Friday, December 31, 2010

A very happy new year!!

As some of you know, Lisa and I celebrated our 11th anniversary (which was December 18th) by escaping for the first time in 1,327 days!! We have actually never been away (together) from the girls for the night until Wednesday. Incredible. But with Lisa's Mom here, we made it a priority to celebrate this anniversary in style.

So we booked an overnighter in Girdwood...about 40 minutes down the road. The surprise was that Lisa thought all along that we were staying at the Alyeska Resort. While that would have been nice, I found a "cabin" that was a little more appealing! ;)

So our outing began when we left at about noon to get there in time for Lisa's first ever snowboarding lesson!! The drive was BEAUTIFUL!! We had about an inch of snow overnight and Girdwood had about 4 inches!

Not sure if this was a sun dog or what, but it was incredible. Freaking rainbow across Turnagain Arm at 20 degrees!

Little snow shower on our way there.

Just a few short months ago, we were watching beluga whales right here!

Amazing. I don't care how many times I've seen beautiful settings in Alaska, this is amazing!

Arrival at our destination.

Lisa strapping on to the snowboard for the first time. Yes she was VERY nervous!

Lisa and her adult class of beginners. Amazing scenery for a beginners lesson.

Lisa and her instructor slowly going down the hill. Lisa did GREAT!!!

After a couple of hours of hard work on the slopes, it was time to relax at the bar with a huge stack of nachos...

and a couple beers... and .... Tom Collins!!

My HOT SNOWBOARDER!!! I am so proud of her!! She was nervous but she took it on and did so much better than I did my first time on the slopes. Looking forward to many more adventures together up on the mountain!!

A little later that evening we had an incredible dinner at the Double Musky! I have actually been there one other time...best steak in America is what I remember. It lived up to its reputation!


A few hours later, we found ourselves back at our cabin and so stuffed that we could barely walk. So I lit a fire and we curled up on the couch and relaxed. So nice.

Next morning...on our way to Alyeska where Lisa thought we were going to stay.

This guy was getting prepped for an amazing hour. I have only had one other massage and while it was nice, I was not ready for THIS kind of massage.

Lisa also looks very ready.

Our room where we had the couples massage. It had many candles and rose peddles...and of course ambiance music to set the mood.

I will say... that is one of the most relaxing hours of my life! I was probably resisting the first 5 to 10 minutes while she worked my back...but by the end of that, I was as relaxed as you can get.

After some coffee and relaxing at the resort, we made our way over to Chair 5 for a nice long lunch...full of fatty foods, carbs, and beer (for me). It was everything I hoped it would be.

An amazing 28 hours! We definitely need to do this more often! Hope you enjoyed. Back to Christmas pictures and singing videos later!!!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas Eve

I have been unable to share all of our Christmas festivities because of some exciting developments! Well...not yet, but I'm trying. I have been applying for a job that would take us to the lower 48! It has occupied me for the last several days if not weeks. Finally, I finished my resume and the application last night so I can get back to sharing all the fun we had during Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the zoo at about 6 to walk around under the lights. Only problem was it was COLD!!! Here is a picture of the car thermometer as we pulled up into the parking lot.

It was a really neat experience seeing all the animals at night. We've been there at least 20 times and never after dark. Very cool experience!














On a sad note (but happy for him), my buddy Tom is heading across the Pacific with his family. He is a very private individual so I won't share more...other than he is going to be missed during these 3 weeks! Have a great time, Tom!!!!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Girls screaming

I came home from finishing up my Christmas shopping to find Granny playing a game with the girls. I HAD to join in. Too much fun to miss out on this.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

SANTA!!!!!

Lisa took the girls to see Santa! I didn't get to go unfortunately.

I need to thank a very special person for sharing these pictures. She is a professional photographer and very generously GAVE us these pics for free. So I need to make sure everybody knows this name!!

JEANEE MARROQUIN

Her website is http://www.photographybyjeanee.com/
So go visit and thank her for the great pictures!!


Saturday, December 18, 2010

Christmas time in the city...

We've been busy preparing for Christmas, how about you?? I wanted to share a few photos from a fun trip I took the other day to Girdwood. My buddies Andy D, David, and Todd met up at Alyeska for a day of snowboarding (and skiing for Todd). We all had a blast. It was a perfect day! The sun was out (well as much as it can be in December) and the temperature was COLD!! I don't think it got above 5 degrees. Didn't matter, we were dressed for the occasion and had a wonderful time. Hard not to with views like these.





Lunch with a view.

Alpenglow at 3:30pm



The other bit of excitement yesterday and today is we are finally getting our Christmas cards out! First of all, if you don't get one right around Christmas...it isn't because we forgot you!! Send us your address! We have several extra cards so just let us know. We've also been transferring all of our addresses from outlook back to our iphones and I think we might have lost a few.

Anyway, each year we take a ton of photos for the cards. Sam has helped us the last two years. Well now Sam is gone so we had our friends Andy, Kendra, and baby Malena over to have dinner and help us take the photos. We got a lot of great shots. I won't share the one that made the card but here are some that didn't make it...some good and some not-so-good!




I have no idea what happened here! It was tempting but I decided not to use this one for the Christmas card.


Not sure why Lisa didn't like this one... maybe because I wasn't smiling.



Baby Malena taking it all in!