Spring Break

Boo had Spring Break last week. I know, kind of early right? Growing up in SC, Spring Break was always connected to Easter Weekend. Some years it was in March and other years in April. SC has been the only place that we've lived that scheduled Spring Break that way. Every other place we have lived has scheduled it in early March. Go Figure.

Anyway, I tried to schedule a few outings for us and a one-on-one mother/child date for each child. It worked out pretty good. Lots of scheduling and planning to make it all work, but it was a good week. B-man had the week off too, but he's taking some Army courses and had already planned to take the week to get ahead in his classes. We did fit in a family pizza night and a date night for B-man and myself as well. He also spent a lot of afternoons rolling around and playing with Boo and Bit at the house. Not too shabby.

Lil Bit and I got our hair cut and had lunch together.

We met our Mom's Club at a new play place in town.
We don't get to do much with the Mom's Club because we always have to pick up G at 11:30, so it was nice to see some folks we don't get to play with often.

Boo said he wanted to do something FUN...meaning NOT a haircut.
I really wanted to take him to the Discovery Museum in town, but we could only schedule Lil Bit for 2 hours of care. The CDC was full! It was 2 hours before the museum opened too. So, we went out for breakfast. He had some hot chocolate and was over the moon about that. He kept telling everyone that he was on a date with his Mama. He really does thrive on that special time together.

Family Pizza Night at Moose's Tooth Pizza.

Date Night!
Dinner and a movie!

The Iditarod Race wrapped up this week also.
The leaders arrived in Nome.

This year's winner was Mitch Seavey (the father of last year's winner). He won previously in 2004. He arrived in Nome on March 12th.

Aliy Zirkle (my musher) arrived TWENTY FIVE minutes later! She came in second place again and this year at an even closer margin...only 25 minutes!
Dallas Seavey (B-man's musher) arrived in 4th place on March 13.

DeeDee Jonrowe (Lil Bit's musher) arrived in 10th place, also on March 13. She is famous for her multiple top 10 finishes. 

Lance Mackey (Boo's musher) arrived in 19th place, late on March 13th. Lance had the lead for a while, but had some trouble along the way...he lost a tooth eating a piece of fudge and was in some terrible pain. The teams also dealt with quite a bit of rain on the trail this year which is highly unusual and Lance said he made a rookie mistake with his boots and his feet got wet and cold and he had frostbite on one of his toes. He's a tough dude!! He did make it to the half way point first and was awarded $3000 in gold nuggets for his success.

The race isn't over until the last person crosses the line. The last person is awarded the Red Lantern Award. So, we started tracking the last musher with a red lantern on our map (I realize it looks like an upside down vase). The last musher crossed the finish line on March 17th...five days after the winner.
We've had a good time tracking the race this year!

School's back in session and I'm ready to take my own Spring Break! :)

CORRECTION: How could I forget? We started the first weekend of Spring Break off with Boo's birthday party. It was a bowling party and was a lot of fun. Chaotic, but fun. It was dark in there (cosmic bowl) so I wasn't able to get pics, but he had a great time.

Cross Country

I woke up on Monday morning and was grumpy. I was hoping the little ones would sleep in for once in their lives. Ha! I know better though. They don't sleep in. Even when the time changes. So, I was kind of grumpy and when B-man woke up he gently suggested that I grab my skis and hit the trail. There was fresh snow on the ground (perhaps our last good snow of the season) and he was home for the day.  It sounded perfect to me. I've only been skiing with friends, but the thought of being alone was awesome! Until I got there!
I was so scared on the trails by myself. The bears are starting to wake up (per the local news) and I couldn't stop looking for them. I was constantly scanning for signs of bear activity and for moose. We have seen moose on the trails before. I kept thinking of my bear survival tips. The first thing they say to do is make a lot of noise, so you don't sneak up on the wildlife. Well, I was by myself barely making a sound as I skied along. So, I decided to sing out loud. My song choice? This Is the Day That the Lord Has Made. Surely God wouldn't let me encounter a bear as I was praising His beautiful day. Right? But, I felt so silly singing out loud like that, so I pulled out my phone and put it in my breast pocket and played the workout playlist on my phone through the speakers, not my ear buds. This way, I felt certain the bears would think I was skiing with JayZ, JT, Pink, Adele, and Adam Levine, and would steer clear of us on the trail. That's a pretty tough crew to encounter, even for a bear. Lol. And the crazy thing...I really felt much better with the music playing. Don't worry, I still kept an eye out and didn't have the music too loud. I could still hear what was going on around me. It was much more enjoyable with my music crew! I stopped to take a few pics on my phone along the way.

