The Eagles of Eagle River

I thought y'all might like to see what we get to enjoy driving home in the winter. Just for some news: Ian leaves for the Philippines in about a week. His platoon is building a school and will be gone for a little over a month. He spends much of March at home in Alaska, but will then be off to Iraq in April. Thankfully, he's not doing a full deployment and should only be gone 4-7 months. I will give more information as I have it.
MV

Better Aurora picture

I managed to get this picture last night around midnight. Just thought I would share.

A Christmas picture

Just wanted to show our latest Christmas portrait and to say many thanks for all the cards and gifts we received! I was afraid that we would feel a little lonely for our first Christmas away from family, but we had a great Christmas and felt very loved! We wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!

Northern Lights

I wanted to do another quick addition to put up my first picture of the northern lights. Sorry things are so out of focus. It was 3am, -1 degree F, pitch black (moon had set), and I couldn't really tell if things were in focus or not when I took the picture. This was a very minimal display, but I was happy to get the picture.

Christmas is coming to Alaska

We went out to the woods of Ft. Richardson yesterday to find and cut down our Christmas tree and we thought we would share some pictures of what we found. Merry Christmas to everyone!

Trip home

I wanted to share some pictures from my trip home in October. Sam, Colin, Meg, and I all came home for our cousin Marcie Plummer's wedding. I loved being home. We visited Devil's lake and it was just beautiful. We spent Sunday over at grandpa and grandma's and played some boche ball. As you can see it was fairly warm for October.

Then I was happy to see Colin and Meg again in NYC a few weekends back. We all met up with Kate, Nick, and Knowl for some dinner. I was so much fun and I wish we could do it more often.

I am working hard on my internal medicine rotation now and am looking forward to my Christmas vacation!

Happenings of September/October

Hi everybody. Although I am sure everyone knows that Rob and Mary came to visit, I thought I would put up a couple of pictures from their trip in September. One is of Halibut Cove Lagoon, where we spent a few nights in a cabin in Kachemak Bay State Park and the other is of the two of them with the Matanuska Glacier behind them. After they left my foster sister Deborah (matron of honor at my wedding) came to visit and we went on a cruise in Seward where we saw loads of orcas and then flew to Fairbanks. We took the Alaska Railroad back. Right after Deborah left, I flew to Alabama to be matron of honor in my best friend's wedding. Meanwhile Ian is hoping to get a job in Fairbanks working for a 1 star general. He'll be flying up on Tuesday to meet the people. We're both doing well. Hope all is well with everyone else!

Denali National Park

Ian and I just went to Denali National Park this past weekend and we couldn't have timed it better. The fall colors were at their peak. We are going to have to go back next year because one day in the park is just not enough. We took the shuttle bus 86 miles into the park to Wonder Lake. We saw eight grizzly bears, four of which were very close to the bus. We saw a gyrfalcon, a red fox, several snowshoe hares, two golden eagles, five moose, and countless dall sheep. Ian captured some footage of the closest bears so as soon as he gets that edited I'll put it up. It was simply a stunning weekend.

By the way, if anyone wants to see more Denali pictures go to:
www.flickr.com/photos/missmerv

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

I hope you have a great birthday and I wish I was there to celebrate with you!

Goshawk

Ritchey stopped by this afternoon. We were in the driveway talking when we saw a squirrel fall out of the tree. We figured it had fallen and was stunned. However, when we went over to look at it, there was a large neck wound. I spotted a large hawk on a low branch, just waiting for us to back off so he could finish his dinner. Ritchey took some great photos of the hawk while it was still in the tree. I waited until it came down to eat. Mary and I have looked through a number of bird books and we believe this is a goshawk.