Summertime Fun in Alaska's Winter

Friday evening the girls and I (including Tess's friend, Becky) spent the afternoon at the beach. Okay, the concrete beach, but still... warm humid air, lots of chlorinated water, waves and splashing fun.

H2Oasis claims to be the 5th largest indoor waterpark in the US. And it sits right here in Anchorage, Alaska. Yay for us!

Tess received 4 passes to the waterpark for her September birthday. We were waiting for just the right time to use them. The right time apparently involved lots of darkness, heaps of snow, and chilly temperatures outdoors to make the indoor beach seem just that much more appealing.

It really was a lot of fun. Even Alicia May had a great time sliding off the pirate's ship and splashing around in the 1-foot surf. She didn't want to leave the water to grab a bite to eat upstairs. But we managed to convince her to partake of some of her favorite foods of ketchup (for which french fries make a convenient serving utensil) and ice cream.

We had intended to stay for several hours, but it only took a couple hours for Alicia May to be overstimulated to the point of meltdown. When she started bossing kids around and crying more than laughing, it was time to wrap things up... We rinsed off the chlorine, changed out of our swimming diaper and into our normal one and dry clothes. We bundled back into our coats and boots and headed for home. This waterpark is on the way back to our house from the ski resort. I think lots of folks stop there after a day on the slopes. I saw a pair of snowboard boots on the rack as we entered. I'm thinking we might do this the next time we hit the slopes.

For those who are interested, this facility is pretty wheelchair accessible. They have ramps to all areas and an elevator to the upper level where the food service is located.

Oh say can you see?

It was a balmy 32 degrees or so yesterday. To celebrate, Alicia, Tess, her friend Becky, and I went swimming! I'll post more about this later once I get the film developed...

In the meantime, aren't these lovely photos? Both were taken as I zipped along the Glenn Highway. One demonstrates how cloudcover can rapidly turn our short daylight hours into longer darkness....

These mountains are a range we see everyday (unless they're shrouded by darkness or clouds). It's my hope that we don't ever not see them due to over familiarity. Right now, each time I see them, covered with snow, glistening in the sunlight, I'm just blown away by their majesty. Majesty... that word just suits them better than any other. But I wonder if my adoration might someday become glazed over by monotony. It would be a sad sad thing to be sure.

Who needs light? Heat will suffice!

The winds were whipping last night at our house. All the snow on the back deck has been drifted around till it resembles a white Sahara. Amusing to watch as you sat inside being thankful that you weren't outside....

However, our power kept flickering on and off and finally settled for "off" at around 9:30pm. So as we went to bed without heat and wondering if it would cut back on before we had to start eating up all the food in the fridge(s)... we were scolding ourselves for being underprepared for this (or any other) sort of emergency.

Back in Virginia, I had stockpiled tubs of food, powdered milk, drinking water and other emergency supplies in case of a bird flu epidemic. And now, here we sit at the gateway for bird flu and other sorts of emergency situations without so much as a battery operated radio! We were able to muster up a couple of flashlights the baby had yet to drain the batteries of.

At around 4am the power was still out and Stephen started a fire in the upstairs fireplace to warm up the living area. I called the power company and was told it may be another hour or so, at least that was their hope.

I went back to bed wondering how I was going to go to work at 7am without a shower and leaving my baby in the care of a 16 year old boy with no electricity, water, heat, etc....

The power popped on at 5:45am and I sunk into deep sleep full of odd dreams for the next 45 minutes. Hopefully the power stays on at least till I can get home at 11:30 this morning. I'm only working a half day.

Post-Holiday Shopping

Keep those cards and letters coming...


This is where we get our mail. It's among a whole row of mailboxes just down the hill from our house. I guess the post office policy of "through rain and snow and wind and hail" doesn't include slippery roads. The same goes for school buses in our neighborhood of course.

So far, not a lot of itching from chicken pox girl. So I'm starting to wonder if it really is the chicken pox. It resembles more of a rash than anything else, but it's covering most of her torso. Hmmm.


