Holiday Spirit

One of the large seasonal stores downtown transforms into a winter wonderland during the holiday season. There are many individual displays of holiday villages that belong to residents of Juneau. Within the displays are hidden little figurines and there are scavenger hunt pages as you walk in. We hunted for Sesame Street characters, Simpsons characters and even snowmen.

 The governor hosted an open house with cookies and musical performances from the school bands and choirs. 

 Mady wanted to wrap the presents this year. She did a great job.
 A neighbor brought us a cookie plate with some of these adorable mice.
 A few different views along Sandy Beach while Zachary was at hockey practice. The mountains to the south of downtown, from Douglas Island.
 Looking out to the mouth of the Gastineau Channel.
 Beached jellyfish.
 Raven print vs. My print.
Raven hitching a ride.
 Cookies for the middle school cookie exchange. (milk duds between pretzels and dipped in chocolate.)
 Time to decorate Christmas cookies.

Santa drove around town on a firetruck.

 Mady and I went caroling with the Girl Scouts. This house was in the Christmas spirit!
Everyone's ready for Christmas.
This year's Christmas jammies was snuggly robes.
 Hanging the stockings.


 The kids have new snowball makers so we went on a search for good snowball snow. We found this fun open area along a trail at the glacier.

 Hmmm, I thought I had 3 kids with me.
 After playing in the snow we hiked out to Nugget Falls and the base of the glacier.

 A pod of orcas swam down the channel. Phil and I just happened to be out walking and spotted them. We're pretty sure they would be visible from the house, we're hoping they make a return.


 Mady, Zach, and Alex all attended a 3 day camp at Eaglecrest Ski Area. Mady and Zach snowboarded, and Alex skied. This first day was very rainy and wet. The snow wasn't great.


Mady
Alex (practicing turns)
Zach
Happy new year!



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