Creative Snow

Some people have become very creative with all of this snow!  It is also a great way to get some free advertising out there!  Here today and gone tomorrow!!

Fun in the Sun!

Yesterday was beautiful and after taking Ponzi on a walk we decided to play in the yard for while!  The kids made snow angels and had fun eating snow!  I think we may have gotten up to 38 degrees which felt very warm!  Today it s snowing again so I had to post these to remind me of the sun!

Snow Pictures

We went by the Elementary School to take a peek at the playground.  Valdez its great that it has several playgrounds around town that Cooper and Mariah played on a lot during the summer.  The Elementary School  happens to be the only playground we can see as the others are completely buried in snow!  I think it will still be a while before anyone can swing on the monkey bars... 

The monkey bars...

Polar Bear Splash for the Fire Fighters!

The fun started with a boat tug of war!

 The brave people getting ready to jump!

Ashley getting ready to jump!

 Great job!

This guy did a flip into the water!

This dog had to say hello as we walked by...  I'm guessing that is still about 9 to 10 feet of snow he is standing on.  It is funny to imagine that as your front yard!

 On our way home!  You can see some of the side walk again!

We had a fun afternoon watching some brave people jump into the water today, for a good cause of course!  I can't imagine how cold that must have been, but we went to cheer on our friend Ashley who can now check this off her bucket list!  It was a nice morning for a walk so we took Ponzi to watch the show!  Ponzi was more than willing to jump into the water, but we kept him under control:)  It is starting to warm up a bit here so we actually got to see the side walk.  There is still a ton of snow to melt, but at least we can get the stroller out and walk on the sidewalks again!  Enjoy the pictures!

Mineral Creek Trail to the Beach

Adam found another fun trail for us to explore, and it could not have been a more beautiful morning to go and check it out!  Today was about 24 degrees outside and it was a bit windy which we didn't notice until we got out to the beach portion of our walk.  We got to see 2 beautiful bald eagles and several huge bald eagle nest up in the trees.  We can't imagine what this little creek is going to look like once all of this starts to melt.  It is beautiful, but I think we are all getting a little anxious for signs of Spring.  

On Tuesday I got my first look at the Northern Lights, an aurora borealis.  It was amazing as these green lights danced around the sky.  Sometimes they would fan out and cover a wide space and other times it looked like someone was crouched behind the mountain with a giant flashlight pointing a green beam of light across the sky.  I tried my best to get a picture to put on the blog, but my camera would not focus and therefore would not take a picture because it only saw dark.  The following night the aurora was suppose to be active again so a group of ladies and I, armed with our cameras, went for a drive up into the mountains to get the best view. One of my friends, Ashley (the organizer of this adventure), was with us and she had gotten amazing pictures from the night before so I was full of questions for her and was ready to get my amazing shot!  So we got into Thompson Pass and began our wait...  We waited and waited and played around with our cameras as Ashley taught me some fun camera tricks...  No lights.  We gave up at 11:30 and started the drive home having had fun, but disappointed that the lights did not come out and give us a show.  The pictures below are the ones I took while we waited.  The good news is we still have time here and I WILL get a picture of the Norther Lights before we leave Alaska.  I did feel very lucky to be able to see them the night before and can't wait to see them again!

This is a Semi rolling down the road.  

Stars in the sky.  If I had a tripod the stars would not look so funny, but I was amazed that it came out at all!

Valdez Glacier

Yesterday we went snowshoeing out to the Valdez Glacier!  It was amazing!  In all of the white it was amazing to see this blue cave of ice appear.  To get here we had a mile and a half walk and a good portion of that was over water, however until I looked at the GPS tracker on my phone (thanks to the Runkeeper ap!) I had no idea how much water.  It was beautiful and a fun experience.  Thanks to Rob, Sanoe and family for including us on their adventure!