The Adventures of Cait

Touristy bike ride

2011-06-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

We've been having a very wet and rainy summer (if you can call it that yet) here and it's been hard to get motivated to get outside to do anything. We decided to take our chances this weekend with a road ride in the mountains. A friend of Vince's little brother is staying with us while he is in town for a bit and we thought we should show him some of the famous lakes around here. We started the ride at Castle Junction, halfway between Banff and Lake Louise, and rode west on the old highway. It's a 25km ride to the town of Lake Louise and from there we headed up towards Moraine Lake first, and then came zipping back down the road and went up to the lake part of Lake Louise. Here we are standing in front of Lake Louise. Our bike gear was getting lots of funny looks from the tourists!
In total I rode 86km and the boys did 100km. They went that much further just looping back for me since I'm a bit slower. We had just a tiny bit of spitting rain as we were starting the ride but after that the sun kept trying to peek through. It was a great day! Of course as we headed back towards Calgary there was a huge lightening storm, but I think we learned our weather lesson: just head for the mountains!

Bow Summit Backcountry

2011-05-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

Vince and I haven't done any backcountry skiing all winter. We decided to take advantage of the unusually large snowpack this spring and headed out to Bow Summit (about 20 minutes north of Lake Louise) to meet up with our friends Lindsay and Dan from Revelstoke. It was an amazing day. We were all skiing in t-shirts and were still really hot (hiking up is hard work!) Lindsay had some sunscreen with her that promised a "honey-glow" but I think by the end of the day we all were a bit more honey-crisped. We got 4 runs in, with a stop for lunch. It was a great day!

Unfortunately we left our camera in the truck, but took a few quick photos when we got back to the road.

If you look closely you can see our tracks in this picture. They are on the left side just above the trees. We were the only ones out there and had fresh tracks all day!

Linds and Dan with Sasha. The dogs had a great day running all over and playing with each other. They don't quite understand why we don't go straight down the hill though...

Old Pics

2011-04-13T10:48:00.001-07:00

I was cleaning out old emails yesterday and came across some pictures from last August. We spent a weekend in and around Lake Louise with our friends Laurie and Paul. Thanks to Laurie for the photos. She is a great photographer and had a new camera to play with that weekend. Its a special treat for us to stay at the Post Hotel. We were enjoying a glass of wine on the balcony after biking and hiking on Saturday and this guy decided to meander through town. Luckily we were 3 stories up and he was across the river. Sunday we had intended to go hiking at Lake O'Hara but hadn't realized that we should have booked the bus into the lake 6 months in advance. Instead we hiked to Skoki Lodge, which is a rustic backcounty lodge owned by the Lake Louise resort.

Vince will swim in anything in the summer...especially glacier fed alpine lakes.

The tea and desserts that we had at Skoki lodge were so amazing (what a concept...homemade chocolate cake at the turn around point of a hike!) that we decided to go back for New Years . The ski in wasn't as plesant as hiking (-30 and windy!) but staying at the lodge was great and we would all go back again. We're looking forward to more summer adventures with Laurie and Paul: we'll be heading to both the Wasa triathlon and the Penticton Gran Fondo with them.

Gab's Visit

2011-03-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

Vince's sister Gabrielle came out for a quick visit last weekend. We finally had a break from the very cold weather that we've been having and got to enjoy a bit of sun in the mountains. We had a great day of downhill skiing at Lake Louise on Saturday and Sunday went to Mt Shark in Kananaskis provincial park to cross country ski. It was a tiring weekend but worth it!

Vince and I were in Revelstoke, BC for a wedding this weekend. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but we had a good time! We drove there Thursday evening and Vince took some clients cat skiing on Friday. I had the day to myself and went xc skiing with Riley in the morning and then enjoyed just hanging around town in the afternoon. Revelstoke is a sleepy little town but has a really good coffee shop! We had planned to downhill ski on Saturday but I have a cold so we decided to have another mellow day and went to the hot springs. Lindsay and Dan's wedding was fun. They had a mountain top ceremony in the morning just for family and then a second (quick) ceremony and reception in the evening. It was great to share the moment with them!

Marcialonga

2011-02-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

Vince and I just got back from doing the 70km Marcialonga (xc ski race) in northern Italy. You may have already read it, but I'm posting an email that I had my mom distribute about the race.

The race went really well. The first 15 km up to Canazei was a mess of people. There was no point in yelling "track" for people to get out of the way, so there was a lot of weaving around and going right through the middle of the tracks (a tight squeeze!) I passed a lot of people in the first hour and a half! There were a few short steep uphills where things would jam up with people herringbone-ing up and you just had to wait it out or look for an opening to slip through. There were a few big downhills as well, which were very icy by the time I got through from people snowplowing. I actually ran down two of the hills on the side because it looked safer and probably faster. Most of the people doing the race were older masters skiers and they were very tentative on the downhills! The course itself was very neat. A lot of the towns we went through we literally went right through the middle of the town on roads that they had dumped snow on. I laughed in one town to see padding on the side of the fire station as I was coming down the hill. Many towns had the church bells ringing while the race was happening, which made for a cool atmosphere. In between the towns the course mostly went along a river. Overall it was pretty flat, slightly uphill to Canazei and then slightly downhill most of the rest of the way. Apparently the elite group does sometimes go without wax, because they can double pole or herringbone the whole way. Vince and I opted for kick wax. The tracks were incredibly icy so we used green klister as a base and then covered it with extra blue hard wax. It lasted most of the race, but by the time I got to the 3 km uphill at the end it was warm enough that I used a wax station for some yellow klister. Toko was sponsoring the race and they had three stations at the bottom of the big hill with klister machines that just rolled the wax on. They even had kids there taking the skis from the wax tech and putting them back on your feet! I have to say, I was so tired of double poling by the end that I was glad for a long uphill just so I could stand up. The finish was right in the middle of town in Cavalese and the only problem with that was that in the winding little streets I had no idea where the finish was! I was really happy to finally come around a corner and see the finish and hear Vince yelling for me. I'm really happy with how I finished, especially with how far back I started (lots of people in front of me to slow me down). I was hoping to be in the top half of the women, but finishing 316 was great, especially on only 3 hours of nervous sleep the night before (reminder: tirimisu has coffee in it and should not be eaten the night before a race). Overall it took me 5 hours and 36 mintues!

Skiing the race course the day before. This was one of the big downhills pretty close to the start that was pure ice by the time I got to it.

Dumping snow on the streets in the start town of Moena the day before the race. It was an impressive operation.

Me just after finishing. I was so happy to be done!

weirdest injury ever

2010-11-10T14:41:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to be good and get back into a routine of stretching. I know that it's good for me, and I used to stretch faithfully everyday. But somehow over the past 5 years I stopped. And a bunch of repetitive use injuries popped up. So I've really really been trying to get back into a routine of stretching.

Sunday I went for a long workout, came home, pulled out my yoga mat and started stretching. At one point I pushed back into downward dog (pretty standard yoga move) and as I did so my elbow popped. I didn't think anything of it, until the next morning when I discovered a big lump on my forearm and was having trouble using my hand. Turns out I pulled a small extensor muscle that runs from my thumb up onto my forearm. Doing anything with my right wrist and hand is incredibly hard (yep, right handed!).

Here we go again....ice, advil, and an ace bandage are my new best friends

Does anyone actually read this thing?

2010-10-27T14:35:00.001-07:00

It's been a busy fall between work, ski training, and french classes. Yep thats right, I'm ski training again. Vince and I are signed up for the Marcialonga, which is a 70km ski race in the Val di Femme region of northern Italy on January 30, 2011. 70km!!! I'm a little afraid! I'm far from the skiing shape I used to be in 10 years ago and it's safe to say that my main goal is going to be to just finish the race. And not get run over by 2000 Norwegian masterblasters.

