Christmas 2012!

After a great trip back to CO we are back in AK pushing through the roughest part of winter up here. The sun is still low in the sky, coming back all to slowly. Only 4 to 5 more months of snow on the ground and the fish start running. Nothing to do but ski and stay warm. Here are some catch up photos...

Our landlords host a gingerbread party every year (a few of which the Palins attended) and this was our gem that won 2nd place out of 16 or so.

Made it home to BEAUtiful Colorado!

Jay takes after his father.

Brother,sister and Nate's new splitboard

What a nice boyfriend lugging his girlfriend's skis up the mountain.

Without skis, Tim's choice of descent was via avalanche.

Jay and Nate scouting their line

Jay going for the big rock drop.

 Nate cutting up the ridge.

Gotta love Colorado! Snowy, sunny and beautiful.

 6 Cars at the cabin for new year's eve, that might be a record.

 Sushi with some good dudes, and one cool girl.

 A solid lucy ball. 

 Scott and Linda, still tearing up the slopes after all these years

 Messi, the 2nd desert dog we rescued is now a broncos fanatic. Her owner works for the broncos so she doesn't really have a choice...

 The second Colorado moose I've ever seen.

 A little snowshoeing

Exploring some backcountry at Berthoud pass

 

 

 

Nate likes his new splitboard

 Colorado was a nice break, back to the short winter days of Alaska.

 Hiking/Skiing Hatcher's pass

 

 

 

Solstice!!!

The solstice is a very happy time up here because the earth is officially tilting back towards the sun after the shortest day of the year! We got a good amount of snow finally and made it up to hatcher's pass. After the snow came a high pressure system which brought frigid temps though( like -20 F) in which backcountry skiing becomes difficult. If you begin to sweat at all while you hike you run the risk of getting hypothermic when you stop despite any layers you have on. That along with the high deep slab avalanche danger made it a tedious outing. But nonetheless it was good to get out.

Chasing the sun at 2:00pm

These guys were a bit more eager than us, kinda scary though with all the whumps and cracks we were getting from the snowpack.

A very frosty goose

Missed our window for sunshine today :(

 

There's sun over there!

This guy scared Kristen as he walked right by our big bay window.

Colorado bound on Sunday woohoo!!!!



Where's the sun?

 



We haven't been great at keeping up with our blog sorry!  It's gotten really dark and we've been going into hibernation mode.  It's been a weird winter so far, there hasn't been much snow and it's been ridiculuously windy.  Here's what we've been up to the last month or so.  Only 10 days until we fly back to Colorado.  Can't wait to see friends, family and sunlight :)

 

Way back in October we celebrated our anniversary in Anchorage. 

 

We stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel, it was awesome and we had a view of the ocean!

Walking around the property.

Thanksgiving cabin in Willow.

View of Denali from Willow.

Emily, Dave and Nanuq

 

Thanksgiving dinner, yum.

 

snow hike

 About 2:00 pm sun is going down...

 

Emily and Dale bundled up at high noon on Thanksgiving day.

Dog teams practicing for the Iditarod.

very cool.

 Perfect view of Denali!!! 

 

 

 

 

Wearing my dad's leather down jacket from the 70's at colony christmas. Hope you are proud dad, I'm bringing it back!

The sugary seven (after lucy ate one off the counter)

Christmas tree hunting

Found one, time to put it down.... haha give us a break people it's really dark up here. We gotta entertain ourselves.

It's a charlie brown christmas!

Finally! Yesterday we got hit with 18 inches of wet snow. We'll be headed up to hatcher's pass this weekend to do some skiing. Can't wait to get to sunny Colorado. We'll miss Chuck and Jan and wish them a Merry Christmas in Azerbaijan!