Carnival and Hot Springs

Hello. As usual its been a busy week. We attended some Fur Rondy events on Sunday and then KM and I drove past Fairbanks to Chena Hot Springs Resort on Tuesday and Wednesday. The kids loved the carnival and dogsled racing at Fur Rondy, it was beautiful weather (30F and sunny) and there was a lot to see and do. We had to leave before the Reindeer Races and the 'Running of the Reindeer' (the winter version of the Running of the Bulls, 500 people running down a snow covered street with 6-8 reindeer (with antlers) running amongst the crowd) it had the potential for disaster but since reindeer tend to be pretty docile and have more interest in being fed than trying to gore someone the event ended up being a huge success. We weren't able to stay long enough to see it, but we'll try to catch those next year. Later in the week KM and I had a nice relaxing time in the natural spring waters at the resort. It was a little weird being outside in a swimsuit when its -20F but the water felt soooo nice. They also had an Ice Museum with all sorts of amazing ice figures, including an ice bar where your drink is served in a glass carved from ice, pretty cool.

The pics are of the kids on rides at the Carnival and then a few from the Ice Museum, I'll put some more of the Hot Springs and of all the big dogs we met in another post. Storm

A few more pics.

Here's a few more pics of recent events. On Tuesday KM and I are going to Chena Hot Springs up near Fairbanks and hopefully that will provide some new pics for the blog by the end of the week. Have a good one. Storm

Pat here to visit

Hello Readers. Pat is here to visit and the weather has taken a turn for the better so we are able to get out and enjoy it. A lot of our snow melted in the latest warm spell, and the mountains to our south got absolutely buried under 7-12 feet of heavy snow so recreationally things are of balance right now. Lots of ice and bare spots in town and tons of avalanche danger in the mountains. So this weekend we took it easy and attended a cubscout meeting and then did some events at the Fur Rondy Festival downtown. In other news, Nick lost a tooth and has a funky grin that he is so proud of. Alex had a birthday party with all his friends, and I got a picture of a really big 747 in Nagoya Japan. Here's some pics. Talk to you soon. Storm

A Quick Video

Here is a link to a video that was put together by Donna Carl in honor of Hatteras. Just click on Hattie at the top of the page.

http://web.mac.com/ladyhawke7


All is well here, except that all this stupid warm weather is melting all of our snow. However this warm weather is bringing a lot of moisture which is good. At the ski area in Girdwood they have gotten almost 12 feet of snow in a week, but its pretty heavy and wet which means lots of avalanches so they actually had to close the entire ski area for a day due to avalanche danger. Alyeska is only 40 miles from our house as the crow flies, but for snow that is a huge 40 miles because in the same time period our house has only received a few inches of snow. Anyhow, once it all plays out I'll let you know how the skiing is. Take Care, Storm

A miserable day

Everyone, As the title suggests I don't have any good news. We lost our beautiful, friendly, and forever loyal Great Dane Hatteras on Friday shortly before noon. She was almost 8 and a half, which for a Great Dane is a fairly normal life span. Her heart was failing her, meaning that it was enlarged and weak and not pumping enough blood. As you can imagine this leads to a whole host of problems. Trouble breathing, no appetite, bloated etc.. Only a week or so ago she was playful and full of life and in the period of 3-4 days she went downhill fast, the vet said this is normal for a big dog. They compensate for their condition for a long time and we don't notice and then it finally hits a tipping point and ends quickly. We found out how serious her condition was on Thursday and then she was able to spend her last 24 hours at home, we all got a chance to say goodbye and it seemed that she was able to say goodbye to us as well. On Friday morning it was apparent that she was getting worse not better, even with a whole slew of drugs to help her out. So it was up to us to help her on her way, a terrible decision to make, but it was the right thing to do since standing by and watching her suffer was not an option. I could go on and on about how great she was and how much we miss her, but everyone who met her already knows all that. We have some fantastic memories and we are really thankful that we were fortunate enough to have a dog as special as Hatteras be part of our lives. The kids are sad but coping well, its Kerry and I that are really a mess. Its just hard to believe that she isn't ever going to come back.

Unfortunately most of our really good pictures of her are on film and not scanned into the computer yet, but I found a few to post. The pics were all taken on her last day, I had to wear glasses to cover all my tears.

Here's a great poem sent by our neighbors.

'With eye upraised, his master's look to scan.

The joy, the solace, and the aid of man;

The rich man's guardian, and the poor man's friend.

The only creature faithful to the end'

George Crable

We will all be fine, we're just sad because we miss our big dog. I'll write again soon, hopefully with a more upbeat topic. Storm

Skiing

Well, I finally got to go try out my new backcountry skills on the mountain that is directly across the valley from our house. It was a little cold at first but a great day to be outside, with amazing views. In the picture where I am not facing the camera if you look to my left you can see Mt Foraker and Mt McKinley (Denali) in the distance. Unfortunately they didn't show up too well on the pic, but in person the view was great. In the same picture if you could see just a little further to my right you would see our house in the valley about 3 miles away. The snow wasn't great, but it was a lot of fun and a great training run as we are still getting used to hiking up hill in the winter. Its really hard to know how many clothes to wear so that you don't overheat, but don't freeze either. For instance in these photos I am only wearing 2 thin layers on top, but as soon as we stop moving you better throw on the jacket quick because you cool off really fast. The outside temps were about 0 to 5F, and we were in the sun which made it a lot nicer. Usually climbing in the sun is way too hot, but not today! We just did a quick day and hiked up about 2000 vertical feet and then skied one run back to the car. Now if it would just snow some more for some good powder skiing!! The last picture is of my buddy Phil skiing down behind me, not real steep but good for our second day

Cold!

Hello Again. I know it hasn't been long, but we're finally getting some pictures and that was the whole intent of this blog to begin with. So here are some pics of the family skating, the spoils of the Pinewood Derby weekend and a random pick of cake eating for Alex's birthday. We will have a party for him next week and hopefully some more pics then.

As you can tell it was pretty cold when we were skating (about 5F) but even so we had to drag the kids off the ice after over an hour. Its like they are imprevious to the cold as long as they are doing something they enjoy. However if you ask one of them to go pick up a toy out in the yard the amount of complaining about the cold that would follow is amazing. Nick was out skating with us too, but he wouldn't stop long enough for his picture to be taken so therefore no pics of Nick.

In the Pinewood Derby photo the car on the left is Nick's, the middle is Max's and on the right is Alex's. A very successful day as we previously talked about.

The temperature here has put a little damper on our skiing but we should be back in action soon. Right now our average daily high should be around 22F and lately we've been lucky to hit 5F, hopefully that will only last another week or so. On the good side the cold temps means that it is bright and sunny everyday. Take Care, Storm