Our other big trip in the next few months is home to Anchorage for Christmas. I'm very excited to show Vince where I grew up, and we are both looking forward to lots of skiing while we are there. Sean is coming as well, and it will be the first family Christmas we've had in Anchorage in at least 5 years. Lets hope it's less cold and more snowy than the last time I was in Anchorage for Christmas!

(skiing up at Glen Alps in 2007, there was no snow for skiing in town and it was -5F the whole time I was home!)

Thinking of warm places...

2010-08-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

Its starting to feel like fall again in Calgary. Almost a year since I last posted on here (oops!). As much as I love winter I'm hanging onto these thoughts of warmth (from Greece) for at least another few weeks!

Tri Diva Tri

2010-05-12T10:30:00.001-07:00

I meant to post this a very long time ago, but apparently never got around to adding the picture, and therefore posting....

My big athletic goal this summer is to do the Wasa olympic distance triathlon (1500m open water swim, 40km road bike, and 10km run) on June 12. I've been training with a great group of girls since January at the local triathlon shop. Most of the girls have been training for a triathlon that is in Las Vegas this weekend, but with my upcoming trip to Greece I decided to save my money and vacation time and just do local races this summer. Since I'm not going to the Vegas race, and I haven't done a triathlon in 5 years, I was poking around to see if there was something I could do close by as a warm up race in May. I ended up signing up to do the Tri Diva Tri on May 2, a women's only super sprint (250m swim, 9km bike, 2.5km run) in Airdrie.

We've had a pretty crappy spring in Calgary so the weather on race day wasn't that great. It was cloudy, windy and cold and I was worried about getting cold in my spiffy new triathlon outfit. Luckily I have a pretty good coach who can advise me about these things and the weather ended up not being an issue. In terms of the actual race...My swim is the event that I struggle with the most, and I just tried to go fast and relax at the same time. Even though it only took 6 minutes it felt really long! The ride went really well, it's usually my best event. I was passing people like crazy and felt really good pushing it on the bike. I tried to settle into the run but find the transition from running to biking hard. I still need to work on that for Wasa! I ended up finishing 17th in the swim, 4th in the bike, and 9th in the run which combined for the overall win!!! There were a lot of women racing who had never done a triathlon before, but I definitely wasn't expecting that result! In a regular local triathlon with all the hardcore triathletes competing I think the result would be a little different....

My parents were in town for the weekend and came out to watch the race with Vince. It was great to have a little fan club =) Since the race was more about getting people out to participate and not as much about the competition they didn't give out any prizes. Vince and my dad decided that I needed a trophy and stopped on their way home to pick up this little guy for me. He'll be a great addition to my garden this summer!

Update: I not only survived the Wasa triathlon, but managed to make my goal of finishing in under 3 hours, with a time of 2:48:24. Good enough for 93rd out of 238 women. I left for Greece 5 days later and had the best vacation ever!

Fall Camping

2009-10-07T08:56:00.001-07:00

I spent this past weekend in the mountains north of Golden, B.C. on a much needed, very relaxing, camping trip. We were car camping, no hiking, no biking...no activities other than sitting around the campfire and enjoying the scenery.

We were on the backside (west side) of the Columbia Icefields, which most people don't usually see, and I found it much more spectacular than the front (east) side where the visitors center is. The fall colors on the trees and the fresh snow on top of the mountains made for an absolutely beautiful weekend.

This is Pascal, myself, and Genevieve goofing around in front of the icefield

Me and Pascal at the campsite

The view from our tent

Gorgeous mountains!

2009-09-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

I was told that I had some great pictures from this past weekend and since its been awhile since I've updated my blog...

Vince and I rode our bikes to Lake Louise from Castle Junction (about 35km each way)

This is in the village before we started up the hill to the lake, with Mt. Temple in the background
Vince and I at the lake....it was a beautiful day!There used to be a rowing club at the lake, but they shut it down this summer and took all the boats away. Vince wants to know why...

On the way home

Snowshoeing at Sawmill

2009-02-11T15:34:00.000-08:00

This past weekend Riley and I went up to Kananaskis with my friend Genevieve and her fiance Alex and did about a 3 hour snowshoe tour from the Sawmill trailhead. I hadn't been that far into the mountains in Kananaskis yet and it was beautiful! All three of us decided we'd like to spend a bit more time there...

2009-02-03T18:02:00.000-08:00

My friend Chelsea got a new camera for Christmas and came out for a walk with me and Riley the other day....

2008-11-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

I drove to Kelowna, BC for the weekend to meet up with my Grandpa. I was excited while driving there Friday to see some snow in the mountains (and even more excited that it was dumping snow the whole way home last night, although it made driving a bit treacherous)

I actually stopped just north of Kelowna to cross country ski at Sovereign Lakes (same area as Silver Star). There are races every year there that I always missed going to when I was still racing, so it was great to get the opportunity to just go for a ski there. It was early season skiing, so not perfectly groomed trails, but it was nice to dink around on my skis for an hour before heading into Kelowna.

The whole reason for the weekend was the 80th birthday party of one of my grandpa's friends from Sakinaw Lake. I was there last summer at his cabin, and had heard lots of stories but hadn't met any of the people. There was much eating and socializing, with a big party at the golf club Saturday night. My thought the whole weekend was that if I am worthy of such a gathering at the age of 80 I will have led a pretty darn good life! the best part though was seeing my grandpa and meeting people from the lake, who I will hopefully see out there in the future! (Anyone up for joining me next August???)

Hiking

2008-11-13T20:34:00.001-08:00

Tuesday was Remembrance Day in Canada, which meant no work and a visit to the mountains in Kananaskis! I was excited a few weeks ago to meet Genevieve at work who also enjoys hiking, skiing, climbing, and such things, and we finally got together for a little adventure (no pics of the two of us unfortunately). Of course I don't remember the name of this hike, but it started from the Nakiska ski area and was gradual uphill for 6km to this lookout.

Banff Film Festival

2008-11-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

I just spend this weekend in Banff at the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which is always a great weekend of films about basically anything to do with the mountains. I used to love going to the "best of" tour that they take around the world, but now that I live close by I have enjoyed going to the entire 2 days of films in Banff for the past few years. As usual, all the films were at least pretty good, but this year there seemed to be several good "mountain culture" films. The one that really struck home for me was an hour long documentary on the Pebble Mine project in Alaska. I had heard of the mine, but didn't really know that much about it, but watching the film really made it hit home what they are trying to do. If you don't know, they are basically trying to open the biggest copper mine in North America at the headwaters of two rivers flowing into Bristol Bay. The filmmakers interviewed people from both sides of the argument, the mining company, and fisherman and native people who live in the area. It was shocking to see that the mining company takes the standpoint that the mine will not have any impact on the ecosystem or the fishing industry up there. I don't feel that I can do the issue justice by trying to explain both sides of it here, however the film made me realize how incredibly dear Alaska is to me and how passionate I feel about protecting its "wildness" and leaving it they way it is. I have never seen an audience so passionate about a film at the film festival before, and have also never seen a film get a standing ovation at the festival. More info on the film can be found here (under "the craft"). An environmental point of view on the issue can be found here, and an interesting article on Palin and the mine debate from the New York Times can be found here. (Of note, the grist.org article mentions that jewelers are being asked to oppose the mine. The film noted that jewelers at Tiffany's have committed to not making jewelry from any materials from the Pebble Mine, if it were to open)

I would urge everyone to go check out the Banff Film Festival tour if it is coming to your city! Its got a bit of something for everyone (not just films on controversial mines) and is lots of fun. Check out the website to see when it will be near you!

