Yukon Quest 2007

This Wednesday morning Erik and I volunteered at the North Pole check-in for the Yukon Quest. The Yukon Quest is a sled dog race that isn't as famous as the Iditarod, but it's harder and I think more renowned in the sled dog racing community. It's a 1000 mile race that starts in Canada's Yukon Territory (Whitehorse to be exact), and then finishes in Fairbanks. This check-in is 30 miles from the finish line and the two mushers that we saw in our 4am-8am shift finished 5th and 6th place. The race had already been won that morning when we were there, but it was so fun to see the mushers and even more fun to see the dogs.

This is the team of dogs coming down over the hill and onto the river. I think that a good part of the race is on frozen rivers. This is the second of the 2 teams that we saw and her dogs were a little bigger than the first guy's. His dogs were scrappy looking things. If you didn't know that they were incredible athletes, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at them. These racing dogs are much smaller and scrappier than the dogs we saw in Denali. Those dogs are mountain dogs that carry heavier loads and cut trails in the snow, so they have to be beefier.

All of her dogs had these little coats on, and the first guy's dogs had little booties on but no coats. We volunteered with some of Erik's friends from the office and one of the guys has a great picture of a dog with frost all over his face. I'll see if I can get it because it was wild seeing these little things out in the freezing cold...and they LOVE it. It was -40 that morning!

I had the very important job of giving the musher her bib that showed that she stopped at the checkpoint. She and the musher ahead of her traveled together for most of the race and then at the checkpoint before ours they disbanded and were racing to the finish. At the previous check-in they were only 4 minutes apart, so when a half and hour went by between him and when we saw her we were a little worried. She giggled when we told her that he was a half hour ahead of her and said that she had fallen asleep and the dogs just kept going in the direction they were headed. When she came to and realized that she couldn't see any markers on the trail she turned around to get back on track. She was really laid-back and mellow for someone who is only 30 miles away from finishing a 1000 mile race that has kept her in the cold for more than a week. What an interesting gig, isn't it? That's Alaska for you!

Photos from this week

Our Anchorage Weekend

Traveling to Anchorage from Fairbanks is always an adventure, you just don't know what you will see or who you will run into. Our main purpose for going was for a ward temple trip, and to swing by the church cannery to get some food storage. It is about 400 miles and I don't like to rush it because there are many things to see along the way. Three hours south of Eielson you reach Denali National Park and Reserve. Most of the attractions are closed because there is at least a foot of snow on the ground, although the park remains open year-round for intrepid hikers who wish to pack it in. We stopped at the parks kennel for sled-dog teams. The dogs had just returned from mushing around the park so they were there for us to say hi to. They had about 20 dogs all in their own little dog houses chained to posts in the yard. They are accustomed to the climate and seemed quite comfortable and welcomed our petting and rubs (see picture). An hour or so more down the road you enter a large plain with mountains on both sides. This is where you will often encounter wildlife such as caribou and elk. We found some licking the salt off the roads and stopped to take their picture.
Shortly thereafter we found a Ford Explorer in distress as he had pulled a little too far off the road and was tilted a little too far into the snow to get himself back out. This was my chance to show Toyota power, but I didn't have a cable, and my truck is so light I was afraid I would just spin my wheels and look silly. A couple minutes later a full-sized Chevy drove by and saw our predicament. He came back and pulled out his steel cables and had the Ford back on the road in about 90 seconds. So I guess the Chevy wins, and I'm not going to be on any Toyota commercials any time soon. Oh well.
On Thursday I wanted to check out the only really legitimate ski resort in the state. Alyeska. It lies a little south of Anchorage past the Turnagain Arm nestled in a small canyon. It was just alright. There were only 3 lifts, the terrain was all quite steep, and the snow crusty. But the views from the top were impressive. It didn't compare to the Rocky Mountains which are still my favorite.
My friend Jeremy flew his 2-seater Cessna down from Fairbanks so on Friday we met him and helped him find his rental car. We did a session in the temple Friday and then in the Evening went on a goose-hunt for the Cannery. It is in Palmer, which translates to the middle of nowhere. Rural Alaska is very dark. There aren't many streetlights, and directions get hazy. To sum up, we drove around for a half hour after arriving in Palmer looking for a place without a proper address and without signs. That made for a frustrating night, but in the end we came away with a couple hundred pounds of goods, so mission accomplished.
Saturday we spent some more time in the temple. Our ward had a surprisingly good turnout. There were many families that made the trek. We drove home yesterday and caravaned with a few folks from our ward. We stopped at the standard Mt McKinley lookout and were very lucky to have a completely clear day where the visibility of the mountain was unhindered. We also stopped for snacks in a little cafe along the roadside. A lot of interesting people and places can be found in the middle of nowhere.
Lucky for me, today is a government holiday, and I don't have to be back at work until tomorrow, allowing me time to unwind. We had a great time and feel lucky to have this time in Alaska.

