Nearing the end of the "Dark Ages"

We are adding about 5 mintues of sunlight each day, and slowly working our way out of the "dark ages" of the Alaskan winter. Still plenty of cold weather ahead, but the added sunlight helps to end that hibernation feeling. Pappy and Grammie took a trip this week up to Chena Hot Springs near Fairbanks to see the Northern Lights and enjoy the resort there which operates using geothermal energy. Chena also operates the "ice hotel", a small hotel made entirely out of ice! The boys have enjoyed their time with Dino, and he's started to learn not to tear stuff up inside the house during the rare moments he gets to come inside (though he tends to chew on the furniture and has to wear sled-dog booties in the house to keep from scratching the wood floor).

Last Saturday we made an unexpected visit to the emergency room. While installing some weather seals in the exterior doorframes, I didn't see Grayson come along beside me and stick his finger in the hinge side of our back door. When I closed the door, his right index finger was crushed above the upper knuckle - his finger tip was as thin as a sheet of paper when I got it back out of the door. The doctor was sure it had crushed the bone too, but the X-rays showed the bone was amazingly not broken and rebounded to normal shape in only a few hours. His finger is still very sore and he'll probably lose the fingernail. Amazing how quickly they can recover from an injury I thought was going to be much worse than it was. Needless to say we've tried to teach him the dangers of doors and hinges since then, but he just smiles and says, "Daddy closed the door on my finger.....I eat now. I love candy."

Dino's Guests

The other evening the phone rang not long after I got back from work. It was our neighbor letting us know that we had moose in our drive way. This cow-calf pair have been haunting our dog for about the past week. We went and watched them through the "man door" in our garage. The cow's back is about at my eye level. It was pretty cool. We then went inside and sat on the kitchen floor and watched them. Dino, our fearless dog, hid under the boys playset and didn't move a muscle until they were gone. The pictures were taken pretty much at sunset and aren't of the best image quality. They were all taken hand held with a longer exposure. I just wanted to show everyone how close they were to the house. In fact, the cow walks on the same path that we take from our garage to the backyard. Layne has literaly almost run into her while going out to take care of Dino. I just wish she would have stepped further out for a nice sillhouette picture! By the way, this all happenned on the same day that I moose nearly ran the boys an I off the road on the way to work. What a blessing to see them from safe inside our warm house!

Christmas Day...

Present openning and eating time! Grayson was so excited that Santa brought him the two things he knew Santa would bring him "candy" and "goldfish." Grayson also enjoyed some Gummies from Aunt Shiloh and M&Ms from Honey both of those have quickly risen to the top of his favorites list. He still didn't quite understand what was going on but got lot's of cues from his brother. Landon did a great job assisting Grayson and taking turns openning gifts. Landon had a lot of funny checking off his Christmas list and enjoyed the surprises that weren't on "the list." Both of our boys are a blessing to us but both have amazingly different personalities.

Christmas Eve...

Ok, so I am a little behind on my posting. Thankful for the three day weekend to catch up. It is a gorgeous sunny day but since it is a balmy 16 degrees and I have yet another cold, I will try to catch up! The boys had a blast over the holidays and enjoyed openning one gift on Christmas Eve and more on Christmas Day. Grayson selected the box that he thought contained candy his favorite thing and Landon openned one of his biggest boxes. We did not do a lot over this holiday but hung out and played Wii and just rested.