Mosaic Fun!

2008-11-08T21:37:00.000-08:00

1. A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words., 2. Rhubarb Splendor, 3. Steller's Jay, 4. I stand on the beach alone,and gaze at the misty blue... I wish I could pause this moment forever..., 5. The ancient pleasure of a cuppa, 6. frosty, 7. Moturakau, Aitutaki, Cook Islands, 8. Long Slice of Pie Ala Mode 4 of 4, 9. Steamboat Ski Resort blue-bird day, 10. incurable laughter, 11. Lovely Lola, 12. Yarborough Arch.

I saw this photo mosaic as self-portrait today on a friend of mine's blog and I thought it was really neat! You answer 12 questions and type your answer to each of the above questions into Flickr’s search. Select only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

Here are the questions and my answers that generated the mosaic above.

1. What is your first name? (cait)
2. What is your favorite food? (rhubarb)
3. What high school did you attend? (steller)
4. What is your favorite color? (blue)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (daniel craig)
6. Favorite drink? (eggnog)
7. Dream vacation? (cook islands)
8. Favorite dessert? (pie)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (ski bum)
10. What do you love most in life? (laughter)
11. One word to describe you? (lovely)
12. Your Flickr name? (Yarborough - it didn't pull anything up under my real Flickr name)

It's fun!

2008-11-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

I used to really hate moose when I was living in Alaska. They scared me, and it was inevitable that I would run into them almost every day when I was out on the trails, both summer and winter. I think I saw more than 10 one day at Kincaid. Now I live in Calgary. We have rabbits. Thats about it. They have elk in Banff but its not quite the same. I found this picture on a friends blog today, and realized that I miss moose walking around in the city. I think both Edmonton and Calgary might be a bit too civilized for me.

brief update

2008-10-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Since returning from Australia, I seem to have fallen behind in my blog posting here. Life has been a little crazy, with moving to Calgary and getting settled in. So I've been in Calgary for about 3 weeks now, and this weekend is the first that I've actually been in town the whole weekend! I've been enjoying exploring the city, finding the dog parks and running trails, yoga studios and coffee shops, the farmers market, and other fun things around town! The area that I am living in is great, only 2 blocks from the river, where there are great trails, a few blocks from an off-leash area for Riley, and I'm just west of a funky little shopping area. Its pretty centrally located with easy access to other points in the city, which is really nice. I've finished my two and a half weeks of training for my job, and now I am just hoping that they call me in for shifts! I have also applied for a bunch of part time jobs that I am hoping will keep me going for income in between waiting for work from the Health Region. There are 4 full time positions with the Health Region opening up in the next few months, so I have my fingers crossed that as a casual employee I'll have a good chance of getting one of them! I haven't been up to the mountains yet, except for a conference in Banff two weekends ago. I can see the mountains from the city though and they are calling my name! Hopefully I'll be up in Canmore skiing in the next month or so =) I'll try to get some pictures up here at some point of what I am up to. As I settle in and life becomes a little lexx hectic hopefully I'll have time to post a little more often again.

2008-09-19T13:30:00.002-07:00

A final parting shot of Cairns from the Skyway gondola. You can see all the sugar cane fields in the foreground. The view of the reef from this high was great as well, you can actually see it under the water!

Last Australian Moments

2008-09-19T13:30:00.001-07:00

After Cairns I had a day and a half with Celeste back in Sydney before heading back to Edmonton. We had a pretty relaxing day on Sunday, just doing a bit more exploring in the city. Celeste took me and showed me the bay where she rows. It looks like it could be a bit dodgy with all the boat traffic, but cool views of the ANZAC bridge! You can see the Harbour bridge in the background of this picture as well. Monday morning I had one last coffee and breakfast outing with Celeste and Ella before heading to the airport. Ella was trying to convince me to miss my flight home, which was tempting, but I knew I had to get back to real life (for now at least).

Here is my final parting shot of my airplane with Sydney in the background =(

Cairns, continued

2008-09-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post may contain fabulous pictures that will make you want to run away to Australia!

After my day out on the reef, I still had 2 more days to enjoy Cairns. I was pretty happy just hanging out at Redbird and Cameron's house, but there was lots to see and do. This is a picture out of their kitchen window. Basically if I wanted a banana on my cereal in the morning all I had to do was pluck it off the bunch. They also had starfruit and papaya trees in their yard!

Friday morning Cameron gave me what he called his "$5 tour" of a lot of the beaches stretching north from Cairns. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was!

This is how happy I was to be in such a great place:

After the tour Cameron dropped me off at the Cairns Tropical Zoo. I mainly wanted to see kangaroos and koalas, and was able to get up close and personal with both!

That kangaroo is asleep, not dead, I promise! And as cuddly as koalas look, they have really sharp claws! That little one had quite the grip on my shoulder.

Friday evening I went out on the town with Redbird and Cameron. Redbird belly dances, and was performing at a Greek restaurant Saturday, but since I was leaving Saturday evening and would miss it we went for dinner at the restaurant Friday and saw one of her troupe members perform. Cameron is a drummer in a band, which had a concert that evening, so after dinner we went and caught the second half of the concert. Fun!

Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful and after the driving tour of the beaches the day before I knew I needed to actually go sit on the beach for a few hours. I met up with Karen, who I had met on my diving trip and we spent the morning at the Palm Cove beach.

This is a crocodile warning sign on the beach. Apparently there are crocodiles everywhere around Cairns, although the only ones I saw were at the zoo!

This is me about to go test out the water...it was great! Nice and warm. The only downside to this whole morning was that I missed a few random spots with my sunscreen (like my belly button) and kept finding small burnt spots that afternoon. Luckily Cameron and Redbird had aloe plants in their yard!

A view of the beach from my beach towel =) In Australia you have to swim between the flags if you want the lifeguards to rescue you!

There really are wild kangaroos everywhere. After I left the zoo the day before I spotted a whole herd of them out in a horse pasture.

If I had had to go straight to the airport from the beach Saturday I might have purposefully missed my flight. However I had the afternoon still, and Redbird and I went and took the Skyrail Rainforest gondola, which goes up and over the rainforest canopy for 7.5 km to the town of Kuranda. There are two stops along the way, where you can go for a little walk in the rainforest. It was a great relaxing way to spend the afternooon.
Cameron picked us up in Kuranda and we had to rush back to the house so I could head to the airport. They sent me off with some take-away fish and chips, a bucket of their homegrown bananas, and lots of great memories! If I go back to Australia again I think I would go for a lot longer and use Cairns as my home base!

Cairns (the Great Barrier Reef)

2008-09-17T21:30:00.002-07:00

I arrived in Cairns Wednesday around noon, but didn't really do much that day except hang out with Redbird and Cameron, who I was staying with. How I came to stay with them is kind of a random story, I have a friend Liz who lives in San Francisco, but we met when we were 15 and our families were on vacation in Boston. We've kept in touch over the years, and when I told her that I was going to Australia she put me in touch with Redbird who is her husband's sister. They were gracious enough to invite me to stay at their house and I attribute my amazing experience in Cairns mostly to the fact that I got to stay with them!

The only thing that I actually had planned for my four days in Cairns was a boat trip out to the great barrier reef. I booked the tour at the same time as I got my plane ticket, and when I got to Cairns was happy to have Cameron tell me that I had booked with the best company to go out with.

We stopped at two different spots for the day. The first place was Michalmas Cay, where there was an actual island coming up out of the reef. The second spot was just a random mooring in the middle of the reef, but actually had far better diving because the reef went down much deeper there.

