Countdown

Hope that everyone had a fantastic holiday.  We were pretty mellow this year but managed to have lots.  As usual Clarity received wonderful presents from friend and family and we had a great time.  Surprisingly the temperatures through Christmas were in the high 20's and 30's, which is relatively warm considering 2 weeks earlier we saw negative 42.  Even with the high temperatures Clarity felt it necessary for one of her new dolls to be dressed up for the Solstice Spiral, so this is the result.  She actually made the bibs and balaclava herself; her mama's sewing projects are a good influence on her.

We have finished up Clarity's first skiing lessons, overall it was a great success.  She finished the lessons by participating in the Candy Cane Race, which, as the name would suggest, involves troves of children racing around trying to collect sugary treats.  Clarity, as I predicted, waited until every single kid was well underway before she left the starting line, she has to make sure that she sees everything.  I am beginning to appreciate that Clarity is just not in a rush to get things done.  Luckily in the end Santa was mopping up the stragglers and delivering candy canes to those more speed impaired youngsters, so Clarity got her sugar buzz, but thankfully not the 4 candy canes those in the front got!

Christmas cookie party

We are busy preparing for our month in Hawaii.  We leave in a week and have been running around gathering craft supplies and clothing.  Other than that we have been busy with Clarity.  She has quite the social calendar these days and is gathering so many friends I'm not sure how we're going to be able to leave. 

We want to wish everyone a great holiday season and a happy and safe New Years.  We are so blessed to have so much love in our lives.  We hope to see everyone in 2012!!



Go yeast go!

Bubble bubble boil and trouble

On a final note, thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift from my wonderful wife we are finally brewing beer at the Partridge household.  Tonight we boiled up a 5 gallon batch of belgian IPA, which is currently fermenting in our basement.  It should taste good after our vacation.  Come have a taste.



Christmas in Ice, North Pole, Alaska

Solstice is near

Spiral of light

 We had an inspiring celebration a couple of weeks ago with our Fairbanks Waldorf friends.  A spiral was made on the floor out of pine boughs with one older child in the middle of the spiral, holding a candle.  We turned out the lights and each child walked the spiral as we sang, lit their candle and placed it on the floor within the spiral.  It was magical to watch each child carry the light out with them and light up the entire room with candle light.

We have 3 hours and 55 minutes of daylight right now.  We are counting the days until we can carry the light back toward summer!

Each child carried a candle to the light

Shhhhhhhh!

I have been up late at night trying to get this little doll finished for Solstice morning.  She is stuffed with sheep's wool that we carded ourselves. It was a fun project!  Don't tell Clarity until after Solstice.

A Little Story

Yesterday, I was needle felting a pin cushion for my sewing needles.  Clarity saw the pin cushion and requested one for herself.  I quickly needle felted a small pillow for what I thought she would use in her doll house.  She took her new pillow and I went back to work on my pin cushion.  About 5 minutes later Clarity showed up, fully dressed in her outdoor gear, pin cushion in hand and a roll of tape.  She taped the pin cushion along with other soft fluffy things to the back window of the house.  She explained to me it was to protect the bird's beaks.  Lately we have had a lot of birds hitting the window!  We are now a bird friendly house.

Clarity Blue's Playhouse

We went to the Nutcracker Ballet last weekend.  Clarity has been performing plays ever since.

Life in the Deep Freeze

FOR REAL

Whew, we made it through the first official "cold snap" of the winter.  Look at the above thermometer and think about the fact that our house in the hills is 22 degrees warmer than in the city of Fairbanks and you can imagine how much exposed flesh was being burnt to a frosty crisp.  The record setting cold (-42 F) was a bit brutal and we're glad that we have returned to a balmy 0 degrees.  Clarity had me out 3 times today to celebrate the rising temps.  We're even supposed to see 25 above this coming week, it's crazy living in Alaska. 

It's hard to describe what it's like when it's that cold, the air just seems to slow down as if everything is holding its breath.  We get great optical illusions due to the extreme temperature inversions.  The sunset picture shows a bit of it  in the Alaska range.

Our Ice Snow Man

We've been enjoying the holiday season, celebrating Thanksgiving with friends and planning on many solstice celebrations in the upcoming weeks.  Solstice is always a special event in Alaska, everyone so excited to start counting the additional minutes of daylight.  January 3rd we board an airplane for Kauai, and we're getting pretty excited about a little thawing.  We will return to Alaska January 25th, with temps still cold but a lot more daylight than we have now.  Then we should have a great spring and hopefully smoke free beginning of summer and then we'll see what happens.

Wheeeeeee!!!

Winter Nature Table

I have finished with a few more project photos, we have been so busy we haven't had time to post blogs or anything else.  Michelle is making Clarity a doll for solstice, and I'm felting her a fairy character from one of her favorite books.  With the addition of some great gifts from friends and family I'm sure that Clarity will have another great solstice celebration.  We plan to have a spiral at our house again this year, we'll post some pics.  Hope everyone's celebrations are great this year, we are thankful for all of you and hope to see you in 2012!!

Mama's b-day Present

Inside Pocket.....Tricky

Hand Felted Sunshine



The Making of a Sostice Calendar

King Winter Now Is In The Land

After a nice cold snap here in Fairbanks it's settled in to a nice 5 degrees F during the day.  Doesn't feel too brutal yet but the sun is noticeably getting more scarce everyday.  We have had some steller days and the view from our house is fantastic.  Now that the sun is following the geese south we get a great sunrise and sunset from our living room window, before long the sun will set directly behind Denali. 

.When you're in Interior Alaska in the winter you have to work with what you got, which is a lot of ice. We skate on it, sled on it, carve on it, and make various works of art. This winter we have been making ice globe lanterns which have added some festive spirit to our decks and walkways. We are busy working on an advent calendar for Clarity, she's excited for Solstice and the spiral she remembers from last year.

Michelle did knit me that hat, I love it and it's warm.  Lots of other projects going on around here, I'll post pictures as we complete them.  Friday evening we are going to have our Matinmas lantern walk with our homeschool group, this time of year the Waldorf festivals really pile up, perfect medicine for some cold, dark times.  I'll be sure to post some photos of the festivities.

Other than our normal routine we have been trying to get Clarity excited about cross country skiing. We enrolled her in the Junior Nordic program here and she had her first lesson Sunday. She is the smallest one in the group but she's a trooper and seems to be enjoying herself.

That's it from the frozen north, stay tuned. 

Another Snowy Post

Starting to feel like we're running a sweatshop with Clarity Blue being the only customer, and non-paying no less.  Michelle and I have been busy filling the little spaces of our Fairbanks home.  After purchasing another sewing machine (if we ever get all our stuff in one place we will be able to open a sweatshop with all duplicated tools we have between Alaska, Oregon, and Vermont) Michelle has been hard at work sewing a nice winter cover for the playstand.  Clarity appreciated all the hard work and gave us a proper puppet show once the cover was all in place.



She also just finished a nice knitted/felted/needle felted hat that has the daddy jealous and hoping for maybe an early Solstice present.




We've also been busy in the kitchen, besides our usual baking rotation we have managed to put up some habanero hot sauce, some highbush cranberry bbq sauce, and soon lots of fruits and veggies via the food co-op Michelle manages.  It's nice to still be getting farm veggies with the fresh snow on the ground.  We have managed to spoil Clarity to the point she won't eat anything out of a jar or can, so we're always busy cooking around here.
Other than that it's business as usual in Fairbanks, we have re-settled into a comfortable rhythm and have been getting more involved with the Waldorf homeschool co-op.  We have a nice indoor space for the winter and Clarity earnestly looks forward to each Thursday when we get to go to the group.  She gets a lot of kid time up here and we feel good about where we're at right now.  We try to get out once a week for some Alaskan culture, there are lots of museums and cultural centers to explore on the cold days.


Mostly the weather has been really nice, we are really hoping for some more snow to cover up the sledding hill, the rear end can get mighty sore after bouncing off a few rocks.

We finally retired the trampoline for the season, it will make its re-appearance (with a safety net) in the spring.  We did have a few nice snowy jumps before we pulled the plug.

 In a few weeks we'll be celebrating Martinmas and we have been diligently making lanterns for the lantern walks.  We're really feeling fortunate to be back in Alaska for the winter, I think more than anywhere Clarity feels like this is home, although she often asks when we will be moving back to Vermont.  We're lucky to have such a flexible, outgoing kid, hopefully someday she'll be glad we packed her around all over the countryside.  We're saving up for therapy just in case. 

Cheers!