Spring Sunshine

The 3 weeks since I last posted have flown by.  We are slowly but surely getting our house unpacked and organized.
We planted garden seed starts,

went snowshoeing near our house,

and rented a cabin in the park outside of Chena Hot Springs (near Fairbanks) for a weekend.

The moon is up over the Chena River outside our cabin.  It's 1230am, and still looks like dusk outside.

On our drive there we passed Denali on a gloriously sunny day (regretfully, we never did stop for a good pic), went for a hike in the Chena recreation area (this pic is funny b/c at first glance Jessica asked me if Dave is riding a llama!!!  Bahaahaaaa!!!  actually, he is sitting down and that's Chuska by his side),

soaked in the springs, and on our drive home we passed through North Pole.  We saw Santa!

Our route home paralleled the oil pipeline that runs from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

There are still a few mornings (including today - May 2nd!) we wake up to a new dusting of snow, but the sun is burning long and bright in the sky and the snow is melting.  We are starting to see grass in our yard, the ice in the driveway is gone, and  EVERYONE is talking about the coming summer.  It's an exciting time!
Our house warming (Cinco de Mayo) party is Saturday.  Wishing family and friends from afar could be here too.