Whole30 Update

I'm pretty sure I'm losing weight! This is cray. I'm not allowed to check though, because the creators believe that weight loss is a secondary effect of the plan and figure that people will get discouraged if they're not dropping any weight and quit, and they don't want that. Neither do I, but I'm used to abstaining anyway. I've had this messed up mentality that I don't want to see what I weigh because I'll be disappointed, so I just don't ever weigh myself.

I'm almost done with 3 weeks out of 4. I haven't experienced this so-called "tiger blood" yet, which is what they call it when your body figures out that fat is a good source of fuel and starts burning it. It's a constant, all-day burn, as opposed to sugar that lights up like gasoline and then it's gone. I'm not lethargic at least, so I've noticed a slight peak, which is nice.

The food is really good, but it's really taking up all my time prepping, cooking, and cleaning constantly. The hardest part is having to make your own sauces because everything they sell in stores has sugar in it. I can't even find horseradish sauce without sugar and it should just be grated horseradish -_-.

Sweet potatoes have saved me. I'm so glad that I like them because they are basically in every recipe they offer. They use them as a sweetener and a binder. They're in everything from the salmon cakes to the BBQ sauce (yeah, I know. It's weird. I'd suggest skipping that recipe). 

I'm constantly making sweet potato oven fries, and using their garlic aioli for a dipping sauce. Add that as a side with a protein and you've got a meal that won't just fill you up but satiate you. There's a big difference. I've been focusing on nothing but calorie intake and trying to keep it healthy, and I lost sight of hunger. My nutritionist just kept telling me to go off and do something and ignore the hunger but it was really hard. Now I'm not counting calories at all, which is very nice. I eat until I am full, and I stay full until my next meal. I don't think I've ever felt this before - not on purpose anyway. It's like magic. 

I will share one recipe with you guys, one that I absolutely love. It's called Mexican Tuna. I eat it for breakfast because I can prep it a couple days ahead of time and it doesn't need to be reheated (most breakfast-y items are off-limits for the Whole30... their mantra is anything can be eaten for breakfast, even dinner! I'm getting used to it.)

Mexican Tuna boats

SERVES 2

PREP TIME: 10 minutes

1 avocado, pitted and peeled

2 cans (5 ounces each) tuna, drained

3 green onions, thinly sliced

Juice of 1½ limes

½ jalapeño, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro

½ teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon salt

⅛ teaspoon black pepper

1 head endive or romaine, separated into leaves

IN a medium sized bowl, mash the avocado with a fork, leaving it slightly chunky.

Add the tuna to the bowl, flaking it apart with a fork, and mix to combine with the

avocado. Add the onions, juice of 1 lime, jalapeño, cilantro, chili powder, salt, and

pepper and mix well.

SPOON the tuna mixture into the endive leaves. Sprinkle a dusting of chili powder.

Squeeze the juice from the remaining ½ lime over the top and serve.

MAKE IT A MEAL: While there are some greens in this dish, you’re lacking serious

veggie power. Try serving the lettuce wraps with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Gazpacho,

or raw carrots, bell pepper strips, and celery with Avocado Mayonnaise for dipping.

So to save the headache of making boats or a wrap, I just chop up the romaine and mix it in with the tuna. It may seem like a lot of food, and trust me, it is. But I eat a serving of this with sweet potato fries in the morning and I am riding on a full belly all morning. It's great.

I'll make sure to give you guys an update when my Whole30 experience is over! 

Alaskan Adventure (Day 3)

Alaska Adventure Day 1
Aurora Adventure Night 1
Chena Lodge Day 2
Aurora Adventure Night 2

Another really long, cold night, another day to sleep in late. Because we had gotten a late start yesterday, we needed (Or rather - I needed) to head back up to Chena Lodge to finish out all the things to do up there.

That day, I had resolved to ride in a dog sled. It hadn't been on my list when I was originally planning, but I quickly thought about how unique it was to this region and it would probably be my only chance. So I had to do it. No matter what. #Determined

Mom was pretty much drained at this point, though. In fact, all she wanted to do was sleep in the car while I did my Chena exploration. I was pretty disappointed, and I tried to convince her that this would be her only opportunity, but she had refused so I let it go. I went into the Lodge to sign up for the dog sled rides, but it turns out that guests get first priority and the only available spot wasn't until 4:30 that afternoon. It was already past 11 and I didn't want to wait that long, so I left dejected. However, my next stop was to check out the Chena Hot Springs.

