March #2 - Go, doggies, go!

This past weekend was one of our most memorable. When we came to Alaska on vacation the summer before Mario was offered the job here, we visited Denali National Park. While researching our trip there, we read that one of the few activities you can do in that area in the winter (since the park road is closed) is dog sledding. We thought, Wow, we should come back someday in winter and do that! Turns out we got to do it sooner than we thought!

There is only one company that offers dogsled trips in Denali, and that’s EarthSong Lodge. At first the owner was understandably worried about taking a two-year-old and a three-month-old on an overnight dogsled trip, but we assured him it wasn’t our first adventure with little kids and we would really like to try. We arrived at the High Camp Kennels on Saturday morning 

Getting ready in the dog yard

where we stuffed the kids and ourselves into all the winter gear we owned and then got a 10-minute crash course on dog mushing because this wasn’t just a ride on a dogsled; at EarthSong, Jon actually lets his guests drive the sleds! Originally the plan was to have two sleds and two guides. Jon would drive the sled with both the kids and one adult and the other adult would get to drive the other sled if they wanted during the trip. When we arrived, however, he told us they had decided to let us drive the second sled the whole time and just send the other guide ahead to our cabin to get it warm for our arrival later that afternoon. So after a brief discussion of how to not die or maim any of his dogs, we zipped Josh up snugly in a sleeping bag between my knees and I was holding Mia. Mario hopped on the other sled and off we went! It was AWESOME. I was freezing on the way out because, although I had enough clothes on to stay warm, Mia was so agitated by all the commotion that she just wanted to eat so she could fall asleep, which meant I couldn’t zip up any of my layers or wear my skiing mittens. It was only about 15 degrees, which really isn’t that cold, but it sure was colder than I wanted it to be while nursing on a sled cruising along into the wind at a few miles an hour on the Alaskan tundra! It was totally worth it to keep the kids happy so we could enjoy our adventure, but holy smokes was I cold!

Apart from bone-chilling cold from being only partially covered, it was wonderful and surprising. I was surprised at how much the dogs loved it. They were so excited to get hooked up to the sled they couldn’t stand it. In fact, they were all so excited when we were in the dog yard and they were choosing dogs to get harnessed that they were all barking and howling like crazy, which made both the kids very upset at the beginning. They were both screaming when we left the yard but within seconds Josh was enthralled. When we were planning the trip, we figured he would be okay since he loves going on walks even when it’s cold, and riding in the sled is pretty similar to being wrapped up in his stroller, but he LOVED it. He especially loved when Jon would yell commands at the dogs. Josh tried to repeat everything and every time we stopped he’d yell “Go, doggies, go! Go, doggies, go!” He got a kick out of the trail too. When we’d go over a bump or hit a branch he would laugh and yell “Yay!”

Going through the taiga forest

It was a great day with the perfect mix of tundra and taiga forest trails. We stopped for lunch out on the tundra and then continued up into the trees to a small cabin on a frozen lake. Josh cried for about 
an hour when we stopped for the evening because he just wanted to keep riding. The only thing that would have made it better is if I would have been able to take photos of the northern lights up there away from city lights. I got up to check in the middle of the night and I could tell they were out, but I could only see them as a vague light haze through the cloud cover.

Josh playing with Frodo, the lead dog

The next morning we enjoyed freshly-baked cinnamon rolls hot out of the propane oven (that’s my kind of camping!) and loaded up for another day. We headed down out of the foothills to the tundra again just as the sky was clearing up. By the time we stopped for lunch,  

Mia napping on the snow during lunch

Mt. McKinley had emerged from the clouds and we had ourselves one mighty fine day.

Ready for more!

 

 
 





Mario had the next day off so we visited Chena Hot Springs. The kids had a ball.

The Rock Pool at Chena Hot Springs

January, February, and March!

He loves to steal my head bands

Flowers!

And that brings us to March! Josh's vocabulary is exploding daily, and his fascinations change just as fast. We went to Barnes & Noble the other day where they were having a children's activity. Josh was given some flowers which he then carried around for the rest of the day. 

In his bath full of sharks

 He still loves sharks and has rediscovered a love of trains. He sometimes wears his sunglasses all day, naps being the only exception. He loves to go outside even when it's -10 (or lower) as long as he's snugly tucked into multiple blankets in his stroller. Josh's current favorite food is chocolate, followed closely by toast and goldfish. 

Stealing chocolate chips

 He LOVES to paint. He's still quite timid both with new people and with new physical activities but is getting a little better. Sometime in the past two weeks we have wandered into the eye of the terrible twos. Perhaps Josh realized that Mia is here to stay and is venting his frustration, or maybe we've just dodged the bullet until now. He's a very loving, sweet little man a good deal of the time, and I'm learning to be more grateful for those moments!

Mia is just like Josh in so many ways. She rarely cries except when she needs something. We've successfully moved her into her own bed at night and I'm thoroughly enjoying having more than 8 inches of bed to use. She's settled into a somewhat regular daytime routine, but every night is still completely unpredictable. Some nights she sleeps 10 hours without a peep and some nights she wants to eat every hour. 

 Unlike Josh, she is a champion eater and has lovely, perfect fat rolls to prove it! We’re working on teaching her to fall asleep without eating as a step towards being able to fall asleep by herself, and it’s going pretty well. It would be a lot easier if Josh didn’t have a sixth sense about when she has finally calmed down and has just closed her eyes, because that is precisely the moment he decides he’s done waiting for me and comes busting into the room yelling MAMA!! 