We went shopping at the mall last night after Stephen got off work and Donald got out of his movie with his girlfriend who was catching a flight last night. The kids had Christmas money and gift cards to spend. All in all, it was a nice shopping excursion. Tess got some new basketball sneakers and a big American Eagle bag of clothing. Donald got a pre-wrinkled plaid flannel shirt from the Gap and a Nike ball cap. Alicia May got her first Nordstrom's bag filled with on-sale socks. :o) We're thinking she'll be a Nordstrom-type girl. We'll have to venture to the other, bigger mall to go to the Baby Gap and use her gift card...


PS Happy Birthday Aunt Dorothy!
PPS I've put some new photos on the dropshots page...

Happy Boxing Day!

Dog Sled Training 101
Instructor: Little Bit

Chicken Pox Girl is still spotty, but not completely uncomfortable. So we're hoping for the best. I will be running out to the store today to pick up some oatmeal bath. Just in case...

Right now she's running around with her new little rolling pin and a flashlight. She got some fun little pots and pans (real metal!) and a mini-whisk and wooden spoon. She was whipping up a cake for Daddy last night. I expect her to have toy overload any time now. Some Christmas, maybe we'll get back to the one new toy thing. Like they did way back when... Something nice and memorable. Like an ipod. :o)

Stephen's back at work today. But the rest of us are home. I have to work tomorrow and half of Thursday. Looks like we'll be doing interviews for that Fairbanks position over the phone tomorrow so I won't be flying up there in January as previously planned. Oh well. I may still head up there in March for the Alaska GIS Conference.

Merry Christmas!

I took this photo prior to losing the camera on Saturday...
We've had a lovely holiday. Everyone received nice gifts. We were blessed to have plenty of good food and drink and mostly good health.
I say "mostly" because Alicia May did wake up with the chickenpox this morning. However, they don't seem to be bothering her much yet. But it does explain her fever of a couple days ago!
It didn't snow today, but we have about a foot of snow on the ground so I think that's sufficient to call it a white Christmas.
We did pick up some 35mm film to use in Tess's camera so we could take photos of Christmas. It's been a while since we had to actually get film developed in order to see the photos. If we don't recover our digital camera from the high school lost and found, we'll have to investigate replacing it.
We hope you are all having a wonderful, peaceful, holiday full of people who love you.
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Baby health update: She's fine! She had a fever for a couple days and woke up on Day 3 with a normal temperature. So she's back to her cute little self again.

Food talk: I'm 2 for 2 recently on the making of perfect boiled eggs! Yesterday I whipped up another batch in my standard, arbitrary timing method. And voila! Perfect again! Consistent light yellow hard boiled yolk and shells that peel off very nicely. Okay, it's the small things that keep us going...

This morning I colored my hair to deal with those solid grey roots... Back to dark blonde again! Yay!

I'm on my way to my LAST DAY at JCPenney! Double yay! This two job thing (especially during the holidays with 3 kids and a hubby at home...) has not been one of my better decisions! Live and learn.

We saw The Nativity Story last night as our final Red Night activity. I enjoyed it except that Alicia forgot her role of dozing off during the previews not to awaken till the final credits... But it worked out. FYI, Red Night is something we've done for a few years now. We make the standard Countdown Till Christmas construction paper chain out of various colors. When the link is red, we do something special that evening. In past years we've picked random activities out of a hat. This year I just made something logical up on the given day.

Happy Holidays!

Well, the baby's sick again. This time just with a fever. I took her to the doctor this morning and he doesn't seem to think it's too serious. Probably roseola or some other virus which will run it's course in 4-5 days. This is day 2. Her armpit temperature was 102 this morning. However, it hasn't decreased her appetite. She's just a little cranky every now and then. Hopefully, she'll be fully recovered by Christmas!

I hope you are all well and ready to have a great Christmas and New Year!

PS It was sort of nice coming in to work at 10am today, as it was almost daylight!

Solstice Greetings

Happy Winter Solstice! Tomorrow we should get about 30 seconds more of daylight... and it's all uphill from there!

I'm in a complete fog today and have been since last evening. I need to seriously catch up on some sleep!

