You can dress 'em up...

Well I finally got the kids dressed and standing still long enough to get a good picture. This was about the fourth take. I think it turned out pretty well.

Merry Christmas!

December in Alaska

Well, I was going to take a picture of the kids in front of the tree, but before we even got home from church everyone was going in different directions and this is the result. I had to take Chase back to church for music practice. So this picture will have to do for now. I took it before church this morning trying to see what flash or light combination was going to work. I'll put another up later with everyone in it.

This picture gives you an idea of what we go through to hunt ptarmigan. What you can't see is that the snowy slope that John Williams is standing on is wind packed and in places you can't kick your boot through to get traction. Many times, you have to stab through with the ski pole then rest your foot against that. As scary as that may seem, if you fall you just slide down the slope unharmed. The bad part is having to walk back up! This is the same slope that we saw the moose on in a previous post. That's John Chin in the back ground. We chose this route thinking the birds would be in places we'd seen them before. They weren't. Had we taken the easy trail we'd have found them much sooner. But then I wouldn't have such a cool picture. Another thing missed in this photo is the extreme winds. It was constant at 30-40 mph with gusts that had to reach 60. When we found the birds, they were in a drainage facing into the wind. When they flew, they just rode the wind and fortunately for short distances. We got 13 this day.