Dear Santa Letters

When I was in Ohio for my class, it looks like the kids were inspired to write letters to Santa. 

Never too early in the holiday season, I suppose! Especially with mail delivery  taking as long as it does here in Kodiak. 

Stuey's is on top. He writes,

"I want pogo stick and a camera and quilting fabric and some goodies  STUEY and a sticker book and a train set.

In the bottom letter, Nora wrote, 

"Dear Santa I want a pogo stick and a camera and a present from mom and dad and some goodies and some jewelry and a butterfly lamp and I hope you'll have a good time bringing presents to children Love Nora.

The letters have been 'faxed' off to Santa - now it is a waiting game.

Zoya

First Tracks

My first tracks - I started skiing at the top center of the picture

These may not be the first ski tracks on Pyramid for the new snow year, but they do represent my first tracks.  It seems like ages since I went skiing but I added it up and it was only 3 months ago.  I was skiing in July and only missed August, September and October.  In the old days I used to go skiing every month of the year and once managed to do that for 9 years straight.  But these days I am more seasonal in my pursuits.  I hunt when there is hunting, do archaeology when the ground is thawed, and ski when there is snow close to town.  It seems that there is now snow close to town - whoo hoooooo.

 Patrick

Self portrait - what's with my teeth?

After the Storm

A big storm just rolled through Kodiak.  This morning we had 60 mph winds and the ocean in front of our house got pretty roiled up.  An indication of the severity is that after the storm our windows are completely covered in wind blown salt, and we are situated 70 feet above the ocean!  We never get storms like this in the summer.  This is our first real winter storm.

What I love about Kodiak is that storms like this solicit no real big reaction.  We never name our storms.  Not to belittle 'frankenstorm' Sandy but we get comparable storms all the time.  They most definitely do not create as much havoc here because for some reason we are better equipped to handle them.  Why is this?  Is it because these sorts of storms are more frequent and so we build our houses and infrastructure accordingly?  Or is it because we do not have the population and there really is no infrastructure to damage?

And this last one was not really a big storm at all.  I've seen storms where dumpsters were blowing about downtown Kodiak like soda pop cans.  Our storms, no matter how big, never make national news.  Our weather only makes it on shows like the 'Deadliest Catch' - certainly not the national news.

Anyway, this afternoon it cleared off and the winds calmed down.  But the waves were still big at Mill Bay beach.  I also created a short 1 minute video that shows a clip of the beach at noon and then another clip after it cleared around 2:30 PM.  It was certainly not a good day to be out on a boat!

This is the view of the beach from our house

The kids had 'early release' from school so I took them to the beach to see the waves

Here's a satellite image of our storm from 1PM - note that this image would cover the lower 48.  That's a big storm.

Trick Or Treat

Zoya left yesterday for Columbus, Ohio and PT training, but before she left we took the kids down Cliffside Road for some trick-or-treating.  Katie joined us with Natalie and Sawyer.  Our road does not get a lot of trick-or-treat traffic, but I get the feeling that most of the houses had bought candy in expectation of our arrival.  I also think that some of them would have been crushed if we had not showed up and they had bought all that candy for nothing.  I know that in the old days I bought Halloween candy knowing that only the our next-door neighbor's kids were likely to drop by.

Nora, Stuey, Natalie and Sawyer on the prowl for candy

Physical Therapy Class in Columbus

Yesterday evening after trick or treating I hopped on a plane for Columbus Ohio. I'm here for a 3 day physical therapy class which starts tomorrow. A lady at a local store recommended an Indian restaurant, Aab, for dinner so I went and it was delicious! I"m finding myself attracted to Indian Restaurants when I travel. I love their chicken, chickpea, yogurt ingredients and incredible sauces and curries. 

Headed to bed soon with an early class start tomorrow of 7:30. The course has 30+ other PT's in it, no others from Alaska. It'll be an exciting 3 days of  learning with other likeminded physical therapists.

Zoya

Dinner at Aab Restaurant. 

