Poor Snowzilla

We in Anchorage, Alaska are in mourning. Why, you ask? Because Scrooge came to town and gave the ax to Snowzilla. The city decided that the 16 foot tall snowman the Powers family builds each Christmas is a danger to society, and they have given him a cease and desist order to not build him this year. Apparently it interrupts the traffic on their residential street. It's a sad, sad day when you can get arrested for building a snowman. I say we all build snowmen so that they can picket city hall. But for now, take off your hats and fly the flags at half mast. Snowzilla...may he rest in peace.

(Photograph from Anchorage Daily News)

Frosty Friday

Here are a couple of pictures that I took yesterday near our house. Things are rather monochromatic this time of the year. Everything seems to look cleaner with a nice coating of snow.

Brandon is hoping for a big blizzard to hit some time today or tomorrow. A nice, thick blanket of fresh snow would be awesome for the sledding hill. Nothing says Christmas Break better than shooting down a steep bank on a slick piece of plastic. Jess, on the other hand, is hoping global warming will kick in and bring a heat wave of around 85 degrees. The forecast shows sunny and a high in the 20's, so neither kid is going to get their wish. Those are the breaks.

I'm throwing in this picture of Bob in the front yard as a bonus. I took this last winter, but I haven't seen him lately and missed him. Maybe this picture will bring Bob home.

Christmas Fun

I love the way the trees look covered with hoar frost. It was even better yesterday when the skies were such a pretty blue. It was also about 7 degrees when I took this picture at lunch. Ugh! Gloves would have been helpful. :0) When I take Brandon to school in the morning, the sun is just starting to come up and everything is a pale blue gray. Lately, we've had a lot of ice fog in the morning, so even the sky is that color. It makes everything appear ghostly. I'll try to get a picture of it one of these morning. Things have been very busy lately, and I can't leave the camera in the vehicle when I am running around town (it's just TOO cold), so I haven't been taking as many pictures. Today is the last day of school until after the New Year, so hopefully it will slow down. Brandon's class had their Christmas party yesterday. They had a lot of fun. They even made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. Everyone had their own style, and it was interesting to see what they were trying. A group of kids went for height, and were trying to get 4 or 5 stories out of their houses. Needless to say, they all ended up toppling over. One kid made Santa's outhouse. Interesting and practical. Brandon went for a nice two story with a garage. Also practical. As I was taking some pictures, I notice something strange about his shirt. "Is that the same shirt you had on this morning?" "Unh huh", he answered. "Didn't it have writing on it?" "Unh huh", he replied. "Is your shirt on backwards?" "Unh huh", he mumbled. Clearly I was interfering in his creative building process. "Why?" (You know you are wondering the same thing. Surely there is a reason.) "I just like to do it sometimes." Good enough. This does explain how the back of his shirt has food, paint or ink on it some days. "Would you mind turning it around so I can see the front?" "I guess." It's the little things.

Merry Christmas!

Tales from the Tundra

It's warmed up a little bit. It's around 14 degrees now. That's practically balmy. Everything is covered with a layer of frost, and that layer is now being covered with a thin layer of snow. It started snowing again an hour or two ago.

I remember once when I had a nice looking Christmas tree. Now there are hardly any ornaments from about the middle of the tree down. Tink steals them. If you aren't there to appreciate this act, then she will hunt you down and proceed to chew on the ornament in front of you. Whoever saves the ornament then tosses it back at the top of the tree where Tink might not be able to reach it. All of the ornaments are on the top third of the tree. I will be surprised if the tree survives Christmas this year. I will be surprised if the Tink survives Christmas this year.

Christmas Fun!

Here is a link that we enjoy at Christmas time. It has some cute games for the kids to play for now, and on Christmas Eve, you can track Santa's route as he delivers toys to kids throughout the world. They also have fun things like the weather at the north pole, Christmas recipes, Santa's Karaoke, and holiday stories. It's a great site, so check it out.


http://www.northpole.com/

Another Snowy December Day

It snowed again yesterday. Fresh snow always makes it feel more Christmasy. (Is that even a word? Spell check says no, but I beg to differ.) This is the overhang on our front porch. Whenever it warms up a little bit, the ice and snow slowly slide down the metal roof and ease over the edge. Then it refreezes at night, and we are left with what look like huge fingers or paws reaching over the roof of the house. It gets very exciting when it warms up again, because then the ice and snow slide off and hit the ground with a big boom. One big chunk almost took out a neighbor on his back patio last year. It's best to keep an eye on things while you are shoveling off your patios and porches. As you can see, we are getting a lot of use out of our fire pit right now. You can almost hear the crackling fire and smell the marshmallows roasting. As I was standing in the doorway, taking pictures of interesting things out back, a big gust of arctic wind came through. I jumped back into the house, reached out to shut the door, and happened to look down. What interesting tracks. Some small creature has been checking out my back porch. Then I looked down at the stairs. That's my small creature! Apparently Tink crept out when I was taking a picture. She's lucky I looked back before I shut the door! We could have ended up with a Tinksicle. Of course I yelled at her. I explained to her that I was wearing socks and was in no way going out there to get her. She was not impressed. I explained to her that her spoiled little rear would be frozen in minutes if I left her out there. She took a bite of snow.

I told her she was being a royal pain and I was shutting the door now, cat or no cat. She decided her toes were a little chilly and began to casually pick her way through the snow to the door. Of course, you can't rush the Tink. With each step, she would raise a paw, shake the snow off of it and carefully place it back down. Ugh. I wouldn't have half this trouble if I had just gotten the kids a reindeer.

The North Pole

What could be more cool than getting to visit Santa and Mrs. Clause during their summer off? North of Anchorage is Fairbanks. Just beside Fairbanks, is the North Pole. We went there two summers ago and visited Santa's house.

It was a lot of fun. The kids got to meet and talk with the Clauses in person. Santa does a lot of traveling (obviously), so he knows a lot about different locations. We had a nice conversation about Florida (we had just moved from there) as well as other places that we have lived. Don't worry, we put in a good word with the Big Guy for our friends and family, too. These reindeer were back in Anchorage, but I couldn't resist putting these pictures in here. Look how much the kids have grown! These were taken right after we moved to Anchorage 3 summers ago. Time has gone by so fast! Here is Brandon tyring to convince me that we need one of these as a pet. I have to admit, they are much better behaved than Tink. I can't see one of these tearing down my Christmas tree and ripping open gifts. It might be something to consider. I just have to talk Santa into taking a cat as a trade in.