Merry Christmas from a beautiful and cold Alaska day :)

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope my family has a wonderful day as they are in Florida and Wisconsin :) Miss you all! I hope everyone has a wonderful day with friends and family. For those of you serving our country and alone on the holidays, thank you so much for your sacrifice!

It has been a crazy busy month for us.  We have had a lot of ups and downs.  I guess as it got cold in WI it got warm here we had a few days of freezing rain, lost a lot of snow and had so much ice we couldn't run dogs.  We've had a few injured dogs so the medicine list has been getting bigger, but I love that Deedee has taught me about all the meds and when to give them.  I've learned a lot about how their feet can break down in different types of snow and how to apply the ointment for that.  After all the rain we had a huge snow storm probably 15 inches.  Thankfully we had some help come out that day to clean off house and shovel all the snow. I got to learn some new trails as we went out to pioneer the river. It was still not frozen enough so we had to take a different trail home on the snowmobiles (snow machines as they call them up here). We continued to get more snow and after all the ice we had it broke down a lot of trees.  This past weekend we had a power outage for 14+ hours.  Sleeping with no heat in AK is no fun....  The next day we had to spend it clearing up trees around the kennel and some went out to clear trails. Had 6 tons of meat to unload as well. All said and done its been an interesting month!

Puppies!!!

I also got to take out a 5 dog team with Chase! He did not do so well though. I have also taken out a few 6 dog teams and took a few new trails.

I am going to leave the writing short this time and just show some of the pictures I have gotten over the month! Enjoy!

Chase running in the team :)

Python finally came inside by us to hang out with Dratini... Spoiled old dogs

Meet Viking big fat puppy... he got scared when we brought him inside and tried to hide but he got stuck 

This is about where he fell out of line poor guy

6 Dog Team :)

Glad I wasn't here when this guy showed up

Dog wheel frozen... had to have some fun :)

So much fun!

All the warm weather caused the snow to fall off all the roofs

Taku enjoying her new hay

Sunrise

Lucy enjoying some freedom around the kennel

Love these dogs

looking one way ... sunset

look the other way... moon and stars

Just some of Deedee's Iditarod trophies!

Moose steaks!

Silly volt

Our little Christmas tree decorated with booties :)

Full Moon

Sunrise

Mt. McKinley just below the redish colors in the sunrise

Solstice party bonfire!

Christmas Party, 11 dogs 10 people.  Chase made a new friend

Giving thanks each and every day!

Happy late Thanksgiving!! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with friends and family! It has been a crazy week full of being thankful.

First of all so unbelievably thankful that my god daughter was born Nov. 27th (which I guessed correctly!) both baby and mom are doing great and home now.  I can't get enough pictures of that beautiful little girl! Love her already! 

Secondly, I got to take out my own 4 dog team this past week!  Amazing feeling, honestly can't explain how that made me feel.  Dream come true right there! I had a group of retired racers and they were great.  Couldn't keep a smile off my face.   Can't wait to get out there more!

Going down the trail with Gangar and Bridie in lead and Eddie and Evan at wheel. 

Honestly can't explain this beauty.  Picture perfect winter wonderland :)

Thanksgiving day, got up early did our chores than went inside to watch the Packers be embarrassed by the lions... sad morning...
But the day did turn around we went with Deedee to her friends house for thanksgiving feast and it was amazing I ate way too much! Hopefully you all did too :)  We had 9 dogs inside with us for the meal, and my parents thought it was crazy with 5 in the house.  Totally cool :)

Saw these little guys while driving to dinner...  ;)

Friday a camera crew came out to take some coverage of us hooking dogs up and Deedee running them for the Alaska basketball tournament going on... sorry not a fan of college basketball so I don't know much about it.  Anyways CBS just want to get a little clip in about Alaska and the up coming Iditarod. It was really neat to see how it all was done.

The stars have been amazing lately! I saw a shooting star the other night, ah one of my most favorite things to see by far.  I downloaded some app that I can point to the sky and it tells me the constellations there, and I've never been able to actual make some of them out like I can here. Still waiting to see the northern lights, I guess they were great last week, but I keep falling asleep at 10 and missing them... I will pull a late night soon to see them :)

I am so thankful for so many things in my life, foremost for my family.  Could never thank my parents enough for all the opportunities they have given me and for all their support! Love you Mom and Dad!  Also my sisters for always backing me up and supporting me.  Could not ask for better sisters even if they are both far away. 
So thankful for my friends, each and every one of them have been an influence on my life and I am so grateful for all of their support when I told them about this job.  It could've been a lot hard to leave WI if I didn't have such great friends excited for me to go and live my dream.  Love you all! Skype me sometime!!

Rugby, ah so thankful for rugby.  You may have broken me many times, but you have giving me a never ending family.  I love coaching, disappointed that I miss learning from the All Blacks rugby team coaches on Saturday, but I needed to take this job.  Glad to hear my girls team banquet went well, still so proud of all of them.  I was sent an email about a coaches gift I received and it made my day! They took a jersey from 10 years ago when I played on the team and had it embroidered. Last name on the back and coach on the front. Such a meaningful gift. :) Love it!


Work, no matter what kind of job I have had, I am thankful for it, thankful just to be working.  I am still pinching myself to make sure this job is real that I am really in Alaska.  I definitely am :)

Thankfulness is overflowing from my heart lately for my friends, my family, my job, my life.  I know things usually never go the way we plan, and right now I am thankful for that because all of the mistakes, rejections, bumps in the road led me right here. Sitting on my couch with my dogs at my feet writing this blog about my work in Alaska :)

So since I missed the Point Thanksgiving (sorry guys), and family Thanksgivings and seeing all my friends over the long weekend, how was everyone's holiday? What are you Thankful for this year?

Here are some more pictures of the dogs: