UPDATER!

Hey all,

Just to update you all of the goings on up here. On sunday last week kimberly and I had 3 bed and breakfast guests, A guy, his friend and his son. They had plans to spend the morning and afternoon of the next day going out towards the tozie (sp) river and invited me to come along. Its about an 80-90 mile round trip to the Tozie, but we made it about 21 miles out and stopped to have lunch smoked fish strips and cookie dough, haha. I am addicted to snow machines! The trip was SO much fun, the going was fairly slow, we went about 5 miles off the trail (paralleled the trail) and the going is SO slow... the snow is soft and hard, and there isnt a section longer than 3 feet that isnt up and down. Once we got back to the trail on our way back it was nice, it was still really bumpy but there were flat sections and alot of the time you could double up big bumps (jump over a dip). Cynthia and Dales snow machine is SO nice, the suspension welcomed bumps and allowed me a fairly comefortable ride. Im hooked, which REALLY sucks because we have about 1 more month of snow then i may never get to ride a snow machine again.

Kimberly went for a ride too, but she rode dogs instead. There is this race comming up called the chichaco (sp) race. Its a race for people that have never been in a race before and kimberly is STOKED to be in it... She is kinda bummed, the guy that is giving her dogs to run has the oldest biggests slowest dogs of anyone with dogs... so basically she will loose. Its not about winning but it kinda takes some of the fun out of it.

Kimberly and i have started volunteering our time for the Dog Mushers too, we are marking the 3 mile trail for the races at the end of the month, which basically consists of hacking down willows and running them out there and stabing them into the snow by the trail. By the way, this race is entirely out on the river. And speaking of being on the river, i was able to go a ways out on the river where the Tanana River meets the Yukon River, but up there the snow has blown off the ice... so your driving over patches of clear ice, talk about scary... especially because if your accelerating when you hit the snow it accelerates hard and the second you hit the ice the track spins and the back end wonders no matter how fast you are going.

The weather is around 0 or just under lately. The wind is always blowing, generally its never too hard though. Except for 2 days ago its been pretty sunny all day long. which lasts from about 8 am to 9pm.

We are in the middle of a HUGE order. Great timing might i add... we will probably be getting stuff in for the next week and a half and, we are going to be SLAMMED next week because thats the week of the races.

I had a boy experience recently too... It brought me down to earth. Kimberly and I got a call from Cynthia and Dales bookkeeper about mid week this last week. She had a whole list of stuff we didnt do right, a couple checks that we should not have accepted, and she finished up the conversation talking about finding the Irondog information, this information was all the billing information such as how much fuel (about 1100 dollars worth of fuel) and a running store bill for the guys that were breaking and marking the trail (i think about another 400 dollars)... My frustration boiled over and i told her how i was frusterated with some things. It wasnt too bad it was a calm conversation, i just wanted to voice some frustrations.

Well one of the things i never took into account was the fact that her son died in january, and she was having a blue day... Kimberly found the the Irondog bills, and i left a message on her answering machine that we found the stuff and i faxed it to her. She called back about an hour later and told me that she was sorry, and that she didnt want us to get the idea that we were not doing a good job. She was just mad that day (about the loss) and she said she was still mad but that its just a rollercoaster thing every day is up and down.

I quickly realized i decided to voice my frusterations on the wrong person, just a friendly reminder that im not as mature as i sometimes think i am... there is always more growing up to do.

by the was we just heard about a snowmachiner that died last night... he was going fast and hit a wire (they think it was like a wire comming down from a telephone pole). It was in Galena, so it wasnt someone from around town, but it Kimberly and I are thinking it was a guy that came through Tanana yesterday on his way that direction. so please pray for him and his family.