More Winter Fun

We had an amazingly "warm" weekend this past weekend with temperatures around 30 degrees! So, of course, we had to get out and enjoy it. We headed out Friday after school and spent Friday night camping, followed by a morning of drinking coffee, reading, snowshoeing (me) and cutting wood (Michael). Saturday afternoon, we headed home and had a beautiful, sunny ride home.

My logger man (it was "warm," remember?!):

No, that's not a nude-colored shirt :).

View out the front of the tent:

The ride home:

We woke up on Sunday and it was another gorgeous day. We decided our lesson plans could wait and that heading out and enjoying the weather was more important. So, Michael and I and our friend Charlotte headed up the river. I did some more snowshoeing and Michael threw on his snowshoes and .22 and hiked around looking for rabbits.

Snowshoeing (notice all of the animal footprints around me):

We went out across the water when we headed out snowshoeing, to the Noatak River. You can see the trail that we took down the middle of the picture. (We take the same trail to camp.) That's me on my snow machine down there!

Just another day in the life in the Arctic!

Camp

With Michael not coaching basketball, our goal has been to get out in the beautiful Alaskan country as much as possible (via snow machine). One of the things that people often do is to set up a camp somewhere out in the country to go to on the weekends, etc. Some camps are actual cabins, some of them are special tents called Arctic Ovens, and some of them (like what we stay in) are wall tents. All of these options are, of course, equipped with wood stoves. Our camp belongs to some good friends of ours who let us use it whenever we want to. The camp is about 30 miles out of town, which is about a 1 1/2 hour snow machine ride. It is so amazing to be able to get out in the beautiful country. Every time we go out, it is always incredible to me how vast the country is. We are completely removed from all technology, with no way to contact anyone, just surrounded by the land. We almost always see some wildlife: moose, fox, rabbits, ptarmigan, or caribou. It was about 10 degrees out when we went this time, which felt amazing compared to 25 below, which is what is was last time!

The tent:

Enjoying camp:

Michael being manly and cutting down a tree for the stove:

Snowshoeing!

Loading up the sled to head back home:

Pit stop on the way home:

We feel so lucky to be able to have such amazing experiences on a regular basis! Are we temping you to come visit, yet :)?

Apologies!

First of all, I sincerely apologize for being M.I.A. from the blogging world for the past, oh, 4 months. When we moved here 2 1/2 years ago, my goal was to do a post at least twice a month. I definitely failed at that! So, here is a quick recap of our past four months:

• My volleyball team won our regional championship. It was Kotzebue's first volleyball title since 1992. We went on and competed at the State Tournament in Anchorage.
• Michael's parents, along with my Mom, Lauren, and Anna met us in Anchorage for the State Volleyball Tournament. It just so happened that Anna's volleyball team at Seattle Pacific was playing against University of Alaska, Anchorage the same weekend as our State Tournament. What great timing! I was even able to take my team to watch her play. Such an awesome weekend with family!
• We hosted a Thanksgiving of about 25 people at our place. We had an insane amount of food, which was awesome. It was the next best thing to spending Thanksgiving with our family... we spent it with our Kotzebue family instead.
• We spent Christmas up in Kotzebue. We did a lot of sleeping and watched a lot of Christmas movies. (And yet, I was still unable to blog during that time... don't ask.) We missed our families, but it's always nice to just spend time together.
  
• Michael is not coaching basketball this year (WOO HOO) so he has spent a lot of time over the past few months getting out on his snow machine, hunting, and just enjoying life in Alaska!
• Here we are, halfway through our 3rd year in Kotzebue, and still loving life in the Arctic!