Pumpkin Seeds

Removing the pulp and seeds from the pumpkins

Last night when we carved our pumpkins Nora carefully picked out all the seeds.  We then spread out the seeds on a cookie sheet, sprinkled on some kosher salt and peanut oil, and then roasted them in the oven for a half hour or so.  They ended up crunchy and delicious.  The kids even took some to school for a snack.

Stuey has been very enthusiastic about lighting the candles that we put inside of them.  He has become quite enamored with fire.  On Sunday morning after the Halloween party the bonfire was still smoldering away so I burned the pizza boxes and other party thrash on it.  Stuey enthusiastically helped out and then added more wood and kept the fire going ALL day.  He kept on coming inside to ask what else we had to burn.  Patrick

Nora with her creation

Stuey with his creation

Nora, Stuey and Daddy show off their finished Jack-o-lanterns.

Some Final Halloween Pics

Timmy with flame-thrower

A few more photos from our Saturday Halloween party.  Sven H took these and somehow he even managed to include himself in a few of them.  I do believe this might be the most photographed party we've ever had at our house.  They'll be fun to look back through in a few years time.  Patrick

2 scary skeletons

Sven and Balika - he 'speaks for the trees'

Katie & Toby as Zombies

Katie, Marnie and Ella

A final one of Miss Muffet with all her spiders

Frost and Test Pits

Yesterday Jill and I went on an archaeological 'recon' survey up Salonie Creek.  The frost crystals were spectacular.  We noticed that when the light was just clearing the Heitman Mountain ridge that the frost crystals lit up with blue and other colors.  I tried to capture this in the photo above but it only captured the colored lights on the bottom half of the photo.  We decided that the mountain was diffracting (bending) the rays of light that were just clearing the mountain and so creating rainbows.  When the light was not diffracted the crystals had white light flares only.  Does this sound like a good explanation?

Ironically after digging lots and lots of test pits last week and finding very little - yesterday we found a 4 to 6 thousand year-old site with our first test pit.  BINGO.  In the photo above Jill is holding an extended 2 meter tape down into the hole.  Our 50 by 50 cm test pit was 140 CM deep before we had to quit without reaching the bottom.  Below Jill also has the tape extended in a more normal test pit.  The latter test pit is typical of what we found all last week.  The stratigraphy in the new site we found yesterday looks very much like what we uncovered at the Amak Site last summer.

Below is a view of the sun clearing the Heitman Ridge.  Patrick

Halloween Firepit

Patrick had the firepit going on outside. The people who didn't dance escaped the music and huddled around the warmth of the fire. 

Our friends Lisa and Gregg as the Goat people!

Genevieve was an astronaut, complete with a fake butt! She was 'Bud Tox the astronaut'.

Party Scene

Dawn and Aaron were the bartenders. They made Highball Eyeballs as well as Black Lagoon Cocktails. 

A myriad of halloween themed treats!

And in true Saltonstall party tradition....at 8:30 the couches were pushed aside for DANCING!

Our friend, Marcus D - 'Mr sun - mister shining sun - please shine down on me!'

Some Costumes

Our friends Jill and Joe rocked the goth look!

Our friends Heather and Bob dressed up as Joann and Don from the TV series Mad Men.

Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky! Bill didn't take off his hat the entire night. No body really knows who he was!

I bet you can't even guess who these two really are in day to day life.

Bree and Mark as the Kodiak Wind Turbines! (we have 6 on our island).

Halloween 2012

Last night we resurrected the Halloween party tradition and had a shin-dig here at the house. There were so many great costumed people in attendance! I always love seeing what people come up with!

Our family, Little Miss Muffet and a spider, clown and fairy.

The kids at the pre-party!

Little Miss Muffet and "Barbara Ella" from the 70's movie, Barbara Ella.

Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Dumpster Diver

It looks like a really big dog tried to get into our neighborhood dumpster.  I could see that he pushed it a few times and there were paw prints on the other side too.  I showed the prints to the kids and they just stared and got quiet. They understood that the prints were a bit more than a big dog would leave behind.

I really like how the second photo sort of creates a Jackson Pollack like abstract image.

Patrick