Front Page!

Stokes and Momma with the one and only Santa!

Skating With Santa

Santa: What do you want for Christmas?
Stoko: Toys.





Thanks for coming to Kodiak, Santa!

The tree in the center of the rink. It's pretty awesome.





Coco break.

Snowy Beaches, Icy Beaches

Low tide at Whitesands Beach. Cold, clear, crisp and beautiful!






Wildlife in the foliage.




Spruce Cape.



It's been below freezing since the snowman fatality (about a week ago), so there are a lot of frozen streams. They make perfect slides. Last winter, we didn't see many below freezing temperatures in Kodiak for long stretches, so this has been great! Hooray for La Nina!




Hiding from the wind.

The Short Sweet Life of a Kodiak Snowperson

Birthing phase. During the perfect snowstorm. 31.5 degrees.





Loving life.



Four hours later, decapitated. 33 degrees. Snow turns to sleet.



The next morning. Three little lumps.

Birthdays! Festivities! Winter Cheer!

Happy Birthday, Dover Doo! (Kind of a Jackson Pollock design there, but if you look closely you can see a 37, a yay, and a Dover.) Somehow, it's always easy to figure out when Genevieve is not in charge of the food.




At this age, it's probably a safer bet to light the candles in the fireplace. They really warm up the house!

Recovering after a 37 candle exhalation.

Hooray for 2 fun years! Seems like about four hundred years ago that we were in Anchorage, welcoming little Stoko-bear into the world, and chasing Paxson toddler around. Wow. Time is on after burners!

Minor birthday meltdown in the background there. I suppose technically a minor not-my-birthday meltdown. That's okay, we recovered a short while later and had a double celebration.



Not to mention the happy birthday donut celebration from earlier in the day. And the happy birthday cheesey egg bacon sandwhich. And the happy birthday apple. All told, there were a lot of happy birthday to yous sung this day!

Happy Birthday Stoko Loco Boco! (It's harder than it looks to spell with raspberries.)

Side note. Did you know that left unattended, kids will eat dental floss? (Not the plain kind. The kind that you use as a grown-up and think, "hmm, this would be kind of tasty if it was a food product.")

And though we didn't take any pictures, Happy Birthday Andy! And while we're at it, Happy Birthday Meghan! Good luck with the Bar! You will crush it.

Icy fresh waves. Thanks for the post-Thanksgiving surf mission, Bruce! Brrrrrr... good clean chilly fun. Katy Perry and Snoop should sing a song about the winter Alaska surf scene. It's very similar to what they are talking about in their other song.

First ice skating mission of the season, and first ice skating mission for Stokes!

And even better, authentic outdoors night time lake ice skating missions. Cold weather and no snow means awesome lake skating under vivid starry skies, with Christmas lights in the distance. This picture we took captures the scene.



Well, maybe not. Imagine lots of stars in there, and a crescent moon, and ice skating with buddies, and you pretty much have it. It helps to have a good imagination.

First snow storm of the season. That stuck around for more than 4 hours, anyway.

You've got to get out while the gettings good! This fun was only available for one lovely blue sky day only. The next day, rain replaced the snow.

Decorating the tree. Ginger bread construction projects.

We've learned that it's worth the extra three dollars for the better kit. Pieces of the house, now that it's complete, are slowly disappearing. I'm not sure how much of it will make it until Christmas. It's a good thing real houses aren't made out of candy! We'd be freezing. But we could take solace that our kids would have a serious layer of fat to get them through the cold spells.

Hunting for Santa at the Fly-By. We found him, but the line was too long so we played outside. Then found Father Christmas and his wife, Mrs. Father Christmas. They are authentic! This was a free event at the Baranov Museum. And, here's the Russian Orthodox Church. And no, the kids did not want their photo taken! After observing multiple screaming children, we didn't have the heart to scare our own. (Not that Mr. and Mrs. Father Christmas were scary. We would've sat on their lap if we could've had the chance.)

We like to call this last shot, "Craft-time, Interrupted." It's a move we know all to well.

What else is new? The kids have been teaching us how to Dougie. That's pretty fun. And of course, we have multiple advent calendars going. Only one has been fully marauded. (Oddly enough, it's the one without any surprises in it. Perhaps that's why we left it unguarded.)

Side note: Did you know that the human body can not digest dental floss? Craziest thing. It just passes right through. It comes out like a tape worm. Or dental floss. Only far less hygienic. Once a little comes out, you can pull it right through.

If you didn't have a good enough imagination to imagine the cool ice skating scene described above, you're probably grateful right now.