christmas in la grande and a weekend in boise

christmas morning at the airportflew to boise christmas morning to be greeted by super duper snow storms and crazy driving conditions. mom picked me up at the airport and we headed up to her place in weiser. by the time we got there it was sunny and beautiful outside. here are some shots on mama's wonderful little farm. i just love it there.

after playing with the animals a bit we loaded up with her little dog rusty and headed for la grande, oregon. on a good day, its just 2 1/2 hours from her place. but, with the road conditions, it took us almost 4 hours. we stayed at a cute little hotel and had christmas dinner at flying j truck stop, the only place open. it was packed with travellers, truckers, and even some families. we scoped the travel guides and real estate ads and tried to ignore the smoke wafting through the non-smoking restaurant. there was just a small set of swinging doors between the restaurant and the "casino". and by casino i mean a small bar, a couple of tables, and 4 slot machines. although it was dark, after dinner we still drove around town a bit and explored some of the neighborhoods. on one lucky turn, we found quite the christmas display. we found it hilarious in person and when we watched the video twice the next day. see for yourself. we are obviously pretty easily amused. listen closely for the music.


the next day we roamed the town, did a bunch of drive by house hunting, visited shops, and had a yummy lunch at a local deli. also took a short drive to a neighboring town, elgin. there are about 6 little communities within a half an hour of la grande. headed home to weiser that afternoon and spent the evening visiting and knitting. since my mom had to work the weekend, i headed to boise to spend a couple of nights with jim, nikki, emmett, and lily.

here are nikki, emmett, and lily sporting their christmas presents. i didn't get one of jim in his hat though.

nikki and i also got a girl's night out with out with our other friend amy. we had a blast at a little wine bar downtown. just got home this afternoon and will be back to work tomorrow.

p.s. the verdict on la grande . . . i don't know. i still like it there, but am not sure if there is enough opportunity for me. we'll see. being near friends and family and in winter temps that are well above freezing definitely reminds me how much i'm missing my old stomping grounds though. i thought when i moved to anchorage that i'd be here for several years, but recently i've been wondering if moving on is going to be right for me. hmm?

good times in utah

i arrived in utah friday afternoon and have been going going going since. went out with my brothers, mom, and some of my cousins friday night. my cousin mike and his wife rachel generously took all 17 of us out to a japanese steakhouse for a really fun dinner.










after dinner we wanted to spend some more time together, but didn't have any convenient place to go that would fit us all so we actually met up at a mall down the street from the restaurant. it was kinda wierd i must admit, but it was a nice big space for us to spend some more time visiting.

on monday i got a chance to go to spanish fork to see an old and dear friend adrienne. we were very close our junior and senior years of highschool when i moved to utah and she was actually in my wedding (which seems like more than a lifetime ago). neither of us really know why, but we just lost touch through the years. its actually been about 10 years since we've seen or heard from eachother. but, we've both thought of eachother many times. she decided to google (gotta love the internet) me a few months ago and happened to find my blog . . . we've been emailing since and luckily i had the time to pop in for a visit with her and her beautiful children. tanner is 12 and is the only one i knew. he was just a little baby the last time i had contact with adrienne so seeing him all grown up and almost 13 years old was really kind of crazy. i can still see his little baby face and i can hardly believe its been so long. he's grown up to be a really nice person and great big brother to brayden, 10 and mylie, 5.

i had a wonderful day just getting to know them a little bit and reconnecting with adrienne (who i won't be losing touch with again!). mylie enjoyed using her hannah montana make-up kit and dolled me up with glittery eye shadow, a pink jewel on my forehead, and plenty of lip gloss. can't wait to see you all again. thanks for spending such a nice day with me!


i reconnected with another old friend, jodi too. we went to college together in utah and had a lot of good times. although we've been in somewhat frequent email contact, i haven't seen her for probably 5 years. i had a great visit with her and her beautiful children. kiana, 10, jaren, 4, and aiden, 2 are awsome and definitely keep their mom busy.

tuesday afternoon i met up with nolan at electric street gallery, a tattoo shop in salt lake city to get my christmas present from him. we've been talking about getting a "brother/sister" tattoo for at least 2 years now. we ended up adapting our own design based loosely on an image we found online of a petroglyph found in northern italy "brother sun, sister moon" which is thought to represent the sacred relationship between a brother and sister.

nolan and i decided to add to it with another brother image for dillon . . . so our design is "brother sun, sister moon, brother star". we have a very special bond and we're both lovin' our new tattoo! we couldn't convince dillon to join us.


that night i got a chance to go and see my good friends alethea, eric, and their awsome kids ella and isaak. these two sweeties let me be an auntie and i just love them to pieces. they were the recipients of my first two knitted sweaters. i was so afraid they wouldn't fit, but they turned out just perfect for them. so damn cute! spent the night with them, slept in today and had my best night of sleep in a week! visited a little more today and then i headed back to see my brothers.





