North to Alaska

We spent Christmas and New Year's in Anchorage, Alaska with friends (Coasties stationed with us in Kodiak and now spread out in the Lower 48) relaxing, playing in the snow, sight-seeing and a little more relaxing. To be back in Alaska is almost indescribable..... Cold, breathtaking, beautiful, peaceful, calming.

Our first morning, Christmas Day, began with snowball fights in the parking lot between us and the "W" family. The children picked up with their friendships where they left off in the summer of 2008.

These southern children, whom we thought would last 5 minutes outside, played in the snow for hours at a time! Jess and L, both quirky little adoptees, discovered snow can be used for many things: making snow angels, burying yourself in, eating.
One morning, we drove out to Otter Lake on Ft. Richardson with our adult "W" counterparts to watch the sunrise.... at 10AM.
Miss Moose provided entertainment and excitement on our drive back to our TLFs.
Each morning, Mother Nature reminded us of Alaska's inspirations and each morning we all braved gloveless hands to capture it as best we could. No matter the camera, the emotions accompanying what we saw weren't reproducible for those not present.
Thanks to another Coastie family stationed in Anchorage, we had sleds to play with for a few days.
Outside play in the sun was, of course, limited.
But these southern children were seasoned Alaskans who didn't seem to notice the sun was going into hiding. They continued to sled and hurl snow at one another until the extreme cold forced it's way into their boots and gloves and sent them inside, wet and red-faced.
New Year's Day, we ventured to our favorite town of Talkeetna for Talkeetna Roadhouse's "recovery breakfast". It's a busy little establishment that serves meals, houses a bakery and operates a hotel/bunkhouse. Our berry-barb sourdough pancakes were well worth the wait. Our drive back into Anchorage was amazing with Denali peeking through the clouds and a temperature of -16, which made keeping feet warm in the car a tad difficult.
Being a camera-nut-wanna-be, I had the children jump out of the warm vehicle to to try to copy images in my head. The cold and my desire for everyone to be without jackets (I know, child abuser) for the pictures didn't work as well as I had wanted. Even poor Matt is asking, "Mom! What are you doing?"
We didn't see much actual snowfall, but were pleased to find white covered surroundings toward the end of the trip.
Coming "home" was bittersweet. We were ready for more space, a routine, our animals........ but we left parts of ourselves there that will be rediscovered when we return.