11 May

Northern Comfort Fairbanks Style

The morning after the BIG (pre)Grad party. Kristen's professor/advisor/mentor and his wife hosted a wonderful Fajita BBQ Dinner Party at their house Saturday night! We ate, we drank, we ate some more, we opened gifts, we popped party poppers, we got competitive on their Wii Fit game... Can you believe that silly game labeled me as "UNBALANCED!!!" geeze. Thank you Jeremy and Shelby. Kristen is lucky to have such a wonderful and caring support network at UAF.



The BEST coffee in Fairbanks! There are double lines on both sides of the Sunrise Hut, 3+ cars deep... I know you're thinking "is this the only place to get coffee in Fairbanks?!" Hey, there are a lot of choices, but trust us, this is hands down the best. Their breakfast sandwiches to go are yummy too. My guess is, as with any college town, caffeine is a vital food source...


University of Alaska Fairbanks 87th Commencement Ceremony 2009
Sunday, May 10 ~ John A. Carlson Center
Over 1,000 graduates were recognized.
The perfect way to spend Mother's Day (after a lovely brunch)!


University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences presents.... Kristen Shake and her beau, Nelson Crone with their Bachelor of Science degrees in Geography and Environmental Studies. Kristen will be staying at UAF to complete her Graduate work in Chemical Oceanography and Nelson (a Golden Key Honor Society member) is heading home to Pennsylvania for a brain break!
Congratulations!

All the family members who made the trip stayed at Pikes Waterfront Lodge. We had a block of rooms that were really nice. This was the first time we'd stayed here at the popular Lodge on the Chena River. It's very close to the Fairbanks airport and UAF. We were lucky to have just beat the tourist rush by one day. Bus loads (I mean BUS LOADS) of rail and cruise ship passengers will start arriving today. The large mama and baby moose out front will be flower topiary's in a couple of weeks -but the temps need to warm up at least 20+ more degrees!

We are just outside of Denali National Park. This is a shot from the car as we are heading back home to Anchorage Sunday night, it's about 10:00 pm and there is still lots of daylight and dry road to get us home. 
As we arrived in Anchorage it was a beautiful ending to a very fun road trip.
Congratulations Kristen, we are proud of you and love you!

6 comments:

Anji Gallanos said...

You should be proud!!!! What a great experience for a perfect mother's day!!

Anji

cindy shake said...

Hi Anji, thank you :o) hope you had a wonderful mother's day with the boyz!

ang design said...

just brilliant scenery hope you enjoyed it all...excellent write up too..still light at 10pm wierd...its dark here now at 6pm and i dont like it...

cindy shake said...

Hi Ang, you need to come and live in the "Land of the Midnight Sun" but oops, you wouldn't be too happy during the looong winter months (Nov.-March) when it gets dark in the afternoons! We're LOVING all of the daylight now, almost 18 hours of it -almost makes up for the dark, cold winters :o))

Cynthia said...

Congratulations to Kristen and her Beau! Fantastic - I wish the same for my daughter in the future. You must be really proud.

Alaska is gorgeous!!

cindy shake said...

hi Cynthia! thank you for the kind words. Yes, AK is pretty incredible, especially this time of year :o) During the road trip my husband and I were just saying it is hard to believe there is such a complete transformation with the seasons.

... maybe in a couple of years we'll see pictures of you wearing the cap and gown(?) :o)