The Waiting Place...

This is the hardest time of year for the Bushman clan.  We can handle the darkness of winter and the brightness of summer, but the flirtatious not-yet-spring is a challenge.  The growing days seem incredibly long, and actually make the biting cold that much more confining.  Everything is still frozen and will be for another month.  There's nothing to do but wait.

Which sucks.  I'm not good at waiting.  So I'm going to make bad choices, stay up too late, and play catch-up on the blog.

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It's been a long start to the year.

New Year's Day started inauspiciously--ever optimists, we went to see Aquaman.  Now, I'm a mature woman and can appreciate Jason Momoa in all of his half-dressed glory, but even his oiled up abs and perma-cocked eyebrow couldn't save that movie.  Unpopular opinion, but there it is. The girls enjoyed it for the spectacle it is, but they can be forgiven for their misplaced youthful enthusiasm.

This winter we've made an effort to get out more, with mixed results.  Our first big venture of the new year was to try and go tubing--I say "try" because we failed dismally.  Apparently everyone else had the same idea and converged on the local hill.  Instead of waiting for slots to open up, Rick suggested we go for a walk.  I thought it was a wonderful idea.  The girls died in protest.

Alaska was apparently menopausal this year and suffered hot and cold flashes.  After a couple weeks of temperatures creeping into the 20s, we plummeted into the negatives.  Naturally, this is the time Rick decided he wanted to try hunting.  He managed to get a ptarmigan on Murphy Dome.  It was the beefiest-tasting bird I've ever had.  I went along on the initial trip and froze my keister off.  The next time he took the three older girls (who may have been slightly better prepared than I was) and they all had a blast even though they didn't manage to shoot anything.

A far off glimpse of Denali.

The cold snap presented another opportunity. Whenever the temperature hits -40, the local crazies strip down to their swimsuits and go pose in front of the University of Alaska Fairbanks sign, which flashes the temperature.  I've wanted to do it for years but the first year we were here I was pregnant and Rick said no; the second year it didn't get cold enough while I was awake.  This year, though, I got my chance.  Coming back from a friend's goodbye party, we noticed that the temperature had dropped, so before I could chicken out (I'm often more of a talker than a doer) Rick and I got into our swimsuits and drove into the frigid night.  We opted for the local junior high sign instead of UAF because it was closer to the house and we could pull up within 10 feet of it.

Totally worth it.

By the end of January Rick was out on his annual winter work-cation in the lower 48.  Those of us left behind barreled into an intentionally overscheduled month. We kicked things off by catching the high school's production of Newsies on its final night.  It was pretty spectacular.  Everyone really pulled out all the stops, and as a result over 8,000 people saw it over two weekends.

Next we went to the Bardathon.  Every February, the local Shakespeare company reads ALL of the Bard's work--every play, poem, and sonnet--over the course of a week.  We went with some homeschool friends to an educational session where we read part of The Comedy of Errors as an introduction to Shakespeare.  A few days later, I took some of the girls back to read the last of the sonnets.  It was a really cool experience.  It's already penciled onto my calendar for next year.

From the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre Company FB page.

The 1,000 mile Yukon Quest dogsled race ended in Fairbanks this year (it alternates every year between Fairbanks and Whitehorse).  We managed to catch the winning musher and team as they came down the Chena River on Fort Wainwright.  Totally worth the hour we waited, no matter what the kids say.  We've already established that their judgment is lacking.

Our string of birthdays kicked off with me.  I took myself to an Ice Dogs hockey game; out of guilt, I took some of the smaller minions with me.  Not a mistake I'll make again.  It's hard to watch ice fistfights when you're wrestling a four-year-old away from a stranger's concession snacks for two hours.

The next two birthdays went smoothly, but, since they fell in the middle of the week, completely threw off our school schedule.  You see, it is a truth universally acknowledged that when a homeschooler's birthday falls on a weekday, absolutely nothing useful will be accomplished.  This happened twice in as many weeks.  Somehow we managed to juggle violin and art lessons, playgroup, skiing and gymnastics--but I'm not going to lie, I'm very incredibly relieved that half of that ends next week.  We stayed busy, though, so the goal was accomplished.

And now it's time to get my sleep-deprived butt to bed.

Sunrise light pillars.