February Fantastico!

In reality, this post entails our misadventures since Daniela returned from her arctic training. A few weekends ago we went to our local ski resort called Hilltop. The resort really isnt much, but its only a few minutes away and is pretty cheap. 

Daniela preparing to shred the mighty hilltop.

Valentines Day was awesome! I was at school until 4:00 and Daniela got her wisdom teeth taken out... i mean wisdom tooth taken out. Needless to say it was a nonstop party. Luckily I was able to sneak Daniela's gifts home so that they would be there when she got home.

Flowers, candy  and Step Up 3D. All the ingredients to attain a girls heart.

In other news we've been busy with school and work, we finally have one month of food storage, we've been hanging out with the other biracial couple in our branch and have been enjoying life. Here is something a little more interesting: last summer I could not find any huckleberry soda in all of Jackson Hole (this is the Jackson Hole brand ) but just this week we discovered it in our local Fred Meyers.

Ahhhhhh Huckleberry Soda

Anyways, we'll talk to you later blog.

Sub-Arctic Temperatures

Daniela after a 5K on snowshoes

Daniela beside the thermal shelter she helped build and had to sleep in.

Cross country skiing in Black Rapids, Alaska.

From the 4-17 of January Daniela went to a cold weather training near Fairbanks, Alaska.  As you can tell it was super cold.  The worst temperature she endured was -25 plus the wind chill which makes it feel like -40.  Jack spent this time preparing for school and he spent a nice day at Alyeska snowboarding.

Alyeska

 

New Year

Behold the avocado shake! A very smooth drink, but you can't drink too much.

For new years we, went out to eat at an excellent thai restaurant and watched a few movies. At the thai restaurant we were introduced to an enticing new refreshment: avocado shake.

Its a Celebration!

The Ayres clan with gramps and cousin Josh out shotgun shooting.

Notice how comfortable this trained killer handles a  Glock 9 mm

On December 17th Daniela and I made the long flight south back to Salt Lake City to spend Christmas. I guess that we have acclimatized to Alaska because we were surprised by how warm it was in Salt Lake; I'd forgotten that snow turns into slush. During our short vacation we visited friends, went shotgun shooting and had a traditional Kennington family Christmas.

Winter Wonderland

This trail is off limits during the summer due to high bear traffic

There are various trails throughout Anchorage for cross country skiing; it is one of the few places with groomed public trails. Last Saturday Daniela and I rented some cross country skis to give it a try, we both agree that mastering the correct technique is much harder than it looks and ended up sticking with the middle age woman technique of keeping skis planted and going straight. We asked a few locals about a loop for begginers that would take about an hour... 2 1/2 hours later we made it to the wrong parking lot, when we asked someone else how to get to the correct lot she said that it would would take about 30 mins... so we hitched a ride back. ha ha.
It was very pretty, we went through a section that is closed off during the summer because it is grizz territory; it was gorgeous. Near the end of our time we saw our first live moose here in Alaska, I wanted to take a picture but it was close enough that my better judgement, Daniela, persuaded me to keep going.
If you look at the bottom right corner of the picture you'll notice some really fat bike tires; they are about 4" wide and are used for winter mountain biking. pretty cool.

Thanksgiving

Daniela making raspberry Italian soda

 

Deep frying turkey in the snow, in our driveway

For our first exclusive Thanksgiving in Alaska we decided to switch things up a bit: we chose a Louisiana deep fried cajun recipe, I injected the turkey and let it marinate over night and then deep fried it for 1 hour. I thought that it would be really quick, but it took an hour and a half to heat up the oil and then the teperature dropped a hundred degrees once we added the turkey- it said to cook it for 36 mins, but the oil was not hot enough. The turkey was amazing! We also had dinner rolls, olives, corn, oven red potatoes, mom's fruit salad, and raspberry pie.
We were invited over by three different families for dinner but we politely refused; we spent the day, and most of the weekend, watching movies and being lazy. No black Friday for us just a nice, relaxing weekend.

Life in the arctic valley

We are getting pretty close to our first wildlife sighting; Sunday morning we found moose dropping all over our side walk. By the time we got back from church there was another pile. Today we heard some suspicious noises coming from the woods; we wanted to check it out, but the risk of being trampled is currently high.
We experienced our first "ice rain" today; Alaska roads are constantly icy, they don't lay salt on the roads but instead lay sand/gravel. Imagine the whole road being black ice; thats normal, but with the rain last night and this morning there was a sheet of ice over absolutely everything.

It looks like a clear truck bed liner over the whole vehicle

Many drivers are idiots and cars filled up the ditches. Daniela, was caught in traffic on the way to the base for almost an hour; when she got there they announced that the base was closed due to driving conditions. The university of Alaska was also closed. Walking out to the car, even the packed snow was like uneven ice. Daniela is lucky enough to have the garage so that she did not have to shave the ice off the car- as for the envoy, different story.