up north

My trip to Alaska was amazing. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.  Such a completely incredible trip.  For those of you who don't know, my sister's boyfriend flew me up there to surprise my sister.  He told her on Valentine's Day that I was coming.  How great is he?  Super great. And ridiculously generous. So, last Thursday morning I headed to O'Hare and off I flew to Kotzebue, Alaska where Amy and Kris live.  Kotzebue is in northern AK, north of the arctic circle!  It's up there!  Luckily the weather was "nice", so we were able to spend lots of time outside and enjoy life on the tundra.

I think I have come to the conclusion that there is no great way to sum up such an amazing trip, so I here come lots of pics and highlights in an attempt to give you glimpse of my week.

Ah!  My photos are currently not loading due to some error.  So...I lied.  You will have to come back for pictures :)  But here are a few other highlights that I don't have photos of:


*Spending a huge amount of time with Amy.  I was thinking about it, and I don't think we've had that much time, just the two of us since I was in college.  It was so great.  I love her so much.

*Getting to know Kris a bit better.  Good man.  Good, good man.

*I saw the Northern Lights on Friday night.  Awesome, truly awesome.  Cross that one off the bucket list!

*I loved just experiencing a slice of my sister's life.  Monday night we went to the sewing class that she goes to every week.  She's been learning to sew many native items, and currently is working on a pair of mukluks (boots) for Elsa.

*Sleeping in!

*I got to see Jamie and Erica (Kris' brother and sis-in-law) and Julie (Kris' mom) during my layover in Anchorage.   Great to catch up with them just days before the arrival of their son and my smoked salmon omelette sure beat airport food!

*An adventure all my own.  I love my husband and kids dearly, but it was so nice to have time to myself.  The longest I've been away from Breck before this was 2 days and away from Elsa has only been about 10 hours....while we've been sleeping just a room apart.  My mom came to help out with the kids so that was great and so nice to know that I didn't have to worry about them.  And we all survived!  Elsa kinda boycotted me however when I got home.  She woke up to me back home on Thursday morning and wouldn't let me hold her for about an hour.  But she came back around.

*Kris, Amy and I went to Zumba on Tuesday night and it was awesome!  So much fun.  I've only done Zumba from a video before and while that is fun, live class is where it's at!  Nothing like some latin beats to heat up life in the arctic.  And I won a free shirt - that's right, there is a door prize :)

*Plane rides all to myself!  It's been a long time since I was on a plane without little people to tend to.

*Snowshoeing out at the camp with Amy.  The Iten's 11 month old black lab, Moss, came with us too.  It was hilarious to watch her bound chest-deep through the snow.  She couldn't have been happier.  And crazy that the snow was probably about 6 feet (or more) deep under us.

So because there are no pictures, this is just a brief snippet of the adventures.  But more is to come...soon!  Isn't the suspense killing you? :)