Stacy's Visit and a Surprise Baby Shower!
Stacy visited!! She's officially our first visitor of 2016!
We based her trip around Denali National Park's annual Winterfest - a week-long event when everything that's possible to do in the park in winter is available. We went on Saturday when it was also completely FREE!
Park admission, ranger-led snowshoe hikes, sled dog rides, an impressive lunch in a log-cabin-style visitor's center (complete with reindeer sausage which was a hit with Matt), and more… totally free of charge. It wasn't even crowded!
The highlight was obviously sled dog rides. :)
There were fire pits and s'mores stations around the park, and rangers ready to answer questions (...and take pictures of us).
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S'mores :)
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One ranger told us last year it was -10° for Winterfest. This year it was +30°!
It's hard to tell, but there was a fire pit/s'mores station by this cabin. It was an easy one-mile hike from the main road (no snow shoes required because the warm temps melted the snow!)
Plus huge (also hard to tell how giant they were) sled dogs everywhere. I love this place!
Stacy and I hadn't seen each other since my graduation from grad school in L.A. last spring, so we were due for a visit. We easily filled the rest of her week with fun things.
We went to a semipro hockey game, UAF basketball game, resturants including North America's most northern brewhouse (their housemade root beer is fantastic), hiking on local trails…
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Ice Dogs hockey game - Fairbanks' semi-pro team with a reputation for getting rowdy
We discovered by far the best Mexican food I've had in Alaska. There are a lot of good things about AK, but its Mexican food isn't one. Except this place!
We also checked out the Alaska Pipeline, watched the sunrise over Fairbanks from Ester Dome (freezing!), visited museums, explored UAF before I taught on campus, she came to the yoga classes I taught, saw The Santa Clause House in North Pole, checked out the ice park, etc. etc.
That's me photobombing… :)
  
It was a great wintertime tour of Fairbanks for both of us (a lot of these things were firsts for me, too!)
The week flew by and before I knew it, it was back to reality: work, grading, lesson prepping, emails, a week's worth of chores to catch up on, yoga, etc.
The following weekend my military wives' group hosted a SURPRISE baby shower for Baby Neuffer and me! 
Matt was in on the whole thing and took me out for the morning while they came over to set up. They were amazingly generous and went above and beyond to make it truly an event I will never forget!
My friend Maren said it perfectly: they're like professionals!
They clearly put a lot of work into getting the whole thing planned and organized, and I'm so grateful! It was so good to see so many friendly faces all showing their support and love for Baby Neuffer. It made it all feel more real and exciting!
And as usual there has been lots and lots of teaching over here: I started teaching the 12 and 13 year olds at church and it's fun! In additon to UAF classes and yoga.
I wrote a letter of recommendation for a former Com student from last semester, and this week she dropped off THE CUTEST thank-you note - how adorable is this?! (Insert arms-up emoji here!)
It's interesting to be 'on the other side' of writing letters of recommendation, since until recently, I'd always been the one asking for letters.
And, I agreed to teach one more month of yoga at my gym.
After that, my 'yoga maternity leave' will begin! (Imagine trying to demonstrate Revolved Triangle Pose to a room full of watchful eyes with a beach ball under your shirt. Kind of what it's like to teach preg! Ha!)
Pic from an at-home yoga sesh that Barkley made sure to be involved in:
Next week is spring break for my on-campus students. I have a long list of things to prep before classes start again, so it won't be 'time off.' And anyway, my online class will continue as normal (no spring break for them!)
We're having more visitors at the end of next week - can't wait to show them around our new home town!
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