I haven't noticed at all.  It is still light when I wake up and light when I go to sleep at around 11:00 or 11:30 pm.

I've been documenting the past couple of weeks on my iphone.  I'll show you some pictures I took so you can get a slice of Alaska.

This is a public use cabin that was built by the national park system in the Kenai Wildlife Refuge.  It is only $45/night to reserve.  Most of the sites are remote and are accessible only by boat or plane.  But this cabin was a short hike in.  My friend and I have been two cabins like this.  They have no running water, but have a wood stove inside to keep warm.  The second cabin was a long hike in.  We went once in May and once in June.  In June we saw bear scat (poo) on the trail.  It really freaked me out!

 Primitive accommodations inside the cabin.  I'm a novice and I don't have a sleeping bag, so I brought my zebra outdoor cushions and tied them together to fashion a bed! It worked, but I'm definitely not a real camper.

This is what the scenery looked like in May.  Still snow on the ground, gray and gloomy.  The temperature was about 45.  

I took the picture while I was walking on the beach one Sunday morning in Kenai.  It is VERY important to check the tide tables.  These people obviously didn't and got way too close to shore.  They are stuck out there, look closely in the picture, that brown stuff is sand! They had to sit it out and wait for the tide to come back in.  

View from the second cabin in June.  Much prettier than the first cabin.  This picture was taken at 10:00pm.  I was assaulted by hundreds of mosquitoes on this trip.  It was terrible.  I had mosquito bites from my scalp down to my toes.  They were even in the cabin.  Of course we forgot the bug spray.  But we made s'mores and view was pretty awesome. 

Other view from second cabin looking across the lake.  

In other news, my friend Sarah arrives in Kenai on Friday for a ten day visit.  We will be going to Homer, Seward, and Girdwood.  I am taking next Monday and Tuesday off and will have July 4th off too.  I hope the weather holds out and is nice.  I'm looking forward to it! 

I have 36 days left of work and 37 days left until Tim gets here.  I'm so so ready to get back to normal life and start the next chapter with Tim and closer to all my friends and family.  

Hello Again

Woops! It is have been awhile since I last blogged.  Sorry!

Okay I will be brief and to the point in this "re-introductory" post and then I promise to regularly update the blog.

Hmm... since my last blog post on April 1 all the snow has melted.  There is still snow on the mountains, but I don't think the snow every entirely melts off the peaks.  I guess spring/summer is here???? The highs are in the 50s and that is it.  It does not get above 58 degrees.  This must be spring, or is it summer already and I missed the spring.  I'm not sure.

It is always light out now.  We went from crazy depressing darkness to wonderful light-filled days and evenings.  For example, it now gets light at about 4:30am and gets dark around 12:30am or later (I'm usually asleep so I'm not sure).  I love all the light.  It is amazing and so energizing.  I wake up earlier and stay up later.  It also makes me feel safer.  I'm a little paranoid living alone and all, but I feel like people don't commit crimes when it is light out.  It is irrational... I know.  But it makes me feel safer :)

Over Mother's Day weekend I surprised my mom.  It was the best surprise ever! I will never ever forget her reaction.  My sister was on vacation and couldn't be with my mom on mother's day so I decided I would fly down and surprise her.  Only my dad, Katie, and Tim knew.  I left after work on Wednesday, flew to ANC, flew to Seattle, flew to Chicago.  I arrived at 5:30am on Thursday morning and spent 2 days with Tim.  I then flew to Dayton on Saturday morning.  My dad picked me up and then implemented the surprise.  It was great.  I left Dayton on Tuesday at 7:00pm, flew to Minneaspolis, then to Anchorage, then to Kenai.  I arrived in Kenai @ 5:00am, went home and took a shower and short nap, then went to work.

The point of the story is that life is short and I think it is so exciting and important to surprise unsuspecting loved ones if possible. I'm so glad I did it and got to spend some time at home with my family.  I was sad to leave, but my time here is almost over.

"Make sure you have big, fun plans in your lives.  Because life only comes once, you better make the best of it." unknown.

It never stops

Today is April 1.  I woke up this morning and it was SNOWING.  Yes snowing.  You can imagine my frustration.  The past week the temperatures were above freezing so the snow started to melt.  This is known as "break up" season.  This year is particularly bad because of the record breaking snow.  My street is like a river! Most of the streets are flooded and there is a lot of slush.  When the temps drop below freezing every night the slush hardens and the "river" freezes.  This makes for tricky driving conditions.