just got home from dillon's house with nolan. we had a christmas eve dinner of take-out pizza and got some laughs in looking up old saturday night live clips. fun stuff!

here nolan is in his christmas present. as per his request i made him a big yellow scarf. it doubles as a head wrap too.


and here's dillon and cerra in their christmas presents too.


one of my favorite parts of this trip was getting to spend so much time with nolan's awsome dog, doug. he is sweet, mellow, and hilarious. i just love him!



heading to idaho in the morning. my mom and i are actually taking a spontaneous trip to la grande, oregon for the night. i have wandering thoughts of making a change and leaving alaska and la grande has been a city on my radar for a while now. it will be nice to just go and check it out again to see if its still interesting to me.

home for the holidays

is where i'll be. home to me is just being with those i love, so that means i'm home in a lot of places. tonight i'm flying red eye to boise where my girlfriend nikki is going to pick me up for a quick breakfast before my connecting flight to salt lake city. there i'll meet up with my mom, brothers, cousins, and a few friends for several days. christmas morning i'll fly back to idaho to spend a couple of days with my mom and my final weekend with friends. home on monday the 29th.

may you also be with ones you love celebrating the end of another year and looking forward to lots of new possibilities in 2009.

peace and love . . .

introducing . . .

you may have noticed my friends and family links growing a bit lately and i thought it might be nice for you to know who those people are. so, let me introduce you . . .

mom - this is that amazing woman who gave birth to me at home over 31 years ago. she has been devoted to me ever since and i love her more than i could possibly explain. (she's devoted to my brothers too) after a life spent dreaming of having a farm, she took the plunge and started it about 7 years ago. i think. it may be longer? she has 5 acres in weiser idaho that has steadily grown and changed through the years. when she's not busy working as an er nurse or tending to her land and animals, she sometimes finds time to blog about her adventures on "almosta farm" as we like to call it.

dillon - my big brother. he is actually the one who got us all started on this blogging stuff. but, recently has decided to step out of it himself. just last night he was telling me that he just decided that he doesn't have anything interesting enough to write about, so he didn't want to bother anymore. too bad :( his link is not to a blog, but rather to his website. he is an independent web designer/program developer . . . or something like that. he knows about computer stuff and is, whether he likes it or not, my guy for all things technical . . . and an awsome brother!

cerra - my brother's wife since 2004 and a big fan of the blogging world.

romy - my friend, my sister . . . since we were 11 years old. 20 years this girl has been in my life. an incredible woman and friend.

phil - friend from nome since 2003-ish? among other things, he is an extreme sports guy extrordinaire. you might remember that friend of mine that i was raving about a couple of years ago who took his kayak from nome to barrow. this is him. he started this blog not too long ago to chronicle some of his crazy endeavors. there are some really incredible stories on here.

sarah - married to phil. singer/songwriter. mother of beautiful hannah. and my friend :)

owen - of 'owen and wayne' from nome. i don't think of one without the other. really great friends that are living a really great life. currently travelling the states with their two young boys and dog in a conversion van.

becky - another friend from nome. a pilot and still the woman i think of when i'm on a bumpy flight. i'll never forget a particularly turbulent flight from nome to the small village of wales many years ago. another passenger was really scared and becky was the pilot. she was able to turn around and reassure her. one of the things that she explained was that turbulence was just like being on a bumpy road. it didn't mean anything was out of control. although i wasn't showing my uneasiness at the time, i too was a little freaked. but, after she said that it just made so much more sense. ever since that whenever i'm on a bumpy flight i can just imagine driving down a bumpy country road . . . usually its a nome road that pops into my head :)

laurent - also a friend from nome. partner to my other friend greta who was actually my very first friend in nome and who i've written about many times on this blog. laurent is a professional photographer and this website is truly a breath of fresh air illustrating some of his work. there is a new picture up everyday as well as photo albums of hundreds of others. be careful though. should you enter this site, you may find yourself still there hours later. there is so much beauty to be captured and laurent is truly a master of doing just that. simply amazing.

seems that the world of personal websites and blogging is quickly becoming more and more the norm. i do enjoy keeping this blog, but sometimes wonder why. am i really connecting with others? is sharing tidbits of my life anything more than narcissim? is it really all that wise to lay one's life out in this sort of public forum? i've been trying to figure out a way to stop search engines from hitting this blog when my name is searched, but so far i'm not having much luck. i think i may be locked into the worldwide web forever. wierd. if i could go back i would have definitely picked a more anonymous sort of name for this blog. anyway, i'm rambling about nothing . . .

happy saturday.