Weekend Adventure

We've had an exciting weekend!

On Friday, we went to the UAA-St. Cloud hockey game and left with not only a happy feeling that the Seawolves were on their way out of the depths of bad play, but also with to Conoco-Phillips fiber optic light stick keychains! How cool is that?

On Saturday, we woke up, and eventually made it to Russian Jack for some cross country skiing. Frank was in an adventurous mood, and led us off into the path less travelled, which led up a very steep hill (have you ever tried to climb hills in XC skis? Not so fun) and down a very steep downhill. Being safety girl, I immediately took my skis off and walked down, but Frank did successfully get down the hill with only three falls. Both of us thought this new route was a success, considering that neither of us died and we know that we have a lot to learn about XC skiing before we try that again.

Last night, we saw Vance Gilbert and Christine Lavin play at the PAC downtown. It was great!

Vance Gilbert's music is not only a talented singer and guitar player, but his songs are very touching. Even I got teary (and all of you know how very rare that is) through many of his songs. If you ever have a chance to see him, I urge you to go see him play. Here's his schedule -- I see he will be in NYC on March 4th for all of you east-coasters, Michigan from the 18th to the 20th, and, hey, Bloomington IL of all places on April 23rd! I don't see any Kentucky or Chicago yet, but keep on the lookout! I've added a link to one of his albums on the sidepanel here, but also check out his website where it looks like they are having a CD sale!

Christine Lavin, I believe, is related to us somehow. She reminds me, Mom, of you if you had become a singer-songwriter (you two are about the same age), although she gives the golden girls a run for their money in baton twirling (check out the bottom of her home page for a demonstration of this)! She wears a headset, and one of her first songs was about wind chimes. I admit, I thought, geesh, this will be a long hour if we have to hear about wind chimes all the time...but it was a really funny song! She crowned the King of Anchorage, and Frank I think Frank was relieved that she picked the guy two rows down from us to come up on stage. Although I thought that would have been great -- he would have done great singing the "Sensitive New Age Guys" song. She also has a great children's book out based on her song "Amoeba Hop" -- about how one celled organisms in a rain puddle party. Nothing like asexual reproduction by binary fission to really get the kids interested in science! She's also a knitter, and welcomes knitters to knit with her before/after the show and also knit during her performance. Sounds weird, but she was really great as well. I've added links to one of her albums and the book on the right hand side as well...

Oh, and Anne, your French Toast pudding concoction is FAMOUS through a song by Christine Lavin, although she forgot the ham part at least.

Her Calendar of Events shows that she will be in Cincinnati OH on March 7, Chicago, IL on March 13th, Cambridge, MA on March 26th. You can also hear her sometimes on the Village (channel 15 on XM satellite radio).

I really am grateful that all the way up here in AK we get the chance to hear some of the best music I've heard in a long time through Whistling Swan Productions. Please go out and see these people if you can in your own area.

So that was Saturday. This morning, I woke up at 5:25 am to a page (I'm duty manager this weekend), which was unpleasant since we went to sleep around 1:30am. At 8:00 am, Galileo wanted to go out again, so I let him out. Suprisingly, about 10 minutes after I went back to sleep, Frank decides to get up! If he'd only gotten up earlier, I would have been able to stay asleep! Then, puppy again wanted to go out around 10am (remember, now, I have been up twice already at this point), and of course he decides that I am the chosen door master again. So I have not had a lot of sleep today.

One of the coolest things about living by the mountains is that you get to watch the weather change. When we left for breakfast, the mountains were disappearing in clouds of either snow or fog. By the time we came back from the ice park (pictures coming soon), the mountains around our house were almost completely gone! We are looking forward to a good snow, because we need it. The snow on the ground at this point is pretty gross.

Anyways, it's super-bowl time, so I assume we must go watch it soon. We have tivo, so we will probably wait until 3 to really watch it so that we can get through all the blah-blah talk that one gets during an event such as this. As usual, I will probably start rooting for whomever is losing.