Rhubarb growing under the snow

I shoveled the snow off the rhubarb plants so they would grow quicker, and this is what was there.

Easter pictures for Holly

Holly, here are some photos of Abigail and Grace for you. Perhaps this can be a little happy birthday greeting for you. By the way, is your birthday tomorrow (AU time) or the next day (AK time)?

Easter Email

Dear Family and Friends,
We hope you are all doing fine this Easter. We just arrived home from a good church service and are going to the Tauriainens for dinner later this afternoon. It is kind of cool out today, even with the sun shining it is only in the high 20's. Much of the snow has melted with only about 2 feet left to become liquid.
The first weekend of April we were in Kirkland, Washington visiting Heidi and John. They were doing fine and the weather was very nice. They called it SPRING! John and i played several golf games while Lois Ann and Heidi shopped. We could only afford 9 holes with the ladies shopping the same time we were golfing. On the 3rd and 4th of April we took a ferry ride over to Victoria. There are some photos on the blogs of Butchart Gardens which were beautiful.
On our arrival back in Alaska it looked like spring had arrived here although it was a little cooler. Just as i was thinking our second spring was here it snowed 2 more inches over everything that had melted. The second spring will come soon....
March was a very busy month. They had the Arctic Winter Games here on the peninsula. Young folks from many of the northern countries come to compete in many games like hockey, basketball, soccer, volleyball, badminton... and also lots of native games as well. Lois Ann and a lot of the secretaries and teachers volunteered with helping out. They have been having these events every couple of years for about 20 years now.
Hockey season ends in March so the Bantam hockey team i help coach went to Fairbanks for the final tournament. They finished in second place out of nine teams. So that was a good ending to a very successful year. In three other tournaments this year we had two firsts and one other second place finish. Some of the boys had not skated on a team before.
Holly is doing fine in Perth, Australia. She is applying for a visa to stay longer. Amy Stynsberg is also over there and Karen Rose Tauriainen is going over soon. That will be nice for her.
Christoffer is up in Anchorage electrifying the docks for now. He has been praying that the snow keeps coming so he can keep snow machining on the weekends.
We hope you all have a nice SPRING!!!
God Bless You,
Mark and Lois Ann

Taxing Times

This is not my favorite activity of the year. In fact it is the least favorite thing to do and therefore it gets put off until the last minute. I did get taxes sent in on the 15th even though we had until the 17th this year.

A few years back there was a contest somewhere online for the messiest computer office space. At tax time i could come close to winning the prize. If anyone knows the web address of the messiest home office space let me know.

Some family portraits

This is a great picture of Heidi, John, and Johns Dad Chuck.
This was taken just before we left for the airplane. The camera was sitting on a glass table.
Can you see Lois Ann, Heidi, and John in this photo? This is not Alaska unfortunately, but Victoria, BC.
Almost looks like Christmas.

The Coffee Photos

It was amusing to see about 10 'coffee cup photos' of John and Heidi when we went to Butchart Gardens. It was cool outside as you can tell by the jackets and the coffee helped to add some warmth.

What is different?

I wish i knew how to make the photos switch from one to the next in a flash presentation but you can still play the game this old fashioned way.

Christoffer

This is Christoffer with his new sled. He has been "breaking it in" this past week.

Last hockey game of the season

Sunday night a hockey puck did this. We were all sitting on the bench between periods 1 & 2. I took off my helmet because it was hot. The goalie was standing by the boards and another player was on the ice shooting some puck toward the goalie. One shot went over the boards and i stopped it with my forehead. The cut was superglued at the emergency room.

Start-up of Plant 2

Here are a few photos for my friends at the ISLAND up north. Some of you may remember that plant 2 was shut down. These photos prove that urea is going to the #2 warehouse. Since the ice incident earlier this winter the coastgaurd has not allowed as many ships up the inlet, so we are now storing some product in the old warehouse too.

The conveyor belt came from a north road gravel pit. A dumpster is sitting on top of it. Scaffolding supports the corners. Some slanted plywood inside the dumpster directs the granules toward the middle. Quite the operation!

