¡Cabo San Lucas, aquí nosotros venimos!

Tonight we're are going to the airport for our long journey to Cabo San Lucas for our friend Michelle's wedding!!!! It will be great to get back to some warm temperatures, considering it is -18 degrees here now! She graciously asked us both to be in her wedding (boy is she in for some shinanigans!) and we are so excited to see her, since we've only see her once since moving to New York City about 4 years ago. We both knew her in Tucson, Lisa's roommate and Ben's coworker/friend, and she is the reason we met!
We will be thinking of you all wishing you could be with us having a margarita on the beach (ok, I know all our friends in Hawaii aren't that jealous! :-) ) After Cabo, we plan to go up to Tucson for almost a week to visit friends and family....and eat great Mexican food!

The bottle above is Michelle and Rob's wedding invitation.....a message in a bottle complete with a burnt-edge invitation and pirate-esque
map of Cabo. Very cool idea! See ya there guys! Everyone else, stay tuned for pictures when we get back.

Winter Weekend

If you haven't heard, everything grows ginormous in Alaska, even the snowmen!!! Either that or Lisa drank out the wrong bottle in Wonderland with Alice.

The yearly ice carving contest was back in Anchorage. One of the artists let us participate by helping sculpt his sea turtle....we told him it was a honu!

The sun is getting higher in the sky since winter solstice. This picture was taken 20 minutes past noon on Sunday!

New Years 2007 Cabin Ski Trip

For the New Year, we decided to join some friends at a Forest Service cabin. Our friend Kevin joined us for the trip, which we didn't get to the trailhead to cross-country ski 4.5 miles on until 8pm! So the moonlight and our headlamps guided us along the 2 ft. powedery trail in 3 degree temperatures. We brought our puppies with us (and for those of you who know Kaena....she didn't puke for the first time!!!! :) ) and they helped us by pulling Ben who had a sled packed with our stuff attached to him. In 2 hours, after a couple confused stops as to if we were on the right trail or not and also seeing a huge moose with a full rack on it, we arrived at our cabin!

Here's the inside, it had a wood burning stove inside that kept the cabin nice and toasty!

New Years Cabin ski trip cont'd.

Kevin, rubbing his feet after the long trek in.

Lisa, excited to be in a warm Cabin and ready for some hot chocolate with Bailey's in it!!!

New Years Cabin ski trip cont'd.

When we woke in the morning, we got to see the beautiful view the cabin had to offer. This one is taken on the lake the cabin sits on. The night before, we were playing frisbee on it with the ones that light up. There was about 2.5 ft of powder on top, so it was fun to dive for the frisbee. When it hit midnight and we were lighting fireworks on the lake, we looked up to see the Northern Lights shining brightly through the thin clouds! B-e-a-uuuutiful!!!!

Kevin took an early morning (ok not really, it was about noon, but the sun shadows doesn't look like it huh?) ski on the lake with one of the puppies.

New Year's Cabin ski trip cont'd.

If you really had to go, you had a bit of a cold walk to get to the outhouse!!!

Here we're headin out of the cabin on the 4.5 mile trail back to our cars. It was about 1pm, can't tell by the sun though.

New Year's Cabin ski trip cont'd.

The puppies are ready to pull!!!!

This picture shows how our set up looked....Ben rigged a sled to carry most our stuff to attach to him, and then he was attached to the puppies on his skiis.

New Year's Cabin ski trip cont'd

Here's Kevin making the last mile of our trip

The gorgeous Kenai River, a great last view to a great New Years Cabin Ski Trip!!!! Happy New Year everyone!

She's here!!!!!

My niece, Kayla Marie, was born Tuesday morning at 12:13am, just barely missing the New Year. But like her dad said, she wanted her own special day! Funny how I found out, I was out at a backcountry cabin for the New Years, and when I came home I had a message on my phone from Ty saying, "Wakey Wakey, we're havin a baby!". Too funny. Even though she came about a month early, my sister and Kayla are doing great!

