Snow, Snow, Snow!

This week has been all about the snow. Last Saturday, I attended the American Birkebeiner in Wisconsin to watch some friends ski. On Sunday, we all went snowshoeing. Yesterday, we had a snow day in Duluth because we were hit with a blizzard.

First, let’s start with the Birkie. This race is kind of a big deal. It reached its cap of 9,000 participants total for all the various races that take place during the event. It was my first time attending the event. Heck, it was my first time attending a ski race of any kind. All I can say is that it was fun. My hosts were awesome by giving my a crash course on cross country skiing and the history of the event. The weather was decent and we had fun traipsing around Hayward while we wanted for all in our party to finish the race. I hope that I’ll be returning to this race to cheer friends/family on for years to come.

The Birkie finish line on the Main Street of Hayward

On Sunday, our whole group went snowshoeing on the North Country National Scenic Trail near Brule, WI (teeny tiny town in northern WI). Yet another first for me…snowshoeing. It took a little bit (and some readjusting) but I got the hang of the whole snowshoeing thing. So fun! I want/need to do this again! It was so much fun being out in the woods and the fresh air. The company was pretty fantastic, too.

My snowshoes

The trail sign

Our group: Eric, Kendra, Peter, & me (Deb’s behind the camera)

Some trees looking from below

The next epic occurance of snow included a blizzard that basically shut down the entire city of Duluth yesterday. On Tuesday evening at 10:45pm (before it even started snowing), I got the most wonderful text message, “UMD Alert: UMD will close on 2/29/2012 due to weather. All activities are expected to resume on 3/1/2012.” Yay, a snow day!! I still ended waking up early, but took a nap during the morning. I spent my day being amazed at the amount of wind coming off Lake Superior, watching daytime tv like Live with Kelly, knitting, cleaning, laundry, pinning on Pinterest, and watching Beauty and the Beast. Yep, it was a pretty awesome snow day. All I can say is that I love that I signed up for the text alerts for our campus. Great way to get pressing news right from the source. We were suppose to get about half our snow Tuesday night and the rest on Wednesday during the day. Well, it didn’t start snowing probably until around 4am. The real action started around 7am. The wind was CRAZY!

Blizzard from the front door of my apartment building (taken with my iPhone and looking through the glass of the door – I was not about to try going outside)

When it was all said and done, I think the reported snow total was 9-10 inches. However, that was near the airport which is not near the water at all. We have multiple climate zones in Duluth depending on your proximity to the water and how high up on the hill you are. All I know is that we got a lot of snow and it was heavy.

Out my window Wednesday late afternoon (base of the window is ground level)

Trees this morning while I went out to my car

The mess behind my car (not fun!) – I’m the blue car on the left

It took me about a half an hour to clean the snow from behind my car. Luckily, during the last 10 minutes of my shoveling, 3 guys helped me and were going to help push me out if needed. Yay for nice neighbors!!

So that’s my story of snow. Snow has been a rarity this winter so it was nice to see it finally arrive. I will say though, Spring better not be delayed just because Winter finally decided to show up at the end of February.

Anyone else survive a blizzard recently?

Campfire Mocha Fixes Everything

It has been a crazy couple of weeks recently. Today, I’m spending some quality time at the Caribou Coffee near my parents’ house getting some work done. I’m enjoying my fabulous Campfire Mocha (my regular drink) and am working on my to-do list.

 

Last week, we in southeastern WI were hit with the massive snowstorm that was shared by over half the country. I never heard a final snow total…but it was A LOT! The predictions had been 12-18 inches of snow for where I live. The snow ended up canceling evening classes for Tuesday (yay, no class!) and all day on Wednesday.

Snow the weekend after “Snowmaggedeon”

Last weekend, I spent the day with one of my best friends – Ashley. Her and I don’t get to see each other much (due to our different internship placement sites) and we thought we needed a quality hangout/retail therapy day on Saturday. We headed over to Madison where I bought a brand new camera!! All the pictures featured on today’s post (and every post here after) were with my new camera. I had a gift card to Target and paired it together with some extra money I made working spring floor sets at Pier 1 during winter break. I’ve been wanting a new camera for awhile (a really nice one that uses multiple lenses) and I thought I’d buy myself a new point-and-shoot camera to tide me over. I picked out a silver Nikon Coolpix S6000 and LOVE it! I haven’t had a lot of time to try out everything this camera can do and so far, I’m absolutely loving the “crop on camera” feature.

The other event that has made this past week “crazy” was the passing of my maternal grandfather. He’s battled various health issues for quite some time and had been doing fairly well recently. While his death was unexpected, I believe he moved on in an utterly fabulous way. He was at home, taking a nap in his recliner. It’s been a sad week off and on and I have to believe that he’s in a better place. A place where he’s not in pain, he can breathe well, is sippin’ a martini, and is reunited with those who have passed before him. RIP Grandpa! You will be missed.

Me with my grandpa when I was a kid.

My other big news for the week is that I applied for my first professional Student Affairs position!! On my to-do list for today is to apply for another position. I’m excited that the process is finally starting. Hopefully, I’ll get calls for interviews!

Yep, I can definitely say that some blogging and a Campfire Mocha can fix everything.