I had brought my bathing suit with me and had every intention of getting in. It was the perfect day to do so - bright and sunny, (which it had been the whole trip - I get so lucky with these things) and probably 10 degrees outside (you wouldn't think that would be a plus, but in this case it definitely was).



After paying their fee and changing in the changing room (using a bathroom stall of course [horrible high school flashbacks]) I was already pretty warm because the changing room was humid as all get-out. It actually felt good to get out of that humidity and make my way down the ramp and into the water.

It was hot. Like, too hot. Not scalding-my-skin hot, but as the heat warmed my core, even the part of me out of the water was unbothered by the cold. I was to the point where I had to find a bit of shade from a rock outcropping and raise my arms above the water to cool off. I hadn't put on any sunscreen, and I knew just standing there in the sun with the reflection from the snow would burn me to a crisp if given the chance. That didn't give me much opportunity to enjoy the springs because there was really no where to sit. The water was chest deep when walking, and I didn't want to wet my hair because then I'd be really cold afterwards. So in the end, I probably only stayed in there for about 15-20 minutes, and I was way too hot to enjoy it much longer anyway.

After changing back into my clothes (which was the most insufferable part, because my core was burning up and I had to put on 20 layers for the temps outside) I woke mom up and we started to drive back. I was still determined to get in a dog sled ride however, so we needed to find something today. I cursed my lack of internet service out here. Alaska had Verizon towers (while I had T-mobile), and Mom had Verizon, but not a smartphone. Curses! We knew, though, that we had passed a number of private dog sled places on the way up here, so we kept our eyes open for those signs coming back down.

The first one we saw, we turned into. I don't even know if it had a name. We just drove to these people's house, and saw all the outside kennels. (By the way, the dogs really do hang out on the roof of their huts!) Mom chose to stay in the truck again as I went in to see if I could procure a ride.[You could tell I was a tourist because of how careful I was on the icy ground. Of course, I also had an unprotected camera around my neck.]

I was in extreme luck. Turns out, they had a spot for a single rider right that moment, and it wasn't even as expensive as I'd feared - I think $60, which was a lot cheaper than Chena. He told me about Chena's dog sleds too, how they run them all day long every day. To run them often was good, but not to the amount that those guys did. So it made me happy that I hadn't signed up for that.

Pics of the ride:



The dogs were young, and we were probably only going about 7 mph, but it was a pretty good clip. A few times she stopped to correct the dogs, and the signals and words they knew were astounding. I think that was my favorite part - just how well trained they were, even so young. 

This video is just the informative bits while we were talking. Good facts about sledding! 

It was probably a good idea mom hadn't joined me, because it was pretty uncomfortable, and every time we went over a snow bump and the sled became airborne, it was a hard landing for sure. This was where the good advice of Jason (the tour guide) came in when he said that no one really needed more than a 30 minute ride on a dog sled. I'm glad I heeded that advice!



When that was all said and done, we made our way back to town and got ready for our last night in Alaska. Fairbanks was known for the World Ice Sculpting Championships being held there, and we were just in time to see some of the results, which will be in the next post!

Aurora Adventure (Night 2)

Alaska Adventure Day 1
Aurora Adventure Night 1
Chena Lodge Day 2


After that, it was time for the Aurora tour. 
The way they do it is they have these snowcats(they call them snow coaches. A very... loose term) that climb up the valley. At the top there were yerts to huddle in and to wait for the Aurora to appear.

I got to ride shotgun with the driver; there were only 3 extra seats in the driving coach and everyone else got to sit in the back sans real windows. I'm very glad I didn't have to do that because I might have gotten ill. The ride up was kind of scary; I wasn't sure if we were purposely moving back and forth to get traction, or if we were sliding from side to side. Either way, it made me a bit uneasy.

We made it to the top, and it was the most disappointing thing you could imagine. It was freezing. Like, maybe -1 freezing, and the yert still had to be heated up with the wood stove. There were only plastic chairs inside, no tables, no couches, no electricity, no WINDOWS. 

Granted, the driver started up a propane tank and heated some water and offered hot chocolate and coffee and cup noodles and oatmeal. That was nice. And I almost decided on some coffee but first I had to use their restroom (yes I went before we took off I'm not an idiot). Turns out the ground is too cold to dig a proper outhouse so instead of a nice big hole, there's a garbage bag. Yes, you heard me. A garbage bag. Thank god I was the first one to use it. At that point I decided against any liquids. 