Kayla Marie Kauffman

6 lbs 1 oz., 19.5 inches

Christmas Day sledding!

We went sledding with our roommate Sergios and a few of his crazy/awesome friends. But this wasn't just your average up and down one hill...oh no! It was a fabulous 3-mile sledding bonanza, from up in the mountains right into east anchorage. We had a great time, check out the video below. And by the way, when you see the end, don't worry...I'm OK!!!
http://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q58/mountainvert/?action=view&current=FlattopFlyer-1.flv

Here is what we woke up to on Christmas Eve day!

This is as close as we get to waves now that we don't live in Hawaii anymore....

Christmas eve continues!

A shot of Lisa after her first run up Chair 4... We had a hard time of it, halfway up the lift we entered the clouds and on our way down there was vitually zero visibility! It made each little bump a disaster....

this is the view as we started to come out of the clouds...

Here is a shot of the view from chair 7... we love this one as it let us see the 33" of fresh powder that we got overnight at the Base of the mountain!

The two snow mongrels after shredding the gnar... it was definitly Deece.... We learned that new term from a snowboarding santa on the slopes!

Christmas in Alaska!

So it seems like we are playing santa this year being so close to the north pole and sending out all the gifts and cards and stuff that we have already... If you haven't goten one yet, be sure that you are on our list..... We decorated the house a bit and, as promised, here are some pictures including the tree that we chopped down in the forest and stuck in the living room! When we first saw it we thought that it was a bit small, but when we put it up in the living room it bent over the ceiling and we had to chop about a foot and a half off. Gotta get back to mailing things to good little girls and boys!

 

Girls Girls Girls!!!!!

Within a week, I found out that my sister is having a girl, our friends Andy and Lisa Browns are having identical twin girls, and our friends Treena and Jason who we met in Hawaii but now live in Northern California, are having a girl as well. I am so happy for all of them and cannot wait to meet my new niece, Kayla Marie, when I visit next March!

This taint funny!

A great video we stumbled upon lately that we had to share. It was taken last March when Casey and Annie and Kevin and Spring came to visit for an awesome week o fun. Kevin was tryin out cross-country skiis in Denali National Park.

Holy Happy Surprise Thanksgiving Batman!!!!

Thanksgiving this year was probably one, if not the most, of the greatest ones yet!!!!! After a day at the gym, Andy Brown was supposed to come over with some beer and hang out. After 2 hours of waiting, I called him and he said he was just pulling up. Then I heard him running on the porch toward the front door, so I got up to see what was the deal. The door flings open and its Vanessa saying "He's late because he had to pick us up from the airport!!!!!!!!"! Behind her follows our friend Brian and then Andy! It was the best surprise! I guess they had kept this surprise secret for 2 months too! It was such great timing, Ben and I had just been talking about how much we missing Vanessa and Brian, and were trying to figure out how to see them next. And here they were!!!!

We had a spectucular 11 days with them. We were so busy everyday trying to pack in as much fun as possible, I didn't have time to post anything to let everyone know. So I'll post a few here, but I need to go to bed (I'm on midnight shifts now). I'll post more later!

The partystars together again!

The Thanksgiving Feast! Good thing they came, it was way too much food for just the Browns and us!

Took some time to go rock climbing.

Went for a great day of snowshoeing and snowboarding up at Hatchers. 

Happy Delayed Halloween

Sorry for the delay in the post, but had technical difficulties getting this picture. For Halloween, we joined the Brown's at their house to hand out candy to the kids. Guess we were dressed up a little to scarey for the wee ones though, we had a couple turn around and leave until we took off our masks!

Ben, Lisa R., LisaB, Andy....causin trouble.
 

SURPRISE!!!!!!!!

Our friends Andy and Lisa have a huge surprise!

Check out their blog to see what it is!
www.agsinak.blogspot.com