Tournament Time

We had a great time in Fairbanks for the Bantam tournament. The boys did very good, coming in 2nd place out of nine teams. You can see the score before the start of the 3rd period to the right of the top photo. Unfortunately, the score was the same at the end of the period. This is the Big Dipper rink in Fairbanks and it is great place for a championship game. The ceiling is mirrors. Above each goalie on each end, you can stand at the glass windows and see the game. There are trophy cases on the top floor with trophies and photos going back to the early 1900's. My favourite picture is one of some ladies on the ice with long dresses and hockey sticks in their hands and ice skates on their feet.

Chena Hot Springs

We took a 50 mile trip to the hot springs after the friday game. It was windy and below zero at the time of the photos. You can see the icicles hanging from Ian's hair.


In the bottom picture we are all in the big pool. I wish i had not missed an earlier photo op. There were about 5 middle aged women with hair that was white from the frost. They looked much older.

Letter to Family and Friends

Dear Family and Friends,

Thought it would be good to keep in touch and hope you are all doing fine. We really had a great Christmas in Washington with John and Heidi and Johns family. We all went to Sun Mountain Lodge in the Cascade mountains for several days. The weather was a little on the warm side but we did manage to do some cross-country skiing, and eating, and sliding, and hot tubbing, and eating. and played pool and ping-pong. John was a good Santa and Heidi was his reindear for the opening of the Christmas presents. Some little kids at the lodge were giving John some strange looks. I guess he did not fit their vision of Santa Claus.

Of course vacations come to an end and we had to come back to work. We had a real cold snap down in the -20 range and had to shut down the plant due to a lack of gas. (Why do people need their houses so warm?) We lost the cooling water for about an hour, then later the steam tracing for a while. When we came back up a week later we spent days thawing out lines and instruments. It was cold hard dirty work, but amazingly nothing major was destroyed and start-up went OK considering the obstacles in the pipes.

We have had some wild weather swings for the month. From -20 to the mid 30's. A few days ago it rained, then dropped down to zero, and today it is raining again. Also Augustine volcanoe has been erupting from time to time! It has been interesting to follow on the internet at
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Augustine.php It last erupted in 1976 and 1986. It often erupts off and on for many months.

About a week ago a large chunk of ice in the inlet ripped a 500' tanker off the dock at Tesoro and pushed it to shore. The tides were very high. Thankfully the ship was about a third full and they were able to get it free from the mucky shore a day later.

The kids are doing fine. I guess they are not kids anymore, but we feel young enough to call them kids. Holly will be in Australia for another 4 or 5 months with YWAM. John and Heidi are working with Young Life, and Heidi is also working at a Montesorri pre-school. Christoffer is working up in Anchorage for a while until bigger jobs come up. He is about ready to get his journeyman electrician card. Lois is at the elementary school and those kids gave us both a cold. Hopefully i will be OK for a hockey tournament we have this weekend. I hope you all have a good valentines day and a good February. Check out the blogs to see photos if you want.

God Bless You all.

Mark and Lois Ann

Jack Frost, Jackson Pollack, Mother Nature

Finally getting a few days off, so trying to catch up on some blogging. Happened to catch a film about Jackson Pollack on the DISH. I like modern art, and especially the abstract patterns that he painted. His paintings look a lot like the woods with fresh snow sticking on all the branches. It was quite cold and the frost makes nice designs on our garage door.

Super Start-Up

After a tough couple of weeks of being out in the freezing cold and thawing all of the ice everywhere, we are on the start-up heater. It takes several hours of gradually heating up the Ammonia Converter. So, we are taking a well deserved rest at the end of the day.

It just keeps on pumping

After many days of thawing and starting up the plant we did not want to go back down and start all over again. The spare pump was down for maybe 36 hours with a bad shaft, and this one had no more packing. Maintenance is tightening the packing as much as they can. Thankfully they were able to fix the other pump in a little over 12 hours. This is just water.

reasons to retire

These photos are a reminder to me of how chillingly cold work can become, especially when the plant is shutdown and frozen. Yet there is a kind of beauty in all the stalagtites and stalagmites all over the quiet equipment.