Happy New Year to all of you!

May you feel God's hand of love upon you during 2014.  (Of course, a loving hand also metes out discipline, but I pray that  is not what you feel.)

First, it was cold.  Very Cold - 40 below and lower.  It takes one's breath away.

 You may remember that -40 F and -40 C are the same.  This the only temperature for which they are the same.  These appear to be the same at -41, but that is only because they round off to the nearest degree.

 We went to the ice sculptures in North Pole again.  I sent pictures about a month ago.  This time there were sculptures done.  Our daughter, Marcia, and her family were here and went also.

You may remember that previously only part of the competition was done, the single block carvings.  This time the three-block sculptures were also done.  Here are three pictures of those.

The morning it was so cold we went to the Museum of the North at University of Alaska Fairbanks.  These pictures show part of the Alaska Range of mountains taken there.  These shown here are about 100 miles south of Fairbanks.  In the foreground is Fairbanks.  It was shrouded in fog.  The University is higher and was above the fog.

This is Mount McKinley, it is the highest peak in North America.  It is nearly 200 miles from Fairbanks.

While at the Museum I also tried to get a picture of the sunrise.  They had a nice window looking south so I could be inside.  The sun goes just below the horizon quite a while before actually coming up.  In these pictures I thought perhaps each was the sunrise, but I was wrong.  The bright spots are clouds or the sun reflecting off snow on the mountains.  After watching for over a half hour I gave up and toured the museum.  

The first two also show Fairbanks in the fog.  Fairbanks actually has one of the worst problems with air pollution in the US.  In the winter there are times of almost no wind.  All the car exhaust, industrial smoke, and home heating system fumes just sit over the city until the wind comes up to carry it away, which could be days or even weeks.  Sometimes they recommend using a mask when outside to lessen the pollution.  Some people who use wood don't allow it to season sufficiently, wet wood makes much more pollution than dry wood.  Alaska has huge reserves of natural gas, but the permafrost makes underground pipe difficult to work with.  Anchorage has natural gas available but Fairbanks does not.  The state is working now to get natural gas to Fairbanks.  That would help the pollution a lot.  It would also lower motel and apartment costs because the natural gas would be much cheaper than fuel oil.  Our apartment is heated with fuel oil and has a hot water system to get the heat to the apartments.

On the morning of the coldest day the pipes for the heat to our apartment froze.  It took 18 or so hours to get the pipes thawed.  Our apartment hangs out about three feet beyond the exterior wall of the apartment below us.  The pipes in that overhang froze.  We have been told to keep our heat turned higher.  That sounds better than being told to keep our heat lower!  Sometime now we are too warm.  They are trying to get more antifreeze in the lines.  Fortunately, our apartment is a middle apartment so there was heat below, above, and to one side so our apartment only got down to 53 degrees.  That may sound cold for an apartment but it was about 90 warmer than outside!

While Marcia, Todd, Sadie, and Claire were here we took them to the Chena Hot Springs Resort.  The water of the spring averages 106 degrees year around.  The indoor pool temperature is 94 degrees.  Elva and I did not indulge, we did not bring swim suits.  Many people say the Hot Springs are one of the best things of the Fairbanks area.

We saw northern lights this week.  More on that next week.

God has been good during 2013.  Can we trust that God will also be good during 2014?  Much pressure is taken away from us when we rely on God to take care of us.  He has promised to do that.  Do we have faith that He can?  He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.  We are none of these.  Not even by a long way!

May you have a wonderful 2014!

Larry and Elva

Merry Christmas!

On purpose I say "Merry Christmas" and not "Happy Holiday."  The holiday is all about Christmas - Christ coming into the world.  Advertisers prefer to say "Happy Holiday" because they don't want to offend anyone.  In this case I am all for offending people!  I celebrate the coming of God into the world as a human baby.  He came to live to show us the Father.  He came to die so that we might see the Father.  I am thankful for Jesus and proudly say, "Merry Christmas!"

Merry Christmas!

This morning it was -14 in Wayland and -8 here.  Elva and I had a little laugh!  Our laugh was short-lived.  The temps have been falling steadily all day.  Now it is -18.  But there is no wind.  The weather reports we listen to in the mornings give the temperatures for one year ago.  We have been fortunate this year - most days the temps a year ago are 10 to 20 degrees colder than this year.  It has been a mild December for Fairbanks.

