Skip to main content

March Madness!

At the end of my last post, I said that I would have a lot of updates. So consider yourselves warned. Here goes...

The Outhouse Races! This was actually February, so we'll call it Pre-March Madness.
The idea was to push/pull your makeshift outhouse on skis racing one other team at a time in elimination rounds. Our St. Elias group had a girls' team (The Skidmark Fairies) and a guys' team (The Skidmarks Unlimited). Classy, I know. They've participated 7 years in a row now, and this was the first year that they won any division let alone all 3 (Standard, Unlimited, and Women's)! I only ran once out of the 4 women races, but it was such a blast! Cory got to come too :)






The following weekend my dear friend Sara Scoville was here to continue the Fur Rondy celebration (the annual 2-week-long festival of Alaskan events)! She was most excited about seeing the Iditarod racers! Tourists came from all over the world to watch! The coolest part was seeing the dogs lined up waiting for their turns to race. Their excitement was contagious!


 
That afternoon, Sara watched Cory and me and our friends Katie and Neil in the Running with the Reindeer race! We were in the largest group of runners, so you can barely see my arm as I'm running by waving at Sara lol.
 
Good thing he loves me so much :)



 
I could write an entire post just on the adventures that Sara and I had. We enjoyed everything from strolling through a park watching a man make giant bubbles to hiking the trail to see Byron Glacier. Sara is such an explorer at heart, so she was such a great companion. Not to mention how much I missed her!!
Thunderbird Falls was the hike that Cory and I took in June right after I moved here. This is the frozen version!

 




 
And of course, the highlight of March is always the 12th - my birthday! I had the day off and got a mani/pedi with Katie in the morning followed by ice cream, tried on and ordered my bridesmaid's dress for Julie's wedding, Facetimed with home and opened the gifts they sent me, and spend the evening with Cory (first time getting to spend my birthday with him :) ) having dinner and watching Modern Family reruns. This weekend we celebrated more with Katie and Neil with dinner and a movie. It was very low-key overall but I felt loved and celebrated :) I don't think I ever got used to being 25, but it's too late now! Hello 26!
 Man alive, March isn't even over yet and there's still fun waiting to be had including my Arizona Wildcats taking the NCAA basketball championship! WOOP WOOP!!!
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Snow: Check!

It happened. It snowed. It snowed back in Aril when I was just visiting, but this was the real thing where it stuck all over the trees and cars and ground. September 23rd, first snow of the season, and I lived! Plus, it had melted by the next day. The mountains are GORGEOUS though! After that random bout of winter, fall took over. It doesn't get warmer than 50, the leaves are changing color and falling, and it's raining more often than not. I'm not gonna lie...I've really been enjoying my new stylish coats and drinking chai tea lattes on a regular basis. Cory and I took a short drive to Birchwood where we explored Beach Lake and caught these views... If only this season would last longer than a month. The freezing cold (aka the age of darkness) is on it's way, but I'm doing my best to take in my surroundings now without dwelling so much on what's to come. I still find myself stopping now and then thinking "Holy crap, I actually live he
4 comments
Read more

2013 New Year resolution accomplished

It's hard to believe that I've been an Alaskan resident for a week now as I recall the events of the last 4 months: graduating from nursing school, passing the state board exam to be registered as a nurse, turning 25, landing my first nursing job, and leaving Phoenix to live in Anchorage (near Cory who has 2 1/2 years left at Elmendorf Air Force Base. It's a thrilling endeavor living outside of Arizona for the first time, although so many changes all at once are a little overwhelming, to say the least. New city, new address, new roommate, new career, new car, new relationship phase...it's a lot take in. The climate alone is drastically different than the dessert that I've grown up in, but luckily this "summer" weather (60s and 70s) has been pleasant to adjust to. I had a small taste of winters to come when I was here in April when it got as low as 5 degrees, which I know is just the tip of the iceberg (pun intended), so I will soak up these 20+ hour sunlit
4 comments
Read more

Happy Times

There isn't anything major to report since I last posted, but lots of little victories and happy moments have added up to lots of positivity! Work always comes with some level of stress, but I can safely say that I finally feel like a real nurse on a regular basis, and I can almost always walk away at the end of the night feeling proud of my work! I've gained more confidence facing tasks like drawing blood and inserting catheters (I never said it was glamorous), I finish my charting before the end of the shift 90% of the time (and anything left over doesn't take very long), and I even oriented a new employee! She's been a nurse for 2 years, so she actually taught me more than I taught her, but I was glad that the manager trusted me to show her the ropes. I've also been told multiple times from my coworkers that they would never guess that I'm a new nurse and they're impressed by how quickly I learn and how well I fit in. Multiple patients have told me how
2 comments
Read more