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This is the 100th blog entry! It really slowed down–we were stuck at 99 for almost a month. Now there is too much to catch up on! Matt had a great trip to Norway. Carrie was artist of the month at the gallery and is trying to keep up with the tiles, while getting into her new job at NOAA (and enjoying helping host lots of kids out there during Seaweek(s)), Torsten is having fun, learning, and continuing to keep us on our toes! Juneau is facing a power “crisis” with an avalanche taking down our main transmission line between the hydro-generation at Snettisham and town–so we’ve gone to 98+% clean, carbon-free hydro power at ~11 centers/kWHr to almost solely diesel–more carbon and a new price tag of ~50 cents/kWHr. We had started hanging clothes up inside about three weeks before hand, so were ahead of the gun on that one, but we joined the “unplug the hot tub, do lots more grilling, swap out all the lightbulbs we hadn’t yet, enjoy the dark, anything else we can think of…” Juneau-power-saving-game. We have gone from approximately 40 kWHr/day on average to about 8 kWHr/day (and started reading our meter daily!). Carrie is pondering adding an “energy sur-charge” onto her tiles as she did her first firing of the kiln today–about 30 kWHr for a firing, and each tile gets fired twice. Other “stuff”: the semester finished up (it was a good one, and a good one to be done with!), Torsten has two more weeks of preschool, but we had a great BBQ/potluck/picnic at Auke Rec Friday afternoon–the streams and waterfalls were great playgrounds, as we set a new record with ~1.25 inches of rain that day (at the airport–1.5″ at the forecast office).

Willa and Ava came over for a visit, and Willa had a blast–check out the movie (I’m testing out a new movie export that encodes multiple versions and picks the best one for your network connection–let me know if it works alright!)

Coming soon–more Willa and Ava movies as a special treat for Jarrod!

Great weather last Saturday in Juneau! Torsten didn’t want to go skiing, and we didn’t want to push it, so we think he’s done for the season. Carrie was busy with the Auke Bay Coop and then making cards with Charmaine. Torsten and Matt went out to Eagle Beach to watch the tide come in, do some digging, play in the snow, and throw rocks in the water. (It looks like the rock is heading straight for the camera in the third picture, but it is flying off to the left.)

The full picture gallery is available, but even better are a few videos: Torsten watching the tide coming in (and playing in it), Torsten throwing rocks, Torsten rolling down a snowy hill.

As you can see, it was a fantastically sunny day–Torsten got warm and had to take off his jacket! Liza and Steve totally lucked out with the timing of their John Muir cabin reservation–enjoy their great pictures! We’re jealous and hoping that we’ll get weather half as good when we head up there in March.

Carrie has gotten out to Mendenhall Glacier/Lake a few times for a quick dog run/ski/walk.  It is fantastic out there in the winter, and we really enjoy Laurie Craig’s email updates (she is a huge force at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor’s Center)..  Here are a few photos from Carrie’s recent trips–first a nice walk with the dogs:

and next Carrie and Ginny went out for a skijor.  Suka is getting lazy, but Coda is a ski-joring force!

I do want to note that we all went out for the Friday “Fireside Chats” on Volcanos. Torsten liked that!  We’re looking forward to Roman’s presentation on Greenland research, and then Matt has to come up with a presentation (along with Cathy, Eran, and the SEAMONSTER gang) on what we’ve been doing on the glacier and lake!

Torsten missed AGU for the first time in his life–Carrie and Torsten didn’t go down to the annual San Francisco.  In addition to missing those guys, several of the regulars didn’t attend–we missed you all!  Despite that, the week was full of science, full of politicking, full of friends, and full of good food and city.  The stats from AGU are that over 15,000 geophysicists got together.  There were an amazing number of posters and talks, including some our groups contributed.  Bill O’Brien, a friend/prof/mentor from Southwestern, was there for the week, and got to know the gang (we’re hoping he’ll be in Juneau next fall for some collaboration). Dipa (a Bay Area collaborator) came up to meet for lunch, go through the MOMA, meet the gang, see AGU, and catch up a bit–great to see her, and I think we all enjoyed the MOMA, especially the Olafur Eliasson exhibition (that’s all I had time to check out).  The only pictures from this whole week that I’ve got are from this exhibition–check ’em out.  (This was a mirrored small balcony built onto the outside wall of MOMA–really cool!)

It was great to see Kevin, Eloise, and Haden up from Australia!  And fun to catch up with Tom, Laura, and Waylon with a group dinner at their house on Friday night.  Always great to see all the rest of the gang–I’m looking forward to next year’s soon!  (And I’ll make the Triton reservation as soon as possible–they don’t have any cheap rates at the moment.)

Torsten is ready to talk with Santa–I notice that he is quite prominently crossing his fingers. I wonder if Torsten just finished telling Santa what a good boy he is and how he always goes to bed very easily for his mom and dad. (I’m “guarding” his bedroom door now while I blog.. Maybe he’ll go to sleep sometime soon.)

We give thanks for all the great friends and family we have!  We wish we could have all of you here at once.  Since we can’t the annual potluck tradition continues.  The most recognizable tradition (the weigh-in/weigh-out) was a tie this year: Brian and Terry* both had a net gain of 8 lbs.  Congrats!

Some pre-dinner Blokus warm up (yes, Chip was in heaven):

The kids table was a success!  (Food eaten–and despite the kids request, it was more than just bread and potato)  (The camera wasn’t quite able to keep up with the kids–sorry!)

And a few shots around the adults’ table:

After dinner, we celebrated with the birthday boy:

the kids watched movies, the adults played Blokus and visited, there were cute Willa moments, and “the band got back together”:

And of course, if you need more, there is the whole gallery.

The happy pirate family had a great Halloween. Torsten really got into it, first lots of anticipation, costume selection, and pumpkin carving

with Halloween at preschool,

then over to the University for lots of costume fun.

Here’s a few of our favorite pictures, and the gallery shows more of us and our friends in costumes. Cody got some great photos at well–thanks.