Initially when I booked the tour I said that I only wanted to snorkel. The idea of scuba diving has always kind of freaked me out and I wasn't really interested in trying it. However when I got on the boat they told us that if we wanted we could try diving for 10 minutes, and then if we were ok with it we could do an introductory dive. As they were giving the intro talk on the way out to the reef I knew I had to at least try it. How could I be at the number one destination for diving and not try it? I will admit that I was a little anxious for both of the dives (we did two 30 min dives) but looking back I think it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had!

Note the little clown fish hiding in the anemone above
And below: a close up of clown fish

This is on my first dive, with my trusty dive instructor Mel. She held my hand when I was freaking out, which somehow made everything ok =)

The fish were amazing...tons of them everywhere and so colorful!

I think the giant clams were actually one of my favorite things to see. They had the most amazing colors inside of them!

All in all it was a fantastic day! Even though I was a bit scared about diving I think I might look into getting my certification so that if I go somewhere warm again I can do some more diving.

Australia Part 2 (Sydney)

2008-09-17T21:30:00.001-07:00

I'm now back in Edmonton, but realized I need to finish blogging about my trip! I'll do it in a few posts here, to break things up a bit. After Celeste and I got back from Katoomba and the Blue Mountains I had a day and a half in Sydney before I headed up to Cairns for most of the rest of my trip. I spent Monday afternoon booking said trip, and then in the evening went to the Sydney Observatory for a tour and hopefully a viewing of the sky. Unfortunately the weather still wasn't very nice, so no clear sky, but we did get to look at things around the city using the telescopes. This picture is for you Mom!

Before my evening at the observatory I went to dinner with Ella, Celeste's lone female roommate (they live with 3 other boys). We had kangaroo pizza! Celeste was going to be at the university for all of the next day so Ella wrote out a plan for me that she said was her favorite way to spend a day in the city. We started off the next morning with a great breakfast at a cafe, and then Celeste gave me a quick tour of her university before I headed off on my adventure.
My first stop on Ella's plan was the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I enjoyed wandering around there for a few hours seeing everything from impressionist era paintings, to contemporary art, to aboriginal art. My favorite area were the impressionist paintings. Having not seen much of his work before I decided that I really like Pissaro. Below is my favorite wall at the museum. On the bottom, from left to right is a Van Gogh, a Monet, and a Pissaro.
The art gallery is nestled into the southern end of the Sydney botanical gardens which run from there up to the harbor and the Opera House. I enjoyed wandering through the gardens for a few hours and then got a late lunch at the garden cafe, and had a little picnic with the following view!
Continuing to walk around the park gave me some great views of the Opera House. Its an amazing structure and even though I had seen it before it was always impressive to look at!

Sydney!

2008-09-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

I made it to Sydney!
So far its been a great visit! I arrived Thursday morning at 6am, and Celeste's challenge was to keep me awake for the day to help me get over my jet lag. We spent Thursday and Friday mostly seeing the sights around Sydney.
Friday evening we went to the Sydney Symphony at the Opera House. We were able to get very cheap tickets sitting in the first row of the choir seats. This is what the view was like, we were basically sitting in the percussion section!Saturday morning we took the train 2 hours west of Sydney to the Blue Mountains, to the small town of Katoomba. The main attraction there is the vista of the "three sisters" and we did some bushwalking (hiking) down in the valley below the three sisters.

The picture below is almost at the end point of our hike. The world's steepest funicular railway went from this point back up to the top of the cliffs. I was too scared from the bottom to take it up, but once we had hiked up to the top decided that we needed to ride on it, so we took it back down, and then up again. I believe the angle on it was 52 degrees!

The weather Friday and Saturday both in Sydney and Katoomba was pretty cold and rainy, so Celeste and I have spent a bit of time in coffee shops. The coffee here is fantastic!

We are now back in Sydney, and I am looking into going up to Cairns for a few days to see the Great Barrier Reef. More adventures to come!

Painting

2008-09-01T12:38:00.001-07:00

When I moved into my house the two smaller bedrooms had been painted as children's room, one with dark blue paint and stenciled planes and trains, and the other was light blue with a giant tree in one corner. I painted the planes and trains room immediately, but kind of liked the tree so for a few years used that room as my office. The below picture is from when I was in the middle of writing my thesis, and consequently the room was a mess =)

When my roommate Melanie moved in last year I moved my bedroom into the "tree room" but still didn't paint the room, but now that I'm going to be moving, decided that it was time for the tree to go. So that's what I spent the past two days doing. I chose the color kind of on a whim, but now that it is done I really like it. Its a somewhat dark beige/grey, darker than the rest of the house for those of you that have been here. I think it adds a bit of depth to the room and goes well with all the blue stuff that I have in there. And the tree wasn't even that hard to cover!

Update

2008-08-25T21:09:00.001-07:00

Life has been a little crazy around here lately. As you may or may not know, my current job is on contract, which is up this Friday and will not be renewed, so I have been doing a lot of job searching for the past few months. I had a lot of interviews and got declined quite a few times, but just this past Friday I accepted a job as an Exercise Specialist working with the Living Well with a Chronic Condition program. This program is part of the Calgary Health Region, and I will be doing exercise prescription for individuals with cardiac problems, diabetes, lung disease, arthritis, or who are obese. It should be very interesting. The bad news about the job is that it is a casual position, meaning that I will be covering shifts for people on vacation or taking sick leave (no guarantee of hours, although on average casual workers might work 15-20 hours a week). The good news is that there should be some more permanent positions opening up this fall with the same program, and with the experience that the casual position will give me I will be in a better standing to actually get one of those jobs. If you were reading carefully, yes that does mean that I will be moving to Calgary. Providing that all goes well with switching my work permit, I am scheduled to start work there on September 29.
I will have a lot to do in the next month before moving down there, but I have been saving money all year to go visit a friend who is on a university exchange in Sydney...so I'm going! I will be there for two weeks. I haven't done a ton of planning yet, but will mostly be in and around the Sydney area. Ideally it would be great to be able to go for much longer, but that would involve more time and money, so I'm happy to just be taking what I can get.
I don't know how much internet access I will have down there, but I'll definitely post pictures as soon as I can, and keep everyone informed about the move when I get back!

Biking Pictures

2008-08-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

I've been doing quite a bit of mountain biking with Riley lately, both around town and in Jasper. These pictures are from two different weekends in Jasper.Riley with her "adventure dog" backpack on

The group post ride: my friend Lindsay is in the middle, her boyfriend Dan on the left, with Riley at his feet, and Dan's friend Rob
And seconds after taking the previous picture Riley was asleep in the bushes

Riley and I biking. This picture is a bit misleading. Shes really fast and generally runs in front of me, not behind!

Catching Up

2008-08-13T17:00:00.001-07:00

I don't know why this is trying to turn my typing into a link. Anyways, I finally got my "real" pictures developed and put on a cd. Here are a few more pictures from my kayaking trip in Blackstone BayGetting ready to launch for the day.
My view out the front of the kayak heading down Blackstone Bay
We stopped for lunch on the terminal moraine of the glacier, basically a little spit that comes out across the bay from the island in the middle. There were a bunch of ice berg bits washed up there...I was pretending to lick this one.
Kayaking in front of the glacier. At this point we were probably still a good mile away, although the glacier looked huge
Loading the boats at the end of the day to head back to Whittier.