I could only stand outside for maybe 10 minutes at a time. My fingers started to freeze off. I was doing okay with the parka I'd bought with the snow pants, but I bought my gloves on my ability to articulate my fingers in relation to my camera, so they weren't very efficient. 

While I was waiting for the Aurora, I took some shots of the stars and also tried to capture the Milky Way.

Look! A baby aurora that surprised me, as it wasn't visible with eyesight alone

The Aurora hadn't shown up almost all night. I stayed inside most of the time, relying on others to let everyone know when the Aurora came out. And at almost 2am, when the tour was going to be over, it decided to show itself.

Again, it was very light, barely visible just by watching. It looked much cooler with a 20-second exposure.

I feel extremely lucky to not only have seen the Aurora twice, but to experience each one so drastically different. What was to turn out as an utterly horrible night (never do this tour, I beg you. Alaska Aurora Tours is a much better option), became quite wonderful in the end.

The next day would prove to be yet another great adventure!

My Whole30 Journey

As some of you may be aware, I've been struggling with weight my entire life. As a child, I was always more overweight than all the other children; I couldn't participate in many activities. As an adult, I ballooned up to over 300 lbs. Not even my own wedding could convince me to get off my ass and lose some weight before the big day. My self worth and self esteem were in shambles. I've documented my argument for hCG here. And using it, I lost over 100 lbs. But, it's an extremely hard diet, and kind of expensive, and technically not legal.

However, thanks to hCG I've (mostly) been able to keep my weight down. I'm now at 185 lbs. I've been trying to eat healthy; making my own food and documenting what I eat in myfitnesspal, along with seeing a nutritionist every month. Whole grains, lean protein, lots of water, etc, and I've started to exercise. But after about 4 months of my scale not budging an inch, I began to get very frustrated. How is it that my body burns 1680 calories a day just by being alive, and I eat less than that an exercise, but the weight doesn't come off? (True, sometimes I'd go nuts in the break room and have treats. It's always been my downfall.)

And then I read the article about The Biggest Loser (found here). Basically the jist of the article says that after extreme weight loss, your metabolism PERMANENTLY slows, and now the contestants barely eat enough to stay alive, exercise, and gain weight. Even though learning the information about their metabolism may have been liberating for them, it was depressing for me. What if, because of hCG, I was stuck in this too? What if the scale my nutritionist uses to calculate how many calories my body burns in a day is off, and it's actually less? And I am over-eating every day and the exercise just burns that and helps me maintain? I needed to do something, and no - more exercise was not the answer for me. 

Then, my co-worker Beverly told me that her doctor recommended The Whole30 to her. At first, I scoffed. Cut out dairy, grains, and sugar? Dairy is where I get most of my protein from in the form of babybell cheeses and greek yogurts. And I knew from experience that eating carbs in the morning (in the form of my healthy breakfast bar) keeps me full better than protein does. But as I was reading the book, I saw the science in what they were saying. Mainly, The Whole30 is an elimination diet. Get rid of the foods that might be causing inflammation in your body, or irritation, swelling, tiredness, sleeplessness, what-have-you, for 30 days. And when you're all clean, slowly re-introduce them back into your life and try to get a feel of how the foods treat you. 

That's not the main reason I wanted to do this, though. It's technically a "side effect" to lose weight on this diet. By eliminating all the sugars and added sugars from the foods and drinks we consume, it forces your body to use fat as its main source of fuel. Thus, the weight comes off. Artificial sweeteners are my weakness. I remember, after doing hCG and then eating out, how fracking sweet sweets were, and how damn salty all the packaged foods have become. I still hold that sensitivity to salts, but my sweet tooth needs to be reset. And I'm hoping to keep Splenda completely eliminated from my at-home diet even when this is all said and done. I've dropped putting crystal light in my water and am now used to drinking it without flavorints. I don't know how coffee will go, though. I'm not addicted to caffeine so quitting the coffee habit was easy. I've tried and failed before to drink it black or with just a splash of milk. So I'll do my 30 days, and see if I can stomach black coffee.