I took this picture this morning when I saw it was snowing. 

Here are some pictures I took on my lunch break this past week of a moose in my neighborhood.  I thought he was going to join me in my car!

Resolution/Goal Progress

We are three months into 2012 and I'm still going strong with my goal of running at least three times a week.  This is part of my bigger goal to run a 1/2 marathon this year.  I originally picked the Disney 1/2 marathon in November for my run, but now I'm starting to question whether this is a good idea.  First off, it will be expenisve to fly down there, stay at a hotel, and buy park tickets.  Secondly, the race starts at 10 pm! To me that is a little strange to start a race that late night.  I'm usually in bed at 10 pm so I'm not sure how my energy levels will be. And finally, I think I'll be ready for a 1/2 marathon before November.  I am already up to running 6.5 miles.  I basically took the entire month of March off because of being on vacation, so I treated March as a maintenance month.  But now that April here I am back to add distance every week.   So we will see.  Maybe I can find a race in Chicago for this fall.  Tim is going to run the Toronto Marathon this fall.  There is a Four Seasons property in Toronto so we will be able to stay there for free which is nice.

I am thinking about doing a four week "cleanse." I'm not sure if cleanse is the right word, maybe "restart" or "refresh" would be better.  The four week plan prohibits dairy, refined sugar, gluten, alcohol, caffeine, processed foods.  This leaves nuts, fruits, veggies, fish, poultry, some grains (quinoa), pork.  The hardest part of this would be giving up caffeine.  I at least have 2 cups of a coffee everyday and then some tea.  I'm not sure I can get by without my daily coffee! The rest wouldn't be so bad.  Although I do really like cheese.  I'm still toying with the idea.  I'll let you know if I decide to do it and if the results are worth it.

What is the status of your New Year's resolution/goal? It is never to late to get it back on track and start anew!

(I know this post has nothing to do with Alaska, but there is no Alaska news to report really).

xoxo -
mb

Spring Break

Spring Break does exist even beyond graduation.  Last week I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with Tim and his family.  It was such a wonderful break from the cold snowy Alaskan winter.  We actually stayed in a small town about 15 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta.  I felt safe the entire time.

Highlights of the trip:
- paddleboarding out in the ocean (Tim did this in Hawaii and taught us.  The board is wider than a surfboard and you stand up on it and paddle out in the ocean)
- cocktails at the Four Seasons in Punta Mita (this is the company Tim works for and they had an amazing resort property about 15 minutes away). So beautiful!
-relaxing on the beach
-pool volleyball
-spending time with Tim of course!

I don't have any pictures because they are all on Tim's camera.  He is busy packing and getting ready to move to a new apartment in Chicago, so I don't think I'll have any for awhile.  This is a picture of Bucerias  I snagged off the internet.



P.S. Happy Spring!

" Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world."  ~Virgil A. Kraft

Iditarod

Last Saturday I had the amazing privilege/opportunity to go to the ceremonial start of the Iditarod in Anchorage. For those of you who don't know, the Iditarod is a 1,150 mile race from Anchorage to Nome.  This was the 40th Iditarod.  There were over 60 teams there and over 1,000 dogs! It was so loud.  The dogs were excited and ready to go.  Usually it takes the teams about 8 or 9 days to arrive in Nome.  I also got to ride in a dog sled.  It was awesome.  I will never ever forget this experience.  Here is a video and some pictures:

Oh... I also saw the northern lights on Thursday night.  The recent solar flare really provided a spectacular show.  I don't have any pics of that though.

Moose Attack

I took my trash out 20 minutes ago.  The dumpster is on the side of apartment building.  I noticed some tracks in the snow.  They appeared to be moose tracks, and they were large! I followed them around the corner of the apartment building and saw that they went back into the little woods behind my apartment building.  I was shocked how large the tracks were.

In my state of "awe" I did not really assess my surroundings, but got the strange feeling something was watching me.  I looked up and saw a moose fifty feet away staring at me.  Its ears weren't back, so I wasn't too concerned.  But then I heard this loud rustling noise.  I saw out of the corner of my eye a big brown blob moving in the woods.  At that instant I ran! I didn't know if it was running away from me or towards, but I wasn't going to take the time to find out.  I was so frightened! I thought the moose was attacking me! Here are some moose pictures I've captured on my phone.  I need to start carrying around my regular camera to get some better pics.