Riley: Adventure Dog

2008-07-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

My original plan for this past weekend was to head to Banff and do some hiking with my friend Angela, but she got a concussion playing soccer last week and was feeling a bit too woozy to go. Instead I ended up heading to Jasper on Sunday with Lindsay and Dan, and their friend Robbie for some mountain biking. We had pretty decent weather, with just a bit of rain partway through the ride, and enjoyed riding along the Athabasca River. The trail was mostly through forests (nice pine needle sections!) and meadows with the occasional technical rocky section here and there. It was Riley's first real mountain adventure, as well as her first mountain biking trip, and she was great! She was able to keep up just fine, in fact was faster than me on my bike sometimes! I was also happy to see that even though there were 4 of us biking, and we would get a bit spread out sometimes, she always stuck closest to me, and would wait for me if I stopped even if everyone else had started biking again. Her training may not be totally perfect but at least she's loyal!
I don't have any pictures to go with this post, since they were taken on a (gasp!) disposable camera with REAL film...but I'll put them up if I ever get around to taking the camera in to get developed.

2008-07-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

I was doing a bit of weeding in my garden the other day and noticed that the tops of my beets were sticking out of the soil, so I decided to pull one up and see how big they are getting. They aren't huge, I think I'll let the rest of them grow for another week or two, but I just cooked this little one up for dinner. Delicious!

veggie update

2008-07-17T19:26:00.001-07:00

I got back to Edmonton after being away for 10 days and found that my garden is going crazy! As you can see the box is quite full. The lettuce (left front) is definitely ready to harvest. There are snap peas almost ready to eat too!
And I have one little red tomato inside...and several more green ones.

ALASKA!

2008-07-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

I spent the last 10 days on my annual summer trip to Anchorage. The main focus of the trip was riding the 200 mile Fireweed road bike race, but I had lots of fun in the week leading up to it too! I stayed with my friends Pam and Carl and their 16 month old Walker which was quite entertaining. Walker can't actually walk yet (I blame his name) but has an incredible vocabulary and for the most part is very energetic and happy. I spent a lot of time just hanging out at the house with him. I was also lucky enough to overlap the first few days of my trip with the last few days of my friend Charis' visit home. She and her husband live in Norway and I hadn't seen her in more than a year. She is one of my best friends and I miss hiking and running and skiing with her so it was really fun to get out and hike Flattop with her.

My aunt was visiting at the same time as me, and she and my mom and I went on a boat tour of Kenai Fjords last Monday and then on Tuesday went kayaking in Blackstone Bay, in Prince William Sound. We had a great time on the boat tour. I've been on that trip several times with other visitors and have never seen as many whales. We probably saw 20 humpbacks. It was spectacular.

We took most of our kayaking pictures on disposable cameras, but I used my zoom on my digital to get a good picture of these little guys. They were playing like crazy as we kayaked up to them and as we got closer they just popped up and looked at us.
It was great to get out of Anchorage and do some very "Alaskan" stuff while I was home!

Pam and I decided after doing the 200 mile relay (each riding 100 miles) for the past two years that we wanted to actually ride together, and this year signed up for the 200 solo in the Fireweed. I didn't feel like my training had gone as well as I would have liked, and we were both very nervous the morning of the race, but we got on our bikes and rode off....and we made it! I definitely had a point just after 110 miles where I started to bonk, and didn't know if I was going to make it or not, but I drafted off of Pam for a while and stocked up on food and got through it. We struggled into a horrible headwind up and over Thompson Pass, and even after that thought that the worst part of the race was the last 10 miles, which felt like they were going to go on forever! We finished in just over 14 hours, and tied for 4th place, with 7 women in the race. Check here for some good pictures of the scenery going over Thompson Pass. Despite the headwind it was the sunniest we've ever had it for the race.

This is a picture of Pam putting dried mango under her shorts to eat while riding. This provided much hilarity later in the race when we were a bit loopy anyways and the mangos kept sticking to her legs. And here we are on the ferry from Valdez to Whittier on Sunday...happy to be done and still standing!

2008-07-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is the picture from Hillside Estate Winery in Penticton!

Penticton, BC

2008-07-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

July 1 was a holiday in Canada (Canada Day!) and my boss told me not to come to work on Monday so Stacy and I headed to Penticton, in southern BC with her boyfriend Jaime and his roommate John. We ended up renting a house in the village of Naramata, just northeast of Penticton and site of many of the South Okanagan wineries. Since we drove down Saturday, Sunday was our first real day of doing anything. Stacy and I took off on our road bikes and the boys went mountain biking. I originally wanted to ride the Ironman course, but the forecast for the whole weekend was 40 degrees C (100F) and Stacy didn't feel like she was trained up for that distance so we modified the plan a bit. To avoid the heat I started riding at 5:30am and rode 40 miles to Keremeos. Stacy drove out there with two of her friends who live in Penticton and from there we rode another 30 miles. I really had wanted to ride at least 100 miles, but even before I got to Keremeos the heat and the hills started to get to me. After the girls met up with me I started to fade pretty fast and it was only our 2 stops to jump in a river, fully in our bike clothes, that kept me going. We finally made it back to the house around 2:30 (needless to say I rode back with them in the car) and everyone crashed until dinner. We had a lovely dinner that evening at the Hillside Estate winery. We were surprised (and a bit flattered!!) when they asked us if we would be willing to model during dinner for a professional photographer who was taking pictures for their new website! Dinner was great and we had a lot of fun =)
Monday was a bit more relaxed. Everyone else slept in while I got in a quick morning bike ride, followed by a dip in the lake. We spend a lot of the day at a great coffee shop in Naramata doing the crossword and then headed to the beach for a while. We hit up three wineries later in the day to do some tastings and stock up on some wines, and then headed back to our house for a BBQ dinner. Tuesday we had to unfortunately head back to Edmonton. I worked all of one day yesterday, and now I'm sitting in the Seattle airport on my way to Anchorage!

I took this picture at 5:30 in the morning on my bike ride, looking out over the vineyards and Lake Okanagan

The girls after our first dip in the river!

Our view of the sunset across Lake Okanagan at dinner at Hillside Estate

The smoked salmon appetizer at Hillside Estate!

Enjoying wine with my dinner =)

Sculpture and vineyards outside Red Rooster Winery

The photographer from our dinner at Hillside Estate said he would email some photos, so when I get those I'll put them up.

2008-06-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

I spent this past weekend with my friends Lindsay and Tanis in Banff. I hadn't been to the mountains since January and it was so nice to be out there again! We headed out of town after work on Friday and made it to our campsite by about 9. We camped in between the town of Banff and Lake Minnewanka, where we spent most of the day on Saturday.

Lake Minnewanka is at the top of this photo, and the town is just outside of the picture at the bottom

The three of us are on a relay team for the Canadian Death Race and needed to do a bit of training. Unfortunately I'm still working up to running, so Riley and I just did a hike along the lake, but Tanis and Linds did a 20km run/hike along Lake Minnewanka and then up one of the mountains along the lake. I had a great time hiking with Riley. She has had a bad cut on the bottom of her foot which is not quite healed but it was good enough that she could come with us. Shes great to hike with!

To round out Saturday we hit the hot springs for some much needed relaxation!

Sunday we dropped Lindsay off in Canmore to meet her boyfriend for some mountain biking and Tanis and I headed back to Banff to hike Sulphur Mountain. Our hiking book said it wasn't worth doing, since there is a gondola up the mountain that all the tourists take, and the top is a bit crowded, but we wanted a short hike that was close to town and decided to do it anyways. In the end we were quite happy with the hike itself and the views from the top!

After seeing this sign at the top Tanis and I were glad we had our good hiking shoes on!

As always, its a bit of a drag to have to hop in the car and drive 4 hours back to the flat lands of the city, but it was a great weekend and I'm looking forward to more hiking adventures later in the summer!

veggies!

