Riding the white...

Up high.....scenes and a vid from our first weekend of alpine skiing:

Willa and I are on the left....

Bringing In

These trees

-emissaries of the woods-

heavy with snow and frost

bend in gentle inclination toward protection...

an embracement

 and receiving of all

 who travel through

.....in beauty.

Willa so tiny

I'm helpless but to allow my soul to be split open wide and to drink of all that I see and feel in a place like this.  This beauty, varying and shifting in its sameness as we fly through it with hearts beating hard, breath coming cold, warm, cold, warm, bodies moving in power....     I can't get enough of this indigo world!  What an inebriant!

Miles's 49th!

On St. Patrick's Day.
The usual suspects.
Plenty of food and beer.
And it was GOOD!

Manna from the beer gods!  Made with the spent American Brown Ale grains and yeast from brewing the day before.  Waste not, want not!

Chillin', me and my hunny, on the sun soaked deck before folks arrive

Dylan made....and SO friggin yummy!

Make a wish and..!!!

Beer glasses at the ready!

Happy Birthday my WONDERFUL, silly, sweet, BFF and husband!!!!!
Oh, and F-YOU, Saint Paddy!

One extra day of Spring Break

Spring Eve...
 Willa and I played hooky yesterday.  ;}  I wasn't ready for Spring Break to be over.  And the sun was boomin', so, we went snowshoeing up Bear Pass.  Willa has hiked up there many times, but this was her first snowshoe to the top!  It was quite a challenge for her and I wasn't sure we were going to make it.  Despite the moaning and groaning she was inwardly determined to get herself up there.  And that she did.  We ate our lunches, explored and played around up top for awhile before heading back down.  Down is always the best part because you can slide quite a bit with your snowshoes!  Hearing her laughing and yelling out,"This is the FUNNEST thing I've ever done!" made my heart sing.  I'm so glad and honored that we are able to give her this magic.
WONDERFUL day....

Almost there!

HARDCORE KIDDO!!!!

Made it!  Whew.

So tiny against those mountains!

LOTS of people have been skiing and boarding here.  Tracks everywhere!

Snow angels

Biffed!  Dragon likes it, though!



And we get to LIVE here!!!

This morning's 3 am photo shoot!  After an auroral drought the last few years, this season's solar flares emitting class X coronal mass ejections have been giving us some beautiful displays!  Miles and I got Willa out of bed and bundled at midnight last week so she could finally see her first strong showing.  Afterward, still feeling zonked, I went back to my warm bed and husband but when I woke up in the morning I TOTALLY regretted not grabbing the camera for some shots.  After all, what's a late night now and then and how often have we  gotten to see such lights lately?!?!  So when Miles woke me up at not even the butt crack of dawn this morning I got right to it with my camera.  Geared up warm like the Michelin man, I stayed out in that magnificence until my fingers no longer worked-it was about 3 degrees.  SO worth the slight discomfort to stand outside while the valley slept...watching those ethereal waves dance and sway in the clear quiet.  The stars-and Mars-in audience.  Light wind...the occasional snap of a branch-ermine or moose?...the crunching of crisp snow. 
We get to LIVE here.
Fulfilled.

Light shower over our house

Straight up to the Big Dipper.

Snowshoe

HEAR:  Our African clawed frog croaking away.  He's either really happy I cleaned his nasty tank today, or really pissed off because he likes the tank stagnant and stinky and full of slime.  Sorry, Scoot.

SEE:  Myself surrounded by white and blue....

SMELL:  Hops.  We racked the Belgian Trappist Ale- Orval clone to the secondary.

TASTE:  Enjoying our Road Rash red ale at the mo.

FEEL:  Rewarded.  Cleaned the nasty tank, helped Willa with her room, went on a wonderful snowshoe with Miles up the valley, beer racked, Chicken parm in oven, LOTR on the tube....and hoping the clouds clear so I can take photos of the northern lights tonight!



Grrrd!

We rented a house in Girdwood last month for 3 days with some friends so that we could enjoy a couple full days of skiing. It was great to have a nice place to crash, have some hot soup and margaritas, and hang out instead of having to deal with the long drive back home, exhausted after a day of skiing.  The kiddos had lots of fun playing with each other and so did the adults!  We saw a great band at the Sitzmark Bar and Grill where Miles and I had our wedding reception.  The skiing was amazing-decent temps and conditions.  Willa's skills really improved after taking a couple classes and she felt confident enough to venture to the top on the tram with us for the first time!  Dylan blew us off the mountain as usual....but the old folks are happy at their current level of speed-I have a career depending on a functioning body, after all!  I'm loving my new updated skis...what a huge difference from the straight looooooong skis I'd had since high school!  No one stares anymore or says,"WOW!!!!  OLD school!"

 Spoiled we are now, after being able to sleep over in the happy town-o-Girdwood!  We'll definitely plan on this for next year!

Ready for ascent

The fam  on the Glacier Express deck-right on the spot where Miles and I were married almost 10 years ago.