The other thing that intimidated me about this 30-day plan (besides having to cut out artificial sweeteners - this includes mints and gum by the way!!!!!) was the amount of cooking I knew I had to do. And the amount of money I was going to need to spend in order to get it going. It's insane. I don't see anyone living a normal life within this 30 days. I don't want to scare anybody off, though. I'm used to cooking my meals but even this was beyond stressful to me. Here are some facebook posts I made last Sunday about the process:

It was hard work. I didn't want to touch food every again after that day. But, once I got it all prepped, now all I have to do is keep up, and that's quite a bit easier. It sounds totally awesome-tasting though, doesn't it? I already liked sweet potatoes but never really bought them for myself. Now I am in love with my fries and that garlic aioli (which is about the easiest thing in the world to make). That brisket was as amazing as you can get non-smoked, and that was the best tomato sauce I have ever made.

Quitting all the bad stuff wasn't as hard as I'd feared, and probably because I was already eating pretty healthily before this all began. I still want gum. God I want gum. But that's about it. I also miss drinking my crystal light lemonade. But, I've learned to like a couple of green and oolong teas without sugar. I think I'm slowly getting more energetic. I feel a lot less lethargic this weekend than I have in the past. I've taken a week off from exercising (YAY!) to allow my body to adjust to the changes, and I'll be back at it come Monday. The last day of my Whole30 is on June 14th, which is, consequently, the same day as my nutrition appointment and that bloody scale. I can't wait to see if this works.

Wish me luck! 

Update
Completion

Chena Lodge (Day 2)

Alaskan Adventure (Day 1)

Aurora Adventure (Night 1)

The original plan had been to do everything Chena had to offer in one day, including things like snowmobiling (snowmachine), dog mushing, Ice Museum tour, the hot springs, and ending with their Aurora tour. Unfortunately, due to having such a late night prior coupled with mom being sick, that didn't quite pan out. Instead, we slept in until almost 10am (Woohoo almost 7 hours! Score!) and got a ride from Enterprise to pick up our rental vehicle for the rest of the trip.

Pro tip: If you intend on traveling to a place that you know needs a big truck in the middle of winter, like say, Fairbanks, AK, pre-order their tiny car and get a free upgrade.

Not all the rental places only had trucks, but this Enterprise in Fairbanks was tiny-ass. As in, "we have 3 vehicles to choose from and they're all trucks", tiny-ass. So yeah, free upgrade to their Dodge RAM 4WD. In blood red; my favorite color.

Side note: Dodge RAMs have this really weird key fob. Turns out said key fob is the key to start the vehicle. Also turns out the actual key they give you that looks like a key is for the tailgate. Mom had to call and ask how to start the truck because originally they had started it for us. We laughed the rest of the trip at our stupidity. 

Anyway I'm getting way off course here. We decided to drive down to North Pole (Not the North Pole - the town will quickly correct you) to check out Santa Claus House. It was pretty neat, but I've never been a super Christmas-y person. I'm in it for the family get-togethers and gift giving; the whole decorating thing I find expensive and pointless [says the Spock inside me]. 

I did find a shot glass and a pretty ring there, though, so it was worth it for me. The part I liked even more was the ice sculpture drive-thru area next to the Reindeer farm (which was closed for the season, unfortunately!)  

After that quick jaunt to North Pole, we drove up to Chena around 3-ish, which is 40 miles away from Fairbanks. This is the point that I tell you that mom almost ran over a red squirrel and that was the only time I saw anything besides the bird on the whole trip.

We arrived at the Chena activity center and phased-warped to Japan. Seriously. There were more Japanese people than Americans. All the signage was in both English and Japanese. They had Japanese-only tours. It seemed strange that it was Japanese-specific. Why Japan? Turns out...

This was in their bathroom. With the heated toilet seat. My favorite feature of the whole lodge.

It's apparently not that far from Alaska?? 

Anyway, since we'd arrived so late, we didn't have time to do much, so I signed us up for the ice museum tour and the Aurora tour for later. 

The ice museum was kind of cool. Due to geothermal energy, they are able to keep the structure below 32 degrees all year long, even in the heat of summer, and with 30+ people inside at once.

They had an ice bar that served an apple martini in an ice glass that you could pre-purchase (mom and I did not partake), and 4 rooms each with an ice bed and other small items, plus sculptures throughout. Including a playable xylophone. 

