December in Unalakleet

COUNTDOWN TO WINTER SOLSTICE: 8 DAYS!

December is a cold hard month here in Unalakleet. As I have told some of you already the one thing I miss so far is winter. I know that sounds crazy but I miss the "friendly" winter. The winter up here is harsh and bitter. The snow is like sand blasting across the landscape. The bitter wind here blows all the time, 30-40 miles an hour. Sometimes there are wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour. It is also dark. The sun rises now at about 12:15 and sets around 3:00pm. I miss the days where you go out sledding in those great big flakes. You know the ones that float down and you can catch on your tongue. If you did that here your sense of taste would be ruined because you would have no more taste buds. They would have been scoured off.

Despite it all we do go out and try to enjoy ourselves, snowmachining, ice fishing, trying to stand up after the wind gust threw you off a hill. It is all fun.

So we have been staying inside a lot lately. Today Jeremy and Isa spent the morning building a "Jitterbug". It was so cute watching the two of them work on it. They were quite the team. Isa did not have to talk too hard to get her dad enthusiastic about building it. Isa named her Jitterbug "dotsy" and it now jiggles endlessly across the floor.