Tess has her first basketball game tonight as does Donald. Tess is at 4:00 and Donald is at 7:30. According to Tess, she's on the starting lineup so that'll be cool. Hopefully they both get a lot of play time this season. I don't have to work at JCP until Saturday, so should be able to make both games. There's a 3-day tournament this weekend (including today's games). Then they don't play again till after the new year. Both kids are taking finals today and have tomorrow off from school for the holiday break.

Snow and Feast

It’s a comfortable, trudging snow today. Definitely lots of trudging going on around Anchorage. It wasn’t snowing when I arrived at work at 7am this morning. Thankfully. As I had to make 3 trips into the building with supplies for today’s Messenger Feast.

I was up until almost 1am last night preparing for today’s festivities. I baked two batches of yummy chocolate shortbread. (Sent one tin to Stephen’s office.) I finished making a little birchbark canoe for the gift exchange and wrapped that. I wrapped several “prizes” to be awarded for the “feats of strength”. And, I whipped up another batch of royal icing to do repair work on a crumbling gingerbread cabin. Of course I had to work at JCPenney’s last night, so I didn’t get to start any of these tasks till after 8:00pm….

At any rate, it’s snowing pretty good now. Just what you think of when you envision a snowy urban landscape. White flecks falling almost sideways beneath a grey-white dusky sky. Thick wading snow just over your shoe tops, easy to brush aside with your boots. Heads ducked to avoid snow in the eyes and swaddled in hoods, hats, and high-zipping coat fronts. A pleasant, trudging snow day.

I experienced the trudging firsthand as I made 3 reverse trips to reload my supplies in the van after a very well-received holiday potluck. A good time was had by all. There was plenty of good food and drink, fun gifts, and spectacular feats of strength. We chose to demonstrate 4 tradition native games which are actually events at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics held in Fairbanks (although in July 2007 they will be in Anchorage). The games we played were the Stick Pull, the One-Foot High Kick, the Toe Kick, and the One Hand Reach. The Stick Pull requires two people to sit facing one another with their feet pushing against the other’s feet. They grasp a stick between them and attempt to either pull the stick away from their opponent or unseat their opponent. This is supposed to replicate the strength involved in pulling a seal through a hole in the ice. It was a little difficult to determine a winner for this because the stick was snapped in two during the 2nd round! But to the victor we presented a little stuffed seal. A pair of toy mukluks (boots) were given to the best One-foot high kicker, etc….

I can see why a Messenger Feast would be a great way to break up the winter darkness and boredom! It was a lot of fun!

Messenger Feast

I'm in full planning mode for our office shindig tomorrow. My group is in charge of the December section meeting. It'll basically be a holiday potluck with a little "meeting" stuff tossed in.

I'm modeling it loosely on the idea of a Alaskan Native Messenger Feast. This feast was held in mid-winter by the Inupiaq people of northern Alaska. A messenger was sent out to neighboring communities to invite them to the feast where dancing, singing, feats of strength and gift-giving ensued.

Hopefully our rendition of this historic feast will be a success and bring some good cheer to all. Our gift-giving will be on an Alaskan theme. I'm making a little birchbark canoe to enter into the exchange.

5 hours 29 minutes

That's how much sunlight we're supposed to get today. This week we'll endure the longest night of the year. Then our sunlight hours will slowly start to increase. Yay!

It's snowing today (not heavily, but enough to be overcast and block out my precious sun just that much more!). Apparently, we're a little low on snowfall around here this year. Plow companies, ski resorts, and sled salesmen are feeling the pinch. Usually it's schoolkids doing the "snow dance" in other states where we've lived, in hopes of getting a day off from school. Here it's the weather forecasters and business-folk. I literally hear the term "snow dance" at least once a day...

The weather today is actually very pleasant. It's a mild 27 degrees or so. Light drifting snowfall, less than an inch expected. Strings of Christmas lights twinkle in the dusk all over the city. It's a winter wonderland really.

What's happening... :o)

We've been having issues with our at-home connection. And since, I've been out of work for most of last week, I apologize for the spotty posting...

We're back online at the house now...

Sick update: I'm better, Alicia's better, Stephen's on the mend, Tess started vomiting last night but will hopefully bounce back quickly, Donald has yet to show symptoms.