After the ice museum tour we had some time to kill, so we checked out the hot springs and saw that they had laid out a nice long, covered ramp into the water to ease my fears of having to run half naked through the snow and jump in feet first before you froze to death. We were planning on coming back tomorrow to try it. In the meantime, we decided to have a nice meal in their lodge. I had their rib eye steak and it was pretty darn good. We also checked out their gift shop where I ended up buying David something he already had (figures).

Then it was tine to check in for our Aurora Tour! Check it out in my next post!

Aurora Adventure (Night 1)

Read part 1 here.

So, we reach Fairbanks about 9pm and Jason called in an order for some pizzas for dinner to pick up on the way back to his property at North Pole.

Just some background here: Auroras are very finicky. They're an unpredictable phenomena and even when NOAA gives us the deets on a solar flare heading our way and website claims that it will come out that night doesn't mean it will. And even if it does, it's still flighty - appearing for short bursts and disappearing and returning randomly throughout the night. There's also weather to consider, of course. I had a lot going against me when I booked the flight for basically the sole purpose of an Aurora sighting. It was a long shot, but luckily, it was one that paid off.

Now first of all, a comment on Alaska Aurora Adventures - the name of the tour company Jason and his wife run. Small groups are great for one thing. But this Aurora viewing house he has was wonderful. It had electricity, a flat screen TV, a wood stove to keep us warm, a nice kitchen, chairs, tables, a couple of couches, and a fully functional plumed bathroom. This may not seem luxurious to most - probably expected. However you'd be singing a different tune if you ever go on the Chena Lodge Aurora tour, which I'll tell you about in another post.

So we settled in the cabin and a few more people joined us, including two Australian men who I could just listen to talk all night long. Jason brings us outside at about 10pm to show us a few different locations to shoot some good photos on his property, and already the Aurora decided to show up a little bit. It was very faint at first but started to become stronger. I set my camera in a few locations to get some shots.

These pictures I am going to show you may look epic, and they are nice, but my lens wasn't focused the entire night, so if you blow them up to size, the stars are very blurry.

Another interesting thing to note about Auroras is that they are not as visible to the naked eye as they are on a lens with a 20-second exposure. This was also a very mild storm - probably a 2-3 on the scale, so with only your eyes it was still fairly faint and the lines moved slowly.

It then disappeared for a while and I had to take a nap at one of the tables as it was difficult to stay awake for so long. There was nothing to do in the cabin besides chat with people (which I don't do because introvert) and wait for it to come back. Jason's wife brought cookies which I completely missed out on while asleep, but then when the Aurora came back around 1am, I was ready.

This time it came back stronger. This is probably my favorite shot, however this one -

- Looking like a rainbow over Jason's house, is a close second.

You know, in all honesty, I don't think I was really awestruck by the whole thing like I expected to be. I was so concerned with 

1. Setting up my camera for the best possible shot

and 

2. Not freezing to death

Considering what you see with the naked eye is a lot less impressive than the photos, it was difficult just to sit there and watch it. I wanted to capture it. I've always been that way - being so concerned with getting something on film that I miss the actual experience of it. But I don't regret it one bit.

I really wish my lens had been focused though, because then I could go and take some of these to be printed and hung. Instead they will have to be appreciated in a small size on my computer!

Around 2am the tour was officially over, and we were driven back to our respective hotels. Mom wasn't feeling very well, as she's been fighting pneumonia for over a month and had been on a few rounds of antibiotics already to fend it off. The wood stove exasperated her symptoms as did the lack of sleep. We didn't get in our beds until after 3am, completely exhausted. The next day was going to prove to be a challenge!

Alaskan Adventure (Day 1)

All of this goodness is way too long for a single blog post. I'd probably bore half of you to death since it's more about me journaling than making it interesting for others to read (sorry, peeps! It's how I roll). 

I could almost say that if you ever intend to go to Fairbanks, AK for a vacation then read this blog, but I can't because apparently their winter has been so mild this year that 17 degrees midday in March is practically balmy. We did not have a "true Alaskan experience" thank God, because I probably wouldn't have survived. 

I say "we" because I invited my mom to go with me. Truth be told, I didn't know anyone that could afford to travel this trip alongside me, and mom had to decline at first because she couldn't really afford to go either, until the next day when dad won at the casino and handed her $500 in an envelope that said "Alaska" on it. (It's okay, go ahead and say "awwwwww!" I'll wait.)

