Re-Living Life

The girls are having fun with Grandma and Grandpa Bear (my parents) and I get daily updates about how many helpings Saedi is eating. I think my parents were shocked to see how much Saed-Saed can put away. Ell is having a blast with her cousins, Blake, Nathan, & Hailey.
Meanwhile, Riley and I are reconnecting again and re-living our pre-baby, pre-deployment days up in the Land of the Midnight Sun (or in our case the Land of Minimal Sun).
Friday night we got stranded in Minneapolis but had fun swimming, dining, & sleeping in at a fun, modern hotel. We were able to catch a standby flight Sat morning, which we were thrilled about, although that meant we didn't get to explore the Mall of America (yeah, Ry was really bummed over that one). Funny thing is that the guy sitting next to me on the flight remembered me from my teaching days at Clark Middle School (now demolished)..what a small world!
We finally got into Anchorage around 3pm on Saturday just as the sun was beginning to set. We rented some snowshoes from REI & then drove downtown in our ghetto rental car. We shopped for a bit and then walked to our favorite restaurant, the Glacier Brewhouse, and ordered all of "our" foods- Seafood chowder, quesadillas, prime rib and king crab legs, peanut butter, vanilla bread pudding, & long island iced tea. The best food either of us have eaten since we left AK 3 years ago.
Today we slept in, pigged out some more at the hotel's breakfast buffet (this way we won't need lunch, you see) & then headed over to Fort Richardson for a workout. We were impressed that they had bumper plates & kettle bells at their facilities. Did I mention that I spent a good portion of my workout time in the steam room? Ahhh..wonderful! We visited our old church, and then decided to spend our precious hours of sunlight snowshoeing. At noon the sun was up so we trekked up Mt Baldi in Eagle River and the view was as beautiful as I remembered it. Getting down the mountain was quite a bit more terrifying for me...but more on that later. Once we made it down the mountain we rewarded ourselves with a Snickers mocha at Jitters, read our books & and watched the sun set (4ish). We spent some time at REI and Title Wave Books and then headed to the Bear Tooth Dinner Theatre for some burritos and the movie Eagle Eye...both were excellent!
Now it's late and I'm on vacation so I'll give my next update when I feel like it :)