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the_random_laura
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Name: Laura
Birthday: 8/14/1982
Gender: Female
Interests: living my life surrounded by music, spending time exploring God's great outdoors, books by madeleine l'engle, good coffee, thoughts by henri nouwen, adventures and good laughs with friends, musings by annie dillard, helping people cultivate hope and bring resolution to crisis, cultivating a deeper faith...
Expertise: giving shots to panicking children, over analyzing people, situations, and life in general, telling random stories from my random life, singing harmony to Cat Stevens, surviving winters in Alaska
Occupation: Medical
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/17/2004
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| Well, after a long hiatus, I have returned to xanga. This is greatly due to prompting by Joe, and the prompts seemed to have some validity to them, so here I am. There are many stories that could be told since I last posted, but I will keep to one story only. And that story took place on New Year's Eve. In order to appreciate the story on New Year's Eve, we must first back up to December 29, a date that is now significant, because it is the day that Mike and I got engaged! Yeah! I would have posted pictures of the snowshoeing adventure where it took place, but my camera is broken. So, when a new camera has been purchased, re-enactment pictures will be taken, although the original location may have to be modified slightly. Anyway, the plan was to tell most people in Fairbanks on New Year's Eve since we were going to be seeing a lot of people. The first event of the evening was a firework's display at Friends Church. Mike had been out on an overnight rabbit hunt/retreat with guys from church. He ended up arriving back in Fairbanks quite a bit later than expected, so he called and said that he would get dropped off at the church and meet up with me there. Sounded simple enough. There were a few hundred people at the event, and it was a fairly impressive fireworks display. About half way through the display, Mike called, stating that he'd just been dropped off in the parking lot and was waiting at my car. I let him know I was on my way. I thankfully found my car in the maze of the parking lot in short order, and there was Mike. We loaded his .22 and camo hunting bag into the trunk, and he told me that he'd left his string of rabbits with the guys from church, which I was very thankful for. We then headed back into the crowd to find our friends. We had only gone a few steps when we saw the pastor of Friends heading towards the parking lot on his cell phone. He knows Mike somewhat, so stopped us, and asked if we'd by any chance just seen a man with a gun hiding it in a car. Mike was taken aback, and stated that he'd just been rabbit hunting, got dropped off with all of his gear, and put it in my car. The pastor was visibly relieved, and immediately started calling on his cell phone that the situation had been put under control. Apparently, someone had seen Mike, freaked out since there had been a shooting in the neighborhood earlier this year, and began calling men of the church about a gunman on the scene. Thankfully the situation got resolved before the cops were called in. All this to say, Mike felt horrible at the scene he had begun to cause. Moral of the story is, don't show up to a public event with a visible gun, even in Fairbanks. Poor Mike. And he was by then so shaken up that telling people about our engagement was just too much for him, so I spent the rest of our evening there with my mittens on, hiding the evidence of the engagement, and Mike worked on recovering from his little unintentional faux pas. What can I say, but Happy New Year!
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| Well, it's been awhile. Things have been busy, I have been pseudo homeless, and am still looking for permanent housing. I went on a crazy raft trip with Mike and his parents, and would send pictures, except that my camera got wet, and gave up the ghost. These pictures are thanks to a random disposable camera that was found under the seat of my car...
I just had to let you see that the garden has produced fruit in a BIG way!
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| I have had good intentions of publishing a few Alaskan adventure pictures, and have finally been spurred on to actually do so! The Atigun Pass trip was the first official adventure of summer, and a great way to set the standard for fun under the midnight sun! Thankfully we have the midnight sun, as we did not leave Fairbanks until 10:30 PM on Friday, and still the sun was shining and off we went. The temps were in the 60s all the way up to Atigun Pass which over 50 miles north of the arctic circle. The sun shone, the bears were close but stayed away, the vehicle made it there and back with no chipped windshields or flat tires, the camping was excellent, and the company on the trip was fantastic! Highlights of the trip included our excellent camping sites, one of world's best hamburgers at Hotspot Cafe, climbing around Finger Rock, our amazing campfire site, making tea with Joe's Jetboil during a rainstorm in the vehicle, and our mini church service in the wilderness. I will definitely take any and all of you back up there... all you have to do is ask!
Here is our campsite above the arctic circle. Bear tracks were only a few feet from our tent the next morning, but we slept peacefully despite their proximity.
It's not every day you can take a picture next to the farthest north spruce tree in Alaska! Unfortunately vandals killed it...
One of the most stunning scenes along the drive.... Joe is ready to go back and climb it, and can you blame him?
I made it!
Finger Rock
The Yukon River- isn't it gorgeous?
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| 80 degrees above zero and sunshine! big time thunderstorms- yeah for letting God water the garden. a killer bikeride in which we rode downhill for about 15 minutes, and spent the next 45 minutes trying to get back up to the top the beach at chena lakes earl grey tea ice cream- it's way better than you might have guessed a talk by Dr. Toon, an Anglican evangelist on God as The Father- very interesting, and may have more thoughts on this later church and seeing my old roommate, her husband, and very adorable baby Fertilizing and weeding the garden with friends, and discovering that the carrots really did come up and are actually doing well! touring through world's smallest cabin ever at 8x10 feet, and deciding that the good price was not worth it, then getting more serious about a real house search very tasty peach cobbler and grilled chicken kabobs if only the weekend lasted a little longer | | |
| Sitting inside a frigid, air conditioned clinic with no clients, looking out the window at sunshine, and warmth, and new leaves. These are the days when I wish for my old summer life working for the park service, and ponder if there would be any possible way to see clients while outside on the lawn... But alas, it seems that confidentiality might be an issue. The good news is, it's FRIDAY and I only have to be here for seven more hours... | | |
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