2008-06-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

I had my first little meal out of my garden last week. My lettuce needed thinning (I think I got a little carried away when I was planting) and what I was pulling out was about the size of baby greens that you would buy in the store. It was just enough to make myself a little salad to go with my dinner! And I was even more excited that everything else in the salad came from the farmers market here in Edmonton. It was delicious!

2008-06-16T14:14:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure what is happening to my weekends. They seem to fly by and sometimes I feel like they never even happened! My big adventure this past weekend was a 60 mile road ride. I need to start taking my camera with me because the scenery can be pretty great. My friends sometimes give me a hard time about living on the edge of town (and therefore far away from them) but if I hop on my bike I can be out of the city and into farm country in about 10 minutes. I love riding past fields of cows and horses, and yesterday morning there were several farmers out with their tractors plowing the fields. I rode to the town of Devon, 20 miles from my house and just southwest of Edmonton, and then did a big loop back into the city. Unfortunatley when I got back into the city it started pouring rain. I originally wanted to go for 75-80 miles, but was too wet and cold to keep going. I'll be in the mountains hiking this coming weekend so my next long ride will be a big jump. I'm hoping to ride the Ironman Canada course (112 miles)with my friend Stacy when we are in Penticton in two weeks.

2008-06-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

In an effort to save some money, help out the environment, and just for the sake of good tasting veggies, I decided to try my hand at an actual vegetable garden this year. I spent the May long weekend building a box in my back yard and planting seeds, and I'm finally starting to see some actual plants!

From left to right I've got peas, beets, and lettuce. They need to be thinned a bit, but I haven't quite gotten around to doing that yet. The other half of the box is a bit more shaded, so things are a bit slower to come up. I do have a few beans coming up, and my broccoli and zucchini are slowly but surely getting a bit bigger.

There's Riley in front of the same part of the box.

I'm also attempting to grow tomatoes and peppers in pots again. I planted a few from seeds, but also bought some plants at the farmers market. I've decided the farmers market is the way to go for veggie plants. The plants are clearly way ahead of my seedlings, and the tomato plant already has flowers on it!

Unfortunately I'm not sure how to get my camera to focus on the flowers and not the carpet! I'll have to work on that...

2008-06-13T13:12:00.001-07:00

Sometimes its the little things here in Edmonton that make me really appreciate the city. Today at lunch I took the LRT downtown and met my friend Stacy for lunch at a little cafe overlooking Churchill Square and City Hall. The public transportation here isn't as great as it could be, but taking the LRT is kind of an adventure! The construction right now is awful, but by 2009 the south extension of the LRT should be completed to just a few blocks from my house!

Resurrection

2008-06-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

I've been inspired by Sarah to perhaps start up my blog again. Obviously its been awhile....I'm done grad school, still in Edmonton, and now have a dog! We'll see if I actually get around to posting on here more often!

2006-07-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love relaxed rainy weekends. While I love to go on weekend trips and have exciting stories to tell, its also nice to just park it on the couch for the weekend and watch movies and knit. It's cooled off considerably here, thank goodness, and rained all weekend, which my garden is very happy about. I finished one baby sweater and am about halfway through another, and I think Alison and I watched 3 movies and several Sex and the City episodes. If anyone is looking for a good, artsy movie, try Ask the Dust. It was a bit weird in the beginning, but it was a really good movie, and Colin Farrell is quite nice to look at.

Recent Pics

2006-07-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

Pam and I at the finish line of the Fireweed 200 mile relay

On our way to the Prairie Championships for rowing....we were in the prairies all right

Yes, I really do row! I'm third from the left, not that you can tell

2006-07-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

I've got a cold. Blech...who gets a cold in the middle of the summer? All I want to do is curl up with a hot cup of tea but that's hardly reasonable when its 95 degrees outside. I just hope I'm better in the next few days. With the Royal Canadian Henley (rowing) in a week and a half this is not the best time to be sick. I decided to forgo any work this afternoon and take care of myself by going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean. Quite fun, not as confusing as some people have said, but they TOTALLY leave you hanging at the end, as everyone already knows. I'm right on track with working on my thesis proposal (hence not feeling bad by going to a movie). I was supposed to have an outline to my advisor by the end of next week, but emailed it to her on Monday, so I'm actually a bit ahead. I'll start writing in the next day or two. My incentive to finish is that I can move back to Anchorage when I'm done!

summer fun

2006-06-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

time to update once again...

life is busy busy busy as always. Rowing is one of those things that takes over your life. Not in a bad way, but I have no life outside of rowing. My typical day: get up at 4:37, at the boathouse by 5:15 (um yeah that's AM) practice til 7, coffee with the girls after, work on my thesis til noon, nap til 2, work on thesis til 3 or 4, dinner, sleep by 8:30ish, repeat. kind of kills the social life....but we have fun =)

We're missing Alison in this picture, but the four of us won our race in the last regatta! Very exciting

I did have a good break before my summer started, I went to my cousin's wedding in Virginia Beach, then to Salt Lake City to visit Jenny for a few days, and finally to Boulder for a few days to see Corbin. It was fun to see all of my dad's family at the wedding, I got a horrendous sunburn spring skiing in Salt Lake, and was very happy to see Corbin healthy, running around/biking like crazy, and in general being a normal 5 year old.

Here's a pic of my and my mom at the first landing point at Virginia Beach (where the very first english settlers landed)

I love being on the east coast where there is so much cool history. I stayed there an extra day and drove up to Colonial Williamburg and toured around.

And here is a pic of me and Corbin at the butterfly pavilion

can't begin to explain how much I love this kid...He is fantastic. I have big hopes that someday he will be a superstar mountain biker. The kid is 5 and he catches air off of jumps. I didn't even learn to ride my bike til I was 5.

I'm off to Anchorage next weekend for a week. Very excited to be going home. Pam and I are doing the Fireweed 200 bike relay, and I'm sure there will be much other fun to be had while I am there. I'm also going to the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta at the beginning of August, which will be the end of the summer rowing season. Somewhere in there I'll get my proposal written for my thesis =)

2006-02-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

Does anyone still check this thing? I figure since there is now a link to me from the Team Alaska Knitting Olympics page, that perhaps I should update a bit.

I am still keeping busy with school, of course. I am so excited to be going home for 10 days next friday, but I have soooooo much work to do between now and then. Articles to read, a paper to write, and a midterm on top of that. But then, what else do I expect from grad school.

Rowing keeps me busy too...not only are we training like mad for the summer season, but I'm womens team captain, and we seem to have meetings every weekend for that. Nicole and I did manage to escape for the weekend last week though, and find a bit of snow in Banff =)

Yes we were being goofballs. And just for good measure here's a picture from Christmas with my parents and Sarah

2005-09-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Life is very very hectic, but in a good way. I moved into my condo which added extra things for me to squeeze into my spare time, like unpacking boxes and painting. I've gotten to the point where I have unpacked everything that I really need, and there are a lot of boxes lying around of stuff that I'll get to eventually. I'd like to get to them sooner rather than later though because it would be nice to have a housewarming party. I've put my office in the tree room and started painting the other spare bedroom. I've decided that I like the tree and it can stimulate my intellectual being as I sit beneath it and work =) Someday I may paint over it but I can't bring myself to do it just yet.
I have my first rowing regatta tomorrow. I'm stroke seat in the novice women's eight, which means I sit in front of everyone else and set the stroke rate. It's a lot of fun. I think I've found my new sport. I know I keep saying this but hopefully I can post some pictures soon. I guess that mean I have to get someone else to take pictures of my rowing, eh?

