December in the Arctic

Winter has definitely arrived in Kotzebue. Temperatures have really been falling lately. Our highs have been around 5 above, and this week that high is predicted to fall to 10 below, with lows of 20-30 below. Those temperatures are not including the wind chill, which last week brought the temperature down to 30 below when the outside temperature was around 10 above. Do the math, and it's about to get insanely cold! We are having a total of about 2 hours of total daylight where the sun barely peeks above the horizon. We have also had a quite a bit of snow in the last couple of weeks, which is always fun. With the wind blowing so much, we get areas where the snow drifts are around 8 feet deep! Here are some pictures from Kotz:

Sunrise in Kotz... or maybe sunset. They're pretty much the same thing. These pictures are taken at 1:30pm

hmmmm....

The Arctic Ocean

We don't have many roads, so our roads are made up of trails in the winter. Alaska DOT comes and puts out trails made of willows that connect the different villages to each other. They are used by people on snow machines and dog-sled. This is a trail leading out of Kotz.

Me standing next to one of the snow drifts.

We have one more week of school left before we take off on Friday night for Seattle. We will be spending Dec. 22-25 in Seattle and then heading down to Newberg Dec. 26-29. Then, we're back up to Seattle and back to the Arctic on Dec. 31. We are very excited to see our friends and family. Don't be surprised if you see us in tank-tops if the weather is anywhere above 40 degrees. We haven't experienced that in a LONG time!