Nevhiz and Zion

2007 US Alpine Championships

2007-03-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

So obviously that is not us, but we were there watching the skiers who were participating at the US Championships today. I have never lived in a place who held skiing championships before,especially 30 minutes away from my home so we had to go and watch. After seeing the participants come down from the mountain I have so much more respect for them and their abilities.
Other than the sport, it was a gorgeous and sunny day in Alyeska, which is 30 minutes away from south Anchorage. I even had to take off my hat and my gloves and got to enjoy the sun. Finally spring is coming to Alaska, I can't wait!!

Bellingham, WA for the holidays!

2006-12-26T21:29:00.000-09:00

So we made it to Bellingham, WA for the holidays, to visit with Zion's parents. It is always great to see the family and know that there are people out there who care about you and love you even though you are thousands of miles apart.
We left a very snowy Anchorage and since we have been here, it has been classic northwest weather, some rain and less sunshine. But the days are longer, the food is good and the company is better, so no complaints.
We hope everybody is having a great holiday season. Talk to you soon from A-town!

Turnagain Arm Trail in Chugach State Park

2006-11-12T12:13:00.000-09:00

Yes, we have started our winter hiking season once again. We went for two hikes in the past two weekends both on the Turnagain Arm Trail in Chugach State Park. This trail is close to the south side of Anchorage and only 10 minutes away from our house. It is on the coastline so when you are hiking, you are faced with amazing views of the water and the mountains. In the more secluded sections of the trail, you expect to meet the Ice Queen from Narnia, waiting to invite you to her castle and give you Turkish Delight.
We are hoping to explore more of the southside in the upcoming weekends, I am seeing some snowshoeing trips ahead...

Yes, we are still here!!

2006-11-04T15:14:00.000-09:00

I know we haven't posted lately, well since August but we have not had time. We are still in Alaska, this time living in Anchorage and still trying to recover from the move. We will post some new pictures and adventures soon...

Summer Reading

2006-08-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

I have been reading a book for the past two days and I am already at page 300. It is one of the saddest books I have ever read in my life, more like watching a Lifetime Network movie. However, I cannot give up reading the book and I keep getting teary eyed every time I read it. It is called "One True Thing" and it is written by Anna Quindlen. I guess it was made into a movie and I found it when I was browsing through the local bookstore in Palmer.
This is not the first sad, depressing book I have chosen to read this summer. I have actually been on this kick of reading depressing books including "Liberating Paris", "Once Removed" and "Light As Rain". I think after reading all these, I am a little pissed. I do not understand why everything about a woman's life has to be so depressing and so full of sorrow. Why does everything have to be about people not realizing what they have until they lose it? Why does a woman have to be more mature than a man when it comes to dealing with hard decisions or family disasters and a man is allowed to run away or immerse himself in his work/alcohol or a younger woman? Why can't a man explain his feelings and understand what his wife/significant other/lover is going through without being explained as if they are guests on Dr. Phil Show? I just do not understand. May be it is time for me to return to murder/mysteries, at least they are predictable, and you know somebody is going to end their life with a horrible death...

PS. I will go back to posting happy, Alaska stuff soon...

2006-07-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

We were in Eklutna Lake in March. Eklutna Lake is 20 to 30 minutes south of Palmer. It is one of the best places for hiking, canoeing, and snowshoeing. On the day we hiked, we saw cross-country skiers on the lake but unfortunately our camera could not capture them. We hiked for 6 miles total, which was three miles to the first public use cabin on the lake. The view from the cabin is gorgeous as you can see from the pictures.

Nancy Lake Canoe Trip

2006-07-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

We went to Nancy Lake Recreation Area near Willow and stayed at Red Shirt Lake Cabin in June. We went for a weekend getaway with couple of friends from Palmer and Anchorage. We hiked for three miles to get to our canoes and then canoed for 15-20 minutes to get to our cabin on an island. It was a great time and here are some pictures to prove it.

Zion and Geoff sharing a quiet moment together after a trip to a nearby island to get some wood.

The crew included Kim, Craig, Amity, Libby, Geoff, me and Zion. You can see all the ladies on the left, playing dominoes on the picnic table.

Pictures with the Host- Family aka Bergs

2006-07-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

Pictures from March, when my host-family, aka. the Bergs were visiting us. The pictures are from Thunderbird Falls and Schwabenhoff Bar, the ultimate German Bar, in Wasilla, AK.