I got all the Christmas wrapping done this morning before anyone else staggered out of bed. I have two loaves of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bread in the oven in preparation for the Christmas potluck after church today.

Donald is no longer employed at the grocery store. His basketball practices and games were causing too much of a conflict.

By the way, I've recently moved to the new blogger version which apparently made it tricky for folks to leave comments... I've now changed a setting so anyone can comment, not just "registered users". So comment away! It makes me feel like someone cares!

Stockings hung with care...

I finished all five stockings a couple days ago. I've been off work for the past two days due to baby illness and daycare provider illness. Today, Stephen's home with Alicia as it's caught up with him.

Tonight we are supposed to go out to a Christmas dinner with Stephen's office. Then after that Tess is performing in her Christmas choir concert this evening at 8pm. Not sure how much of this we'll make.
But at least I got all of our boxes mailed these past two days and the stockings are hung!

Tummy problems

Home with sick toddler today. :o(

Alicia May woke up around 4:30am making a wretching sound. She's been regurgitating about once an hour ever since. Her daycare provider called around 6:30am to say she'd been throwing up all night... Hopefully it's short-lived!

I dropped the older kids off at school at 6:45am then zipped to the grocery store and gas station and back home by 8:00am so Stephen could go to work. He was complaining of stomach pains too, but was scheduled to go to Anchorage today on an inspection. Hope he's not sick too!

Mailing Address

Anyone who wants to send us a Christmas card...

25220 Schaff Drive
Chugiak, AK 99567

Moose :o)

Imagine my surprise when I attempted to cross the courtyard outside my office building this morning on my way in to work. (Folks here can tell I'm a foreigner...)
I forgot my purse and cell phone today... but I brought my camera! :o) For those unexpected bull moose sightings in downtown Anchorage. At least I think he's a bull. If not, she's one HUGE mama!

Apparently, this moose is a frequent visitor to our hedge in the winter. When I initially walked in, he was just on the other side of the bushes from me. I went back out for a second (distant) look with hopes of getting a better photo. I found using no flash at all worked better. You can just see his silhouette and the hump of his very tall shoulder. I figured minimizing the flash usage might also minimize my chances of being trampled... Always a plus.

Quilts and Trees

Tess had her 2nd quilt class last night. She’s making great progress on her quilt and is really enjoying seeing it come together. Her instructor said she is a great student. I dropped her off last night at the class and picked her up 3 hours later when it ended. I’ll post a photo of her quilt when it’s complete. (That won’t be for a little while, so don’t go holding your breath or anything…)

On other news, we made a little Christmas progress yesterday. The tree is now redecorated. I can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but the real tree we bought the weekend after Thanksgiving was immediately dry and shedding furiously. So we tossed it out the front door and eventually returned it to Lowe’s for a refund. Then we bought a lovely prelit artificial 7.5-foot spruce. I generally like a real tree. In NY, we would always cut our own tree at a tree farm. But there’s something to be said for “instant Christmas tree” when spare time is at a premium! This one even comes with a remote! No crawling under shedding, scratchy branches and over piles of delicately wrapped packages to plug in or unplug the lights. Genius I tell you!

Let there be light....

Part of our daily process now is to scrub the grime off of our headlights so we can see where we’re going. I had the great misfortune of driving home from JCPenney the other evening wondering if both of my headlights had blown. Turns out they were just completely covered with road grime.

This apparently is a major driving hazard in this area. As I’ve mentioned, they don’t put salt on the roads because when the temps drop, salt is basically useless. So, instead, they coat the roads with small gravel which embeds in the snow/ice to make a decent driving surface. However, when the snow/ice melts (March is bad for this), all the dirt that was on the small gravel is washed off and splatters all over all the vehicles driving along the road. It basically looks like we’ve all just gone “mudding”.

We’ve had some “warm” temperatures lately, hovering just above freezing. So the snow/ice layer on the roads has melted. Stephen told me there was a long traffic jam on the Glenn Highway the other night because so many people had pulled over to wipe off their headlights. I think people carry a stash of baby wipes for this purpose. Just another twist in the saga that is life in Alaska.

