After almost 2 months of being in Alaska we finally made our way to Alyeska, the almost local ski resort. We got a gift card to the resort from my family for Christmas and lucky for us, we had a few days off together so we decided to go for it. Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal for skiing, but we didn't care, (of course, here in Alaska it is never ideal weather)! The forecast was for temperatures from -10 to 0 degrees, but we had made the reservations and had the time off so we went for it anyway. Even the locals were talking about how it was too cold to go skiing. Our first day was a steamy -4 degrees with a light misty snow. Everything exposed to the air got covered with a thin layer of frost. This included my manly Alaskan beard. Poor Kelli was doing everything in her power to stay warm with her layers and hot hands, but by the time we made it to the top of the lift, her fingers and toes were burning and numb. Luckly, the view from the top of the mountain was worth all the pain inflicted by the cold. Our first day of skiing was fairly short because Kelli was unable to stand the cold for very long. We ended our night with a wonderful dinner at the Jack Sprat restaurant. Since I had not slept in over 24 hours, we called it a night early and went to the room and finished off a bottle of champagne for our belated new years celebration. 
Day two started with a great buffet breakfast. Anyone who knows the Stannards, knows that we love buffets. The weather outside was beautiful. Clear with not a cloud in the sky, but along with clear skies come colder temperatures. Today's temp at the base of the mountain was -9 degrees. We have no idea how cold it was on the top, but I can tell you that it was much colder. We took lots of pictures from the top of the mountain and were even lucky enough to have a nice man take one of the both of us. Although not ready for the black diamond runs yet, we did venture down some of the more intermediate level trails, which allowed us to have longer runs. It would take us about 20 minutes to make one run down the slope which is much different than the 4 minutes for the green, or easy, trails. We chose to call it a day when we both felt like our ankles and knees were ready to give out. We loaded things up and headed back for home. We had a great time and feel one step closer to being real Alaskans after fighting through the cold even when the true locals were staying indoors.
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