Birthday Adventures

What a wonderful birthday I had! Enjoy the picture story:

Headed south- first time we've seen a train along the Seward Highway

We diagnosed an avalanche

Snowplow: size XL

The Hotel Alyeska

The view from our room

View again

Headed up the mountain on the tram

"Show me a ski pose."

The Roundhouse- enjoying the view & skiers before our toes completely froze

Cloudy/foggy mountain

One of my favorite pictures (heads together, yes I know)

Birthday breakfast (I ordered Cody an Aztec mocha and he loved it! I have no idea why I never introduced him to it before!)

View of the area before sunrise

We indulged every mocha craving, obviously

Gearing up! Hand warmers included!

Ready!

My hair froze! It was only 1 degree to the good

Tired Cody

Turn your head.

Moose Meadow (no moose sighting though)

Cody stopped to take a picture of the ice build-up

While I enjoyed the sunshine (finally!) Trying to ward off any signs of SAD

There are dall sheep in the somewhere (We saw 5 on the way home!)

Ice climbers right along the highway

The moon: out at 3:30pm

The ice carving consent we quickly toured

Cody's all geared up for the science exhibit at the Anchorage Museum (First Friday = free admission)

Checking myself out on the heat detecting monitor

Launching the hot air balloon

Cody's score

and mine :)

Not hand warmers. nah, life savers.

Picture of my birthday 'cake' as requested by Taya (Tiramisu turned out great, Cody!)

Kiss a Moose

Cody and I made a spur of the moment road trip to Palmer, AK (only about 40 minutes away) to check out the reindeer farm. It was fun, although cold. I had to work that night, so Cody met up with a couple coworkers to see the fireworks downtown and the Fire and Ice Festival.

Finally got the moose antlers in place

All the greedy reindeer (females are typically the only ones still with their antlers this time of year)

Caribou = wild; reindeer = domesticated

They can be aggressive, as demonstrated (these were all young females, ranging from 6 months-2 years old)

Quickly losing their attention once my food cup was empty

If you look closely, you can see bright red spots on this castrated males antlers (frozen blood left from the vasularity of the proliferative phase of antler growth)- castrated male antlers never detach or grow back very pretty- poor guys

Dolly, the 7 year old bison- known to break arms. I denied to 'pet' her or her horns

And there goes the frozen banana

Denali got a little more personal with Cody

And Cody got a little more than he bargained for

Cody.... come back! (They had two orphaned 3 year old male moosen- had to be injected with 'female hormone' this fall to hasten their antler shedding lest they kill each other in the rut)

Purple Moose Espresso: I WILL be back because I am beautiful

The Fire and Ice show in downtown Anchorage on NYE

Had to break out the government-issue parka in the new year for a forecast of -10