Our flight departed Seattle after 7pm on Thursday March 3rd, and we rolled back the clock an hour once we landed in Fairbanks over 3 hours later. That airport was so tiny it was probably smaller than some mansions I've seen on TV. Our hotel was a mere two miles away, and taxis were waiting outside to drive people to their destinations. Apparently it's cheaper for hotels here to flat rate taxis to drive patrons to their hotel than to own a shuttle. My first ride in a taxi was in a city smaller than Puyallup. Go figure.

We stayed at the Best Western Chena River which was in a perfect part of town, and the rooms were quite nice, with continental breakfast, free wifi (Thank goodness since I didn't have any service outside the hotel!) and even an elevator to get us up to the 2nd floor.

Starting at 10am the next morning, we were already pre-booked for an Arctic Circle tour that our guide, Jason, was going to take us on using the old Dalton Highway; or as some of you might know it as the famous road from Ice Road Truckers.

Of course, with the mild winter they've had, the road wasn't nearly so dangerous, although there were plenty of icy spots. 

This is where I found out that Alaska is rather unsightly. My background consists of living in one of the greenest places in North America, with gorgeously huge forests of Fir trees in an endless expanse of lakes and waterfalls. They don't call Washington the Evergreen State for nothing. I've been in Eastern WA and it looks a lot like death. In fact, very similar to Alaska's interior, with more rolling hills than mountains, and 200 year old trees that are barely 6 feet tall and scrubby as hell thanks to the permafrost. Beauty means different things to different people, and some people find deserts and/or tundra gorgeous, but I just don't. I was expecting Alaska to be more like Washington; oh well! 

Although I have to admit, I did grab a few gorgeous shots.

Our first tour stop was the Alaskan Pipeline. I tried to be artistic with my shot.

Mapwise, we weren't driving very far in order to reach the Arctic Circle, but visitors constantly seem to forget that Alaska is bigger than the state of Texas. What does not seem far on a map took over 4 hours by road, and we weren't even going half way to the other end of Alaska.

This depressingly beautiful map will put it in perspective for you.


As will this equally depressing road sign. (Found where Dalton Highway starts, which is shortly after passing Livengood).

I took some pictures once we reached the Yukon River, and it became a running gag about whether people would realize I was taking a picture of a river, or just a place where the trees don't grow.

As expansive as Alaska is, I was actually rather surprised about how little pristine, untouched snow their was. Up at say, Mount Rainier National Park, you would see tons of untouched powder, and then occasional footprints. Here, it was all about snowmobile tracks (they call them snowmachines up there; probably because they don't need actual snowmachines) or marred by animal tracks everywhere. And to make matters worse, the only animal I saw besides birds on the whole trip was a squirrel mom almost ran over with our rental truck. Figures.

We had been traveling in a van with 6 young 20-something male Asians (whom some were from LA) and one older woman from Virginia named Judy, who had rode shotgun the entire way up to the AC (Arctic Circle), and our guide seemed to make her very nervous with his driving habits, including straddling the middle line because there was no ice there. He had a CB radio and kept in contact with the truckers on the road, which I found fascinating. We had a conversation on the way back (when I rode shotgun because Judy was too freaked out) about how most of the Alaskan shows on the air these days were probably 50% fake. The truckers on Dalton highway are actually very nice. Jason would say something to the effect of "Northbound oil tanker, I'm right behind you, let me know when it's safe to pass". In fact, one stunt that made Judy upset was passing on a double yellow because the trucker said it was safe. I was not scared of Jason's driving in the least, in fact I found him a respectable driver and was very informative about Alaska in general - he gave us several good tips including how to take good Aurora photos and how it wasn't necessary to go on a dog mushing tour for more than a half hour (I'll explain why in another post!)

When we reached the AC, celebrations were abound because it was a very long drive, and Jason had the Gray Jays literally eating out of his hand during lunch.

The air outside was probably 0 degrees with the wind chill. Even with all my new gear it was hard to stay out there for too long.

There wasn't anything to see besides the sign, really, and an outhouse to pee in. But, we got a certificate and it is still awesome 

to say that I had traveled to the Arctic Circle.















Wow. I actually didn't expect for this post to be so long... (sorry for the awful editing, sometimes blogger can be a pain in the ass!) I should probably save Friday night for another post! Join me next time as Jason drives us back to his place for a night of fun. *grin*