Winter

The Lagoon that our house sits near in Kotzebue has finally frozen over. Today when I went out on the deck, there were people ice fishing. Here are a few pictures from 11:30am.





On the other side of town is the Kotzebue Sound. This will most likely be frozen over by the end of the week. Here is a picture:



Seagulls pick up the scraps left behind...and snag fish themselves from the holes in the ice:







Hopefully, temperatures will remain below freezing until Spring. When we get a few inches of snowfall, and with everything being frozen, we will be able to get outside the town on the snowmobiles. I've felt trapped lately - too cold to go out on the ATV, no snow for the snowgo's.

I will be eligible to hunt November 10th, and I plan on shooting a moose and a caribou.
Life above the Arctic Circle is great.

Nothing New

Things have been pretty boring lately, which I don't mind at all. Part of the reason of moving to Kotzebue was to relax and slow down, which we have done. I'm not a social person, so I'm in heaven in Kotzebue. Stephanie has found a lot of positives about this place as well. She doesn't worry about crazy stuff that happens in the rest of the world...you know - the random horror stories you hear on the news all day. No Amber Alerts in Kotzebue, no horrible car accidents, no murders, no abductions, no life threatening natural disasters. It's nice - this place offers peace of mind.
I'm trying to get over the swine flu, I'm feeling much better than I was a week ago but still have a bad cough.
The kids are doing great. Patrick now has "homework" that we do together nightly. Chris is obsessed with ice cream.
The season is changing quickly. Most of the lagoon is frozen now, and the temperature stays below freezing most of the day. We have a dusting of snow on the ground and more snow in the forecast. With any luck I'll get to ride the snowmobiles in a week or two.

Winter

Winter is here. It's September 24th and we are having high temperatures in the mid to upper 30's with lows in the upper 20's. The sea surface temperature along the Kotzebue Sound is drawing closer to freezing, it's around 35 now. At this rate, we should have freeze up by the end of the month. I'm excited to try out the new snowmobile.
Patrick and I are sick with swine flu. We were running temperatures in excess of 103 with all the typical flu symptoms. We are over the fever, but this cough never seems to give up. I've been working overnight, so we have been spending our days together at home. Hopefully by Monday he'll be well enough to return to school. If I'm feeling up to it this weekend, I'm gonna go to the range and get my guns ready for hunting season. I'll be eligible to hunt beginning November 10th.

Here's me sick


Here's Chris eating fruit snacks:


Here's the kids trying on their Halloween outfits:

Lazy Summer Days

It was sunny and about 70 yesterday with light winds, so we took the inflatable boat out on the lagoon for the day. The kids had a good time, we all got a little sunburnt. This place looks completely different in the summer - it's not what you would imagine a village North of the Arctic Circle would look like.









Got my new gun in - a 454 Casull with a 2" barrell...that should be fun to shoot...

4th videos

Here's a couple videos from the 4th of July. The first is Patrick and Chris dancing, the 2nd is snowmobiles trying to ski across the lagoon behind our house, 2 of them sink...the quality isn't the best.

4th of July in Kotzebue

Yesterday we had record breaking temperatures, with highs reaching 80 degrees just after 6pm...which felt nice after 100 degree temps in Arkansas (I was in Arkansas the whole month of June). So, today, the 4th of July, it's only 52 degrees and the winds are about 15mph...it felt freezing. Anyway, for the 4th the town has a big celebration which started with a concert yesterday and will last through Tuesday-no fireworks though, since it's light out 24 hours. The various outlying villages surrounding Kotzebue participated in the fair and put together some pretty cool floats and trucks. Here are a few pictures from this morning, my favorite was the bear hide on the front of the pickup:

New Videos

I'm gonna start recording short videos of routine life here in Kotzebue. Thanks for the idea Jim. I think it will help illustrate life here. These videos were shot in May and there is still over a foot of snow on the ground. The puddles are from the melting snow, and the entire town is a mess from them.