The strawberries are on sale at the grocery store now. I was surprised. It’s winter, it’s snowing, it’s negative temps, why is there such an abundance of berries that they are on sale?  B pointed out — it’s spring!  So, hello Alaska Spring!

It’s apparently been a pretty mild winter this year; our checker at Home Depot insisted that she had been about to leave town entirely but that this winter was so wonderful that she is going to stay another year. The “warmth” is thanks in large part to the frequent travels of the “arctic air” to the lower 48, during which time it brings a chill down the south while increasing 30 degrees or so here…even to the positives.  A delight!  But we seem to have moved back into the negatives for now, with spring break next week…for which we are eager for our parents to visit and attend the Arctic Winter Games with us!  http://awg2014.org/  I suppose that the cold is important for these winter competitions and the annual ice carving competition…

In the meantime, I realized that it’s been a while since I’ve posted; we had quite a run of Aurora’s around here, of course largely during the work week and in the middle of the night but we did manage to capture some I thought I’d share.  

We accidentally triggered the cars rear lights while taking this picture, an interesting effect!