Long Weekend of Fun at 34 Weeks!

We had a great weekend with my sister Darci here in AK! She brought the sun with her so we are so thankful to her! This has been by far the best weather weekend in a long time...sun everyday since Friday and the gorgeous fall colors were glistening it the sunlight. It feels like we have gotten so much work done, even though we still have a ways to go on the living room and the baby's room. Darci has been a HUGE help in ideas and getting things done around the house, as well as helping to plan for the baby. She even taught us how easy it is to tile...and we are super impressed with how fast she was able to get the tile on the wall and make it look wonderful.



We were even able to get in a 'hike' on Winner Creek in Girdwood, just to ride the hand tram.



Dan and Darci decided to buy another pumpkin at the grocery store, so we had to pose for a fun (albeit fuzzy) "belly" picture. I just barely wished that I could have just put my 'pumpkin' down after the picture too!



Lastly, a belly shot from the trail...

Veteran Status

It was the 4th of July...but I'm not talking about veteran military status. Dan completed his 10th Mt. Marathon mountain race last Friday. He did awesome and crossed the finish line with a smile (okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit here)! It was raining in Seward the week beforehand, so the trail was good and slippery on the way up. With the cool summer we have been having there was a ton of snow left on the mountain, making for a super fast descent. The conditions proved to be a fast year for the race and it was nice that most people took great caution descending the mountain with care (there didn't seem to be too much blood on the participants coming off the mountain)!

This was the first time since 2002 that I was a spectator for the race, and I was pretty happy not to be doing it for all the pregnancy uncomfortableness that I'm feeling. I had fun hiking around Seward, AK on race day, taking pictures of all the participants. The most amazing racer of all was an 11 year old girl who schooled 17 year old boys in the Junior race...she completed the round trip to halfway and back in just 35 minutes - when I'm usually lucky to be just over halfway to the top in 35 minutes!


Dan looking happy to be started





The Cote boys will be happy to know that our friend Trond Flagstad won the race - with the third fastest time in history. Congrats to Trond for a hard season of training and kicking major butt on race day!


First one off the mountain!

Hiking and Half Marathons

Us on our way up Bird Ridge


Dan on Bird Ridge with Turnagain Arm


Holly strides into the finish line after 13.1 miles!!


Wow - okay, so it's been forever since we've written on the good old blog site, and even though we haven't loaded our pictures from Malta and Italy yet, I am so excited to write about this!! Today...I did the longest run I have ever done - the Trent Waldron Glacier Half Marathon in Anchorage, AK. Dan and I have been enjoying as much as we can about living in Alaska this spring, and we've been hiking weekly on Bird Ridge as well as running with a team once a week too. Dan wanted to do this half marathon to qualify for a race later this summer (which he did!) and I just wanted to see if I could really run that far. It was actually a great day to do it with cloudy skies and 60 degrees F.

We will do our best to post some pictures of our fantastic trip to Malta and Italy before we head off on our next adventure in June to sunny Colorado!

Ski Train 2007

Dan and I went on our first Ski Train Alaska - what a total blast it was! Such a random occurrence where a bunch of skiers buy tickets to charter a train from the Alaska Railroad and travel to Curry, AK (North of Anchorage). They dropped us & our gear off and we cross country skied around the area for a few hours. On the way back the Polka Band came out and had the whole train rocking. It was a great time with fun friends...and we even made a few new ones!



Ski drop off in Curry, AK



Train arriving back to Curry to pick us up



Self Take with Alaska Railroad



Kristin & Eamon (on her back) and Holly skiing up the river near Curry.



Holly holding sheet music for a Polka band member...after he realized he was on the wrong sheet!



Denali & Alaska Range over the frozen Susitna River

Laundry Room Home Repairs (planned!)

Wahoo - I got a 'new' laundry room! Well, not really new, but it's no longer a damp dark place in the basement that I hate going to. We painted the sheetrock walls happy yellow, painted the concrete floor with epoxy and added some pretty nice 'looking' cabintery. I say looking because Dan had to do a few modifications to them to make them not fall over - they didn't come with back support! It was a good prep experience for the epoxy floor and now we know how to do it for the garage this summer. Now when I do laundry I'm automatically happy because it such a bright room!

Unfortunately I don't have any 'before' pictures, only the 'after'!

Summit Lake Backcountry

A few weeks ago we went backcountry skiing with four other friends near Summit Lake, Alaska. It seemed like a great day - sunny and clear in Anchorage, but as soon as we got to the Kenai it was almost whiteout conditions. I was really excited to get back on my snowboard until I realized I forgot my snow jacket, whoops! Good thing Olivia had an extra one (and I had brought my down jacket, but you know how effective, or not, down is in a really wet environment!). Dan tried out his splitboard for the first time and fell in love with it! Skinning up the mountain looked so effortless so I will have to try out mine next time we go! Neither Dan or I had hiking poles so the trip up the mountain was labored, but thanks to a gift certificate from Mom & Dad we both now have telescoping hiking poles! We are ready for Ski Train in March!

Christmas 2006

We had a very nice quite Christmas in Alaska this year - and thankfully it was a 'white christmas'!! We got up and had a good breakfast, opened presents and talked to everyone in the family on the phone. Then we took Guapo (or he took us) for a short hike near Prospect Heights to see the sunset. We had dinner with some friends from Holly's work and tried to go to bed early so we could go skiing at Alyeska the next day. Although there wasn't a ton of new powder, it was great skiing for Alyeska & Holly got to break in her new K2 skis (they are awesome!!). Now she can really keep up with the boys!