how we roll

Katia was NOT happy to see Santa 

Noah WAS happy to see him

I love how little she was on the seats. And her little black shoes. 

When on a road trip, I like to have one rule set in place,  and that is to be flexible and spontaneous (okay fine, that was two rules), but hear me out.

We hit the road bright and early on Friday morning to head to Fairbanks Alaska for some groceries and Christmas shopping (plus a few extra things). We did our research before going so that we'd know what we wanted to do while there (Barnes and Noble, the best restaurants, the Nutcracker to name a few). It was such a treat to head out of our little IP and be surrounded by an actual city (small as it may be to others), and to have such fun places at our disposal.

On the recommendation of a friend, we decided to stay at the Courtyard Marriott which was nearby all the stores we wanted to shop at. It was a great place for the kids especially, with a pool and free breakfast. Also, I was able to sneak off one night across the street to the book store and go shopping while having a coffee, what a luxury!

While in Fairbanks we decided to try out a few restaurants that had been featured on the Food Network. It was kind of exciting to have seen the restaurants on TV and then go try them out. My favourite place was called the Silver Gulch. It is a brewery just outside of Fairbanks that makes delicious beer (we sampled some) and great food. It is a family friendly restaurant (they had colouring pages and kid's cups), but the food is a step above  "family friendly". I had a thin crust pizza with blue cheese, pears, spring greens, caramelized onions and walnuts (I paired in with the blueberry beer!)- delish!

On Sat afternoon we went to the local production on the Nutcracker, which really got us in the Christmas spirit. It was fun for us all to get dressed up and to go out to an event together. Of course Katia fell asleep in the second act and by the end, Noah was sighing (really loudly), but still it was fun for us all to go. I just love little Christmas outfits on little ones.

A few other exciting things from our trip. Seeing Santa, craft store shopping, more restaurants, Starbucks coffee, and second hand shopping!

And here is where my rule for road trips comes into play. On our way out of town, we saw on the side of the road, an ice sculpture exhibit. I had heard of this when I had done my research, but to tell you the truth, I was weary of adding too much to our itinerary (we did have a lot of shopping to do), so I decided to forgo it.

It was just after dinner and we were about to start the drive home (with very full bellies after a good dinner out), when we thought it might be a nice idea to walk off our dinner and check out the park. And good thing we did~! It was so much more than just sculptures (which were really cool btw). The park had at least 8 ice slides (one with a runway for sleds), a snow maze (with a gorgeous Santa in the middle), spinning ice chairs and more! The kids loved it, both Wisnlow and I had never seen them enjoy being outdoors in the winter so much as they did when we were there! Christmas in Ice, North Pole, Alaska. 

And that was our trip to Fairbanks. One downside to being spontaneous on our trip, was that we didn;t get home until 3 am, and boy are we paying for it today. Winslow says joking all the time, " you can sleep when you're dead". Ha!

xox

I brought home a little treat for myself. I enjoyed it when no one else was looking ;)