Alaska: Ketchikan (Days 2-3)

Our second day in Ketchikan, Travis, Matthew and Al went fishing with Kurt pretty much all day. So Beth, Drew and I had a lazy morning, then walked to the shops in downtown.

Drew refused to take a picture as a pirate. He retorted, “I don’t do that in public.”

I was so fascinated by the named streets that were really just staircases that I took a picture of this “intersection” two days in a row:

The cruise ships are HUGE.

And you could definitely tell who was a tourist (dressed up, wearing heels) and who was a local (wearing jeans and Ketchikan sneakers). We were kind of in-between because our plans had been to be at a cabin all week so we only brought jeans and sweatshirts along.

Creek Street was the old red light district. While I like historic things, brothels are not one of them, so we declined that tour. (The rest of Creek Street is now just local shops.)

By the time we were done shopping, we were ready for lunch so we headed back to the apartment. The fishermen stopped by for about 5 minutes and when I discovered they were going back out fishing, I got a little angry at Travis. But I got over it and our group of 3 decided to ride the city bus out to Totem Bight State Park, which went smoothly with not a single incident. But on the way back, our bus driver stopped at the gas station to fill the bus up. That was a first.

The volunteer working in the visitor center was just closing up for the day and was in a very good mood so she let us in to the building where they were ‘rehabilitating’ some old totems that were rotting.

It was a lot easier to look at them when they were laying down (otherwise, some of them are so tall you just about fall over following them to the top).

Then we continued on to look at the clan house on-site, which was interesting. The natives lived in houses like this in clans of 45-50 people during the winter. In the summer, they set up camps near wherever they were fishing.

We of course saw more totems, but they’re not as cool in pictures as they are in real life, so I’ll spare you. It was low tide at the time so we walked out on to the exposed seaweed and looked for hermit crabs.

While we waited for the bus, Drew played with something I haven’t seen in over a decade.

I asked him if he knew what that even was. He did. Smartypants.

We got back to the apartment around 6 and since we had no idea when the guys were coming back, we made dinner when we started feeling hungry. Beth and I (but mostly Beth) put together beautiful homemade pizzas. About 10 minutes later, they were burnt to a crisp. Apparently, the oven temperature was not accurate. We were able to salvage them though – just the cheese was burnt so we peeled that off, put on more cheese and put them back in the oven, checking them every minute. So we had pizza for dinner and it was still pretty tasty. The guys came back not long after that and after they ate, we all went to bed.

The next day, the guys weren’t going fishing until the afternoon so we all went on a hike up to Lower Silvis Lake. It was 5 miles round trip and gained about 800 feet so while the climb wasn’t crazy steep, it was constant. All up on the way out, all down on the way back.

The guys saw the tunnel around the big pipe and just had to walk through it. I refused because of the spider-danger. Nothing is worth encountering spiders.

Being the almost-teenager boy that he was, Drew had to try climbing everything.

Even if it meant he could barely get down.

(He survived.)

We got up to a dam and had to climb over the fence to check it out.

Water, water everywhere.

We also came across a big pile of granite core samples.

We contemplated bringing them home for a new kitchen countertop but decided against it.

Finally, we reached the lake.

The bugs were so bad there though that I literally kept pacing back and forth until we were ready to turn back. Travis decided to imitate Ace Ventura and walk the ledge.

Then the guys went out fishing.

The rest of us hung out with Marlene, talking and drinking. Being around Drew reminds me of how much I hated adult conversation when I was his age. Talking seemed like The Worst way to spend your time. Now, I honestly enjoy it. I guess that makes me an adult, huh?

We played some Phase 10 as well until the guys got back and had gutted their fish. Then we had dinner: salmon chowder. Yum. So delicious. I can’t wait until we get some of the salmon Travis caught from his parents because I will be making this! After dessert of mint brownies and ice cream again, we called it a day.

Only one post of Alaska left… don’t be so excited.

Alaska: Ferry and Ketchikan (Day 1)

We got on the ferry around 6 pm on Friday, June 29. We wouldn’t be getting off until 6 am on Sunday, July 1. Yes, the ferry ride was 36 hours long.

