Elly Turns 12!

We celebrated Elly's 12th birthday on Saturday with a party at Linda's place - with gifts and pizza. Then we went to Elly's favorite restaurant on Sunday - Red Robin - and had a great lunch! And yes, dad told the servers it was her birthday... (said Elly - "Dad - I hate you.") Only one more year of being a pre-teen...

New lounge for the pool at mom's!

New DS Backpack!

Thanks DAD...

Yum!

Elly's Little Girl "backpack"

All Alaska Sweepstakes Starts Tomorrow

The oldest long distance sled dog race in the world starts in Nome tomorrow morning. There are 16 mushers entered in this year's race - including a former student of mine from my teaching days in Nome - Aaron Burmeister. All are vying for the $100,000.00 winner take all purse. It's quite an event - check it out here.

This year's race is the first since 1983 and celebrates the 100th anniversary of it's first running.

The race runs over an old overland mail and freight route from Nome to Candle, near Kotzebue. It passes through some of the roughest terrain on the planet - including the infamous Solomon "Blowhole" about 40 miles east of Nome. This area has been noted over the last 150 years as having some of the worst winds - where the valleys and draws along the coast - come together and force high winds down onto the beach. I traveled through here in 1988 on snowmachine on my way to Council to cover a Nome Kennel Club race for KICY Radio in Nome. I got frostbite on one set of toes - even while wearing bunny boots.

Here was the scene on that day at Tommy Johnson's cabin - in the middle of the "blowhole". The winds had died down some by the time we got there - but a complete whiteout existed that day back up the trail - although the sky was blue...

Best of luck to all of the mushers. Go Aaron!

Red Rocks Easter Sunrise Service

I took the kids up to Morrison this morning for the 61st Annual Easter Sunrise Service at Red Rocks . It was amazing!!! There were about 9,000 people there - and at 25 degrees at 6:30 am - that's not too shabby. Great service - brass quintet - and a gospel choir - very moving.

The view from the top of the amphitheater
(click to see a larger view & Denver in the background)

Doves being released

Sublime...

More pictures available here

Video of Grant Skiing and Snowboarding

I took a bunch of short video clips of Grant on his skis and snowboard - here's what I came up with:

2008 Ski Trip

We joined my folks for our annual trip up to Frisco and a week of skiing. Unfortunately, I had to come back early to go to a required training at work. I did manage to get 4 days in at Vail (2 days), Breckenridge and Keystone.

Grant and I on the gondola at Vail

Grant doing his thing at Vail

Sunny day at Keystone

The whole crew in the Game Creek Bowl at Vail