January TDY

In January I headed to the lower 48 for some TDY(temporary duty) at the tropical destination of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Although it wasn't my first choice of locations, it turned out to be very cool.

My first stop was to explore the Buffalo Soldier Memorial which was smack dab in the middle of Leavenworth on this very pretty pond that was filled to brim with Canadian geese. It was a very cool memorial and I can imagine that it is even more beautiful in the summer when it is running.

I was lucky enough to be joined by my sister for a weekend while I was down there and we explored a little bit of Kansas City. Our favorite stop was the National World War 1 Memorial in downtown. What you can see below was part of the original museum, they have since added to it, and the kicker is it is all underneath the Liberty tower. So you have to head underground to see all of it.

When you first enter the museum you have to cross a glass bridge which is crossing a valley of Poppy flowers. I didn't realize this but the poppy flower was the symbol of hope for WWI. It was the only thing that could grow between the trenches and thus gave hope that something could grow from the destruction.

The tower itself was amazing. It had angels facing in each direction. Each angel represented something: sacrifice, patriotism, courage and honor. You can take an elevator to the top of the tower and see the view from the top. My sister wasn't a fan but it was truly amazing. The whole museum was very well done. I imagine you could go back time and time again and learn something new.

Christmas on Ice

One of our favorite traditions here is at Christmas time is Christmas in Ice over in North Pole. This is a yearly ice sculpturing contest that they put on every December. It is truly amazing what they can create in the ice. Below are some of the pieces, they even created slides and merrigo rounds for the kids. Although it had warmed up for us ( a toasty -11), we were only able to stay for an hour and ended up over at the Santa Claus house to warm up. A great family trip!

Making snow

So, today and tomorrow are suppose to be the last of our extreme cold temps for a little bit and we decided we better take advantage of it and try and make snow again(dad wasn't here for last year's attempt). So we went all out. We did it from the second story window, I colored the water so it would be easier to follow as well.

You can see the stream that he has thrown out the window here.

Within seconds it has started freezing leaving this crazy fireworks looking display of snow.

I just think this is a fun shot. The main part of the thrown water has it the ground but it is still snowing.

Santa Claus house

So since we live 15 miles from the North Pole we have made it a yearly tradition to go see Santa Claus at his house. This house is very cool and stuffed full of way to many things that this mama could spend money on but it also has the big guy in there so off we go. When u get there you have to get a number and then wait your turn, so we usually kill time by browaing and photographing with some of the props provided by the shop. There is a beautiful polar bear who is very friendly.

This polar bear seemed very friendly at first but after I took the first shot something crazy would happen and it became a bit aggressive. It put Thud in a head lock, it sat on Sassy and the only one it seemed to like was Goobers.

And Scotty was even surprised to find some long lost family. It brought him to tears to be reunited with his kin.

Finally after finishing our shopping and picking out some candy we were able to get in to see Santa Claus. He was as awesome as ever. He asked each of the kids what they wanted for Christmas.

This was Sassy explaining that she just wanted a pony for Christmas. Thankfully he explained that ponies didn't fit well into bedrooms and so might not be a good idea.

Santa's look cracks me up. He just asked Gabe what he wanted for Christmas and his prompt reply was an F-16. LOL

And of course, Santa's house just wouldn't be Santa without his reindeer. They were busy chomping away and Scotty explained to the kids that they were Carb loading for their long night tomorrow night. What goofs!

Dog treats

So I am an avid animal lover and have two wonderful labs that I am lucky enough to have in our family. Our labtard is older and goes by the name of Duke. He isn't as full of energy as he used to be but still finds ways to crack me up. He also become a bit more picky about what treats he will take so I started hunting for some treats I could make at home. And thanks to my love affair with pintrest I found a recipe that both my labtard and my cracklab( my 3 year old golden lab) LOVE! I found the recipe off of the blog : A kitchen muse. Below are some shots of the baking process and me being stalked by the labtard after I had him try one :)

The dough is very sticky and I highly suggest getting rice flour to try if your pup's stomach is easily upset. But once again, I have labs so they eat everything!

Since it is Christmas I went with the star shapes just for fun!

He is patiently waiting and watching for his next treat!

Art

So sassy and I decided to play artsy fartsy this evening and dug out her old crayons, some canvases, hot glue and my hair dryer. We checked out YouTube videos on how to do it and dug in. (Just a side note, if u do this I highly recommend keeping the wrappers on the crayons as it keeps the crayon stuck to the canvas better) first we took the earth tones and made a boring design, next we took the little dots we had and made a polka dot design, next the warm colors we made a heart and the cool colors we mimicked the aurora . Then we covered the floor with plastic and started blow drying the art. ( another side note, pinks blues and blacks melt faster than the others) once we finished drying them we added some embellishments and wala!

My photography

Photography has been something I have liked to do but haven't had the greatest equipment to work with. Well I finally bought myself a decent camera and Alaska has no shortage of opportunities to practice with. Today was a good example. Right now our sun sets around 1500 and the moon is almost constantly out. Well this creates some interesting images. This was taken off my front porch right around sunset. I just loved the coloring that was present and the contrast of the dark tree next to it.

 

 The other thing I am absolutely addicted to photographing is the Aurora. I tried with my old camera and couldn't figure out how to get it to show up. But with my new camera I just put it on a special setting and manage to photograph some of the aurora but I wasn't happy with the clarity so I took a local class on how to do and the difference was amazing!!

 

You can actually see my stars are in focus and I left the shutter open long enough to get plenty of the lights. This night was a green aurora but I hope to chase down some other colors. Maybe a trip north is in order but it is always a game of chance so we will wait and see.