Family Couch and Table photos

Here are some year end family portraits taken Christmas Eve and a few days later at the Olive Garden.

Screen Savers

Cold weather cabin

The water was real smooth for this photo of the cabin. This is from Nov 9th. It snowed the next day, but high winds blew all the snow off the ice.



This is the first good snow - almost a foot. This was Dec. 1st.

Last night it rained all night and much of this snow is gone.

Christmas Letter

D

Dear Family and Friends,

Winter has arrived in Alaska, freezing all the lakes with 4 to 6 inches of ice, nearly a week before the snow came down and covered everything. Then the strong winds came blowing off the snow, leaving the ice like polished grey marble. A skater’s paradise… Needless to say, the hectic pace of summer has slowed, and the continuous daylight has dimmed into more and more darkness. We have entered the hibernation phase of our year.

We now have a little time to get in touch with most of you through the annual Christmas letter. It is getting harder and harder to remember what in the world happened last week much less for the whole of last year, but the new digital cameras, blogs, and high powered computers sure help to jog some aging memory deficient brains. So, I’m now looking over last years photos to see what really happened. The digital photo file records the date, minute and second each picture was made … photographic memory for all! I only wish there was a space on those files for writing the names of people and other comments. If you want to see some pictures check out www.marksalaska.blogspot.com and www.theeroundrobin.blogspot.com . My brothers, sister, and I have had a great time keeping connected and humoring one another with that second blog.

Hockey is one thing that fits in nicely with winter. I helped coach a Bantam team that won a few tournaments and achieved 2^nd place for their level in the state tournament last spring. For a fun workout I play adult ‘rusty blades’ hockey twice a week also. And to relax I watch too much NHL hockey on the Dish. The NH3 plant is shut down for the winter because of a gas shortage, but they let us stay on and repair stuff or take as much time off as we want.

We took Lois’ spring break in Kirkland to visit Heidi and John living at the time on Bill Gates lake. Then a few months later they came up to visit us. The big highlight of the year was having several brothers and cousin and nephews drive up from Minnesota to visit in July! (Lois Ann likes it when people visit because a little bit of extra work gets done on the house preparing for the visitors.) We went to Homer, Resurrection Bay and Exit Glacier in Seward, and even Dawson City. Holly arrived home from Perth when they were here, and Christoffer was able get some time off also.

John and Heidi moved to Anacortes, WA in June; so after the Minnesota visitors were back on the highway, Lois Ann and Holly went down to see the Quick home. John is the area director for Young Life, and Heidi helps with that, also works at a Montessori school and the YMCA. John’s dad invited me down in August to see a once a year car show that was amazing. The next day we went to see Mt. St. Helens which was also great. Then took me up to see John and Heidi’s new place and play some golf too.

Holly is still here at home hoping for a work visa to go back to Australia. Christoffer had been busily electrifying the military bases in Anchorage and has recently been at Beluga power plant checking out a new generator. CBS, Holly and I went on a few nice mountain hikes together this summer. Lois Ann is working at the elementary school again and often comes home with funny stories of the little kids.

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas. GOD BLESS YOU,

The Stynsbergs

At Anacortes with John and Heidi

John, Heidi and Hidalgo. (i thought Hidalgo was a horse)











Dressed up for company with a matching outfit.










Not many houses and yards like this in Alaska.












Anacortes harbor.













Thousands have climbed this tree. It was shiny, smooth and slippery.

Golfing etc.

This view from Chuck's porch reminds me of a Japanese woodblock print.


















This is the golf course that John practiced at for high school golf. I wonder if anyone ever practiced hitting the golf ball from the house on the hill?
















Chihuly is a famous glass artist from Washington.

Mt. St. Helens

On Sunday we went to see Mt. St. Helens. This model with thousands of little lights showed the extent and progression blast.








We watched a movie of the eruption. This window was covered by the screen and curtains. When the movie was over this was the view of the mountain.








Here is a good view of the volcanoe. It was putting out about a dump truck load of magma each day in August. If you click on the link in the title you can see some quick time panorama views of the mountain. Wikpedia also has good information.

Car Museum

Took a trip to Washington to see the Quicks. Johns dad Chuck
invited me to see the unbelievable LeMay car collection, one of the biggest. It is open one day a year to the public. We rode there in style in Roys Chevy.





Some people walked there.








This is a bigger tree than i'm used to seeing.









Some folks took their small campers.








The man on the left took his high school car.

























This was the oldest car.

Devil's Creek Trail

Here are some photos from another hike part-way up Devil's Creek trail. Holly and Christoffer brought their new cameras.






This is a small waterfall. It was a nice place for a snack.

























This is how you test an underwater camera.

Mountain Plants

Road Fishing

This is even easier fishing than dip netting. The truck had a broken axle or something similar and that dragged the whole truck in the ditch. I came upon it after working night shift shortly after the accident happened. They were able to quickly salvage almost all the fish.

Resurrection Trail

This is Juneau Falls which is about 3.5 miles up the trail. The third photo shows Holly and Christoffer just to the right of the top of the falls.














Here we are at the bridge near the top of this part of the trail. It took us 1.5 hours to get here. Digital cameras are really high dollar stop watches.









Sitting and standing carefully at the edge.






An Anchorage bicycle club had a race going on when we hiked. They ride 38 miles from Hope to the Kenai River trailhead. Then ride back up to the Devil's Pass cabin, then down the Devil's Creek trail, then back up the trail to the cabin again, then back down to Hope. That is over 100 miles in one day. There were about 25 mountain bikers. You can click on the title to read about the Soggy Bottom 100 and also click on a map.

Easy fishing

Mouth of the Kenai River lined with 5' dip nets.
The seagulls enjoy dipnetting as much as Alaskans.
Most folks can get enough red salmon to last a year in a couple of days.

Forest Fire!!!

We saw all of this smoke shortly after leaving Chicken!!!















Last year fires burned millions of acres in Alaska while in the lower 48 we heard news of thousands of acres burning. Alaska didn't really make the national news.
There have not been many fires this year.







If you look closely you can actually see flames.