I know people probably think I'm crazy to love winter here so much, but I really do. I will never fall out of love with the sound fresh fallen snow makes when you walk on it. Winter in Alaska is the time of year that I always seem to experience the most firsts. Last year was the first time I had experienced extreme cold, frozen eye lashes and that feeling where you know the inside of your nose is freezing. Winter is just beginning here this year. The snow seems to have finally arrived to stay and temperatures have dropped to single and negative digits. I've officially pulled my heavy Canada Goose winter coat out of hibernation - although, I don't know how long I will be able to wear it for. Already it's getting difficult to zip around my quickly expanding belly. I had forgotten how difficult it is to drive wearing my bulky snow boots.
One of the things that I love about winter here is the diamond dust. When temperatures drop low enough and the sky is clear enough the moisture in the air freezes; the ice crystals reflect the sun and create a shimmering effect. At first you think it is snowing, but then you realize that there are no clouds and what you think is snow is too fine and never actually falls to the ground.
A few nights ago I experienced a couple of new firsts. Working in fast track I get off much later than I used to with outpatient clinic. This one particular night I unplugged the car and fought and fought with the completely frozen 25 foot extension cord. I gave up trying to unplug the end attached to my car, it wasn't budging. I spent close to 15 minutes forcing the frozen cord to wrap around my side mirror. Not an easy task I assure you when your hands are as frozen as the cord is! Once the cord was finally secure I next set about scraping my windows. I scraped until my arms were sore but the windows weren't clearing up. After a few choice words not appropriate for this blog, I realized the reason was because the frost was on the inside of the windows!!
My most recent first new experience was an atmospheric phenomenon called a parhelion or sundog. There have been many occasions living in Bethel where I have wondered if I was still in the United States, but this experience left me wondering if I was still on planet earth! Sundogs occur when the temperatures are cold enough that the light reflects off ice crystals in the air (diamond dust). It gives the illusion of more than 1 sun. On this particular day the diamond dust was everywhere giving everything a sparkly, shimmery look, and the sundogs gave the appearance of there being not 1, but 3 suns. I was half expecting a dragon or pegasus to fly over me because surely I was either dreaming or had somehow walked into another world.
The pictures below are exactly how the sun appeared. They are not Photoshopped,and it is not a trick of a special lens or filter. The only thing the camera didn't pick up was the shimmering of the diamond dust.
The opportunities for a date night are few and far between here in Bethel. We have no movie theater, no bars, no clubs, no mini golf courses. The few restaurants we have all pretty much serve the same expensive food.
Every few months the Cultural Center hosts a "community" event. Tickets to these events aren't the cheapest, but usually a nice dinner is served (something you won't find in the local restaurants) and various items, depending on the theme of the event, are auctioned and raffled off.
This year we decided to attend one of the events we did not get a chance to go to last year, the NRA dinner. (Yes, NRA, as in National Rifle Association) Mark laughed at me saying only in Bethel would I ever consider an NRA event to be a date night! So true! But I was really looking forward to this night. Mark and I hadn't been out without the kids since our Hawaii trip in April and we were due some adult time. Plus, I had heard really good things about the prime rib dinner.
As our date night approached I got more and more excited. The doors to the Cultural Center opened at 5:00 but dinner wasn't served till 6:30. We knew we wanted to get there at a decent time so we could get good seats. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a restaurant style dinner with quaint little private tables reserved for ticket holders. It's long tables in rows so you can sit next to your loved one and all your closest Bethel friends.
The babysitter arrived a little before 5:30 and just as we were getting ready to walk out the door Luke throws up! In desperate hopes that it was too much Halloween candy and running around we did a quick clean up and left. The babysitter promised to call if he got sick again.
So we got to the Cultural Center later than hoped and we paid the price for it. There wasn't a single seat! We lapped the room twice without any luck finding 2 seats together. The event coordinators advised us to get in line for dinner and assured us they would get 2 seats together for us once we got our food. No sooner did we get in line and my phone rang... Yep, it was the babysitter, Luke had gotten sick again! I promised to eat quick and then hurry home.
We got our food and again tried to find seats. No coordinators could be found to help us (they were probably all enjoying their food together at seats reserved just for them). I found a single seat between two groups of people I didn't know who didn't say a single word to me the entire time I ate. Mark ended up on the other end of the room sitting on a piano bench. I tried not to worry too much about the fact that our date night was being cut short and we weren't even able to eat a quick dinner together. At least I would get a nice prime rib dinner before I left... So much for wishful thinking. The meat was dry, the baked potato was burnt beyond edibleness, and the salad consisted of just lettuce. I ate what I could and left Mark with some friends (at least one of us should be able to enjoy a night without kids) and went home to a sick child.
When all was said and done, between dinner and raffle tickets and the babysitter we spent about $200 for barely edible food, no raffle wins and not even being able to eat next to each other for the short time I was there. The joys of being a parent, and the limitations of living in Bethel. Lesson learned: wait to have date night till we are back in the lower 48 and $200 will pay for good food and a private table! Can't wait till our visit home in February!
