New Year's Eve

We had an invite to spend New Year's Eve playing games and eating the standard goodies with some friends, ...but we let Bryan talk us into driving to Alyeska Ski Resort to watch the torch run.  And we were glad we did.  It was a perfect way to watch the New Year come in.

At the base of Alyeska...lights on the ski runs.

Starting the descent.

And they are down!  There were maybe 200 skiers and snowboarders.

 

And of course the fire works!

 

This was one of those spur of the moment ideas... "What a cool thing to do, shall we go? shall we not? what do we tell our friends?  do you think we will be cold?"  It also involved looking at the weather, and finding out the conditions of Seward Highway, which can be treacherous in bad weather.  Rick, who hates driving in the snow (ha! ha!) was not too keen on the idea, but he pulled on his snow gear with a "if I have to" face and got behind the steering wheel.  I am sure the thought crossed his mind that we would go with out him...and we might have... We stopped for a nice holiday meal at Wendy's and we were off.  I do recommend hand warmers and toe warmers for this kind of activity (or non activity - since it involved standing in a single spot) a must.  It was great to be out with just the family, as few of us as there are, we still enjoy spending time together.  

-- and just so you don't think we are flakes, it was a fairly large group of friends getting together, so we weren't leaving any one high and dry...