Early Winter

Just a quick update for those who like to stay in the know and aren't on Facebook!  I have several posts outlined in my head...but finding the time to get down to writing them just hasn't happened lately.

The LT has been gone for nearly 6 weeks.  By the time he gets back from this unexpectedly long trip, he will have been away longer than he was over the summer.  He actually missed the entire fall season in Homer.  He was able to come back home for two quick weekend trips last month (and we had some professional pics taken, below) while the ship was drydocked in Seward for emergency repairs, but when he returns he will find all of the mountains covered in snow and most of the trees bare.  Here's a great article about a rescue they helped with while on their way west.

We got our first real snowfall on October 16, over two weeks earlier than last year.  Most of it has melted away in the sunshine, but there is still enough left for the kids to find ice chunks to throw to the dog (and at each other).

Along with the early snowfall, we were treated to an early display of the Northern Lights last Friday.  I pulled into my driveway after a late evening at broom ball (at which I think I have improved since last year--thanks to some pretty intense circuit training classes) and found a spectacular display of green and red right from my own yard.  Last year, we didn't get our first peek at the lights until December, and we had to drive away from the lights of town and up the mountain to see them clearly.  I took these pics from my front porch.

Our time left in Homer is now numbered in months.  I don't even want to think about leaving.  But we have our list turned in to the detailer, so the waiting game is on until spring.  The LT got word that he made the list to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander.  It takes awhile for them to work down the list, so he will see the actual promotion sometime next year.  But at least it's guaranteed!

I have been sewing right along since he's been gone so much.  I have started doing more things for myself rather than to sell in my shop, and I've entered some of them in contests.  One of them, a laptop sleeve for Art Gallery Fabrics, even won!  I have 10 yards of fabric heading my way for that win.  I'm also up for another right now.  I'm in the top ten, and you can vote to help me win more free stuff to support my habit, em, hobby.

Surviving Our First Homer Winter

It's been so long since I've updated the blog that you may think we got buried by a blizzard.  While that is technically true (more than once, in fact), we have officially survived our first Homer winter.  Honestly, at times it felt like the darkness and snow was swallowing up our days, but we managed to get out and enjoy lots of unexpected Alaskan winter surprises. Now that the days are (much) longer, we have a new appreciation for the extra hours of sunshine that we took for granted last summer.  While we still have a couple of feet of snow at our house (and about 7 feet at the top of the mountain behind town), we can feel spring coming in the mud puddles (ponds?) on the streets and the need for fewer layers of clothing.

This winter we learned that we had never truly experienced cold before.  We thought we had in New England, but Alaska was hit with an especially cold and snow season this year.  The entire month of January was spent below zero.  Sometimes TWENTY below.  For Homer, that's unusually cold.  We also had a ton of snow (maybe it followed us from Connecticut, where we had record snow last year?).  Anchorage is thisclose to getting record snowfall for the year.  Anything above 10 degrees now feels warm.  Crazy.  The LT escaped to Hawaii on the ship for "training" for seven weeks of winter, during which we had several back-to-back blizzards.  School closed once.  I learned to drive in whiteout conditions with drifted snow that felt like sand dunes.  I love my Honda Pilot.

Snowshoeing on Christmas...3 degrees

Post-blizzard Homer harbor

Right about the time that I couldn't take another morning spent plowing through the 5-foot drifts on our driveway and chasing hungry moose away from the preschool door, we joined The LT for a week in the sun in Honolulu.  What a fabulous family vacation...we lived in bathing suits and went through three bottles of sunscreen.

Top of Diamond Head

We went from a world of gray and white to Technicolor

All of the snow has its pluses.  Our whole family learned to cross-country ski this year.  Homer has a surprisingly fabulous network of groomed ski trails, with our favorite starting just 5 minutes from our house.  We also saw some spectacular sunrises (even if they weren't until after 10am).

Also a rarity for living this far "south", we we able to get the kids out of bed at night to see the Northern Lights.  Twice!  And I learned how to photograph them.  But photos don't begin to describe it.  You'll have to come visit in winter and see for yourself.

Now that we're back in the light, I have started planning our summer adventures.  We are already due to move again next summer, so we have to treat this summer like it could be our last in Alaska for quite some time.  The LT will be spending much of his time cooling off in the Arctic Circle (see this article and this article for more on that), so I will be going solo with the kiddos as the Adventuresome Three to see all that this huge state has to offer.  Stay tuned for our itinerary.