Beautiful trails.
Freshly groomed; I was the first one out there.

The trails on post are at the golf course.
They transform the course into cross country skiing during the winter.

Water!

Me.

IDITAROD UPDATE!
The leaders will make it to Nome sometime in the middle of the night tonight.
It's close!

The Restart in Willow

After the mushers complete the 12 mile track in Anchorage, they pack up their sleds and load up their dogs and head to Willow. Willow is West of Wasilla. The race used to run from Anchorage the entire way to Nome, but because of increased traffic on the Glenn Hwy (they'd have to mush on the hwy in some areas), they've changed it up from years past.

So, at 2 pm on Sunday March 3rd, they started out again across Willow Lake. We were on a lake, people! Frozen solid. B-man had to go into work and wasn't able to join us, but I decided to brave it with the little ones alone. They did pretty good. Boo was a great helper. Bit was quite insistent that she pull her sled instead of ride in it all the way from the parking lot, and all over the start area, and back. She REFUSED to ride. Oh brother. It was the ONLY thing she wanted to do...to pull Kiska in the sled. I told her she had it backwards...Kiska was supposed to pull her, but she wasn't buying it. Lol.

It was a beautiful sunny day and it was a fun event.

She's a determined Lil Bit.

It was hard for us to see, but the first musher is headed down the start. He's the one looking to the left, above Boo's head.

Mt McKinley/Denali in the background.

My dates for the party!

Still in charge!

Iditarod Ceremonial Start

Last Saturday, after celebrating Boo's birthday in the morning, we headed down to Goose Lake Park to watch the teams at the ceremonial start to the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. Once they travel out of town, the vast majority of the trail is in the middle of nowhere so the best chance for  people to see some of the race is at the beginning in Anchorage and at the end in Nome. So, they do a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage and travel 12 miles through town along green belts and cross country ski trails. I'm fairly certain it doesn't count towards their race time. It was sooo much fun to be on the trail and watch them mush by. So exciting. A tear may have welled up in my eye. :)

We knew we wanted to go, but weren't sure downtown would be the best place for us with the little ones. It would be super crowded and they probably wouldn't get to see anything because of the crowds. We'd have to park so far away from the start and walk, and it would be cold, etc. Meltdown City.  So, a friend of mine suggested Goose Lake Park. She said it was a great place for little ones and she was right! Perfect location and parking was a breeze. We were in and out in no time. The scenery was beautiful. The children had front row seats to a great show.

Family Photo!
Of course, I had to wear my red fox fur headband. It was so warm and kept the wind out of my face. Exactly what it's supposed to do, imagine that.

Kiska and Kobuk enjoyed the race as well.

Lance Mackey. Folks along the trail would pass out food and other sundries to the mushers. Looks like Lance picked up a brew along the way. I think the guy on the back is just there for helping slow the sled in the city limits. There are lots of folks on the trails and the turns are quite tight. It helps add weight and braking power in tight spots. The lady in the front of the sled is an Iditarider. The race auctions off a ride in each musher's sled for the 12 mile push in town. How cool is that?

Arctic Mittens.
The ARMY has similar mittens that they have to wear too. They hang just like that on their backs and they just pull them around when the need them.

The dogs looked like they were having a blast.

Another Iditarider, and her dog. :)

Last year's winner, Dallas Seavey.

I like how his bootie is flipped out to the side.

What an experience for these two. I hope Boo will be able to remember this. You know, really remember it, not just the because of pictures or stories about the day.

I love these guys!

