Brrrrrr.....

On my way to school this morning it was -14 degrees F. The sun will rise today at 10:54am and set at 4:30. The sky has been clear this last week or so. The stars are amazing! on a clear night you can see millions of them. Even the smallest, weakest little stars can be seen. I still have yet to see the aurora, but I'm hoping now that it's clear out and getting oh so close to the winter solstice, I might get a glimpse of the northern lights over Christmas break.

We drove around this weekend to see if we could find any Christmas lights. NOPE. Well, there were about 3 houses in the whole town that were decked out. Most houses just have like a strand or two. It just doesn't feel like Christmas. I got my first Christmas card yesterday. Thanks Kas! A couple of people have sent me Christmas gifts of the kind that I can't get here in Bethel. Thanks so much for that. Can't wait to open them. We are going to have a mild, laid back Christmas. We've been invited to Christmas dinner at a friends house. They have like 6 kids so it should be fun. Other than that, we don't really have any plans. I have to read a book and write a report for my class. We are going to start Avery in Boy Scouts because he really needs something to do and he needs some men/boys to do it with. The Boy Scouts do all kinds of cool stuff, like winter camping. I think he will like it.

Here are some pics I took of one of the dog sled teams here in town. I took these back in the fall when it was still warm out and the grass was still green. Now the sled teams are actually preparing for the races with snow on the ground. We've had about 2 inches that came down about two weeks ago and has stuck for that long. The first local dog race that I know about is on the 29th and I'm planning on going. I've also volunteered to help with the Kuskokwim 300 which is the big race in this region.




This is how they train when there's no snow on the ground. it's so fun to watch.