A peaceful moment for your holiday...

Inuktitut speaker Susan Aglukark sings "Amazing Grace" over a slideshow of the Northern Lights. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, dear friends and family!

Now that we're not in Texas any more, our Dallas neighbors got their first white Christmas Eve in something like 80 years. Wow. Here, we actually got a bit of a heat wave and our snow is melting. How odd the reversal of expectations regarding the weather...

We've had a good Christmas Day here at the O'Connor cabin. The dogs all got presents to keep them content while the humans opened theirs. Tate is beyond happy to have a toy that Moya hasn't yet stolen.

Never mind. It's Moya's now.

But, in a rare display of Christmas spirit (or perhaps just to rub it in their faces), Moya actually brought her new favorite toy over to each of her sisters in turn. Tate knows better than to try to actually touch it, though.

And Belle just wants to go back to her nap.

Our gifts involved a lot of items that reflect our new lives here in Alaska - gloves, fur for sewing, lots of music, earphones to hear it better with, and lots of other fun things. James got Weird Al's DVD of the movie "UHF" and the more I think about it, the more I think that explains a lot. About all of us, haha.

{And yes, that's Amy's lobster in James' Birthday Tree. And lots of fish. The topper is an otter with a starfish. Totally adorable, as his birthday trees usually are.}

And here I am, with The Big Family Gift. We replaced our old Kenmore oven with a new Electrolux. Total sports car compared to what we had before. We all used it together to make our Christmas dinner. I do not know what made me make that face, so don't ask.  ;^)

Here we are, gathered around the Birthday Tree for our special meal. (The Christmas Tree is in the kitchen.) Roast duck, sauteed spinach, new red potatoes, two kinds of fresh bread, and stuffing. There's pecan pie and ice cream for dessert. If you hurry, you can get here in time to share some with us!

We hope your Christmas was a nice one. But don't forget to be good for next year. Santa's not the ONLY one who's watching you!

Wintery pretty

The first couple months of winter have been so pretty. We've still only got about a foot of snow on the ground, although I noticed in the forecast that we might get a little bit more in the next couple of days. Sure, the snowbanks near the well-traveled roads are gunky looking, but that would happen anywhere, and just beyond the snowplows' berms is some of the most crisp, most serene scenery you can find.

Such as the frost on these bushes at Inlet View Road, overlooking the beach way down below:

And these from the same spot, looking the other direction:

Snowy trees in the foothills, on the way to Anchorage:

A closer look:

And an unexpected bonus of the shortened days has been the prolonged twilights. This is what I see out my kitchen window in the evenings when the sky is clear:

Happy (Very Belated) Thanksgiving!

Hello again from the Great White North! We all hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving and are gearing up for a happy Christmas as well!

Big Jim and Mary were here with us for Thanksgiving. They flew into Anchorage on Wednesday and Jim and James drove up to get them.

They were here for the weekend and left on Sunday. While they were here we visited the big craft bazaar in Kenai, ate at Veronica's, and the guys went snow machining on the lake.

We got about a foot of snow that weekend. Even with neighbor Lee's help in plowing the driveway, there is still a lot of shoveling that has to be done.

We're enjoying new additions to our bird feeders. Now we have magpies and pine grosbeaks visiting us. We're glad they're okay with picking up the sunflower seed the chickadees drop, because the chickadees can't be bothered to clean up their own mess!

As usual, I find the local McD's a good source of entertainment. This is the new sign they've posted warning of the ice in the drive-through lane:

We've got our Christmas tree up as of last night, and may put up a second one tonight. It looks a lot more like Christmastime with the tree decorated. Speaking of Christmas, the  Mt. Redoubt Homemakers' Club had two Christmas parties in the last couple weeks. One was for the firemen, and one was just for the club members. I haven't had much opportunity to do cake since we've been here, so I wanted to do something fun for the members' party. Here's the polar bear cake I made:

James is making preparations for college and will be leaving in the middle of January. It will be odd having him living elsewhere for a couple months until he comes back for Easter break! I'm proud of him, and Jim is, too. What a grand adventure this will be for him!

The winter here is very pretty and not at all dreary and dark. I hope to get some pictures of the prettiness posted soon. The trees are frosted over and look so hauntingly dramatic, and gazing out over the lake is a particular treat when there is a little bit of fog to add to the mystery. When the weather is clear and we can see the snowy mountains, oh... I wish you were here to see that.

Popping in to say hi!

Here I am, enjoying a little bit of (rare) Moya tranquility. If only we could harness her energy, we'd never have to pay an electricity bill again.

Moya loves snow.

We decided to put up some Christmas lights on the outside of the house.  Here's Jim, about to do the peak, since he's tallest.