Enjoying an IPA break on the deck of the Sitz

Silly kids

Silly adult kids and their Margaritas awaiting the 10pm show at the Sitz.  Can I just say that these recliner-type couches are the stupidest fucking things ever?!?  I mean...what a bastion of couch potato-ness!!!  Can't hold your Slurpee in your own fucking hand?  Rest that poor tired extremity by placing cup in the holder on the console as shown!  And what of your po-ta-to chips?  What to do with them when not munching?!  Pop up the lid on your armrest and store them there!  Yay!  And if you want to make eye contact while communicating with your couch partner, you'll have to either tandem un-recline those seats or engage those abs and lean FORWARD over the middle on the couch.  Otherwise you'll just have to speak louder through the mass of upholstery that will be in your face when you turn your head to the side.  Ridiculous.  Rant over.

Lovely view of the slopes from the house

Goodnight tired wee skiers!  (They enjoyed sleeping in the loft!)

Night skiing

Chased by the moon!

After weeks of cancellations due to sub zero temps, I've been enjoying taking Willa to her Junior Nordic ski class.  She goes 2 nights a week.  One night I volunteer to help with her group and the other night I ski off on my own...hard and exhilarated...covering lots of trail.  Miles is able to join sometimes and it's wonderful....  The trails are lighted, but I love the feeling of being ....enveloped..in the dark trees around me.  The moon was HUGE and bright last night, following us on the trails.

HEAR:  Acoustic Stephen Stills weaving in and out of the bustle of the Middle Way Cafe......LOVE

SEE:  Unnervingly bare cafe walls ...devoid of the usual art...needing to be filled...giving me vertigo...call me, Keren, I have work to hang!

SMELL:  The strong organic Ethiopian coffee in my warm mug...

TASTE:  My chocolate chip, coconut, sour cream Middle Way scone....my new love.

FEEL:  ALIVE due to many aches from wiping out on these last few skis!

Denied....but SUPPLIED

After doing a few skis off the beaten path(i.e., well groomed trails) and gaining a newfound confidence in my technique this winter, I thought I would head out on the local trail up our valley to see if anyone had been skiing it. My improbable dream was that perhaps some hardcore cross country folk had established a nice trail back out to the lakes. What a glorious 5 miles trek that would be! Planting me out there at the base of those white mountains in the magnificent sun! But in the real world? It was an awkward semi-trail set higgledy-piggledy for about a mile at the most. Then the tracks just mysteriously ended. NOT conducive to my level of backcountry skiing(I've never done any) or my lack of appropriate gear(simple x-country ski package). It was a bumpy, deep, crusty,  hazardous on the downhill, SHORT attempt.  But what a fabulous place to be! Full glorious sun, blasting me in the face...inundating my retinas with much needed circadian rhythm altering light....

SOUL filling.......

Time to bring out the deck chairs for some sun sitting!

The following is based on a meditation that Willa and I have enjoyed doing for the last 3 years when we are outside.  At some point, we’ll take a break, sit together quietly…breathing…and then take turns stating the five senses and what we are observing for each.  i.e., “SMELL:  The pine trees warming in the spring sun”.  I believe I found this meditation from LittleAcorn Learning.  Today, I discovered a new blog-Bohemian Twilight- whos writer ends each post with something similar.  I think it’s a great idea to succinctly sum up a day, so I think I will incorporate this little meditation into my own posts.  Here’s today’s:


HEAR:  QUIET but for the sweet chirps of some hidden birds in the pines I skied through…

SEE:  A sea of windblown snow….waves stretching out before me into the sun...

SMELL:  The aroma of my favorite soap, “Tango” from Ogleby Sisters, wafting up as I sweat…

TASTE:  A lunch of soft tilapia taco with lettuce, tomato, and a Greek yogurt-salsa-lime juice-garlic dressing.  Wish I was tasting a beer as well!

FEEL:  An owie of a bruise forming on my bum cheek from falling today!

Scenes from Christmas Day

How the day went:  Coffee, of course!....open stockings....more coffee accompanied by Mile's homemade cinnamon rolls....exchange gifts/open Santa prezzies....groove on our new stuff....answer phone calls from relatives....clean up...groove on our new stuff....eat a "real" breaky....go for a snowy run....shower....head out to the T's house for football, fun and dinner...and what a beautiful drive it was!  9 more inches of new snow blanketing everything...a true white Christmas!  .....back home...watch a movie.....goodnight!

Christmas morning!  Crack-o-Dawn!

I am absolutely in LOVE with our tree.  Perfect in so many ways....in that it came from our own yard and in how amazing it looks!

It's like an I Spy book!!!  Who can spy the whiskey?!?!

Willa worked so hard on the little lamb she knit for Dylan!  Every morning on the dark car ride to work she was back there knitting away.  Lamb is napping on the neck warmer I knit for Willa.  Made one for Dylan, too, but it needs some more work....

Willa's wrapping "humor".

The tee Willa made for Daddy using our tutorial HERE.

Willa made this beautiful Ireland scene out of scraps of wood for me!  It goes with the Arctic themed one she made for Miles LAST Christmas.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, too!!!!