we're going on holiday

Erik is indulging me (he's so good to do that) in calling vacations "holidays" from now on. I just think it's more fun to say "we're going on holiday." We leave Wednesday morning and we'll come back on Sunday. I am very much looking forward to this weekend. Tomorrow we'll enjoy a lovely Valentine's dinner at Bombay Deluxe. The only Indian food in Alaska is at this tiny restaurant in Anchorage, so yet again...Erik is indulging me. Then he'll enjoy a day on the slopes on Thursday, and Friday is Temple day and cannery day. It's going to be a wonderful holiday. This first picture is a scene that we are looking forward to. In a few more months we may see the temple look like that.

But right now it'll look like this. Snowy and dark outside. Even with a landscape that's a little gray and gloomy, it seems impossible for the temple to be anything but lovely, you know what I mean? Doesn't it still look so warm and inviting?

Well, Happy Valentine's Day to you all. We sure love you.

our very own winter wonderland

This lovely view is from our back porch. The street of houses that you see is the Colonels' street. All of the lights match because someone comes and puts up lights for them. How sweet it that! The street looks really pretty with all the houses with matching icicle lights. I think I was spoiled growing up in Tucson because gorgeous sunrises and especially gorgeous sunsets are just part of the desert beauty. I think I took it for granted because here, an incredible sunset like this is much more rare and I had to get a picture of it.

Erik took this picture of trees weighed down with snow. The trees aren't very strong. I call them "pipe-cleaner trees" because they are so tall and skinny. The weight of the snow makes them bend and curve. The spruces stand up pretty straight most of the time, but the birch trees lose all of their leaves and so they bend over. Birch trees look really beautiful though, they look like gigantic snowflakes with their bare branches iced in snow. During the winter, everything we see is usually some shade of white. This picture shows a lovely scene of bluish-white.

This cracks me up and I told Erik how I giggle every time I see this sign, so he got a picture of it for me. There is a lake in our little neighborhood and this sign is right off the street, in front of the lake. Just in case you wanted to cut through a few feet of ice and go swimming in a frozen lake...read the sign, NO SWIMMING. Obviously it is for the summer months when the lake is actually water and not ice, but just the same, it cracks me up each time I see it. The other day Erik and I went for a walk around the neighborhood when he got home from work (I love evening walks) and we cut across the lake. It's pretty fun to think that I'm walking on a frozen lake. Exciting, but dangerous for my imagination.

New Year's Re-Cap

I'm trying to get you all caught up on the fun we're having up here, so I would be amiss in leaving out our fun on New Year's. We went over to the Borrego's house (always a good time) and played with their Karaoke Revolution. Erik performed a stellar rendition of "Sweet Caroline", and there were a bunch of little girls that sang "What I Like About You" over and over again. The Borregos have a son Sam who's 12 and three girls: Sloane (3rd grade), Saige (kindergarten), and Schae (about 3 or 4). These are four really awesome kids. The girls are spunky and not afraid of anything. Here we see Erik with Saige's snake. That's right, the snake belongs to that sweet looking kindergartner in the picture.

