"How did you end up here?"

    There's something uniquely special about watching your sibling be a parent. I love my sister so dearly, and now I get to see her love this little girl who loves her back immensely. It's surreal and beautiful. Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled to have them up here for a whole week! It just so happened to be the coldest week of the season yet (lots of snow and -1 degrees at one point!), but we still had the best time together! Ben joined us later on in the week and added even more happiness :) We played in the snow as much as we could, went sledding, ate really well, drank lots of Starbucks, played games, enjoyed the cozy fireplace, and saw breathtaking views that you would NEVER see in Phoenix!   I know how people get really annoyed when people go on and on gushing about their kids, but this is my niece, so it's different. I'm going to gush away.   I was amazed at how much Brynley had grown up since I last saw her in September. A month away from h

Cory teased me about the title of this blog when I started it back in June when I moved up here since it was the warmest summer Anchorage has seen in a decade. I was of course very aware that is wasn't actually cold outside (yet). It was more of a way to express the drastic change for a desert rat moving so far north ("North to the Future" is Alaska's state motto, by the way.) A foreshadowing, if you will, of the culture shock I would soon experience. That time is now. The biggest kicker is that it's not even "that cold" yet. It seems that 14 degrees is just the tip of the iceberg. Pun intended. I'm handling it better than I thought I would so far. I haven't spent a ton of time outside yet, and walking to and from my car isn't a big deal. It helps that I splurged for a remote starter so my car is warm by the time I have to get in. I don't regret it one bit! What's worse than the cold itself is driving in it. Besides the fluke we