2005-09-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

I have officially started my career as a graduate student. Yesterday was my first class, exercise biochemistry. I am only taking two classes and the prof for my other class, exercise endocrinology, is out of town until next week. I think the biochem class is going to be fun. It is primarily a lab. Yesterday we reviewed basic pipetting and weighing techniques. Very basic, I know, but important. Our homework for the week is to make chocolate chip cookies. We all got the same recipe, but the prof wants to demonstrate that even if you follow the same instructions the results can be very different. It will be interesting to see everyone elses results next Monday.
I'm teaching as well while I am here. My first class is on Thursday, and I'm starting to feel a little jittery. I'm teaching two anatomy labs and one fitness assessment lab. The fitness assessment should be fun. Anatomy on the other hand is going to take a little review throughout the semester!

2005-09-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

I had to buy a bike bell yesterday. I used to think bike bells were really dorky but I've now decided that they are kind of fun, not to mention handy. From where I am staying right now it is a 10 minute bike ride to the university on a well travelled path. I was getting frustrated by having to call out to pedestrians when I needed to pass them and not having them hear me, so I stopped at a bike shop along the route and invested my five dollars. A worthy investment as I was told that if they catch you without a "noise maker" (the guy at the bike shop informed me that this could be anything from an official bike bell to jingle bells to towing empty beer cans) the city can fine you $50! So now I make my commute with my happy little bell and find it somewhat cheery to ring it at people.
Keep your fingers crossed for me as I have my first try out for the novice rowing team this evening. Tryouts run for 4 days and they announce the team at the end of next week.

2005-09-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hi, Remember me? I am still here, really. I am now in Edmonton, getting ready for school to start next week. My dad and I drove down here a week and a half ago, and I have been running around ever since like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get my life organized. Things are finally starting to slow down a bit, and I now have one place to stay until I move into my condo on the 18th. I did have a nice break over the weekend and went to stay with my aunt and her family in Calgary. We drove up to Banff for an afternoon which was great. I'm looking forward to going back there to do some skiing later in the year. I'll post some pictures when I get my computer set up and find the cord for my camera. For the next few days I'm busy studying so that I don't sound like a complete idiot teaching anatomy labs, as well as trying out as a novice for the rowing team. Hopefully I will be able to post more regularly from now on...

Ride for Life Pictures

2005-07-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Me at the first rest stop on saturday

Pam along Turnagain Arm

The view along Turnagain Arm

Finally in Seward on Sunday

Spencer Glacier on the train ride home

2005-07-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic weekend, making my way from Anchorage to Seward on my road bike in the Ride for Life. Saturday started out sunny and warm, and Pam and I took off from Anchorage with 140 other riders around 8am. Unfortunately our small disaster of the weekend happened only 12 miles out of Anchorage. While enjoying the scenery (and not looking at the pavement) along the Seward Highway, Pam hit a large rock and blew her front tire. We quickly changed her tube and kept riding, not realizing that she had punctured her tire as well. Luckily the tube got her all the way to Ingram Creek, 50 miles into the ride. Our friend Robin from REI was there manning the rest stop and when we mentioned the flat to him he suggested that we check the pressure in the tire. Well, when pumped up to 100psi the tube exploded and we then noticed the hole in the tire. We did learn from the experience: One, don't hit large rocks with your road bike, and two: if you fold up a dollar bill and put it inbetween the tube and the tire it keeps the tube from poking out through the hole in the tire and exploding! Luckily the dollar bill patch got Pam all the way to Seward and we had no more flat tire incidents.
We camped Saturday night at Summit Lake Lodge, 75 miles from Anchorage. We had a great feast, including a whole roast pig and live music. After dinner there was a short program focusing on cancer. There were several cancer survivors doing the ride, as well as a few riders who were still undergoing treatment. At one point they had all the people who have known someone with cancer stand up; I don't think there was one person there that remained sitting. As a group of 145 people we raised a total of $40,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
The weather Sunday was not as nice as Saturday, and we were a little worried that it would rain the whole 45 miles to Seward. We did have about 30 minutes of rain at the beginning but it stopped and was plesant the rest of the way. There was only one rest stop along the way but we were very glad to see that Robin and his fiance Kristin were boiling up water for hot cocoa. Since we were not in much of a hurry to get to Seward, Pam and I spent about half an hour there. We got to Seward around lunchtime and had a few hours to enjoy ourselves. The ride ended at the Alaska Sealife Center so after we cleaned up and changed our clothes we spent some time there looking at the animals and learning about some of the research they are doing. Later in the afternoon we met my friend Seth for some lunch and then boarded the train for the ride back to Anchorage. Neither Pam nor I had ever taken the train from Seward and it was a great trip. The route that the train takes deviates from the road and goes past 6 large glaciers. We were lucky to see a big black bear from the train, as well as a few moose. It was a very relaxing, if somewhat slow, way to get home. Unfortunately it is now back to the real world, at least until next weekend. Check back later this week, and I'll try to post some pictures from the ride!

2005-07-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

I went to log in to my account today and I couldn't even remember what my login name was. I guess that means it's been awhile. I wonder if anyone is still checking to see if I'm alive. This has been one of the busier summers that I can remember, and I'm having trouble with the fact that it is already mid-July. What happened to June? Life just keeps plugging away. I'm getting busier and busier as more of my friends come home for the summer, and I keep adding new activities to my life. The latest has been rock climbing, which I manage to squeeze in among the two jobs and numerous activities I'm already doing with friends. Sarah is coming home on Thursday which will be great incentive to actually sit down and knit. Its so hard to motivate to sit inside for an afternoon when it is beautiful outside, as it has been most of the summer here. I have managed to almost finish my second pair of socks for the summer. My next project is going to be working on my Dale sweater for myself. I need to frog the body (wahhhh!!!) but my goal is to do that and get it done before I leave so that I can use my moms sewing machine to secure where I have to cut it.
Part of the reason my june and july seem to have gone so fast was my big wedding trip at the end of June. I guess I am of the age now where all my friends are starting to get married. I was a guest at my friend Liz's wedding in Oakland, and then the next weekend maid of honor at Katie's wedding in Seattle. Maid of Honor duty is hard work! But we pulled it off and had a lot of fun. Here we are on our way to the wedding (No limos for us, we walked!)

2005-06-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone else occasionally has days like this and its not just me. It started out innocently and beautifully enough. It was already 60 degrees when I got up at 7 this morning, and for those of you who don't know Alaska that means its going to be a beautifully hot and sunny day. I had a busy three hours at my morning office job, for once I was actually pretty busy. The trouble started when I went home to get ready for my midday coaching job. Since the weather has been nice here lately I have actually been getting a little sunburnt, and figured that I should probably use some sunscreen today. Just a word of advice to those who wear contacts: Put those contacts in before you put the sunscren on, it burns just a little when you get it in your eyes!! So I was out the door to run wearing my glasses, which is never that much fun. Don't worry, it gets better. I get to the parking lot and as I get out of the car I take my car key off of my key chain to carry with me and leave the rest of the keys in the car. Oh, and I lock the door. But as soon as I close the door I realize that I have the key to my car in my hand, but I was actually driving my mom's car. Crap! Luckily I was coaching a bunch of wonderful motherly women who were more than willing to help me once the workout was over. Another word of advice that I didn't know before: If you bought your car at the dealer within at least the last 5 years they will have your key code on file and can cut you a new key for a quarter of the price it would cost to call a locksmith, who I found out are usually too busy to come rescue you anyways. You have to have someone that will drive you to the dealer to pick up said key, and luckily I did. So now that I have all of that fixed I have taken on the duty of watching a friend's shop/art gallery for the afternoon while they are entertaining visiting family. Luckily it's a sort of quiet place so I'm actually getting some quality knitting/reading time here (and I'm getting paid, it doesn't get much better than that). I'm kind of hoping that I'll get out of my evening coaching session so that I can go do a bike ride with Pam. Which reminds me.....
Pam and I have signed up to do the Ride for Life, July 23 and 24. Have I mentioned this before? Its a 120 mile bike ride from Anchorage, AK to Seward, AK along one of the most beautiful roads in the world (see the pics on the website), and it's for a great cause: The Lance Armstrong Foundation. Here's the deal: I paid my money to enter the race, but I also need a minimum of $200 of pledges/donations before they will let me actually do it. All of the donations goes directly to the foundation, none of it goes through the ride organizers. So, if you are interested let me know, and I'll give you more info.