I thought it would be fun to get a picture of me with the snake around my shoulders. I have know idea what came over me. I guess I just figured that Erik could place it gently on me, take a quick picture, and then promptly remove the snake. It sounded like a good idea in my head (that's the problem with my head, it's not very closely tied to reality). As soon as Erik came near me with the snake I aborted the plan. I didn't want to have anything to do with that snake. So now we have pictures that look like Erik is torturing me with the snake, but it was really all my dumb idea in the first place. This lovely expression of mine is one part laughter, one part disgust, and one part terror.

Christmas Re-cap

This is Christmas in Alaska. When Erik and I got back from Hawaii we didn't have much time to go tree hunting. Here on base we can go to the Natural Resources office and pay them $7 and they give us a permit and a map of areas that where we can cut. So the Thursday before Christmas Erik came and picked me up at lunch and we went to find the perfect tree. Last year's tree was quite a bit lovelier than this year's but it's still so fun to trek out in the snow and pick a tall, skinny Alaskan tree. Here's Erik chopping it down.

This is Erik with our prize Christmas tree. Notice the cool Air Force issue Gore-Tex jacket he's got on.

This year I really felt like we needed to establish some Olsen Family Christmas Traditions. It's kind of hard to reenact the Nativity with only two people, so we invited two couples over to make gingerbread houses. Except that I don't like gingerbread. I don't think that anyone really does, especially given the choice between that and another kind of cookie. So we actually made sugar cookie houses. Sugar cookies are my all-time favorite kind of cookie. When I want something sweet, I don't want it hidden in some elaborate dessert, I want sugar. Sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles. You know, sugar in it's purest form.

Building the gingerbread houses was really fun and I learned some valuable lessons for Christmases yet to come. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm a bit OCD and so I did a lot of research on building gingerbread houses prior to the big event. I downloaded a template to use for the house pieces and got a lot of cool ideas. My favorite ideas were the idea to use sugar cones as trees (very cute), and the BEST idea ever was to use white chocolate (the candy melt stuff at JoAnn's or Michael's in the cake decorating section) as glue instead of frosting. That idea was a gem. We melted the chocolate in the microwave in a plastic squeeze bottle also found in the cake decorating section. It dried fast and hard and enabled us to get on with the fun part, the decorating. Next time I'm going to make smaller houses so that everyone gets their own instead of bigger "couple" houses. Plus, that way I can use a dough that's softer because it won't have to stand as tall and hold lots of weight. This dough was from a Martha cookbook and I chose it because it was more of a butter cookie than a sugar cookie, therefore crispier and sturdier. But next time I'll use my favorite sugar cookie recipe, it's from a children's cookbook called "Kitchen for Kids." Kid's cookbooks are the best because the recipe's are simple, they don't have crazy ingredients like capers and sun-dried tomato infused olive oil, you know...stuff that nobody has in their kitchen. Plus I'm a picky eater, kids are picky eaters, it works out.

This is the happy couple with the finished masterpiece.

This is our beautiful nativity that Matt and Ann and Mom and Dad gave us for Christmas. We absolutely LOVE it. I think it's so lovely. I love the Willow Tree stuff. Mom gave me the figurine of the expectant mom when we were in SLC for girls' getaway, so she played the part of Mary until Christmas day when we swapped in the official Mary figurine. In the next picture you can see the pregnant lady figurine hiding behind the picture on the right. The GORGEOUS painting above the piano is what Erik gave me for our first anniversary. I don't know how he got so perfect, but perfect he is. This painting is by Minerva Teichert, one of my favorite artists, ever. And this is my favorite of her paintings. I remember wasting a lot of time at BYU admiring all the Teichert paintings in the JSB and then the prints at the MOA. Speaking of, the Museum of Art at BYU is one of my very favorite museums. It's incredibly beautiful and peaceful and inspiring. But I digress.