We had reserved a 4-person berth, which was nice because it gave us a secure place to put all of our crap, and I was able to go to bed at 7:30 that night. Seriously. We ate our pizza up on the top deck under the Solarium and then I tried to hang out in the observation deck but was too sleepy. So I went to “take a nap” but didn’t get up before morning. Apparently, I was tired!

The Solarium

Our ship’s name

The map of the ship

At first, the ship seemed huge. But after being on there just a few hours, you pretty much knew where everything was (at least, what was accessible to the passengers).

To be completely honest, I got a little bored on the ferry. There’s only so much watching and waiting for wildlife, reading and crosswording, hanging out and napping I can do. We stopped at 4 different ports before getting to Ketchikan: Sitka, Kake, Petersburg and Wrangell. We stopped at Sitka in the middle of the night but got off for 20 minutes at Kake the next day, walked to the only store within walking distance and bought some ice cream.

The stops at Petersburg and Wrangell happened while we were awake but they were only for about 20 minutes and we didn’t think it was worth it to get off, only to get right back on.

Finally, we were coming in to Ketchikan. It’s very cool to watch how they get the ship tied to the dock in the right place. They winch it in. (The pics below are from 2 different ports, if you’re confused about why the dock is on one side in some and on the other side in others.)

We got off the ship, walked across the street for some blessed coffee and waited for our ride in the Alaska Marine Highway building. (I was reading blogs on my phone for the first time since getting to Alaska.)

Have I mentioned that Al and Beth (and Travis and his sister Carolyn) used to live in Ketchikan? Al and Beth moved there when they were first married, stayed for about 8 before moving back to MN and haven’t returned for about 25 years. I think they enjoyed seeing their old stomping grounds.

They still have some friends who live there – Kurt and Marlene. They were so nice and accommodating to us! They let us stay for free in an apartment they own that doesn’t have any renters currently. They borrowed us a car for free. And they invited us over to their house 3 nights out of the 5 we were there.

After Kurt picked us up, we went grocery shopping, napped and then drove around town to see some of the schools Travis went to and apartments they lived in. One of those apartments was actually just at the end of the street a couple hundred feet from the apartment we were staying in.

The streets in Ketchikan are crazy steep and narrow. The street our apartment was on was so narrow that you had to back out of it – no room to turn around! And the steepness reminded me of San Francisco. They have named streets that are just stairs, which I’ll talk more about in a different post. I remarked “Wow, I bet this is horrible in the winter” and was told that it doesn’t really snow in Ketchikan, and when it does, it melts pretty quickly because they get 160 inches of rain a year. Ketchikan is literally in a temperate rainforest (as opposed to a tropical rainforest).

Look at the moss on the back of this roof (the apartment at the bottom was the one they lived in):

Near our apartment was also a float plane harbor, which had planes flying in and out as early as 7 am everyday (grrr):

We tried to go tour the fish hatchery and native museum but you had to pay for them now (not 25 years ago!) so we ended up just walking around in the rain for a while.

Then we went to the Saxman Native Village to see the world’s largest collection of totems.

We learned what most of the symbols mean but I’m not going to tell you because 1) I’ve already forgotten and 2) they never made a ton of sense in the first place. I need an expert to interpret the poles for me.

After driving to the end of the southbound road (there are only about 20 miles of road in Ketchikan because it’s on an island), we went over to Kurt and Marlene’s house. Their two daughters and son-in-law were there too so we were a big group! We finally ate some wild salmon worth writing on the blog about! The locals know how to do it right. It was awesome. We also had carrots coated with pecan Nut-Thins and sour cream (I think… regardless, they were delicious, trust me) and baked potatoes. For dessert, we had mint brownies and ice cream and were informed at the end of the meal that everything had been gluten-free (their son-in-law has celiac). I was impressed – nothing tasted GF!

After we were thoroughly stuffed, we played some Phase 10 until about 10:45, and then went home to bed. There was fishing to be done the next day!

Coming up: Ketchikan Days 2 and 3

 

Alaska: Seward (Day 2) and Juneau

The morning after our Kenai Fjords Tour (our second day in Seward), we got up around 8, ate breakfast and took showers. We left the RV park and drove to Lowell Point, for a hike to Tonsina Point that you could only do at low tide.

The first part of the hike was pretty, though it was just on a gravel road.

