Iditarod 2010

Our day at the iditarod. I had just written a little blurb on it. It got lost. So here's a brief synopsis:
Fur Rendezvous 2010
Running with Reindeers
Carnivals in cold weathers
Weird Contests
Fake Iditarod Start (see photos below) Lance Mackey is even in one...he just won for the 4th time. Kind of a big deal
Burgers at The White Spot
Frozen Toes...Good Fun!

I like your teeth...

Now, I know these people exist. I've heard of them. I've just never experienced something like this first hand. Enjoy:

I was at Wal-Mart yesterday (already makes more sense!) returning a few items. The line to customer service was a little long, but I didn't want to have to come back, so I decided to forge ahead. As I was standing there the man in front of me looks at me and says, "You have two different shoes on". I then look down, even though I knew I didn't, only because I HAVE done this before! :) As I see that I have the same shoe on both my feet he says, "Oh, no you don't. They way you were standing made it look like you had two different shoes on." I reply, "You had me scared there for a bit."
The crazy man at walmart (CMAW) then says to me, "Whoa! You have nice teeth." (really, nice teeth...??)
Me, "Thank You".
CMAW, "How old are you?"

At this point, I want to entertain this a bit, I still have a while in line!

Me, "How old do you think I am?"
CMAW, "21"
Me "No, but thank you!"
CMAW, "25"
Me, "No, but thanks"
CMAW, "20?"
Me, "No, but thanks ALOT!"
Me, "I'm 29"
CMAW, "No way!" (yes way)
CMAW, "How old do you think I am?"

I pause for a moment, not sure if I should respond to this, but what the heck, "umm..41?"

CMAW, "That's close...real close."

Some silence, I'm not sure where it's gonna go from here. I didn't have to wait long.

CMAW, "Do you know why I look my age?"

Ummm....awkward silence. Again, not for long.

CMAW, "I fight."
Me, "Oh, like AFC fighting?"
CMAW, "Kind of, but I'm too old for that, I do Ji Jitsu (sp?)."
Me, "Oh, I see."
CMAW, "Let me tell you a little bit about the MMA and AFC fighting.....(he went on some big thing about how they didn't use to have cages and pads, or something of that nature. I wasn't quite following)
Me, "Uh huh"
CMAW, "I wish they would have had that when I was younger. Would have kept me out of jail."

A kind nod from my direction. Wonderful!
At this time I then pull left hand more in the way of the eye. I know where this is headed.
He switched subjects at this point and started talking of sitting on the couch and flipping through T.V. channels. I nodded again.

CMAW, "Sometimes when I'm bored of flipping through channels I go to work."
Me, " Yes, it's always nice to have a little cushioning in the bank isn't it?"

A little more awkward silence..

CMAW, "So do you know anything about Ji Jitsu?"
Me, "No."
CMAW, "Well I like to invite, now I'm gentle, but I like to invite girls over and well, wrestle with 'em a bit. But I'm gentle."

Oh yes, the old "wrestling routine"
I couldn't respond. Didn't know how. A few thoughts were going through my head, such as, I wonder if he's going to follow me? Is there cameras getting all of this? And of course, this is really happening to me.

CMAW, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
Me, "I have a husband."
CMAW, "A husband? I didn't even look at your fingers yet!"

Ah yes, my teeth and fingers

CMAW, "Don't ever cheat on him"
Me, "Deal"
CMAW, "Don't let him cheat on you"
Me, "Okay"
CMAW, "I was married once. She cheated on me. I have a kid though."
Me, "Oh, how old is your kid?"
CMAW, "She's 23. She's got a kid too. Now I'm a grandpa."
Me, "That's cool. Kids are fun.'
CMAW, "Yeah, but they're in California and I'm in Alaska"
Me, "Yes."

At this point, we still have a bit of a line ahead of us...

Me, "What part of California?"
CMAW, "Chico. But I'm from the Sacramento area."
Me, "Oh, my husband is from the Sacramento area, Lincoln actually."
CMAW, "oh yeah" (while nodding with slight confusion)
CMAW, "so your family's from California?"
Me, "No, my husband is from California, my family is in Utah".
CMAW, "Ahhh..Utah, that's a nice place too. You must be a farmer. There's lots of farms there."
Me, "No, I grew up in the city. My husband grew up on more of a farm than I did".

Line is moving forward some. It's his turn.

CMAW, "That's amazing. Your from the farm and grew up in the city and he's from the city and grew up on a farm."

Me with a kind nod, now in complete bewilderment.

Immediately after he's moved to a cashier the lady right next to him opens up. I walk forward and start to return my items. I look over and he's there cashing his government check. Unfortunately, the check wasn't dated until 2/3/10. It was 2/2/10. The whole thing could have been avoided!

Note to self...don't go close to Wal-mart at the beginning of the month!

Our Getaway

Last weekend Mike and I went on a little getaway down to Girdwood. It's the big ski spot here in the AK, but is beautiful, especially in the winter! My boss was ever so gracious to let us stay in his cabin. We had a wonderful few days. We rode the tram to the top of the mountain and ate at the Seven Glaciers restaurant and enjoyed just relaxing and watching a few movies. Enjoy these beautiful photos!