We saw first hand how they do snow removal here.  There are too many snows to remove it for each storm.  The major roads they try to keep the snow off from each snow.  All the secondary roads the snow just builds up.  It might be 5 or 6 inches of packed snow on the road.  It packs and is not very slick.  We had ice in mid November and it is very slick, but the snow pack is not very slick.  A couple times per winter they remove snow - down to an inch or so.  First a grader goes over the road several times, removing a couple inches each pass.  This is piled in rows down the middle of the street.




Then a big snow blower blows it into a truck.  The big dump trucks were filled in just a couple minutes.

 The core of the downtown has Christmas lights now.  The snow on posts, trees, fences, and lawns is still pretty.

This is an example of town light.  Tree is just normal tree lit by the street lights.

Trees in downtown park with lights.

Lights behind icicles.

How many of you have gone to fireworks shows in snow pants, parkas, heavy gloves, and snow boots?  It seemed rather different, but it was not too hot - that is for sure.  This is one way they celebrate the winter solstice.  It was mild for here, about 15 degrees above.  It could have easily been 50 degrees colder!  No fireworks here for the Fourth of July, it is not dark enough.  These were by the city.  New Years Eve there will be more done by the college.  The fire works were along the river, about three blocks from our apartment.

There was a very light breeze.  This shows the smoke from the previous seven or eight shots.

We like this one best - not the star of Bethlehem - but the star of Fairbanks!

Here is another part of the solstice celebration.  I'm not sure which reindeer this is, but from the nose it must not be Rudolph.

I write this Christmas Eve here in Fairbanks.  We plan to go to the Christmas Eve service at church.  It is at 11:00.  Elva will be singing in the choir and I will be usher.  This is a new place for us, we don't know how the service will go.  But it will be wonderful.  We will gather with others celebrating the coming of our Savior into the world.

Merry Christmas!  May your Christmas and your life be filled with the blessings brought from heaven above to humankind by the Man who was born in the manger in Bethlehem many years ago.

Larry and Elva

Friends   ---

Welcome to another message from far north.  This is the Christmas tree at First Presbyterian Church.

We have not had any other pictures this week  --  sorry.

The shortest day for us is coming up shortly, actually the shortest day for everyone in the northern hemisphere.  And the longest day for everyone in the southern hemisphere.  The closer one is to the poles the more dramatic is the change.  Here are the sunrise and sunset times to the nearest minute:

December     Sunrise       Sunset

15                 10:51         2:40

16                 10:53         2:40

17                 10:54         2:40

18                 10:55         2:40

19                 10:56         2:40

20                 10:56         2:40

21                 10:57         2:40

22                 10:57         2:41

23                 10:58         2:42

24                 10:58         2:43

25                 10:58         2:44

26                 10:57         2:45

27                 10:57         2:47

28                 10:56         2:48

29                 10:56         2:50

So it does not take long until the days grow longer again.  They make a big deal here about the winter solstice.  There will be dog sled races, businesses will have special sales, there will be sleigh rides, caroling, and what one pamphlet calls "winter fun."  Hopefully we can get some pictures of some of these.

We actually had some wind last Wednesday and Thursday.  It will not sound like much wind to you, but  it made the paper here.  There was wind of 15 mph here and 25 in Fort Wainwright.  Yes, I remember much stronger wind in Iowa and Colorado with cold temperatures.  But wind here is unusual.  We were talking with some people today and they still were talking about the wind with cold.  It was generally around zero when the wind was blowing.  After that it gradually got colder.  The official low Monday was -38.  Our thermometer got down to -28.  It was only a couple degrees warmer than that when we took our walk yesterday.  Today it is gradually getting warmer.  Now (8:00 pm) it is about -9.  Day and night makes little difference in the temperature.  The sun does not shine enough to make any difference.  Cloud cover and wind direction seem to determine the temperature.

