Happy New Year!

Ryan, Zephyr, and I are back in Alaska after spending a wonderful Christmas and New Year's Day with our families.  Another perk of being a Hospitalist is that Ryan can actually have real vacations!  We were lucky enough to have time to also go on a warm vacation together before heading to Illinois. 

We spent time in Riviera Maya and also Playa del Carmen.  It was so incredible to be able to go from subzero temperatures to tropical weather in 1 day!  While on our awesome vacation, Ryan thought it would be fun to go scuba diving.

I have at admit that I did freak out at the beginning of the pool course.  After realizing that I wouldn't drown if I just breathed out of my mouth, it was smooth sailing from there.  We went on 3 dives, 2 in Cozumel and 1 near Playa del Carmen.  The Cozumel dives were so beautiful, the above pictures are from that dive.  I loved it so much!  Although it was beautiful in Mexico, we were very much looking forward to being with our nephews.

The boys have grown so much!  Ryan and I were especially amazed at how much Reagan has grown, he is officially a little boy now.  Time seems to have gone so fast when seeing our nephews grow.  It was so nice to spend actual Christmas Day with family, Ryan hasn't been able to do that for the past several years. 

Bald Eagles

Okay, Ryan thinks our blog is getting a bit boring and that is has been focusing a lot on Zephyr and the bald eagles in the backyard.  But I think this is pretty amazing! 

I promise there will be more fun winter activities in the new year!

Beautiful Winter Sky

The days have become shorter and shorter.  Sunrise is at about 9:30 am, and stays just about pitch black until then.  It has been getting harder to wake up early!  The sun doesn't come up very high, it sort of just skirts around on the horizon.  This makes the colors in the sky so beautiful!

The temperature has been dropping to about 0 degrees, but it doesn't feel as frigid and bitter as the winter in Chicago (I just got back from dropping Zeph off at my parents' and spending a week and a half there yesterday).

Friends in the Backyard

I think by the time we leave Alaska, I will be a bald eagle cry expert.  Hank and Betty still hang out everyday and they are quite vocal.  Today they were joined by an immature bald eagle.  His head is still dark.  And he stared me down like I was eagle bait.

I am still in awe of the bald eagles, even though Ryan tells me they are not endangered anymore.  They are just not a common sight in Illinois, at least not around Chicago.  

Zeph has a bad tendency of wandering over to the neighbor's yard so we don't let him out on his own anymore.  He gets pretty bored in the house so I try to take him to the beach (not nearly as often as I should), which is his favorite place.  It was so beautiful during sunset around 5 pm.  The crazy dog still likes to go in for a dip even when it's about 30 degrees and my ears feel frozen.  

Let it snow!

It finally snowed!  We woke up to find a winter wonderland outside our window last week.  It's the pretty snow that sticks to the trees.  Ryan describes the trees as the Dickens' village trees.  This is Zephyr's first time seeing and being in snow.  He loved it!  But frolicking in snow creates a messy, wet dog inside your home.  He had a blast ripping off chunks of snow from his legs and leaving wetness all over the sofa and carpet!   It also doesn't help that Ryan finds Zeph's love for snowballs hilarious.  If Zeph catches a snowball Ryan throws at him, he lets him bring it inside the house as a treat. 

The two bald eagles from the previous post continue to hang out on the same branch.  We've named them Hank and Betty.  :)  There is also a pair of cow and calf moose that hang out in our neighborhood.

Bye Bye Summer, Hello Winter!

The summer season flew by so fast!  Fall came, and is starting to leave us to be replaced by winter.  Ryan put his boat away for the year and we are anxious about what the winter will bring.  We've been told different things by many people.  Some tell us it's their favorite time of the year, some that they get seriously affected by the winter and need to get away, and others tell us the novelty of winter will get us through it.  Sunrise right now is at about 9 am, and sunset around 7 pm.  By the end of November, sunrise will be at 9:40 am and sunset at 3:55 pm!  It will definitely be interesting!

Ryan has transitioned into his regular hospitalist role, he will be working 7 days on and 7 days off.  We've been talking about learning how to cross country ski and snow shoe during his days off.  Zephyr recently had surgery on his tongue.  We spotted a white mass growing on the tip of his tongue in August and thought it might be a wart but it was only getting bigger and other warts weren't growing either.  We feel bad that the little guy has a chunk of his tongue missing, but we're also glad that it wasn't a bigger chunk or cancer.  The day of and after the surgery was pretty tough for the little guy, all he would do was whine and cuddle, but he is back to his happy self.  He even spotted some friends in the backyard today.

Can you spot the two birds in the background?

We've seen one bald eagle everyday this week but today was the first time there were two.  They are such large and beautiful birds, I love watching them.  It was a funny sight to see these two huge birds sitting on a skinny branch, every time the wind would blow they would need to regain their balance.  They must be love birds, to share such a skinny branch and small space in the midst of the plentiful larger branches. 

Denali

Denali is incredible, it is so visually stunning.  We were able to see the peak during our drive toward it, about 100 or more miles away.  It is the tallest mountain peak in North America at a little over 20,000 feet.  Denali is also known as Mt. McKinley, but only people outside of Alaska call it that.  In Denali National Park there is only one road appropriately called Park Road that goes 91 miles into the park.  Personal cars are not allowed on this road, instead there are park shuttles (school buses).  It takes about 9-10 hours to go to the end of the road and back so the three of us (Kyle, Ryan, and I) elected to take the 7-8 hour tour.  We were very lucky because only 30% of the people that travel to Denali get to see to the entire mountain.  The peak is so high it has its own climate. 

We were able to see various wildlife on our bus ride including a red fox, golden eagle, dall sheep, wolf, and brown bears.  Above is a picture of mom and her two cubs.  I was surprised to see such big cubs but they stick around with mama until they are 3 years old.  The brown bears range in color, they can be a very dark brown to blonde.  You can tell that they are brown bears (grizzlies) by the hump in between their shoulder blades. 

This is a picture of Denali from mile 66 of Park Road, which is the Eielson visitor center and our final destination into the park.  Added to this amazing trip up north, we were able to see the Northern Lights.  While at dinner in the hotel restaurant the three of us asked our waitress about northern lights out of curiosity.  She said they were able to see them the night before and that we would be able to see them even clearer that night.  She also let us know about the northern lights wake up call service which we took advantage of.  We got the call around 11:30 and headed out to the parking lot.  The three of us thought we could get a better view away from the town lights so we got in the car and drove.  It was definitely the right decision!

My point and shoot camera couldn't pick up anything.  The picture above hardly does it justice.  It would have been perfect if we had a tripod and a camera with an adjustable shutter speed.  The lights would vary in intensity.  The green would dance around in a band across the sky and when we thought the lights were gone it would come back.  The night sky itself was really amazing.  There were shooting stars we could see clearly and different constellations such as the 7 sisters.  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I spotted a couple of moving stars, but they were actually satellites!  So unbelievable!  I had no idea satellites orbiting earth are visible to the naked eye.  I was pretty deprived of beautiful night skies growing up near a city!