Long Time No Post

2006-07-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

I know I know, I have not been posting a lot lately but it is really hard to sit in front of a computer when I come home from work, since I work in front of a computer all day. I have also been trying to develop some pictures so I can post them online, but posting pictures on ablog takes a long time, so I have been lazy about that too. I guess I am lazy all around, but believe when there is 16 hours of sunlight out, you really do not want to be inside.
I hope everybody had a great 4th of July weekend. We went to Valdez for the weekend and had tons of fun. Valdez is one of those towns that has the feeling of Scotland (according to Zion) during the summer and it is perpetually green. On the way to Valdez, we stopped at Worthington Glacier, one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen in my life. This was the closest to I have ever been to a glacier. (Yes there are not that many glaciers in southern Turkey, somehow, I do not think they will survive the 100-125 F heat.) We actually climbed a trail, or mostly climbed bony spine of a ridge, glacier on the one side and a drop on the other, all in single file. I actually had to stop at some point due to height, wind and fear for my life and of course Zion continued on. I cannot wait to get the pictures to show you all.
For all interested we camped at a cute campsite, called Glacier Campground. The campground was nice, it even had its own waterfall at the community picnic area. (I should say I am not a fan of outhouses, but I love camping and making smores and eating them till I die from sugar intake, so I loved it.)
While we were in Valdez, we hiked most of the time. The city is a cute fishing town, so you can probably spend a morning there but not more than that. People usually go there for fishing, for rafting, sea kayaking and hiking. There are some great trails in Valdez and of course, nosotros tried two of them in one day. We hiked the Pack Trail and the first part of the Shoup Bay Trail. Both of these trails have wild life, i.e. bears, so I was pretty nervous about going but the view from them was so gorgeous that we had to do it. Especially the Bridal Veil Falls and the Horse Tail Falls which you can see close up during the Pack Trail hike were mystical.
I am hoping to get these pictures up soon, but in time meantime check out these links and let me know what you guys think.

More Pictures

2006-04-23T11:07:00.000-08:00

Two of us right after the snowshoe race at Eagle River Nature Center. And me, at Hatchers Pass...

Pictures from Hatchers Pass

2006-04-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

So what do you think????

Last week

2006-04-13T17:29:00.000-08:00

My host parents were here last week and we had a blast. Some of you might not know about my host parents and my high school history. I was a AFS exchange student and went to school in Lake Stevens, WA for my junior year in high school. I am still great friends with my host parents so they came to visit us in Alaska. They had good time. They went to Homer and Seward and we took them to Talkeetna and couple of other spots close to Palmer. It was great to have guests and show them around. Even though I have only been here since September, I feel like I know enough about the area, at least to direct people in the right direction. I have not developed our pictures yet, but as soon as I get them I will post them on the blog. By the way, we are having more than 16 hours of daylight here already and it is only April. It is awesome!!!

Check out Iditarod and Independence Mine

2006-03-13T20:21:00.000-09:00

I know you might be getting tired of our weekend snowshoeing trips but I love sharing them with you all, so may be someday, you would like to come and visit this beautiful state. We went to Hatcher's Pass last Saturday again and snowshoed to Independence Mine. It was a great site with snow everywhere.
Also you have to check out the Iditarod race. Already three dogs have died on the race because of the weather conditions and the burden of the road. It is a cruel but an exciting race. You should definitely check out the website. You can even get the map and see where the mushers are at this moment. It is so cool.

Snowshoe Race

2006-03-04T19:00:00.000-09:00

We ran in our first snowshoe race today which was held at Eagle River Nature Center. It was a little bit more than 3 miles or longer than 5K. Considering the fact that I do not run normally, running that distance with snowshoes on almost killed me. Zion, my hero, actually stayed behind with me even though he could have probably finished with the others. I finished it in 42 minutes and Zion coming behind me finished it 43 minutes. Hey, we were not the last ones, as some of you might be thinking - we were second to last. It was awesome, even though I was in major pain towards the end and ready to kill Zion. I felt so much better as soon as we had some margaritas at a Mexican restaurant afterwards. Tonight, we are going to play Settler's of Catan with our neighbors. They also have the cutest baby in Alaska, baby Peter. He is posing with his first pair of shoes on the right. That's it from us for now. Hope everybody had a great Saturday.