And James, finishing up.  Cherry belly!!!!!

James and Jim have been splitting wood for the woodstove. James enjoys splitting wood, which sort of surprised me, but it's good exercise so I'm happy for it!

See the hat James is wearing in the pic above? It was one of the projects I put on my newly-launched crafting website, called The Pink Sewing Machine. Here's James modeling for the post that explains how I made his hat. I love his smile.

And speaking of smiles, this really brought a smile to all our faces! Big Jim went to Eagle Plaza in Dallas, where the names of all the Circle 10 Eagle Scouts are engraved in marble surrounding a brass eagle statue. We weren't able to see James' engraving in person because it hadn't been installed before we moved, so we were very happy to see this photo Big Jim emailed us earlier this week:

Big Jim and Mary are coming to stay with us over Thanksgiving weekend, and they'll be here on Wednesday. Jim and James are driving in to Anchorage to pick them up (a four-hour drive) while I stay here to keep an eye on the dogs and put finishing touches on the house and prep for the Thanksgiving meal. I hope the roads are clear on Wednesday. We're having some freezing rain right now and are due for some snow in the next couple days. Some fresh snow would be nice!

Puppy's First Snow

Hello again! Jim's got the tile heat shield finished behind the wood stove now, and although the grout hasn't been put in yet, we missed using the stove. So Jim put the stove back in place and built a nice cozy fire. Aaaaaaah. Tate, who is starting to feel her age, loves heat sources, and was more than happy to pose for her fireside portrait as long as we wanted.

Camera-shy Belle needed some help to stay in one place, though.

Moya needed help staying in one place, too, but not because she was trying to avoid the camera. She's just naturally always moving.

Turns out the stove was put back just in time, as an overnight snowfall came and gave us a couple inches of soft white powder. The snow fell again midday, fat white flakes swirling thickly through the air. When the snow stopped, the sun came out so bright and made the fresh snow look so lovely. As much as we would have liked to leave the snow all around, we're in for two more days of snow (if the forecast is correct!) so it had to be shoveled off the porches and balcony. Naturally, all the dogs wanted to go out on the balcony, too.

Belle is the only one of the dogs who knows what we're really in for. Remember, Belle was a year-round outdoor dog until we got her, and her advice seems to be to go to your mental "happy place" and squeeze your eyes shut until spring.

"Mom, make it go away, okay?"

Of course Moya is delighted. Deeeeeelighted. Snow is part toy, part treat. Snow shovels are part toy, too. Life is good for a puppy in Alaska.

Catching up for the first week of November

Here I am again, catching you up on what's been going on at our place.

About a week ago, during our first snowfall, the storage unit where Little Sweetie is being kept for the winter had to do repairs on the door. That meant I needed to go into Soldotna and pull the car out of their way. I finally got to take some pictures of him after his repairs. He's lookin' good. No more Head Wound Harry.

Our bird feeders are still bringing us a lot of delight (I do love chickadees)...

... Even the "robbers" like magpies and this woodpecker:

I taught my first class in Alaska for the Back To Basics group, on cookie decorating. I had a huge class, so I didn't get to cover much material, but I did show them how to assemble a graham cracker house in the fastest way possible (go here to see the tutorial) and how to do basic decorating. I didn't take a single picture during the class, so all I have is this picture of the model I made for the students to see:
My craft stuff is still mostly in storage so I used a cake pan as a container. I'm not sure anyone noticed that's what it was. I also didn't count the students, but I had 29 people RSVP'ed for it and we used six banquet tables to hold everyone, so I think we actually did have that many, or close to it.

Someone unknown to us posted a video of James' performance with the other young men at O'Flaherty's two weeks ago, and I'll give you the link here so you can see him for yourselves. There are three fiddlers in this group, and James is the right-hand fiddler, in the beige shirt. He has a solo at 42 seconds in, so click here and see it.

Our weather has been yo-yoing between balmy 40s and chilly 20s. We've had ice on the lake, and lost the ice on the lake. Here's some ice:

This is the way the ice looked when we got up this morning. Click to see how far it is between the bare tree and the spruce:
Three hours later, when we got home from errands, this is how much more ice we had:

Meanwhile, indoors, the house is being fixed up for Big Jim and Mary's visit over Thanksgiving weekend. The main project is the tile surround for the wood stove. Jim's got the floor tiles in and waiting to be grouted, and is tiling the heat shield tonight. Then we can put the stove back and use it again. Doesn't it look pretty already? The floor tile is a dark gray. When it's all done, I'll post a nice picture of the whole thing.
I suppose that catches you up on what's happening here. Write to me and tell me what's going on where you are, okay?