But then the trail narrowed and we crossed a stream or two.

As we continued on, we encountered a lot of plank bridges covered with nets, to keep them from being incredibly slippery in the constant dampness.

We also crossed a lot of bridges.

Even though it was cloudy and rainy, the views were still beautiful.

The trees covered in moss reminded me of something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Finally, we made it out to the beach.

The sand is black because of the high concentration of mineral sediment from the surrounding bedrock, which is also black. It looks cool, no?

We were there at low tide so we could walk out a long way.

Barnacles!

After hanging out at the beach for a while skipping rocks and looking at the flat rocks (like the ones we saw on Fox Island), black sand and kelp, it started raining pretty good and we were getting hungry. So we decided to head back. Travis and Drew walked along the beach instead of following the trail back. By the time they reached the RV, their feet and pants were soaked.

We ate lunch and then got on the road back up to Anchorage. We ate dinner with our friends, A & L, who are in Anchorage doing traveling nursing, at the Snow Goose Restaurant in downtown Anchorage.

The food was decent but nothing to write home a blog about.

We were flying to Juneau early the next morning so we parked and slept at the RV rental place, since it was close to the airport. The next morning, Travis drove all of us and our luggage to the airport, then drove the RV back to the rental place and literally ran back to the airport.

Our flight to Juneau was short and uneventful. We were greeted by typical summer weather in Alaska: 50s and rainy. We rented a sweeto minivan from a company called Rent a Wreck (seriously) and drove to downtown Juneau.

We did some shopping – I bought some Glacier Silt Soap, which is made with the sediment in glacier runoff. It smells amazing, makes your hands really soft (and not filmy like regular bar soap), and it’s made and sold only in Juneau!

Then we took a tour of the capitol. It’s a pretty humble building – no dome – because it was built as a federal building and not a capitol. And it’s not they have a ton of room to build a completely new one, since the town is right on the ocean.

After the tour, we walked over to a historic Russian Orthodoxy Catholic church.

It was interesting, and the smallest church I have ever seen.

We walked back to the main strip and ate lunch at the Red Dog Saloon. It had a cool atmosphere, similar to the Old West feeling. I had the fish and chips and they were pretty good.

After lunch, we drove around the island and Juneau, and saw the Mendenhall Glacier from afar.

Then we bought some pizza to eat on the ferry and headed to the boarding area.

Coming up: Alaska Marine Highway and Ketchikan

Alaska: Seward (Day 1)

If you missed my first two posts on Alaska, here are the links to the marathon recap and our adventures in Talkeetna/Denali.

On the morning of Day 6, we took showers at the Big Bear RV Park (which were very nice btw), ate breakfast, and got on the road. I sat in the front of the RV with Travis as his co-pilot, which was nice because I could really see where we were going (otherwise, in the back, you can only look out the side windows or you have to ride hunched over to see out the windshield.)

We stopped by the RV rental place on our way through Anchorage and got a new air mattress, which we liked a lot better. The inflator machine also ran on batteries instead of electricity, so we didn’t have to fire up the generator every night, which was nice.

Finally, we were on our way to Seward. The drive was beautiful.

 

We stopped at several scenic overlooks and wildlife viewing sites.

 

 

 

 

Everyone looking at Dall sheep on the distant mountainside

We ate lunch on the way and arrived at our RV site by mid-afternoon.

 

 

After checking in, we had plenty of daylight left to go check out Exit Glacier.

 

 

 

That sign was where the glacier reached in 1951. It’s receding fast!

Here’s why the glacier looks blue (I won’t tell you myself since I’ve been saying it backwards whenever I explain it):

We grilled up hamburgers and potatoes for dinner when we got back. Then, while Beth went to do laundry, the rest of us played several intense rounds of Gin Rummy and Trav’s dad, Al, got caught cheating.

The next morning (Day 6), we got up early for our Kenai Fjords Tour.

We didn’t know this before arriving at the RV Park but Kenai Fjords Tours has free shuttles that run to several of the local RV parks. Just thought I’d tell you in case you’re planning a trip to Alaska after reading all these posts.

The Seward Harbor was really cool. I can’t get over how awesome mountains + ocean is.

Our ship was the Nunatak.

It got cold on the boat!