Happy Sinterklaas Day!

We put out our wooden shoe last night and filled it with carrots for Sinterklaas’s white horse. This morning we found that he had delivered a chocolate letter for each of us and some gifts for the children.
Alicia May had a fun time opening her little gifts. She’s going to do great once Christmas Day rolls around. Last year she was a little perplexed about the whole situation. So far, she seems to grasp the idea that not all wrapped gifts are intended for her.

Crumbling Biscuit

I woke up 10 minutes before I was supposed to be leaving the house this morning. Then I stumbled over to Tess’s door and woke her up.

I’m really running on low voltage these days. I have multiplied respect for those families out there with parents working double shifts and several jobs each just to make ends meet. After the holidays are over, so is my stint in the two-job world. (see… I can’t even muster up an exclamation point)

I moped into the office this morning (1/2 hour late of course) and got myself a buttermilk biscuit with a sausage patty at the eatery downstairs. Energy…. I need sustenance. My biscuit is crumbling, but still tasty. That’s not just food talk. That’s an analogy for life…

Weekend Update

It was a busy weekend. No time to blog...

We spent Friday evening and part of Saturday at the Merry Merchant Munch in Eagle River. You go from business to business (the Chamber of Commerce provides a list of participants and a map) and they have munchies set out for you to enjoy. Each business stamps your "passport" flyer. If you get a stamp from at least 20 of the 44 participants, you can enter your passport in a drawing. It's really a great program. It gets you into businesses you might not otherwise have visited.

On Saturday, we also went to 4 of at least 6 craft fairs that were happening in the area. Three were in Eagle River and one at the UAA (Univ of AK-Anchorage) campus. The latter was the best. We went there specifically to pick up a gift. We had contacted a vendor we'd met at the Egan Center "Made in AK" craft fair back on my birthday. They said they'd be at the UAA fair...

On Sunday, we tried another church. Donald had to work, but the rest of us went. We had gone to a craft bazaar at this church on Saturday and the folks seemed pleasant. The church was great! It's very casual, sufficiently welcoming without being pushy, and the people don't make a big deal out of "visitors", but they are glad to have you there if you choose to be. We will definitely be returning.

Not to be too evangelical here, but I think we could really use a church family at this point! It just makes life so much more pleasant and trials so much more bearable!

As an indicator of how "come as you are" they are at this church, the preacher wears blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. He's great at delivering a sermon/lesson. Humorous, yet thought provoking. We were all pleased with the service.

After church, we brought Alicia May to the JCPenney portrait studio to have her picture taken. This was her first portrait sitting (better late than never!). She did such a great job! I can't wait to get the prints back...

Now we're talking!

The forecast called for 1-3” of snow last night. I didn’t measure, but it looked more like 6-8” in our driveway. And the snow is still falling. We should get another 4” or so before it stops this afternoon.

I have seen snowplows in this state, but apparently they don’t break them out unless things are REALLY bad, or there’s no forecast of snow and the drivers are just dying of boredom. I did not see any signs of snow removal trucks this morning as I drove in to work.

And as for school closings. Not happening. If the buses (which are equipped with chains) can get around, there’ll be school. Bus routes are purposely structured to avoid hills and potentially tricky spots should we get the occasional snowstorm. This is why our kids are expected to hike ½ mile down a hill to their bus stop. These days they generally get a ride with me in the morning.

In other news: Tess had her first quilting class last night. It had been my intention to stick around in case she needed help. She’s rather inexperienced with a sewing machine. However, family logistics precluded that scenario and I ended up dropping her off to wing it and coming back for the last half of the class once Dad was able to be home with the "big girl".

This was probably for the best, because even in the brief time I was there at the beginning I found myself answering for her to the teacher and generally being a hovering maternal figure. When I came back later I discovered that she was doing a great job sewing long seams and cutting her pieces with the rotary cutter. Enough to make a crafty mom proud! Plus, she enjoyed the camaraderie of her classmates (who were all my age). She has one more class next Thursday. She seems to be enjoying it. Yay!