Christmas 2010

Sayre and I just got back from our awesome Christmas vacation during which we got to spend lots of quality time with our entire Alaskan family :) Yep, that's right, everyone was in town to celebrate! What a rare and fantastic treat!

We jam-packed the week with family, friends, and adventures. When we arrived in town Saturday morning we hit the ground running - fortunately we managed to get a fair amount of sleep during our evening flights so we were ready to play as soon as we landed in Fairbanks. The temperatures never really seemed too bad to me... I suppose my fingers and toes felt frozen at one point or another ;) but I think I was a little more prepared this time for the frigid air. (Plus, my wonderful in-laws always find new ways to bundle me up) Anyway, our adventures ranged from taking over coffee shops with family & friends, chasing away a pesky moose who was trying to steal hay, snowmachinging, sledding, and hanging out in hot springs just to name a few.

I think my favorite day, for more reasons than just the obvious, was Christmas day. Even though it was our last day to spend in Alaska, we managed to stretch it out and enjoy every little last bit of holiday cheer that we could. We lounged around in our pjs for awhile, had breakfast, opened presents, had loads of fun outside (it even warmed up to 0!!), and had a delicious Christmas dinner. We spent the evening getting in as much time with family as we could and then ultimately had to say our goodbyes - Sayre had to report back to the ship Monday morning so to make it back in time we had to leave Alaska at 1:30am Sunday morning. Although it's hard to believe Christmas is already over, we really enjoyed our time up there. It was so hard to leave, but we were so happy knowing we had taken advantage of each day.

As 2011 draws near with each passing day, Sayre and I continue to appreciate the moments we have together. The new year is sure to bring about many new adventures for us... we're just looking forward to all of the new experiences and lessons we will learn. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, & God Bless!

Disney & Diving

Last weekend we finally took advantage of the Disney World passes that were so generously given to me at work a few months back. We purposefully waited for the weather around here to cool down to use them, and we couldn't have picked a more perfect weekend - the weather was soooo nice! After Sayre's Warfare pinning, we went and ran some errands (mostly to stock up on uniform items for him) and then drove on down to Orlando and arrived just in time to spend the evening in Epcot to enjoy the beautiful Christmas lights.

Before setting out on our Disney adventure, we new it was going to be epic :) We planned to squeeze in all 4 of the Disney parks in just one weekend! Anyway, on Saturday we woke up early to get to the Animal Kingdom before it opened to be sure we were able to ride our favorite ride, the Expedition Everest, and we were so glad we did because we got to ride it 3 times :) We hung around there all morning, left the park to grab lunch, & then spent the rest of the afternoon in the Magic Kingdom. It was soooo much more crowded there than we anticipated, but we still had a lot of fun and actually got to see them filming some concerts for the Disney Christmas Day parade, so that was pretty neat. On Sunday we spent the morning at MGM (or Hollywood Studios as it's known now - although I'll probably always call it MGM) riding our favorite rides there, taking pictures with characters, and eating some yummy treats.

We left MGM around lunch time and headed out to our last adventure for the weekend: Indoor Skydiving! Yep... that's right! It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision, but we're so glad we did it! We had an absolute blast and would highly recommend it to anyone :) It's like skydiving without any of the real risks - you're just basically in a giant wind tunnel floating around. Overall, it was a fantastic & very memorable weekend and a great way to begin the holiday celebrations!

Warfare Pinning

This past Friday Sayre received his Naval Warfare pin which is a pretty big milestone in his Naval career. Fortunately I had the opportunity to go out to his ship for the ceremony and actually pin him. It was a really special moment for both of us. I'm such a proud wife :)

Plaaaaaaay tiiiiiiiiiime!

Following Thanksgiving week, I went on a very quick business trip with some co-workers to one of our manufacturers. It was so awesome to be able to see the manufacturing process take place - especially getting to watch the rotationally molded plastics machines work their magic! I may be a huge dork, but learning about how things are made truly fascinates me :) And I can't even begin to describe how cool it was for me to be able to see all of the components in-person... I'm so used to just seeing these things in AutoCAD on my computer screen that sometimes it's easy to forget that my drawings & renderings do eventually turn into real playgrounds.