All Over the Place

ALASKA. We're still here! Deflate-gate and Climate Change be damned, we are still alive and kicking, albeit slightly distracted and more reliant on fossil fuels than we would like. (If you haven't seen Bill Nye's take on refrigerated footballs, you totally should: http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/9ggr)
And like you, we found the winter holidays quickly transitioned into the New Year, transitioned into life, transitioned into busy! But fear not, the blog lives on...

So our adventures have been all over the place - at least conditions-wise. I'll let some pictures tell the story. Here's your pre-teach so you know what's coming: some snow, very little snow, no snow, some snow!

First, we tracked down some snow at the start of winter break...

Drove up and stayed at Hatcher Pass Lodge in the days before Christmas for a little white - Kenai was bare!

Following Christmas, Indigo xcountry skied up Mt. Manitoba and then ripped down on her alpine gear - a new backcountry babe!

We maintained our yearly tradition of staying at the yurts -Indigo and Banyan help hoist in the creek water

!

Super sketchy five-people-on-one-sled night time single-track sledding. (They survived!)

We then hit Girdwood and very little snow.

 

 

No caption necessary.

Still lovely though - thank goodness for holiday lights and fire!

We returned to Kenai where there was absolutely NO snow.

Okay, clearly this was still fun and super gorge-e-o-so... The ice on the peninsula was glass, in January!

And the beach riding on the fat tire has been fantastic...

but it felt like April or September!

 And then finally, winter returned with some snow!

Powdery sparkly fluffy ski-able snow!

So despite the absolutely whacky weather (you know things have gone berserk when the Grammies in Florida report colder temps some mornings than we have here in AK), Team Leslie keeps on keepin' on. Indigo continues to lose teeth, to play hard and to learn coolio stuff as a Kindergartener; Kim continues to teach high schoolers about refrigerated footballs, and to learn modern and belly dance (pigs will fly before a video of that makes it onto the blog); and J continues to teach little ones about rockets and rainbows, to ski and to bike (lately, more of the bike). We've all been stargazing a lot, making art, playing games, streaming classic movies and reading a fair deal of Harry Potter. The light is coming back but come 5:30 PM we still find ourselves hunkering down for family evenings in the cold and dark. Funny how it doesn't matter if it's 1980 or 2015, New England or Alaska, some things stay the same... We fry some Cheerios in butter (hot bubbas!), turn on Swiss Family Robinson (who doesn't love pits with tigers?), and cap off the night with some UNO (Draw Four rules!). Amazing.

THE LOWER 48. The need to lock in Summer travel plans has arrived, and we are definitely all over the place. In fact:

"Team Leslie may be coming to a town near you!" 

Indeed, our plane tickets say Anchorage, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Boston, and Manchester. Live nearby? We'd love to see you! So be in touch as your summer plans unravel... Happy 2015, Everyone!