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