Official Lawyer Business

Hi, Everyone!

As you may remember, last July Steve took the Mass. Bar Exam.  In November we found out he passed.  As a result, he can be an officially licensed lawyer assuming he agreed to the oath of Mass lawyers.

The oath is usually administered in Boston in November.  Because we're in AK, however, Steve wasn't able to make it to MA.  So, instead, Justice Morgan Christen agreed to administer the oath in Alaska in the Alaska Supreme Court courtroom.

Last Friday, Steve was sworn in.

Steve with some of his co-clerks in the courtroom.

Us in the courtroom.

Steve agreeing to the oath, including not to lucre clients.

Steve taking the MA oath in AK with the AK seal behind him.

Signing the paperwork.

Hooray for being a lawyer!

More to come later.  Hope everyone is doing well!

Fairbanks Weekend (Part 2)

Hello again!

Welcome to Part 2 of our Fairbanks installation.  After snowmachining at the cabin, and eating a delicious lunch prepared by Justice Winfree and his wife (thanks!), we drove over to Chena Hot Springs.

Chena is located approx. 60 miles east of Fairbanks, and is known worldwide as one of the best places to go to see the Northern Lights.  It's also a resort, filled with tons of activities including hanging out in the hot spring pools, checking out an ice museum, a nice restaurant, and lots of snow activities (dog mushing, snowmachining, etc.).

The hotel offers a wakeup service for people to see the Northern Lights.  Because the rooms don't have phones in them, an attendant will run around the halls banging on doors screaming "Aurora" if the lights are out.  It's a lot like a college prank, but we pay for the experience.

Anyway, we signed up for the wake-up service and headed into the ice museum.  This is basically a giant building filled with massive ice sculptures.  The sculptures include a full hotel, with 4 working rooms.  Only 26 couples have stayed and made it through the night, but the rooms include massive amounts of caribou hides.  It also costs about $600/night to stay there.

The building is kept at 20 degrees.  This was about 50 degrees warmer than the temperature outside.  We found it kind of ironic that we were going into the ice museum to warm up.

The sculptures include a full working chess set:

A working xylophone:

Jousters.  Note that the jouster on the left is standing up on the horse.  This is about 300 lbs. of ice being supported on the legs alone.

An igloo:

And a full-scale bar, including drinks served out of glasses made of ice.

They used to serve coca-cola to the kids out of the bar, but the drinks kept freezing into the ice.  So they switched to appletinis (not for kids), and only serve those.  The booze doesn't freeze!

After hanging out in the ice museum, we headed into the hot springs.  Because we didn't want to damage the camera, we don't have any pictures.  But just imagine a GIANT outdoor pool, surrounded by rocks, really really warm, surrounded by a dense fog (because the heat from the water creates smoke).  With it being -30 degrees outside, our heads were cold despite our bodies being warm.  Within minutes our glasses had frozen, and our hair had turned gray from the fog rising off the water, and then freezing onto our hair.  We basically looked like we had aged 30 years.

We spent about 30 minutes in the hot springs, and then headed back to our room to relax and fall asleep.  At about 12:30, the "aurora" guy came running through the halls, so we ran outside.

Our definition of Northern Lights clearly is different than theirs.  We were expecting the colorful lights dancing and jumping in the air.  But the "aurora" guy's yelling was spurred by the appearance of a slightly-tinged green cloud hovering above the mountain.  We tried to get a picture, but there wasn't any real color or light, so it wouldn't catch.

We've been told that this year is a fairly light year for solar activity, so that may be the best we get.  We're going to keep trying around the Anchorage area based on a "aurora alert" one of Steve's co-clerks set up.  If we see them, we'll make sure to post pictures.  In the meantime, we aren't crossing it off the list just yet.

Although we didn't get to see the lights, the trip was well worth it and tons of fun.  We got to hang out with great company, experience true Alaska winter temperature, snow machine, hang out in hot springs, and see some amazing views on the way home:

That's all for now!  We have tons of exciting activities the next few weeks, including Fur Rondy (the beginning of the Iditarod) in late-February.  Stay tuned!

(Hi, Neha!  Miss you!)

