Christmas Eve Sleigh Ride

As part of our Christmas Eve festivities, we took the boys on a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the woods. We were pulled by a 20 year old Belgium breed of a pony named Dan. We were told that he was considered a runt at only 2200 lbs. Sorry for the photo quality, however, our driver said that he was not a photographer.

Merry Christmas!

Winter Solstice

Winter has officially arrived in Alaska. Today is the shortest day of the year or more commonly known as Winter Solstice. In Anchorage that means 5 hours and 37 minutes of daylight. Our official sunrise was at 10:14am and sunset at 3:41pm.

I have attached a couple of photos from midday or high sun. As you can see even at the height of our day the sun just barely clears the mountain range enough to light the top of the trees around our house. During this time of year we see very little of the actual sun.

Christmas is only a few days away and then we will be looking for spring and longer days. Merry Christmas and enjoy the photos.

1st Snowmobile Outing

We were finally able to talk Nancy into trying her snowmobile out. We bought Spencer a snowmobile this year as well and he was up for giving it a go. We headed to Big Lake; a large lake about an hour north of Anchorage. Thought this would be a good starting point as it is big, flat and had lots of snow. The lake is currently frozen about 15 inches thick so it is plenty strong for most snowmobiles, cars and trucks.

The drive up was beautiful with the sun actually getting higher than the surrounding mountains and giving us a glimpse. However, as we approached the Lake, a layer of clouds moved in, hiding the sun and threatening us with snow. I grabbed a photo of Spencer, with Connor behind and one of Nancy to prove they were out there. Way to go guys. Next year the Iron Dog.

Ice Fog Week

We have had some interesting weather this past couple of weeks. We went 6 straight days having Ice Fog. It reminded everyone of the forrest in Narnia. Trees were icy and white. Everything looked as if you had sprayed it with water and let it freeze. We will no doubt have a White Christmas, our snow gauge currently shows 26 inches of snow in the back yard. The local ski resort snow total now exceeds 100 inches. Looking forward to the holidays.

I have attached some photos from various points in our yard.

October Break: The kids had a few days off from school and we took the opportunity to travel south for a final few days in the sun before winter hits Alaska. We sailed on Royal Caribbeans Mariner of the Seas from Los Angeles to the west coast of Mexico. In addition to the sun, we surprised Nancy with a Scrap-booking Cruise.

A view of the cruise from our hotel in Los Angeles. Nancy and the boys did a little shopping in Mazatlan followed by a afternoon on the beach.

A couple of scrap-booking photos: We have Nancy with Windy and Spencer with Tim.

Our final stop, Cabo San Lucas, we arranged for the boys to swim with the dolphins. They both had a blast. Spencer helped the trainer feed them and Connor held onto the back fin of one and was pulled around the pull. Both agreed it was the best stop of the trip. Have to go back to Cabo sometime without the other stops.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

Seward - Day 2:

Day 2, we woke to a steady rain and wind. Good thing Nancy talked us into hiking the Glacier yesterday. Today we planned to visit the Alaska Sea Life Center. The Sea Life Center is a beautiful facility overlooking Resurrection Bay. The facility is primarily a research center but is home to a number of locally represented species of fish and mammals. We spent a couple of hours exploring and then headed for lunch. The restaurant overlooked the Seward Boat Harbor and we watched a active Sea Otter having lunch at the same time. You can see from the photos, he was having a great time.

The remaining photos are a sampling of the local flowers and animals we saw at the sea life center. The Puffin was one of Nancy's favorites.

Weekend Road Trip:

Well, actually the weekend ended up being Monday/Tuesday. Anyway, we took a couple of days for a trip through the Kenai Peninsula to Seward, AK. Our main goal was to look for bears, hike to a glacier and visit the Alaska Sea Life Center.

The weather was overcast but the rail held off for the first day. After a beautiful drive (no bears) we arrived in Seward. Quick stop for lunch and we were off to Exit Glacier. The walk from the visitors center to the glacier is about a mile. Mom did pretty well but as you can see from the photos, we finally wore her down. The trail has some pretty good hills and loose rocks to navigate. All-in-all, she did pretty good. Hope you enjoy the photos. More to follow for day two.