Christmas morning with my dad in Colorado

It's Christmas morning tradition for my dad to make this scruptious breakfast!

Happy Holidays from the aunties and crew

This is my family (mom on the left, aunties on the right)!!! I hope you all had as much fun as we did on Christmas.

Love,

Amy

Happy solstice

I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy solstice...

It's quite a big deal when you only have four hours of sunlight to know that from here on out days will be getting longer.

I hope you all enjoyed the day! My favorite part of the day was the night run I took on the lighted trail system that I can access right across the street from my house.

Hugs,

Amy

Slideshow

Check out the multimedia slideshow Joshua and I just put together of the Mount McKinely Mountainmen Muzzle Loading Rifle Club. I did the narration and Joshua took the photos. I'm really happy with how it turned out!

http://www.jjbphoto.com/Muzzleloader.html

Brrr....

Crazy! This time last year I was in Argentina.

Now a year later I find myself dead in the middle of winter. The expected high today... a whopping 8 degrees (better than the -26 degrees predicted for Fairbanks though). And the sun hit the mountain peaks at about 11 a.m. this morning. I expect it will make its departure sometime around 3 p.m. today.

The pictures show the ice build up on my bedroom window. Brrr.... (Enlarge them for a good look at the ice)

Going for a run yesterday was quite the experience. I wore long underware under my running pants, three layers on top, a hat, an ear warmer, gloves, wool socks... and the first five minutes were still spent convincing myself that the numbness would go away once I got going... needless to say my pace picked up a bit...

The cold actually wouldn't be so bad, if there was at least some dry, light snow for skiing to go along with it, but things are pretty darn brown around here.

On the "glass is half-full side" of things, it does make for good population control... it's one way to keep this beautiful, amazing place from being completely overrun.

Goose bumps

I have goose bumps all over just thinking about my e-mail inbox. In the last week or so I have received messages from friends in Guatemala, Argentina, Germany, Russa, Austria and Colorado.

Sometimes its hard being so far away from the people I hold so dear, but at the same time it's incredible to think that I have friends on all corners of the globe.

Published articles

Check out these stories...

They're freelance articles I wrote for the Alaska Star. The first link takes you to the first article in a new monthly outdoor column that I'm writing for the paper. The second examins the lack of snow in this far north state.

Up next in my outdoor series... hanging out with the old-time Alaskans who form the McKinley Mountainmen Muzzleloading Rifle Club and learning how to shoot a muzzleloaded rife... well, learning how to shoot in general... I'd never shot a gun before last Saturday. It was super fun! I'll link you to that article when its published the first week of January.


"Adventure is all about attitude": http://www.alaskastar.com/stories/120607/new_20071206027.shtml

"Lack of snow hitting outdoor recreation enthusiasts hard":
http://www.alaskastar.com/stories/120607/new_20071206028.shtml

Lurking shadows

Somwhere between a waking and sleeping state... late last night

Out of the corner of my eye, what did I see?

But the crip shadow of a moose sauntering by

(The street lamp helped to form a perfect outline)

I rushed to the window, and looked deeply into her eyes

Until she decided to continue with the nightly rounds

Peace

It's peaceful here in this cozy two bedroom house, in this beautiful Alaska. A wood-burning fire keeps the cold night air where it belongs... outside. A light over my desk emits just enough glow to illuminate my scattered papers, coffee mug and typing hands. Warm fleece socks, a quiet neighborhood, a cloudless sky, a perfect winter night.

Once

I just watched a movie that touched those raw feelings deep inside...

An hour afterwards I still feel in every inch of my body the movie's compelling beauty and power.

The name of the movie is Once.

It is an Irish movie, and also the centerpiece of the Anchorage International Film Festival; a love story done in a very human way... with amazing music.

I unhesitatingly recommend it.

Frantic, hectic, high-strung

There's sheer craziness in the news room right now... a two day killing spree has reporters running around the office shouting..."What was so and so's age?"... "Did we call the hospital yet about so and so's condition?"... "Where are those court documents?"...

And I'm smack dab in the middle of the bustle with not much to do -- nobdoy needs archive footage when there's so much new news -- but feeling stressed just because everyone else is.

Yesterday I listened to the police and fire scanners sound relentlessly for nine hours straight. You know how you still feel like you're rolling over waves after spending all day on a boat... I still felt like I was listening to the scanner as I went to bed last night... a horrifying drone of brutal murder and fatal car accidents and dozens of fires.

How do you stay up-beat and optomistic about the world in the face of all this? It was easy to make statements about "having faith in the world" and seeing "how amazing and beautiful people, places and things" are when I was daily being invited by so-called strangers to share a good meal, or maybe just a laugh.

But this...this frantic, hectic, high-strung news room... what is this...