ICE!

North Pole AK... A very Christmas Kinda Place... The tourist trade must be the major livelihood of this little town and while surfing the web to find stuff to do while Frank was studying I came across the plans for Christmas Town. North Pole is looking into creating a whole entire Christmas Town.... It should be interesting! In the meantime there was still a lot of things going on. An ice sculpture contest started the week we were in the area. This picture is at the entrance. and it is all ice... blocks and blocks of ice! The blue is the natural color of the ice. Very interesting.

While we were in Fairbanks a heat wave hit. Now if you can call 15 degrees a heat wave you know you have acclimated to Alaska. When we first pulled into Fairbanks it was -25.... Which in my opinion is WAY TOO FREAKING COLD. It is the kind of cold that when you step outside your eye brows try to hide! Frank quickly informed me that this was nothing and that when he was stationed in Fairbanks he had been a member of the -50 club, when actually it was -60 and they were camping in army wall tents.... and that it was too cold to start their helicopters... And all I had to say was NO THANKS! He jokingly asked if I wanted to move to Fairbanks... and I told him I was happy right where I was.. -17 didn't sound so bad after all !

Luckily the weather broke and it was above zero for several days in a row.. which made our stay glorious! The kids and I kicked it around town, went to the Chena Hot Springs to swim, found the library, old town, the movie theater and the public health office (Weird?? Well Kyle needed his Hep A booster before he could go back to school... and I had time to kill... so the kids and I went and got our flu shots and they got their boosters... Vacations never sounded like so much fun!) It was an enjoyable and relaxing (as relaxing as 2 kids, one room and a husband who is trying to study can be) time... The next week was turn around is fair play.. I had training and Frank had the kids in a small room!