The first wildlife we saw were sea otters, just chilling right in the middle of the wide open sea.

Silly otters.

Then we saw a couple of humpback whales, which was very cool. You can just barely see the whale fluke in the bottom left of this picture.

Then we got closer.

It was a mommy and a baby!

The landscape and water were so pretty too. Such a change from all of the sediment-y glacier runoff we’d been seeing.

It was nice and warm in the back of the boat, and with standing in front of the heat exchange but the diesel fumes started to make me sick so I had to go back up to the top deck after a while.

I love how the sky and ocean are almost the same color in this picture:

The next wildlife we saw was a group of Killer whales (maybe 5-6). They never surfaced at the same time but it was cool to see so many in one spot.

We also encountered some stryofoam that had washed over all the way from Japan (aftermath of the tsunami).

They tried to spear it but it was too big.

All this time, we were making our way over to the Aialik Glacier. It was massive.

For a point of reference:

That ship was the same size as the one we were on. The glacier is something like 400 feet tall and breaks off into the ocean by as much as 20 feet per day. We could hear the ice heave and pop, and we even got to watch some of it break off:

It was very cool. Literally.

Matthew with some glacier ice

Way more awesome (and bigger) than the Exit Glacier.

We set off again and before long, we saw a whole bunch of puffins and seagulls on appropriately named ‘Gull Island.’

So many birds.

The sun poked its head out of the clouds for a bit, which was very welcome.

We saw some sea lions sunning themselves.

In these pictures, it looks like mid-day but it was actually almost 5 pm! We got off on Fox Island (which only Kenai Fjords Tours’ customers get to do) and ate a dinner of salmon and prime rib. I didn’t have any prime rib (ew) and the salmon was a little dry and disappointing. But the boys got some good rock skipping in with the flat, oval rocks that made up the beach.

And then it was back to port and to our RV park. We picked up some drinks at the liquor store (for those who were old enough) and attempted to have a campfire. But wood was scarce and wet, and it started to rain a bit so we threw in the towel and went to bed.

Well, this post has gotten quite long! Between this tour and the one in Denali, I’m pretty sure I took about 400 pictures. So I will write about our second day in Seward in another post…

Alaska: Talkeetna and Denali

Hi friends! I’m back. Alaska was wonderful and so much fun but it’s good to be home. Now that we’re all unpacked with clean laundry and food in the fridge, I can tell you about our Alaskan adventures.

You’ve already heard about how the marathon went. 

After the race, we went and picked up our RV.

{at our first campsite}

We weren’t able to get a late checkout from our hotel so Travis and I ended up showering at the RV place. A little strange but it worked. After lunch at The Village Inn, we went grocery shopping (we cooked all of our own meals, except 3-4 that we had to eat out) and then headed north on our way to Denali.

We made it as far as Talkeetna and then settled in for the night at the campsite above. It wasn’t the most appealing campsite ever but we didn’t really mind as we were all exhausted from traveling and a long day in the RV (and me, running a marathon!).

Right away that first night, we realized how weird it was to have so much daylight. It’d be 11 at night and you’d think it was 5 because of all the daylight. Even when we went to bed at 10:30, it was bright outside, and whatever time we got up, it was light outside (it gets dark around 11:30 and light around 4 that far north). We ended up making a sunlight blind from a beer box for the upper bunk of the RV.

The next morning, we walked over to check out the small town of Talkeetna.

The water is so dirty because it’s glacial runoff and is full of silt. (I actually bought some soap in Juneau made with glacial silt and it’s amazing! It makes your hands feel so soft.)

After touring the town and doing a little shopping, we walked back to our RV and got on the road. We stopped frequently to take pictures and see the sights on our way up to Denali because 1) we had nowhere to be and 2) the mountains were gorgeous.

We stopped at the Veteran’s Memorial.

Saw Hurricane Gulch, which is pretty impressive.

After a very bumpy RV ride, we finally made it to Denali National Park.

We went to the Visitor’s Center, then ate dinner and fixed the air mattress that Travis and I were sleeping on (it had gone flat the night before!). After that, we took advantage of our copious amounts of daylight at 9:30 pm to go on a walk down to Riley Creek.

{Check out the giant blister on the inside of my right big toe!}

The next morning, we got up early for the 7 am Eielson Tour into the park.