I just love our little home.

so what should we call him?

Here is our little man. We have some really wonderful ultrasound pictures, they are just so fun to have. (you'll notice they have my maiden name on there, my military stuff is still in my maiden name. Long story, but hopefully I'll get that changed soon. At appointments they assume that I'm not taking Erik's name, and I'm like, "no...it's Emily Olsen, thank you.") The pictures are from two different ultrasounds, one at 22 weeks and the other at 25-ish. My favorite one (the one we have on the fridge) is the first one. I think it shows the profile really well. I love this shot because as soon as I saw it I squealed, "he has an Olsen nose!" I was really excited about that. I love the Olsen nose. At the second ultrasound the OB that we were with pulled up a profile shot and said, "so who's nose does he have?" I replied that he definitely had his dad's and the doctor said, "yeah...I knew it."

So we have a first name picked out that we completely love. We're naming him after Erik's paternal grandfather, Reid. I just adore Grandpa Reid. For those of you who knew her, Grandpa Reid is to the Olsen family what Grannie is to the Arnetts. So we've got the first name taken care of, but we haven't settled on a middle name. There's no dispute between any names, just haven't really settled on one. We think it would sound nice to have a two syllable name, you know...Reid "something" Olsen. Here are the names in the running so far:

1. Traynor - my maiden name, it would be nice to have that side represented, but this won't be our last child so we still have time for that

2. Patrick - my father's name, such a handsome name and it sounds nice with Reid

3. Kimball - I really love President Spencer W. Kimball, he seems like such a sweet, humble man, a lot like Grandpa Reid.

4. Beckett - just because it sounds cool

5. Wolfgang - Erik has pretty much ruled this one out, but I figure that we already have a family name in there with the first name, and how much does the middle name matter anyway? Couldn't we just give him something cool? Mozart was cool.

I'm sure we'll come up with something.

the baby belly

Erik and I are planning towards a natural childbirth and we've chosen the Bradley method. I'm SO excited about it. I have realized that while at first I wanted a natural childbirth because of the advantages for the baby, an equally big reason is the advantages for me. I feel excited and ready for the birth, rather than nervous and uncertain. Erik and I have done a lot of reading and preparation. There are classes that you can take with the Bradley method, but we don't have any instructors locally, so we are doing the best with what's available to us. With this method, Erik has a very big job. I am so grateful that he is so involved and supportive. I have to do a lot of stretches and exercises with this method, and Erik (as the coach) is wonderful at helping me remember to do them. Helping me remember things is no small task, believe me. I even made a spreadsheet of all the things I need to do each day with little boxes to check when I've done them, but then the paper gets buried under books or mail and he recovers it for me. Today he placed it prominently on the kitchen counter to remind me to do my baby exercises. I'm so glad I've got someone in my corner who really understands me. I fall in love with him all over again every time I see him reading baby books. I am excited to see how everything turns out. I've read about 10 books cover to cover so far...everything about pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, child development, you name it. Good thing Erik and I are "go with the flow" kind of people, because even with all this preparation, I imagine that we're in for quite a few surprises.

After many attempts for a decent picture, here is the baby belly! We are in week 29, so we're 3/4 of the way there! This is me on our way out the door for church, and it's the 4th attempt at taking a decent picture. For a week or so we'd been trying to take a picture to send out, but every time Erik would take one I'd make him delete it because I looked not so "radiant." Aren't you supposed to be radiant when you're pregnant? I thought that was the deal. Maybe that's earlier on, when you're not so gargantuan. But then I felt gross, and now that I'm feeling really well, I'm gargantuan. Oh well. Ten-ish more weeks and we'll have a little buddy to play with. All the women in the ward (and at the commissary, it's fun when they comment) comment on how I'm tiny for my 7th month. It sure makes me feel good, but I don't know how the figure. I spend a good 10 minutes every morning lotioning up, so I haven't spotted any stretch marks yet (Hallelujah!), but my belly button is getting awfully close to the surface. That makes me nervous. I don't know why it would be a big deal, but I don't want my belly button to pop, it seems gross.

