"How did you end up here?"

What a delightful summer it has been so far! It been quite as warm as last summer, and I'd say there's more rain this time. But still, it's joyous! Hiking, biking, BBQs, no jackets, no snow/ice, and relatively no night time! An especially fun time was my friend Sara visiting! She wins for traveling the farthest distance to get here from Cologne, Germany! 5 days flew by super quickly, but we had plenty of adventures! Trolley tour of the city, camping at Eklutna Lake (cold and rainy but awesome), celebrating Summer Solstice, Down-town market, carnival rides, Alaska Botanical Gardens, my company softball game, sight-seeing, walking/hiking trails, and of course lots of great food! So proud of our tent :) The Spin Doctors concert for Summer Solstice...and Zach's creepy photo bomb    Our new friend "Liela Nurple" who we won playing balloon darts at the carnival after screaming our heads off on a swingy-flippy ride (at least I did lol) ...

I’m currently traveling home to Phoenix (fiancé-less, sadly) to start this whirlwind process of planning a wedding! Everything up to this point has been research and narrowing in on ideas since, obviously, we live 4000 miles away from our wedding destination. I have one week to find a venue and a dress. Thankfully I have a mother and 3 sisters who have been willing and eager to be hands-on helpers by visiting sites ahead of time and scheduling appointments for me. The pressure is on, but I’m up for the challenge!   In the meantime, staying focused on the end result of marrying my best friend is my main goal. As it’s been almost a year to the day that I moved to Anchorage and we just reached our 3 year mark of being in each others’ lives, I find it fitting to tell our full story. I love reminiscing about the details of our journey thus far. In case you don’t know me by now, I tend to drag stories out way longer than necessary, so bear with me through my longwinded-ness. ...

An unexpected twist made mine and Cory's Illinois trip my favorite vacation of all time. And now it's time for me to be girly and gushy. We left Anchorage for Cory's hometown of Roscoe, IL on our 2nd anniversary of getting back together. We had decided not to exchange gifts and just celebrate by spending a day in Chicago during the week. I had taken a trip there with my family back in 2011 when Cory and I had just started talking, so I couldn't wait spend a day in one of my favorite cities with him. My sisters and me in June 2011 in the same spot Cory and I would stand almost 3 years later. We spent Easter weekend with his families and friends (most of who I met for the first time). I instantly felt welcomed as part of the family and loved getting to know everyone who Cory grew up with and cares so much about. I was hoping some of them would be able to join us in Chigago, but Cory was pretty adamant about having the day to ourselves. Go figure. We st...

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 ...