 

{From left to right, Travis, Drew (our nephew), Matthew (T”s bro), Al (T’s dad), Beth (T’s mom), and me}

The first animals we saw were some caribou (reindeer) down by the water. They were pretty far away so you needed binoculars and a mega-scope on your camera to see them well.

And then 3 different times, we saw a momma brown/grizzly bear and her 2 cubs (at least 2 different sets, if not all 3). They were SO cute! The little cubs were bumbling along and playing with each other. It was very cool. They only have about 600 bears in the entire 6 million acre park, so seeing that many was really special.

We stopped a couple of times along the way (it takes 4 hours to get up to the Eielson Visitor Center – it’s 66 miles into the park). You’re allowed to hike around and get on another bus if you want but there aren’t any trails (you’d have to just bush whack) and it seemed fairly involved to get on a different bus. So we just stayed on our own the whole way. Our driver was really funny and knowledgeable too so it was an enjoyable drive.

Finally, we got up to the visitor center. It had been a sunny, warm day when we started out on the trip into the park but the closer we got to the mountain, the cloudier and colder it got. Apparently, Denali is big enough that it creates it own weather and when the sun melts the snow, it creates a lot of clouds and hides the mountain. All we could see up at the visitor center was fog (which is normally where you get the best view of the mountain).

On the way back, we were all tired and struggled to stay awake. We saw some more bears, eagles, a marmot, some more caribou and then we were back to where we started.

We had already “checked out” of our campsite so when we got back to the RV, we hit the road back toward Anchorage. For the night, we stayed at the Big Bear RV Park in Palmer (near Wasilla).

We finally had a campfire! Every other place we had been were selling little bundles of firewood for $10. This place had a bargain of $6 a bundle. Having a fire was a little weird though because it was completely light outside.

And that was the end of Day 4!

Coming up: Seward (whales!), Juneau and the ferry

Memory Book and Goals

As I was driving to work yesterday, I realized that March was over and I had not yet completed my goal of trying Bikram yoga. Whoops. So I penciled it onto my training schedule for Sunday, April 22. (Next Sunday is Easter and the next Sunday is the Platte River Half Marathon!)

Since April is here, I need to start working on my April goal – finishing a memory book of our first 5 years of marriage.

Just last Thursday on our way to the airport, Travis and I were trying to remember the last time my parents had been out to visit us in Colorado. It took some digging around in our brains but little by little, we pieced it together. I had shown them our new bedroom curtains… we had Charlie… we spent a lot of time cooking and baking… Travis and my dad thought about fixing the car but decided against it… oh, they were out here for last Thanksgiving!

That happens often. Holidays and vacations blend in to one another and it’s hard to remember what you did one year. Or if you do remember what you did, you can’t remember which year it was!

Enter the memory book. I envision this being similar to the race memory book I created. I don’t have a picture but it’s pretty straightforward: I print out my race report from the blog, three-hole punch it, and stick it into a binder labeled “Race Memories”. I slide my race bib into a sheet protector and stick that in after each race report. Easy.

For the memory book, I’m going to include all of the big holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day – plus other special times like our wedding anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, birthdays, vacations, etc.

Once I copy the blog posts, I’m going to read through each blog post and add any extra details I can think of, then go through my boxes of sentimental keepsakes and add any that pertain to the specific holiday/trip/day.

After all that hard work is done, the trick will be to keep updating the book. I am already failing on this account for my race memory book so the odds aren’t good. But that’s why having a blog is so handy! All those fun trips and times are recorded here on the interwebs, just waiting for me to put them in my book.

………………..

On another note altogether, I have decided that after the marathon is over, I am going to free my weekends up from workouts. I have so many projects and things that I want to do around the house, and to the house, that it’d be nice to not have weekends dominated by running and recovering. I do still want to keep running and biking (have to, if I want to accomplish my goals of climbing a 14er and biking 50 miles at once!) but I’ll try to confine that to after work during the week, so I can get stuff done on the weekends.

Running is fun, but it takes up so much time!

………………….

Quickly, an update on my other goals:

…get pregnant.

• I went off birth control!

…run 700 miles.

• As of March 31, I was at 179 miles. With marathon training, I think this is totally doable.

