I haven't posted in forever...

Things were a mess for a couple weeks...between severe morning sickness on my part, Connor's mono, trying to fix this place up to something livable for the next two months, and house selling stuff, I just have not had time. I've been promising people some pics on Alaska stuff, and new Connor pictures, so this post is devoted entirely to that.

We got offered a house on base and we're able to move in on 25 April...yay! So it's six more weeks in the ghetto (do NOT expect to see a pic, we're ashamed!) but worth it for this big gorgeous base house with about 1.5 more room than we've ever had, with a custom basement playroom for Connor.

It's on the corner of Sundog Court, and backs up directly to Moose Lake, so we'll need to make doubly sure Connor can't get out there without help. There's two parks within walking distance, and two blocks away is the community center with a lovely indoor playground when it's crazy cold. The street is full of field graders; both of us keep getting struck by the fact that we're the grown ups now. Eesh, scary thought. We have a nice big lot...of course Charlie immediately thought with a sigh of the extra mowing...but I remind him that's what teen boys are for. Now everyone send the people living there now strong "get out!" vibes!

Here's the view of the house from across Moose Lake. I think it's more pond than lake, but that's me I guess. Apparently people fish there, but I'm not sure I would eat what came out of there...Chena Lake fine, but Air Force minds in the 1960s and 1970s were not always as environmentally aware as they should have been, so I'm wary. It's very pretty though and will be even more so in the summer.

Here's a photo of where Charlie works. The wing headquarters building is just enormous and houses most of the admin and command functions of the base. Charlie also has people in Red Flag and the CTS, but the bulk of them are in the wing vault. Well, those that aren't deployed anyway! Eielson is a strange little base...tiny, they love to hide things (who would have guess the drycleaners was on the basement 2nd floor of the 2nd dorm across the street from the dining hall? Not me, as I spent 45 minutes trying to find it!), and yet has absurdly high-ranking people in charge of some things, and absurdly low ranking people in charge of other things. The place is also near about dead for several months in the winter. I wondered aloud one day about why the aircraft hardly ever flew...after all, most of them are technically all-weather and withstand very low temps at altitude. Was it a lift problem, I wondered? Charlie then enlightened me -- it was because downrange the weather was so bitterly cold (at least 20 to 30 below what it is here) that in certain temp ranges, that made the chances of recovering a guy alive who made it out of the jet in an accident virtually nil, no matter how fast they mobilized rescue. This is a very cool but rather dangerous place sometimes.

Anyway, I digress. One of the big tourist attractions in winter here is the Ice Art Festival. It's over behind Pioneer Park off Peger Rd, and it's pretty amazing. We did not realize that the vast majority of the place was a kids' ice playground, but since Connor was NOT enthused about sliding down bitterly cold slides, that turned out okay. We should have had him in snow pants since he did want to play in the ice sleds, but it was so warm (45+) we didn't want to make him Randy from Christmas Story when we left the house. Ah well, lesson learned for next year! Next year, I think he'll probably be much more likely to want to play and actually wear the cold weather gear he needs to play safely. We eventually transitioned over to looking at the ice art competition sculptures, with some protestations from the junior jet set.

They were GORGEOUS! I can't believe what artists can do with something as simple as a block of ice. The unfortunate part was that the weather was so dramatically warm for a week that many of the sculptures were cracked and damaged terribly. You could see how lovely they were though from display pictures. There were several different competitions -- single block, multi-block, amateur, and junior -- though a couple hadn't yet happened. The festival goes for a month, but the professionals do the contests in the first week so there is something pretty to look at for everyone coming. I snapped a few pics of my favorites. Connor wanted to pick up every pieces of broken ice he found, and tried to abscond with a small carved bunny. Luckily it proved to weigh much more than he could lift, but it was a close run thing!

So that's it for this entry...I'll try to get my act together and post more often from here on out!