Christmas in Alaska

This Christmas we broke tradition by celebrating up in Alaska!  It started out as just a fun idea and then it actually happened.  Mom, Dad, Nick, Sarah, Grave, Olivia & Nora all flew up here the day before and stayed with us for a week.  Once their tickets were booked, we started planning all kinds of winter activities since there would be so much snow up here.  WRONG... This has been one of the warmest winters and since October we have only received about 14" of snow.  We were all watching the forecast leading up to their arrival hoping for a white Christmas.  I'm happy to report there was a least a minimal amount on the ground so it was white :)

On Christmas Eve day, there was an event at the reindeer farm which is an hour north of Anchorage.  The flyer mentioned feeding the reindeer, a 'toy shop,' Santa and a wagon ride.  It was fun feeding the reindeer and seeing live ones so close.

On Christmas Day, the girls woke up early to make sure Santa found them way up here.  We had a relaxing day opening presents, playing games, making lefse and eating!  

We also found time that week to go sledding at a fun hill just down the road from our house, go ice skating, visit the Anchorage Zoo and drove up in the mountains.  It was so much fun seeing everything like it was the first time through the girls' perspectives.  They were amazed by the mountains and Nora kept pointing at them through the car window :)

Alex, Sarah & Nick decided to head north on Saturday for a day of snow machining.  The sun was supposed to be out that day and there was a decent amount of snow about 2.5 hours north of Anchorage.  Despite one minor setback with a large rock, they had a great time.  Since it was a blue sky day, they had spectacular views of Denali!

Overall, it was a great week that went way too fast.  We managed to pack a lot of activities into a short amount of time!
*More picture can be found on Shutterfly*