April Happenings

The snow has finally left the yurt property. There are only a few more patches left where the winter plowing piled it up high. Getting Leo outside is much easier without having to bundle him up in 5 layers. Here Leo is roasting a hot dog in our fire pit out back.

He loves roasting them but absolutely refuses to eat them. By the end, this makes for a very full papa.
The inside of the yurt has been full of music and dancing. Here we are at another refined and somber Schneider meal.

Besides listening to music from inside the yurt, we have also been listening to woodpeckers. They have moved in with force (sometimes 3 on a single tree) and we hear them knocking all day long. One has even taken up residence and is pecking out a home in one of our trees.

I'm still busy making puzzles. Here is one that I gave to the nature center auction. It depicts the view of the valley from our house.

Even though the snow is gone from the house we are still out there enjoying it. Here is a picture of a parasailer we saw on a recent cross-country ski trip. It seems Eagle River is a bit of a hot spot for this sport. I recently saw 10 of these guys floating around at one time.

We are doing our best to squeeze in some back-country skiing before the snow leaves the mountains. Nicki and I got out with a few friends for some fun, earned turns.

Here is Nicki enjoying a break at the top with her doggies.

Bye for now.

"Spring" Break

The family had a great time on our "spring" break adventure. Most people enjoy going south to warm places like Hawaii, California, or Jamaica, but for some reason we decided to go north....to Fairbanks.....to the cold. Nicki argued that, "it's after spring equinox, as you go north there is more daylight." She is technically right, but some palm trees would have been nice. Actually, it wasn't a bad trip and we saw lots of cool stuff and had a great time.
It all started out with some volcanic activity. Redoubt decided to puke some ash all over us the day before we left. It basically made the air smell like sulfur and the sky get smokey. I put some pantyhose over the air intake of the car and we were ready to go. Here is a picture of ash trying to blot out the sun.

The first night of our spring (sheesh) break was spent wallowing through hip deep snow to get to this Public use cabin near Talkeetna. It was a fantastic sod roofed cabin that used tree burls to make shelves on the inside and benches on the outside.
Here is a picture of the cabin. If you click on the photo and look closely at the snow on the roof, you can see a layer of ash.

Here is a video Leo enjoying himself on the shores of a FROZEN lake. He could have just as easily done this on a sandy beach, in my opinion. Listen for the "weee"'s as he is rolling around.

North to Fairbanks now. Near Denali park we saw some Caribou. We had never seen any in the wild before. Now we have seen about 30. Here is a picture of them getting dumped on with snow during our "spring" break.

The next night we stayed at some hot springs outside of Fairbanks and then off to another public use cabin. Here is Nicki tailgating outside of the cabin with some pina colada. Very warm and sunny sounding, right. You got the sunny part right.

The sun Lingered on the horizon long enough to take a hundred pictures of it through icicles. Here is one of the better ones.

After getting a bunch of water to drip on the camera, it fogged up and created a kind of cool effect. Here is Leo with Sam the Fox and his baby lion (the pillow).

We spent the rest of the time hanging out in Fairbanks and visiting with our friends mom who let us crash at her house for 2 nights. Thanks, Sally!
We came back on Friday and spent the weekend skiing. I hope all of you in the northern hemisphere are enjoying warmer temperatures. Our snow is quickly melting and we are getting some 50 degree weather. Finally, a SPRING break!