Gaaaaah!

2005-06-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

I just read Shannon's post that mentions people being stalked through their blogs! Is this true?? Do I need to censor myself more??

I did it!

2005-06-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Hooray! I put an offer on a condo, and things seem to be moving forward. This past weekend was probably the most hectic, crazy, stressful weekend I've had in a while, but the outcome was good. After 3 full days of looking with the real estate agent I was able to settle on something. The condo is 2 stories, with a full unfinished basement, and it has 3 bedrooms. Its about 5 miles from the University, further than the one block that I was used to in Salt Lake, but its in a nice neighborhood with some running trails nearby. We got a good price on the place. Unlike Anchorage where you have to offer at least $5000 above the list price, we were able to settle a few thousand below it. I'll most likely have to get a roommate to help me cover some of the costs but there will be plenty of room for two of us.
Here are some pictures...

And did I mention that the building that I will be working in at the University is called the Butterdome? Here's why:

Its much more yellow in real life, maybe to keep us happy in the winter?

Home buying

2005-06-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Edmonton on Thursday with the hopes of finding and buying a condo in 4 days. For some reason this scares me....It sort of makes the fact that I am moving to Edmonton permanent, not to mention the fact that I will be looking at condos, making the biggest financial decision of my life and signing all the papers on my own! The original plan was to have one of my parents come with me but that isn't going to happen because of work. I am taking big breaths and telling myself that I am a big girl and can do this on my own.

I did get my study permit in the mail today from the consulate. They decided they would let me into the country, as I assumed that they would. Thank goodness Canada seems a little easier to deal with than Norway (with the exception of certain border people who think I'm abandoning my furniture there, honestly...if I'd wanted to do that I could have left it in Salt Lake).

In other news, I had a really nice weekend. I bought new shoes and pedals for my road bike, and then had to go try them out on Sunday. I did a 30 mile ride with my mom and Pam, part of our training for the Fireweed 400 The weather was the nicest that it has been since I've been home, with the exception of some random five minute thunderstorms, so we did a lot of work in the yard. I even got mildly sunburnt. something that rarely happens here. Too bad I had to go back to work today, when its still nice so nice out!

Mud + Mountain Bike = Lots of Fun

2005-06-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

I came home today from a mountain bike ride with my friend Carl and I had two choices, I could take my clothes off outside or I could take them off in the bathtub. Thats how dirty I was. I wanted to take a picture of my mud encrusted legs but that just didn't give it justice. We had a fabulous ride around the Hillside trails that included lots of mud (obviously) and wet roots that I managed to survive. And thank goodness, we only ran into one moose.
I have another job now, which in addition to my biking ventures is either going to whip me into really good shape or make me exhausted. I'm going to be coaching a masters (over 30 years old) cross country skiing group for their summer training. There are two groups that meet, which means I get to work out twice a day, not including any fun workouts that I want to go do with my friends. Actually it's perfect because I was looking for a group to join for the summer, and now instead of having to pay a group to work out with them, they are paying me! Needless to say I'm a little tired today and I think I'm going to head to bed.....

Reason #1 that I love being home...

2005-05-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

 Ok this might turn into more than one reason. This morning I went on a great hike with Kathy up the backside of Flattop. I figured even if the doctor says to go easy on my knee with running I still need to train for Mt. Marathon (eep!) and even though it was sort of a grey day we had lots of fun! Long hikes in the mountains are a great place to solve all the problems of the world. I'm going to miss having the mountains so accessable next year.
I had a little bit of a bummer afternoon. I called a bunch of the other places that I had applied for jobs and several of them told me that they were done hiring people. Darn! But I'm still holding out hope for a few of them. I decided that I needed an uplift so where did I go but the yarn shop....I needed to get some yarn to reinforce the strap on my cool felted bag that Charis got me in Norway. After the yarn store I headed to the grocery store. Since my parents are so busy this summer I have become the default grocery shopper/dinner cooker. But never fear, the grocery store was the best part of the day! First I ran into Darcy,a friend from high school who wants to go hiking, and then I ran into Andy, who I didn't think I was going to get to see at all this summer. You would think that I wouldn't be so excited to see an ex-boyfriend but he's a really nice guy that I wouldn't mind hanging out with again (in a friendly sort of way). I left the store in a much better mood, feeling like life is good. Hooray for being home and seeing friends at the grocery store!

comments

2005-05-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've changed the settings so now all of you can leave comments without having to be a member on blogger.

I'm employed

2005-05-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well after a week of plastering the town with my resume I have found myself a job. The hospital that I was hoping to work at hired someone permanent, so its not that; however, my dad is on the board of a local non-profit group and knew that they needed an administrator, and they decided that it was okay to hire me for the summer. It's only 15 hours a week, I set my hours, and the pay is great. I think I'll still try to get another part time job, since I can, and I will need the money in the fall. Unfortunately I don't think any work will be coming from the knitting stores that I had spoken to in the spring, but hopefully someone is sitting out there with my resume thinking that I would be perfect.....

Graduated, Drove, and now I'm Home, anybody got a job for me?

2005-05-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm giving this a whirl....my very own blog complete with pictures and everything. I'm still figuring out how the "everything" part works, so forgive me if the first few posts are a little sketchy.

The past few weeks have been busy, busy, busy. I can't believe that just two weeks ago I was in Salt Lake City, graduating. And just to prove that I did it......

Can you see that it's me??

After graduation we (read entire family) furiously packed my apartment (and I must say thanks to Grandma and Grandpa who have moved a million times and are packing pros, we never could have done it without them), and my mom and I embarked on a 3000 mile journey through Edmonton and up to Anchorage.

Edmonton is great, I'm glad we took the time to visit. The building that I will be spending most of my time in is huge, and it's bright yellow. I guess it's supposed to keep me happy in the winter. But I got the feeling that the people that I am going to be working with and the work that I will be doing will keep me happy anyways.

After 2 days in Edmonton my mom and I packed into my car again and headed off for the second half of the drive, which was by far the most beautiful but also the more tiring part of the trip.

Our trusty steed and my wonderful co-pilot:

The scenery was beautiful, and I'm not going to do it justice by putting in any pictures here, you'll just have to do the drive yourself. But we did see lots of fun wild life. I think the final list came to bison, moose, caribou, deer, black bears, elk, dall sheep, stone sheep, a wolf, a fox, and a few showshoe hares.

I've been home for a week now and my most exciting thing that I have been doing is looking for a job. I've never had to really apply for a job like this before, and its really pretty of frustrating. I've turned in a bunch of applications, for both fun jobs and jobs that are actually in my field, and now I get to sit around and wait for them to call. But don't worry, I'm not just twiddling my thumbs.

It's not blocked yet, but I can't wait to wear it! Yeah for Alaskan summers that are cool enough to wear scarves!!!

So what do you think? Will I survive as a blogger.....stay tuned!