…finish writing my nonfiction book.

• I’m still slowing chipping away at writing my book. It’s hard to get up early because I’m so tired in the mornings but I’m really trying to go to bed sooner.

…read 27 books (one more than in 2011).

• I’ve been really slacking on the book reading (I’m only up to 5 completed, thanks to copious re-runs of NCIS) but I am still listening to Harry Potter audiobooks and am about halfway through the fourth book. I am also currently reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which is really interesting. I want to read Blink too!

…consistently track my workouts so I have accurate totals on 12/31/12!

• I have been obsessively tracking my workouts on MapMyRun.com but am contemplating switching over to RunningAhead.com. MMR has been stupid lately with not loading or mapping courses correctly so I’m kind of over them. But… I want all of my training records to be in one spot. So what I’ve been doing is continuing to track my workouts on MMR but mapping courses using RA. Whatev. It works for now.

…grow in being a loving, supportive wive to my amazing husband.

• I helped Travis with yardwork the past two weekends so I think that counts as being a loving, supportive wife.

{Sidenote: I also realized yesterday that I was quite ambitious when making my goals at the beginning of the year. Especially with wanting to get pregnant, I need to be open to the fact that some of these may or may not happen (ahem, 50 mile bike ride and 14er hike). I’m going to give it the ole college try but I’m also aware that things change and I need to adapt.}

Are you sticking with your 2012 goals/resolutions?

Happy Hump Day!

Our Evansville Trip

This morning, we woke up to this:

Snow. A lot of it has already melted and it’s supposed to warm up to high 60s later this week but still. Snow in April. I just hope that our tulips and lilies don’t die because of it (we did cover them).

Anyway, we flew out to Evansville Thursday morning – like I mentioned before, we actually flew to St. Louis, where my parents picked us up (it was right on their way), and we drove the remaining 3 hours to Evansville.

We got to Jeremy and Jen’s house around 4 pm, where we finally got to meet this little guy:

He’s even cuter in person. At first, he cried every time I held him. But the last few days we were there, I got to hold him for at least 20 minutes before he wanted something or someone else.

Since he’s so young, we mostly just hung around the house. We cooked all of our meals, except for ordering Chinese in the first night we were there, and my mom and I made 5 freezer meals + cookie dough for Jeremy and Jen.

We also played a little cornhole:

We did some weeding and stump ripping-out:

We did a LOT of baby holding:

Baby J is a spit bubble factory!

Travis will be a good-looking dad:

Baby J loves this play mat – his little legs and arms go all over the place and he blows lots of bubbles. His bibs were always soaking!

They have two dachshunds – Libby is the girl (bottom left) and Chief is the boy (bottom right). Libby and I are friends.

As always, I drank plenty of wine and regular soda, ate lots of sweets, and pretty much just enjoyed myself. I have more thoughts about eating and vacation that I’ll share in future posts but for now, I’ll say that this vacation involved all the things a vacation is supposed to.

It’s good to be back into the routine of things, but we already miss our great family and cute little nephew!

And if you’re wondering if being around Baby J affected my desire to have a baby of my own, the answer is Yes. I want one even more now! 

And we’re off!

Travis and I are heading out this morning to go visit my oldest brother Jeremy and sister-in-law Jen, and their little baby J.

Who is adorable, might I add:

My parents are coming down too and they’re going to pick us up from the St. Louis airport (which was considerably cheaper than flying directly into Evansville, where J&J&J live).

I’m blessed to have an awesome family – Jen is the one in the pink sitting next to me and Jeremy is behind her in green.

Since Travis and I have been married almost 5 years and I’m one of the few of my friends left without kids, whenever I mention babies or am around newborns, people tell me “You’re going to catch the fever!” I usually just smile and nod. But what I really want to say is that I have already caught the fever and as of last Sunday, am officially done with birth control. My doctor said I should give myself 3 months without BC before we start trying to get pregnant, and since we want to start trying pretty much right after we get back from our Alaska trip on July 6ish, 3 months ended up being now. So there’s that! I am very excited about the next stage of life…

But I have 26.2 miles to run first!

Have a great weekend friends!