Another Sunday

2006-02-27T21:31:00.000-09:00

So, yesterday we went on a snowshoeing excursion to Hatchers Pass. It was a great trip. We actually ended up following moose tracks and saw the moose as well. It was pretty cool, there was nobody in the hills, but us, the moose and of course the gorgeous sun. You can't understand how great it is to see the sunlight again and feel the warmth in my face. We ended up going on couple hills and basically sledded down back to our car. At some point, we were making snow angels. After this great trip we came home.
Let's fast forward to this morning - Monday morning. I realized, yes Nevhiz, that I lost my keys. The car keys and our apartment keys. I looked around the apartment, and in every pocket and purse that I could think off but I could not find them. Finally by 9 am, while I was at work, I figured out that I dropped the keys when I was making snow angels. So determined as I was, I wrote an email to Zion. I told him that I knew where the keys were. I was convinced that I dropped them where we making snow angels at the end of our hike. Keep in mind that we were walking with our snowshoes and I was falling most of the time, so there is a big chance that I was wrong. So, of course Zion did not believe me but being the supportive husband he is, he wrote me back and told me that if I really really wanted, we could go to the Pass and look for them after he got back from work (after an hour long drive from Anchorage). Of course, I said yes, hey, because I knew exactly where the keys were right? So we got into the car after he picked me up from work and we headed to the mountains again. We got there right before sunset so we still had some light. I got out of the car and started walking towards the hills, hoping that I was right about my premonition. In the meantime, Zion was putting his snowshoes on and getting ready for a full blown search on the hills for my keys. Ohh before I forget, on the way to the snowshoeing area, we saw our friend, the Moose again. Anyways, I kept on walking and I spotted the keys and the disposable camera that I lost (which I was not aware of until we got there) where I was making the snow angel.
So you might ask, what is the moral of this story Nevhiz? Well friends, don't ever lose your hope and always smile when you see a moose, believe me they bring good luck...

Cheers to a great saturday

2006-01-22T19:26:00.000-09:00

So, we went rock climbing yesterday. Nope, it was not ice climbing, it was an indoor gym called the Alaska Rock Gym. I have never been rock climbing before, and of course, Zion being the outdoor person in our marriage, decided that I needed a different exercise to get my aggression out. Initially he did not tell me where we were going, so I was a little bit schocked when we got there. It is cool to pretend to be spiderwoman and climb as high as one can. It gave a sense of accomplishment and I absolutely recommend it to everyone.
Ohh also, it snowed here almost 10 inches this weekend, so we are back to snow wonderland and I am loving it. I am telling you guys, there is nothing like sitting on a couch, sipping a hot chocolate (with a little bit brandy if you would like) and watching the view of snow covered mountains. This is all from us for now.

Ohh before I forget, GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

Washington State

2005-12-30T11:07:00.000-09:00

Having spent almost 4 years and a half in the state of Washington, I must say that I miss it. I miss the people, the old times and the college years. We are staying with Zion's parents right now in Bellingham and it is cute town. It used to be smaller but now even the hippie district is turned into the posh and chic district. It is a little bit sad to see these changes but people bound to move from the big city of Seattle to create their own little perfect world.
Our vacation has been going great so far. It is good to have a break from work and just relax and watch movies. I hope everybody is enjoying their holidays and having a great time.
By the way, we might be the laziest blogger in this planet considering our last post was in November but hopefully in the new year we will be more up to date with our posts.

Snowy day in Palmer

2005-11-11T09:40:00.000-09:00

I know for a lot of people who know us, our life does not make sense. Most people do not understand why we would choose to live in Alaska after living in Syracuse, New York for three years. Nowadays I am actually finding myself trying to justify our decision to move to Alaska. All I can say to skeptics out there is that Alaska is nothing like you imagine. It is a beautiful wonderland with, yes, cold temperatures but with views that you would never encounter anywhere else in the world. Having born in a place who does not get colder than 6o F, I did not think I would like it here either. But everyting I thought about this place before moving to here has changed. One thing, there is a very cute cafe called Vagabond Cafe. I remember being so frustrated about living in Syracuse because there were no cafes that were open on Sundays or after 5 pm. There was no place to go and hang out with a book or chat with your friends other than Starbucks or Barnes and Noble cafe. It was beyond depressing. Here, there is a cafe that we can go to 7 days a week and they serve great chai lattes and caramel lattes.
I remember being in middle school and watching the tv series, "Northern Exposure" and thinking to myself how cool would that be to live in a place like that little town. Well let's just say ladies and gentlemen I am living in that town.
Ohh by the way, two weekends ago, we were in Anchorage with another couple (our neighbors from here) and we were visiting their family. Their family live in a townhome complex close to downtown Anchorage and we saw a moose family. It was mama moose, papa moose and the little moose hanging out in the backyards of these townhomes looking for food. Wherelse in the world would you be able to say, today i saw a moose in the middle of a busy city?
Anyways, as anybody who is reading this can tell, I am mesmerized by my life here in Alaska, just wanted to share.

2005-10-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

Aren't we cute?

We are in Palmer, AK

2005-10-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

We are in Palmer, AK having a great time. Went on hike today to Thunderbird Falls in Eklutna.