Ice Alaska!

Ann, Jill, Amber and John came up from Seward for Mandy's PhD defense. Great to have visitors from Seward! Fairbanks has hosted the World Ice Art Championships for 22 years. We headed over there one night to check it out - I had never been before. Some of the ice sculptures were amazing, some were...a little more abstract. Here are some of my favorites:

Title for this one is 'Our University Could Totally Blow Up'. see photo below.

Scene from Africa

Meerkats watching the lion about to take down the antelope(?)

One of my favorites. The detail on the walrus was amazing.

Boggles my mind trying to figure out how this one was created.

Another prey-predator scene.

 And the highlight of the evening for me was the slides!!!

Big kids on the slides

Ann, Jill, Amber, Dave

Down the chute! I screamed the whole way down.

Tanana River Ski

We went for a ski on the Tanana River in late January with some friends one afternoon.

As usual, there were more dogs than people!

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Heading out on the river

Happy dogs!

Sled dogs

Sharing the river with mushers

Dave Shaw skate skiing

Becky, Ellen & Lauren

What a spectacular day!

What happened to February?

This semester is kicking my butt. I'm taking Animal Stable Isotope Ecology, Biology of Marine Mammals, Data Analysis in Community Ecology, and some fun rec classes to keep me sane: power yoga and beginning rock climbing!

Now that I'm getting a little better at it, I'm starting to really like rock climbing. My fear of heights is definitely still there but I've been able to slowly control it. I'm starting to trust the rope a little more, remembering that I can 'rest' on the rope if I need to. I made it to the top of the climbing wall several weeks ago, making my way up a chimney. And today, I finally made it to the top of the wall climbing! It felt really good to touch that chain at the top. The best part is that it forces me to not think about anything else for 90 min. I love it.

Winter is still making me incredibly grumpy but the daylight is getting stronger and longer every day! It's fantastic. I also found another way to hopefully make the remainder of winter bearable - planning for summer! I just signed up for the Gold Nugget Triathlon again - 3rd year for me & Heather, 2nd year for Mandy, reluctantly signed up for Mt. Marathon. I'm just not that excited about it this year because it's just so hard to train for it in Fairbanks but also not ready to lose my spot in the race yet. AND Kristina talked me into registering for the Seattle to Portland Bike Classic. 200 miles in 2 days. Ooof. We might rent a tandem bike :).

So, instead of spending energy thinking about how much I hate winter in Fairbanks, I can focus on training for these events!

Here's to a sunny, warm March and a quick entry into Spring!