Last year's runner up, Aily Zirkle. This is a good shot of why the sled/handler is on the back. This is a nearly 90 degree turn and a few sleds busted it coming around the corner. But Aily is holding it tight and her handler is digging in to keep it upright. They succeeded! Whew.
I can't believe I got this great photo.

Lance Mackey's team.
A friend told me that if you yelled, "Bootie, bootie," the mushers might throw you one of their pups booties.
Several mushers tossed booties our way, but Lance was the only one that had candy in his! Thanks Lance!


Up next, pics from the restart in Willow.

Iditarod Eve

You've probably heard this story before. But, when I was in sixth grade, we did a unit on the Iditarod race in school. It began with tracing the trail on poster board paper. We had to use the opaque projector, you know, the one from the library. It was so cool to get to leave class to go and retrieve the projector from the library. Lol. And then we projected the trail onto the wall...in the hallway (what??!!) ... and traced away.
We were then divided into teams and were assigned a musher to track along the race. I remember checking the newspaper, no internet back then, to track our team's  progress. We also had to do a report/group presentation (the not so fun part). Anyway, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the race since then. I admit, I haven't tracked it too much over the years, but when I would hear that it was going on, I would pause to watch reports on the race. I never thought that I would one day be in Alaska to witness the race dubbed, The Last Great Race.

So, I knew that I wanted us to track the race this year. But in 2013, you don't need an opaque projector. Just download the trail map and send it to Office Max to be enlarged. Pick up in an hour. Lol.

The night before the start of the race, we put up our trail map and we explained the race to the kiddos. We would all pick a musher to track along the course. We made our decisions on who to track after going to the ceremonial start.

We also have a book that we love, Kiska and Kobuk. It's a board book about two husky pups who dream of running the Iditarod Race. Well, wouldn't you know they sell plush Kiska and Kobuks at the PX. So, we gave Boo and Bit Kiska and Kobuk to help get them excited about the race. It worked!

There's more to come in the next few days about last weekend's start, but for now here are some pictures from our Iditarod Eve activities and a line up of the mushers we are following.

Boo chose to follow Lance Mackey, wearing bib #5, because he's FIVE now. Duh! Check out Lance's profile here. He comes from a racing legacy family and I think he won 4 times back to back.

Bit is following DeeDee Jonrowe (bib number 28). All of her leads and harnesses were bright pink and she was wearing a bright pink, fur trimmed parka. So, it was a natural fit for our Lil Bit to track her progress. She's run the race 30 times! She often finds her self finishing in the top ten.

I'll be following Aily Zirkle (bib number 27). She came in 2nd place last year and her husband just won the Yukon Quest dog sled race.

B-man will follow Dallas Seavey (bib number 19). He also comes from a long line of mushers. His grandfather, Dan Seavey, raced in the very first Iditarod Race in 1973. Dallas won the race last year and was the youngest musher to do so.

Birthday! Birthday! Birthday!

Our resident big brother turned the big one this Saturday! FIVE! I can hardly believe it. He's been here for five years. How is that even possible? We've come along way! I say we, because it's taken me a long time to get to this point too. I was a mess after he was born. Lol. Funny now, not so funny to me back then!

He really is special and is a great little guy. He's very smart (of course he his) and has a need to understand and explain everything. There have been moments this past week where I've overheard him really taking care of Lil Bit and talking kindly to her...on his own (without me telling him to).  He loves spending quality time with the people he loves. He thrives with one on one time. He has a very tender heart and is sensitive and passionate. We're trying to pull him out of the self-centered world of toddler-dom, which is not an easy task, but we see him making strides.

We love him to the moon and back. No doubt about that.

I can't believe he's going to be in Kindergarten this fall. He already said he didn't want to go to school all day long because he wanted to spend time with Maggie and me. I thought to myself, I'm going to miss you too, Buddy. Sniff. Sniff.

Space shuttle with rocket boosters that fall off into the ocean!
This was his very specific request.

A little something for Lil Bit.

Globe!
And his "5" bday shirt that I made for him.
He said he LOVED it!

TNMT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
Michelangelo, dude!

Spidey!

Spidey Lil Sis!

Bow and Arrow!

FIVE candles.

This picture really captures the essence of our Boo.
Just so excited about being loved.