BRRRRRR....

This last week was a blast! We have some great friends up here who happened to be housesitting a very large and awesome house. Apparently they were given the go-ahead to throw a crazy rager so naturally my husband and I were invited. In married couple terms a "crazy rager" ended up being the Ruggles (the house sitters) and the Bradys (Jaime is also preggers!) and us eating delicious homemade pizza and playing Uno Extreme and watching for the northern lights. It doesn't get any crazier than that!

Colleen Ruggles ended up dominating Uno but we later learned that it was due to her inability to match colors...gotta keep your eye on that girl! Jaime Brady and I gave into our cravings for mint chocolate chip ice-cream but since her doctors want her avoiding caffeine in any form (read: chocolate) she was a good girl and only had a small cup. I think I ate the rest of the carton :/ But cartons have definitely gotten smaller over the years and I'm eating for two so that's not too bad, right?

We ended up getting to see the Northern Lights dance across the sky and it was really beautiful and awe inspiring. We live in such a lovely and unique place!

Earlier last week we headed to the Doctors to have our second ultrasound and to do some screenings to make sure our little alien is developing well. The little squirt is super active and has a strong heartbeat so things are looking great! We also did some blood tests to make sure that I am getting all the nutrients needed to help sustain him/her and we'll get the results this week. Below is a picture of the ultrasound

I'm finally pulling out of the icky first trimester phase and that is super exciting. I will admit that although losing 12lbs those first couple of weeks was really rough on me, I did enjoy having a super flat stomach and great arms! I will miss those as I plump up for baby. The disadvantage of the whole weight loss thing was that I never had any energy to do ANYTHING. My poor husband had to deal with a slug of a woman who sat on the couch all day. Now that my energy is returning and I'm able to hold down more foods, life has gotten a lot brighter! I have to be careful about how active I am because when I do too much baby likes to remind me (usually in the form of me throwing up) that I'm not super woman. Point in case: hiking Thunderbird Falls.

Thunderbird falls is a roundtrip 2 mile hike. Not an issue right? Especially not when you think about how I ran a half marathon, played racquetball, and went iceskating all in one day and wasn't even sore afterwards. Plus, I had done this hike at the beginning of the summer with Rob and his family and had a blast. It was the perfect example for me of how attainable beauty is in Alaska. So I thought, why not? It can't be that bad!

And it wasn't--while I was doing it. But once I got into a warm house I was useless for the rest of the day.

Now, the rest of my friends and family in the Lower 48 (that's what true Alaskans call you guys) have been posting on FB about how warm and lovely it is---some of you have even posted pictures of you hanging out at the beach or zoo or amusement parks. The pictures you are about to see may shock you. The faint of heart are advised not to look.

In the summer this is a pretty impressive waterfall. The place where we are all standing is generally a rather large pool of water but is currently frozen over with a couple feet of snow on top of that.

My sister-in-law Kristy planned ahead and brought some delicious hot cocoa in a thermos and we were able to get some warmth back in our frozen fingers.
Kristy also packed sandwiches and chips and I brought along some freshly baked bran muffins to enjoy. I had wrapped them in layers of tin foil hoping that they would retain some of their warmth and they did! We even brought butter along to spread on the muffins. It was like a winter fantasy sitting below a frozen waterfall, eating warm bran muffins with melted butter and enjoying our hot chocolate.

The boys thought we were slow pokes and would lay down in the snow to wait for us.

In other news---I'm taking Rob to Europe for his birthday! We leave on Friday night for a little get-away to Paris, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We are both so excited to be going back and we will definitely post some pics!