the baby business

So "Operation Baby" is in full swing. The room is all painted and it's painfully adorable. I painted the whole room blue and then painted big white clouds scattered about. I'll send pictures of the room when it's all done. So far we have the crib and Erik put that together a few Saturdays back. Yesterday he went snowboarding at this very sad little resort outside of Fairbanks and picked up some things for us on his way back home. So now we have a crib mattress, a Graco Snugride carseat, and we're moving the dresser from our room into the nursery for a dresser/changing table and he found a nice armoire at the furniture store on the Army Post, and that will take the place of the dresser in our room. So we still need some bedding (I have my eye on some things) a rocker/glider thing, a stroller, and the rest of the odds and ends.

Check out the pictures. The first is of a print that I got of eBay for way cheap. This is kind of the vibe for the room. Colorful, bright, a bit vintage...you get the idea. Next is a picture of the bedding set that I like (in red), but I think that I'm only going to get the bumper. I figure that babies don't use a pillow anyways, so why do I need a sham? And they can't sleep with a quilt because it's a choking hazard (or so I've read. I'm very baby book smart at this point, but we'll see how the real thing goes). Plus, Mom is making him this awesome quilt, so that's the one that'll end up being his blankie, I'm sure. I'll still need a bedskirt and sheets and stuff, but that's not as fun to pick out. So I guess I'll just get whatever. The next picture is of the stroller that I LOVE. I have been back and forth on this stroller issue like it's the biggest decision I'll ever make. I really like things that are well designed and that are simple and streamlined. I've read reviews of strollers where parents describe it as "the Hummer of strollers." That is not what I'm looking for. This stroller is awesome and it's very lightweight, but it's also pricey. Erik's boss is giving us his jogging stroller, which is fantastic, but not what we're looking for for everyday. A lady that he works with said that she had a stroller she wanted to give us, but that was a couple months ago and she just had a baby. So...I don't know if that one's happening. Maybe the moms and dads reading this could give me some hints as to what is really necessary and helpful in a stroller, and what is just obnoxious. So far I think I've determined that big, and silly prints of jungle scenes or garbage like that is obnoxious. I'm looking for something lightweight, washable, easy and simple.

The picture after that is of the crib that we got, but we got it in the antique white color. It looks really nice with the blue sky and white clouds. We're going for a "vintage airplane" and "around the world" kind of a theme. I don't want it to be to themey though. Some of the baby stuff I see annoys me because it's all so cheesy. I figure, just because he's a baby doesn't mean he can't have good taste, right? Why does everything have to be so cheesy? I've found some cool prints for the walls and I'm going to try and find some smallish model planes to hang in the room on, I bet I could find some on eBay.

So while this long post was completely riveting, I'm sure, this kind of stuff is what floats around my head most of the time. That, lovey thoughts of Erik, funny parts from Nacho Libre, trying to think of something I want to eat (eating is no longer very fun), more lovey Erik thoughts, thoughts about cute things I want to make, books I want to read, and then back to baby thoughts. Thanks for checking out the Olsen Blog. It's going to get better. I'm going to design a cool header and I have some other ideas I want to make happen. I hope that this ends up being what Erik and I hoped it would be, a way to share what's going on in our day-to-day, share pictures, and keep in touch with the ones we love. Feel free to make comments (at the end of the posts) and even though we'll still keep in touch through the phone this is a fun way to shorten the distance between us all. Next post will be pictures of the baby bump (we're at 29 weeks y'all!, some sweet ultrasound pictures, and more! We love you.

lovebirds

This is my experiment in posting pictures and so I chose one of my favorites. I love this picture. I love how Erik is caught off guard and how it's obvious that I am madly in love with him. What a great picture.

the maiden voyage

So this is an experiment in technology. I (the unsavvy technologist, the one who prefers paper, pen and ink, analog...etc.) am now a blogger.