Well, last week we finally received our much wished for snow. Across two days we poked into the 20's and about 11 inches of snow fell. The roads were pretty nasty but the warmth was wonderful.  Becky and Henry decided against running some non-pressing errands and instead suited up for a walk around the neighborhood.

Henry loves the snow. He loves watching it fall with his face pressed against the window and he loves tracing his mitten  through the drifts. Occasionally he'll face-plant into a drift and that will bring a slight fuss, but it passes fairly quickly.

Becky let him lead the way through our complex, and predictably he made right turns toward Baxter elementary school. Considering that school was in session, Becky and Henry couldn't check out the sledding hill, but they had plenty of fun climbing on the large hill of plowed snow.




After a little while Becky knew the chill and nap were approaching and that it was time to head home. Henry only knew that left turns took you home, and home is not where he wanted to be. As mommy directed him left, the fuss and tears broke out. He did finally get wrangled back home, was quickly unlayered, and descended into a nap minutes later. He's a fulfilled, snowy guy.

After snapping some 17 month photos of Henry and adding a few more fun pictures while sledding on Sunday, our camera decided to start complaining about a memory card error. We're still not sure whether the card died or if the camera has problems. We do hope we didn't lose that handful of new photos though. I'm sure it will sort itself out, but for now we have a "17 months + 4 days" picture of Henry. When Grammy and Grandpa Turek make it up here in a few weeks there will be plenty more sledding photos to take. All is well.

Saturdays With Daddy ended at noon as always with goodbyes, waves, and promises to come by next week. Henry always has a good time and it flows nicely into lunch when we get home. The temperature had made it to a few degrees above 0 and the sun was clearly shining across the Chugach range.

I turned off of UAA drive and onto Northern Lights and headed east. There were not too many cars on the dry and slightly glazy road. Across the road to my left I quickly noticed a large cow and bull moose trotting directly towards me. They were in the median when I marked them. I let off the gas, pushed the brake, and quickly noticed the moose calf sprinting ahead of the other two. I gave the brakes all I had and hoped for the best.

It was not to be.

The calf line up perfectly with the driver's side door and hit my 5mph traveling 4Runner. I yelped, "Dammit", as what sounded like some 2x4's clunked into my door. I slid ahead and began rolling again as I watched in my mirror the moose rise, place 4 legs on the ground, and then limp into the woods. Traffic resumed, all moose vanished, and Henry remained silent.  He's a tough guy.

I ended up denting Becky's door and chipping some plastic off the running board. The moose looked shaken up, but would be fine.We were fine and are stuck with only cosmetic repairs. It's annoying, but could have been worse in many different ways. Welcome to winter in Alaska.

December Doom

We knew it was a possibility when we left the house on Sunday, but we hoped it would not come to pass.

We attempted a slow meeting with Santa while we held Henry and stood with him, and that did go well. Our guess was that there was a rapidly ticking clock once Henry hit Santa's lap solo, and we were correct.

Here is the best photo:




And then we quickly hit the wall. More here.