so, lucky girl that i am, i got to go visit eric and beth in anchorage. it was a super-awesome birthday(s) gift (thanks again, guys!) that couldn't have happened at a better time.
i arrived on nov 18th, on a balmy, -12 degree F afternoon, and the three of us celebrated my arrival by stuffing ourselves full of yummy mexican food and margaritas. sunday, the most important day of the year (MY BIRTHDAY, duh), i made beth immediately regret asking what i wanted to do on my birthday by dragging her (eric was much more willing) to a bar at 10:00am to watch the redskins play the cowboys. while i won't speak of how the game ended, fun was had by 2/3 of us (although i think all of us would have gladly killed the loud, obnoxious cowboys fan sitting at the table next to ours,). that afternoon a couple of eric and beth's friends came over for dinner and drinks, and i think *everyone* enjoyed that part of the day.
on monday i woke up to eric telling me that bella had been barfing all night, so i should let her out back quickly when she needed to go. i worked on my thesis while eric and beth went to work, and i don't think i've ever traveled 15 feet faster than whenever i noticed bella standing by the back door... everything went fine though, she seemed to have gotten it all out overnight.
on tuesday, despite being set back by a wicked migraine, beth bravely joined me for round 1 of our twilight drinking game. we decided water would be best for movie #1, and after 2 hours of chugging water i don't think i have ever been so well hydrated in my life! eric joined us for movie #2 (even though he's TOTALLY team edward, ugh...), and we switched to beer. the drinking game continued on wednesday morning with mimosas for movie #3, and later in the afternoon eric drove us to movie #4. at that point, the "rules" of the drinking game had mostly devolved into beth and i whisper-yelling "DRINK" at each other...
thursday was, of course, thanksgiving, so much of the day was spent cooking and trying to time everything juuuust right so it's all done at the same time. dinner was around 5, and we were joined by jen, who had also joined us on my bday. i learned the hard way (like i do every year), that just because a plate can fit THAT much food, doesn't mean i should eat that much food, let alone go for seconds. in trying moments like that one, however, i always remember eric's lesson on eating from growing up - "eat fast before your stomach realizes how full it is." such wise words.
post-thanksgiving -food-coma-day (aka friday), eric and i went snowshoeing which is SOMUCHFUN. also hard work, which made me feel ever-so-slightly better about eating and drinking pretty much continuously since the moment i arrived. at one point, i was pretty convinced that we had lost dash-the-dog, but apparently he likes to chase squirrels/rabbits/whatever and so him disappearing is actually quite normal. he eventually bounded out of the woods and totally ignored eric's and my disapproving glares. either way, snowshoeing is fun.
saturday was the exciting sledding adventure which turned out, after all, to be not so exciting. this was actually a welcome change for me, since i was, at the top of the hill, pretty sure that i was going to die from falling off a mountain. i didn't, and that was just fine with me. the hill had tons of bumps on it, the only benefit of which that i could see was a good ab workout from trying to lift your feet over them. all in all, it was fun, if not the death-defying experience that some of us wished it could have been.
sadly, the next day was my last day in anchorage. we watched the redskins game again (at home this time, since they were playing the seahawks it was on local channels). afterwards i took eric and beth out to lunch to say thanks for the awesome trip and sorry for eating/drinking you nearly out of house and home. they dropped me off at the airport for my "direct" flight from anchorage to newark (it stopped in seattle, WTF?!?!). lucky for me, the woman in the window-seat in my row barfed the whole flight. i felt sorry for myself having to listen to her, but i'm still pretty sure that she was MUCH more miserable than me... having gotten about 3 minutes of sleep on the red-eye flight, i decided not to grace my job with my presence on monday, and instead went home and was kinda snippy with anyone who even looked like they were going to talk to me. then i slept 10 hours, and decided that i wouldn't have to kill everyone afterall. positive change, i'd say...
so there you have it. great trip to anchorage! and mom, don't worry, there were *ONLY* two days where i started drinking before 10:30am.
It was a fun visit from our end, too. You did an awesome job of holding your poop together when it was -19 the first morning after you arrived and dealing with the fact that it was probably -10 more than it was +0 while you were here.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd been here last weekend it was almost 50 degrees instead. You could've gone home and told people that we aren't crazy and it really is much better to have it be below zero than to have it be as warm as that - Sunday had to be about the dreariest, sloppiest day I've ever seen and now instead of snowshoes we could practically take out ice skates into the same woods.