It's Not Too Stinkin' Cold

Well, o.k., maybe I lie, below zero really is cold!!!! As I type this entry, it is a balmy -7 degrees outside and we haven't seen the upper side of zero since we arrived back in Alaska on 12/30 and don't intend to see temps above zero until Wednesday if we're lucky.

When we were in California over the holidays, that region was experiencing an "Arctic Blast", which took temperatures down into the 30s at night and it warmed up to the low 60s on a good day. I wish I could tell you I wasn't chilly and was able to wear shorts, but that just wouldn't be true. Even we thought it was cool out. I do have to say that I was chuckling with my mother-in-law over everyone's cold weather attire in Southern California. It was 60 degrees and people there were wearing what we wear here, when it's well below freezing. It cracked my up! My other observation was that once the weather gets below 30, it doesn't matter if it's 10 degrees or 30 degrees, it's just cold. Even if you are in California! My addendum to that comment is that once it hits below zero, cold has a whole new meaning.

Our dear, stubborn child, Kaiden, got a snowboard for Christmas and has been obsessing over taking it out on the nearby ski slope. We had intended to take him out this past Friday, but the high was slated to be -9. Although Eric had committed to Kaiden that we'd go, as Friday approached, we decided that as parents, we have the right to go back on a committment if it is for the health and/or safety of our children. As you can imagine, with many tears and much pouting, we postponed the snowboarding trip until the temperature warms up to above zero.

In leiu of snowboarding, we took the kids to see Bedtime Stories (my new favorite family movie), on a much anticipated shopping excursion to Target, to have lunch (by Logan's request) at a Mongolian BBQ type restaurant, and to Town Square to view ice sculptures that had been completed on 12/29. We figured that because the weather had been to cool, the ice sculptures would still be in prime condition, which they were. The silly part of the whole trip was that once at Town Square, we parked at a meter. The meter already had 22 minutes left on it and I put in enough change to give us an hour. What was I thinking????? It was so darn cold that even with those fancy little heat packs in our gloves, our fingers about snapped off. I don't even think we lasted 20 minutes out there, but let me tell you, the sculptures sure were beautiful. It amazes me that people are able to carve such intricate, detailed designs out of a simple block of ice. Whenever I find out that there are ice sculptures somewhere in town, I end up dragging the whole family out to look at them. They almost always go without a fight, so they must think they're pretty cool too.