Our House....

The Blog neglection is Over!! I am sorry it has taken so long for this post to happen, but I was waiting for the house be completely decorated, I realized, it's never going to be completely decorated! So, here is our house now. When it changes, I'll take more pics!
Please refer to a few posts down for the "before" shots!

We are loving our house! You all should come visit!!

Progress

I've atleast changed my background, right? I'm charging my camera battery right now. I promise photos shall be posted SOON!!! You won't be disappointed!

Busy Month

This past month has been very busy. We are proud to say that we are officially homeowners! We signed on November 6th and we have been going non-stop ever since. We had to be out of our place on October 31st so we were homeless! My boss put us up in a hotel so we lived at the Hilton for a week. We got a storage shed so that we would have a place to keep our stuff so we've been slowly moving in. It has been very helpful because we have been painting the entire house so we haven't had all our stuff in the way. Basically we've been camping in our home! We're almost done with the painting process and it looks amazing. Although, I wouldn't care if I never saw another can of paint again. Now we just get to unpack and organize. I was hoping to have it done by Thanksgiving, but I don't think it's gonna happen. :( We are making progress slowly but surely. I will post photos as soon as all of the painting is done. But it has been consuming all of our free time. We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday :)

2818 Bass Street

We are proud to announce that after months and months and months of searching we have finally found our home and had our offer accepted!!! It is the perfect little house and is cute as a button! Check out the backyard! We are set to close on November 6th and couldn't be more excited!

These are the photos from the real estate website. We'll get more posted once it has our own touch added to it! We're excited to deep fry our turkey this Thanksgiving on our new deck and then roast marshmallows in our fire pit! Everyone needs to come visit now!

1st Anniversary

September 13th was our 1 year anniversary! I can't believe how fast it has flown by. It seems like it went by much quicker than the year planning the wedding! It was my turn to plan the event and I wanted to suprise Mike. I have a hard time with this, because he guesses EVERYTHING!! But, I was successful. We celebrated on Saturday the 12th, because the 13th was on a Sunday. Mike had to work at Best Buy for a few hours Saturday evening, so we had some time during the day and then the late evening. Saturday morning I told Mike that we were meeting our Real Estate agent at 12:30 p.m. to look at a house. We had been driving around looking for houses in the morning and then I plugged in the address for Bear's Tooth Movie Theatre into the GPS. They were having a matinee showing of Transformer's 2 and Mike had been dying to see it. It's a fun theatre because they have tables and booths and you can order your lunch and then they bring it to you while you're watching the movie. So he's driving along, starving and complaining mind you:), thinking he's headed to another house, when it takes us to the Theatre. He got a big old grin on his face and I had accomplished my task! So, for the traditional 1st year gift, which is paper, we had our movie tickets. After the movie Mike headed to work and then I went into my next plan. I had gotten us a hotel room and had made dinner reservations for when he got off work. I went and decorated the hotel room with Peppermint Patties (his favorite) and took a little basket with a note, change of clothes and the GPS programmed with Destination 1 and Destination 2, so that he had no idea where he was going. He was a little embarrased when he got a basket delivered at work, but hey...I didn't have too many options! So he made it to Destination 1-Dinner @ Suite 100. Again...suprised! It was YUMMY! After dinner he thought we were going bowling, cause I had mentioned it a few days back. He was suprised when the GPS led him to hotel. Needless to say, I was very pleased with pulling this off, because it's very rare that I actually get to suprise him! The modern day gift is "Time" and Mike loves watches and clocks, so I got him a wall clock that we can hang at our new house. We had lots of fun and am so happy that I have the rest of my life and eternity to spend with my husband!

UT VaCa

A good time is...
Mexican Food with Dad @ his favorite joint
Being in warm weather
Parents and Siblings
Baptisms
New Babies
Babies peeing on photographers
Aunts and Uncles
Gramps and Grams
Homemade Ice Cream
Breakfast from the Garden
BBQ's with Old Friends

Pickleball
Shopping
Olive Garden
Outlet Malls
Telling Funny Stories with Friends
Cafe Rio
Holding more new babies
More good dinners with friends
Walking on the Salt Flats
Sinking in the Mud
Road Trips
Camping
Jet Ski's
Rope Swings
S'mores
Grandma's Taco Soup
Floating down the Green River
Sonic Dr. Pepper
Flying First Class

Thanks for all the fun. We enjoyed seeing all of our family and friends!

Fire on the Dunes

On Thursday night we went out to Kincaid park with some friends and made a little fire on the sand dunes and roasted marshmallows and made banana boats. We hadn't seen them in a long time so it was fun to catch up. We saw this momma moose and her babies on our way to the park.

Mike, Marky-Mark, Natasha, Shug Master Flash, Paul, and Kirsten

Pretty Picture...

They close the gates at 9:00 and we BARELY made it through. We were close to having a sleepover on the dunes. Thanks guys, we had a great time!