Winter-Proofing

Shrink wraping our windows to keep the cold out and the warm in!

Curtains

I finally finished the curtains for our front room and yes, that is sunshine coming through the window today. Nice!

Snow Fall

We are having a beautiful snow fall right now. The snow here is always small, slow and delecate. It is a little hard to see the snow once I uploaded the video but I will keep it posted anyway.

No chance of melting until spring...

This afternoon there were some guys creating ice sculptures at one of the North Pole roundabouts. COOL.

Keeping Warm

Heating oil was delivered today so we can keep warm for another few months. Steve also installed a battery warmer on my Jeep last night so hopefully I can now get it started.

Halloween

Halloween is not too popular in Fairbanks due to the extra cold weather. We bought some candy just in case but didn't see a single trick-or-treater. We spent the evening at home, eating fajitas and cream puffs. Good times.

Visitors

I thought maybe a moose had visited our house based on these tracks I found just outside our door, but Steve said it was more likely one of these little guys. Okay. I'll take him too.

Winter...already?

We woke up to snow this morning. I guess winter really is here already.

It is a good thing we got in one more hike yesterday before the snow fell. We went for an 11 mile hike through some crazy mountains that made me feel like I was walking through a Dr. Seuss book.

Crazy trees.

I'm sure this guy was a character in some book.

I don't even know what this is.

Beautiful views from the top of the Mountain.

2951 Miles

Chena State Park

For the past few days we have had cold, rainy weather but today the sun came out so we went exploring. We spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon enjoying the sun and amazing fall colors in the Chena State Park just outside North Pole.

Fall has arrived in Alaska.

One of my favorite things to do in Utah is to drive up the canyons when the leaves are chaning for fall. Now, I can just look out my windows.

Kitchen window.

Bedroom window.

Living room window.

Denali National Park

If you had asked me to imagine the most beautiful place in the world, I would not have been able to come up with the splendor we saw at Denali National Park. It was spectacular. We arrive just in time to see the fall colors. Of course these photos don't do it justice but you get the idea.

Denali (the tallest mountain in North America) is the snow covered one in the background.

Alaska Visit

I made it to Alaska safe and sound.I will stay here for a week and then return to Utah for a few weeks before driving back for good. I have spent most of today unloading boxes and cleaning the house. Steve and I attended our ward on Sunday. It is a pretty small ward and everyone seems nice. It is obvious we are in Alaska - pre Sunday school chit-chat included the latest neighborhood moose sightings, we talked about canning salmon in Relief Society, a gentleman introduced himself to me and then proceeded to show me photos on his iphone of the fish he caught last week. We were also informed of the church weather policy.
-30 degrees: sacrament meeting only, -40 degrees: sacrament only. 

We have had beautiful fall weather so far but it is getting cooler. We went for a great bike ride to the river on Saturday and then Steve and I camped in Denali over the long weekend and it was amazing. (photos to come).

Steve also bought a water tank so we can fill up our water supply. We will probably have to fill up a few times a week.