Yes, when temperatures begin to rise in March, we all begin to be a little more social and spirits lift. This year treated us to quite a few nights with spectacular displays of the Northern Lights, which found me on my porch experimenting with how to take pictures of the lights dancing across the sky. My first attempts occurred on St. Patrick's Day (or should I say night?).
With St. Patrick's Day being on a Wednesday, the McEnteers didn't have their traditional party until Saturday. When I first moved to Alaska, there were always more dogs than people at the parties, but that is quickly changing. It seems now that there are often more kids than dogs!! In one of the cutest pictures I've ever taken, Kieran and Lola demonstrated what is meant by 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' although as far as I know, neither of them are Irish.
Althea, however, has the Irish McEnteer blood but is obviously a cowgirl at heart as she attempted to ride her mother around the house.
There was still snow on the ground in March, as the snowshoe hare that appeared to be living under my porch can attest.
Sunlight and temperatures hovering below freezing equal perfect conditions for the ice park. Every year Fairbanks, Alaska, hosts the World Ice Art Championships, an extremely popular event for anyone within a hundred miles or so. I didn't make it to the park until the last weekend before it closed, so many of the ice carvings had melted or broken before I got there, but I did some browsing anyway.
Fortunately, the carvings weren't really the point of my trip. I went with Mette and Kieran to have some F-U-N. We started with the ice maze, which apparently is thrilling to run around with wild abandon, but you have to watch your step because those inside corners sure are slippery!!
After the maze we hit the ice slides!
This is definitely where the action is! It seems most kids in town have a season pass and are there pretty much every day for as long as the ice lasts. Kieran and I took a turn, and although it looks like he is in pain, trust me, the little guy will jump up again and again to run to the top of the slide for another turn.
I caught one more aurora display before March ended...
...and before we celebrated Melissa's 30th birthday at a cabin near Chena Hot Springs complete with lots of smiling faces and a giant bonfire to keep us warm.
April began, and the good times kept rolling. A few months earlier I had polled a few friends and asked when they wanted to have the next 'Girl Cabin'. April 3rd seemed to be the best date, so we made it happen.
What we didn't realize when we made the reservation was that it was also Easter weekend. Thus, Easter morning was spent at Hunt Memorial Cabin, where we couldn't get the stove to light, so we went home hungry. Luckily, I was in charge of bringing breakfast, so I was still fortunate enough to have bacon and eggs when I got home. Sorry, ladies!
A couple of nights around April 5th brought the best aurora displays of the season. There was a buzz around town and articles in the newspaper about how wonderful the auroral activity had been.
The rest of April flew by without a camera, but the snow kept melting, and the sun was setting later and later each day, lessening chances of seeing the aurora unless you wanted to set your alarm for 3am...sorry, not happening.