 She is quickly mastering the fine art of “grab whatever you can and stuff it in your mouth,” although she often misses her mouth and whacks herself in the forehead with things. She loves Josh to pieces and tries to grab him at every opportunity. Josh is less than thrilled about that, although he will touch her now which is a great improvement. And now that she looks at him and smiles, he will often smile back before he remembers he doesn’t like her.

March is a delightful time to live in Alaska. It regularly gets above zero during the day and the sun returns with passion. There is also usually some decent showings of the northern lights. 

 Having a baby who won’t reliably take a bottle and wakes up unpredictably at night has made it quite a challenge to be able to take pictures of the aurora borealis since we can’t see them from our house and need to drive about 20 minutes to a good photo location. It’s also unfortunate that the best show usually happens between midnight and 4am, but even with the challenges I was able to get a few decent shots a few weeks ago.

The light on the right is from the moon rising

The end of the bar brought us a newfound freedom to do things as a family that we are wholeheartedly taking advantage of. Fairbanks hosts an ice-carving festival every March, very similar to the one we went to in Haerbin, China. This one is quite a bit smaller, but interestingly many of the competitors were from Haerbin. 

The winner of this year's competition

One thing that is better than the Chinese competition is that much of the ice park is built for kids. They have slides of all shapes and sizes as well as a skating rink. Although Josh went on some ice slides with Jed and Crystal in North Pole right after Mia was born, he won’t go down any of these. Instead he prefers that Mario go down them or just his sled. The last time I took him he carried around a big chunk of ice that he put down all the slides.

Making Mario go down the slide

Mario's boss, Justice Dan Winfree, invited us to visit his cabin on the lake a few weeks ago.  We got to take his snow machines out on the frozen lake.  Fun stuff!

Mario and Josh ready to go

Three months

This is Angie at about the same age playing on the very same quilt.

Two months

Scout is about two weeks old and Josh hates when we wash his hair so I just cut it all off!

The end of the Bar!!

Scout helping Daddy study

The past two months have probably been the most difficult of my life. Mario took the Texas bar at the end of February, which means he's been using every minute he could spare for studying since mid-December. Most sane law school graduates stop working to study for the bar because it's honestly a full-time job just to prepare for it, but not my baby! For at least 10 weeks a typical day for Mario would begin at 6:30 when he would get up to get ready for work. He would try to get to work really early so he could use a few hours at the office for bar studying and not have to take time from his job. At 5 he would come home and study for an hour while I made dinner and then hold Mia for 15 minutes while we both ate. Then he would study for another 2 hours until it was almost time for the kiddo to go to bed, at which point he would take about half an hour to play with him and help me get him ready for bed. Then he would study for another 3-4 hours until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore and hit the hay for a few hours. I tell you, it was hard on all of us. I'm so proud of him for his stamina in sticking to a schedule like that, and completely impressed at his huge sacrifices to continue to be a great dad and husband even during the craziness that was his life for three months. 

During a rare study break

 At the conclusion of this mad schedule, he spent a week in Texas taking the bar, the culmination of which was 8 hours of essay questions on his 30^th birthday. While he was gone, I was miserably sick with the flu while trying to take care of the two little munchkins. Then Josh got sick, and now Mia's sick. It has been a very rough few months! But Mario's home now, and actually able to spend time with us when he is home. We're really enjoying having him back. We won't know if he passed until May, unfortunately, but we are thrilled that he possibly just took the last test of his life!

We celebrated both his 30^th birthday and the end of the bar when he got home with some chiles rellenos. I stuffed one with chorizo, onions, and cheddar and the other was stuffed with carnitas, mozzarella, lime and cilantro. They're topped with a sweet and spicy roasted red pepper cream sauce and cotija cheese. Yum!! His birthday cake was carrot with cream cheese frosting and caramelized walnut filling.

Mario took part of a very chilly (-25 or so) Saturday off to go with us to the start of the Yukon Quest, an annual dogsled competition that starts here in Fairbanks.  The starting line is actually on the frozen Chena River that runs through downtown Fairbanks.

The sun at noon in December

We have an unofficial tradition of making pizza most weekends. We stopped using my homemade marinara  pizza sauce precisely when I started making my own ricotta cheese about three years ago. Since then, we usually would make a pesto-spiked ricotta sauce topped with mozzarella, mushrooms, chicken, red peppers, pepperoni, and whatever else we happened to have. Then we had the great fortune of ordering a steak and potato pizza from City Slicker Café in Boston and discovered the miracle of putting potatoes and gorgonzola cheese on pizza. We thought we had it all figured out. Then came the epiphany: eggplant! This pizza is absolutely divine. We ditched sauce altogether in favor of garlic-infused olive oil and traded my usual pizza dough for naan dough. Then we topped the garlic oil with lightly pan-fried eggplant rounds, caramelized onions, fresh mozzarella (regular just doesn’t work, I’ve tried), bacon, and fresh basil. We added the garlic chips after it came out of the oven. Seriously. The eggplant is soft and rich to complement the fresh mozzarella, which meld perfectly with salty bacon, sweet onions, and the ending punch of garlic and basil. The search for perfection is over. I may never make a different pizza ever again. The end.  

Two months

Fun with the snow built up on our deck

Two months

This boy sure loves his dad!