Baby Fever on Steroids

So I mentioned in my post yesterday that my oldest brother and sister-in-law just had their first child yesterday. (Woohoo!) Baby J we’ll call him. He is so freakin’ adorable that I’m tearing up right now after looking at pictures (which I’m not going to post here for the sake of their privacy). I wish I was going right now to see him instead of having to wait almost 2 months! (They live 16+ hours away from here and not near a cheap airport.)

I was technically already an aunt because Travis’ sister has a son. And while I love him and definitely consider him my nephew, he’s 12 years old. So this is the first time I’ve experienced being an aunt to a newborn and it’s the first baby on my side of the family.

I’mjustsofreakingexcitingIcanbarelystandit.

Anyway, the birth went fine and Baby J was born at 11:40 weighing 6 lbs 6 oz, 20 inches long. And he’s really cute. And my SIL didn’t even look like she gave birth, she’s so pretty.

So of course, this gets me even more excited than I was before to have kids of our own (though I’m sure I’ll look like a hot mess after giving birth). And I was pretty excited before, so this is getting dangerous. Lucky for Travis us, I still want to do a marathon before having a baby even more than I want to have a baby right now. So the plans have not changed. I’ll just have to live vicariously through my siblings for now.

Are you an aunt or uncle? How flippin’ excited were you when your nephew/niece was born?

Christmas Eve

Travis’ and my main goal for the Christmas weekend was to be bums. That’s the only upside of being without family on Christmas – you get to lay around in your pajamas watching movies all weekend and no one can tell you not to.

So Saturday morning, I slept in until 8:00, then got up, made coffee, fed the dogs and read the Christmas story in Luke. Then Travis got up and we opened presents.

First up was our stockings stuffed lovingly by Travis’ mom.

Katy said she wanted to open my stocking.

Charlie just wanted to sniff things.

Before unpacking my stocking, I decided to give the dogs their Christmas present: a big bone for each. That kept Charlie occupied for 4 hours and Katy occupied for 4 days.

The contents of my stocking (plus a Target gift card, unpictured).

The contents of Travis’ stocking (plus candy, unpictured). Man stuff. The rolls are hockey tape.

This was part of what Travis got from my brother Jeremy (my side of the family draws names). It’s a hound dog that sings and makes farting noises with his armpit. Let’s just say that this was a very fitting gift, for both the giver and the receiver.

Wearing my new pajamas that I got from my sister-in-law Jen.

And my awesome reindeer slipper socks. Thanks Jen!

This was my gift to Travis – Big Buck Hunter Pro that he can play on the TV without a game console. I tried playing it a little and got so frustrated that I had to quit. It’s not my thing. But Travis likes it!

The new dinnerware from my parents – we love it! Can’t wait to use it.

And I got an immersion blender and new bath towels from Travis’ parents – which are great! Now I need to get to work making soup. I’m not sure about the deal with the hat though…

Katy still chewing on her bone. Charlie actually finished hers by noon and grabbed Katy’s when she wasn’t looking. We grabbed it back for Katy, who then went and hid it in the backyard. Charlie made one small move toward the bone and Katy attacked her. We broke up the fight and Charlie left the bone alone after that. For the following couple of days, every time Katy was  outside, she was chewing on her bone, butt in the air. Hilarious.

After gift opening, we worked on a puzzle and watched the Broncos lose. Then I decided to end my week of inactivity by going on a 3.57 mile run (40:33, 11:21/mile). And I discovered that while the side streets and sidewalks don’t get plowed or shoveled (sometimes making it near impossible to get out of your neighborhood), the greenway (bike trail) does. That’s Colorado for ya! But I am a big fan, since that meant I was able to run on a fairly snow-free surface for the majority of my run.

I got back, stretched, took a shower and we headed over to our friends’ house for dinner with their family. This is what we did last year too, and it was a lot of fun. This year was just as fun – we drank some wine, ate a lot of good food (including a deep-fried turkey that I actually liked!), and played lots of Catch Phrase. Once again, the females dominated the males. I tell ya, we’re just smarter.

We stayed there until about 8:45, then went home to feed the dogs, put my slipper socks back on and work on our puzzle.

It was a great Christmas Eve!

What was your favorite Christmas gift this year? Mine was my slipper socks. I love that they keep my feet warm and I don’t have to worry about them falling off. All my other presents were great too though. We have very generous families.