January to February

here's the photographic summary of my life starting in january.

for the pic below, my sister was the assistant coach for a volleyball team and they would sometimes have practices right next to my house so i would sometimes watch her kids while she went to practice and they'd stay the night since she'd get home sometime after 9. this is cayden and cassidy, sleeping on the floor in our apartment. carolyn peeked in after she came back from practice and thought that it was so cute that they fell asleep holding each other. awwwhhh! cute!
and here is shawn. right behind my parents house is mt baldy, part of the chugach range. this is a very popular climb in eagle river and it's one that my family does a lot. keeps us all in shape. me and shawn and denali (our dog) and raisin (my parents dog) hiked up here. it was a bit difficult because the snow was no longer snow, but ice. going down was quick and i was very lucky that i had a crampon that i could dig in the snow as i slid down the mountain to slow me down.
and here's me at the top of baldy, squinting in the sun.
i thought this was a cute picture. it's shawn and my nephew, cayden. we were going to the commisary during shawn's lunch from work.
this is winnie, my neice, in front of one of the walls that i painted a tree on in her and her older sister's room. for christmas this past year i drew my parents this picture from a photograph that i took in their yard of a mom and two baby moose.
here's my niece, cassidy, making the assent of... a rock. she just looked like a really hardened mountian climber in this picture even though it is only in my parents yard.
these are some of my nieces and nephews at thomas's 1st birthday party. starting at the bottom left corner and moving clockwise: cassidy, keith, hannah, rachel, and cayden (with my mom and dad in the background).
here's me with the birthday boy himself! one year old!
shawn took me on a surprise date in february and wouldn't tell me anything about it. i got home from work, he told me to get dressed warm and then we drove up to mt baldy's parking lot and he took out a backpack that looked heavy and a bundle of wood. we then hiked up a little ways and he stopped and unpacked his back pack. he was carrying a dutch oven! that's why the back pack looked so heavy! he then proceeded to make me dinner with the anchorage city lights twinkling in the background. it was a quite cold night and i was grateful for that warm food. it was delicious! chicken and beef and onions and peppers with lots of spices. mmmm!!!here's me and shawn with a full stomach and freezing faces!