After talking with several people, we finally did it.  They all said it would be safe.  Coming home from our walk this afternoon we walked on water!  We had seen tracks of people walking, cross country skiing, and snowmachining, but were reluctant - until today.  We walked across the river on the ice.  It was too dark at about 3:30 for a good picture.

Last Saturday there was a "Community Messiah Sing."  Anyone could come, pick up a copy of the music, practice for  about 45 minutes, and then sing the Christmas portions of the Messiah.  There were about 250 singers and maybe 25 in the audience.  Elva sang, I listened.  Everyone we talked with really enjoyed it.

God's blessings to all.

Larry and Elva

Good Friends    ----

Many things point toward Christmas.  The kindergarten-first grade students where Elva volunteers are busy working on their Christmas program which is this Thursday.  The students working toward their GED are trying to finish their tests before the new year. Next year the cost goes up dramatically.  The apartment manager put lights on our outside stairs.  The town of Fairbanks has finally put up some Christmas lights.  I figure the city has no need to hurry - it  will be cold anyway.  It has been cold for over a month.  There has been some snow on the ground since Halloween, and snow cover was late this year.  Down south people try to get the lights up before it gets cold, that would be too soon here.

The days are shorter still.  Sunrise today was 10:43 and sunset was 2:44.  Tomorrow there will be less than four hours of possible sun.  It has been warm, at least for here.  Most of the last five days have been warmer here than in the lower 48.  One lady we talked to said her mother lives in the Napa Valley California and the Weather Channel had said that it was warmer in Fairbanks than in the Napa Valley.  Some of the days when it was below zero in Iowa it was in the upper 20's here.  One day it was 32 and there was a little thawing.

We went to North Pole yesterday, Monday, December 9.  That is North Pole, not the north pole.  We are about 15 miles from North Pole, Alaska, but about 1745 miles from the north pole.  We went to the one that is about 15 miles away.  We went there because they have an ice carving competition starting early in December.  They have a single block competition and multiple block competition.  One block is 5 feet by 7 feet and about 15 inches thick.  They can cut them in half and freeze the two halves together to have a thicker sculpture if they wish, but they must use only that one block.  The single block competition was completed by the time we were there.  The carvings still being worked below are multiple block.

This one won first place.  It is  about 7 feet tall.

This was second in the competition.

This was not part of the competition but a display by the park that sponsors the event.

We show the one above because we also took a picture of the sign that went with it, below.  More than half of the single block works were done by Chinese.

This is another display done by the park.

Santa stuck in the chimney.

Pictures above and below show the blocks they started with.  One of these for the first competition and three of them for the second competition.




They had various things to do other than look at ice sculptures.  There were perhaps six slides made of ice.  Elva and I each went down the longest.
At the top ready to go down.

Elva about half way down the slide.

This is the same slide lit up after dark, probably about 4:00 p.m.  The slide was probably 50 feet long.

This is an ice bowl to sit in and have someone else spin you.  It is heavy so it has a lot of rotational inertia.  With Elva in it the spin lasted about five minutes, long enough to get dizzy!

The next pictures show people working on the three-block carvings.  Some are in day light and some by artificial light.

Man is holding drill-like thing except he uses the side to eat away the ice.

Tool box.

Park display,

Meandering stream behind ice-carving park.

 Some of you were sure we would be living in an igloo.  This is the closest we have seen.  This was on grounds of ice carvings.

The very tops of the spruce trees at the park lit by the setting sun

Friday we went to Sweet Adeline's and a men's group like barber shop quartet except there were 16 of them.  They were very good singers and gave a good Christmas program.  It was at Pioneer Park.  Most buildings were lit up for display.  Here are a couple.

A former building used by the Presbyterian Church was moved to the park.

 Saturday we went to a Christmas tree competition sponsored by the local Habitat for Humanity.  The trees were mostly done by businesses.  Here are some of the trees we liked.

This tree is suspended from the ceiling.  It is oriented correctly in the picture.  It is an airplane and was done by a local flying service.

Done by a bank.

We think this is by Habitat for Humanity.

Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

 The river has tracks of people walking across it, and snow machine (otherwise known as snow mobiles) tracks along it.  But we are not yet brave enough to walk across.

Blessings to all, and remember, some of the best Christmases have the least work and fret.

Larry and Elva