Fairbanks Weekend (Part 1)

Hi, Everyone:

We're coming off of an exciting and cool weekend here in Alaska.  Given the 3-day weekend, which allowed both of us to have an extra day off work, we decided to go on a road trip up to Fairbanks.  Now it may seem nuts to go to Fairbanks in the winter, but we wanted to try and see the Northern Lights at the Chena Hot Springs up there.  We also thought it would be a great way to visit Justice Winfree and the Fairbanks Alaska Supreme Court clerks.  So we packed our bags, borrowed a car (ours wouldn't do so well in the extreme cold), and started to drive.

The theme for the weekend was as follows:  (see the temperature on the dashboard)

Now, to avoid deceiving you, we need to be clear.  The temperature was not -22 degrees.  No; that's just as low as the thermometer in the car would report.  The temperature was actually much lower.   We believe it got down to about -40 degrees at night.  This raises whole new concerns for us about tires deflating, liquids and engines freezing, etc.  And once your tires deflate, you have to fill them with air.  But the metal on the air hose freezes, so you have to warm it up using your car exhaust:

It certainly made for an interesting weekend.  We finally feel like we've experienced the true Alaska winter!

The drive to Fairbanks (which takes about 7 hours) was gorgeous.  We passed through Denali State and National parks.  On the way, we watched a tow truck pull a semi out of a ditch.  It was quite exciting, but slowed down our trip a bit.

We then met up with Gabe, one of Steve's co-clerks on the court.  Gabe showed us around town, including the Fairbanks Curling Club and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.  He also took us to the local brewery, called Silver Gulch.  It had some really interesting and unique beers, including a barely wine that Tammy really enjoyed called "Happy Hippie."

The next morning we woke up and drove to Justice Winfree's cabin.  On the way, we passed by North Pole, Alaska, which of course warranted a stop and some pictures.

Ice carving is HUGE in Fairbanks (mostly because these things have no chance of melting in these winter temperatures!)

All of the light poles look like candy canes.

The north pole.

Reindeer!  Which was actually pretty depressing to see since they're locked up in this cage, in the extreme cold, with not much to do.  They definitely looked pretty bored.

Finally, we made it out to Justice Winfree's cabin.  We had both been very excited about this opportunity, because this was going to be our first snowmachine experience.  In Alaska, they like to call them snowmachines . . . most people know them as "snowmobiles."

Anyway, we got on them and began zipping around the frozen lake.  Then we got an amazing tour/lesson from Jimmy, who took us onto a nearby frozen river.

He also showed us these awesome chunks of ice that had come loose from the first freeze, been pushed down the river, and then refroze.  It made for a pretty good picture for Tammy, Steve, and Gabe:

Thanks to our incredible guide, we ended the day snowmachine experts . . . and are eager and ready to get back on them again.

Thank you so much to Gabe, Justice Winfree, Jimmy, and Justice Christen for such an amazing weekend! 

Tomorrow we'll have Part 2 of the adventure: our Chena Hot Springs exploration.  Until then, have a warm night!

Alaskan Hockey!

Hi, Everyone!

It's been a fun few days here in Anchorage.  Yesterday we went to Alyeska, where Tammy did some exciting skiing from the top of the mountain with Steve's co-clerks Rebecca and Michael.  Steve took another lesson, though he still isn't really loving the downhill thing.  Nonetheless, Steve's new pursuit and love is cross-country skiing, so it looks like he'll just drag those skis along while Tammy rides the slopes.  There's fun for everyone here in Alaska!

Upon the advice of some of the old clerks, we also bought a copy of the Northern Lights coupon book, which is essentially the Entertainment book for those from Michigan.  This book contains tons of coupons for restaurants, activities, classes, etc. around Alaska.  One of the coupons in the book includes a 2 for 1 coupon for tickets to the Alaska Aces hockey games.  

The Alaska Aces are the minor league hockey team here in Anchorage.  Because Alaska doesn't have any of the major pro-sports teams (baseball, basketball, hockey, or football), this is as close as they come to having a local fan base.  So the people who come out are die-hard fans who know all of the stats, players, etc.  It was really a neat experience.

The game was really neat.  And the best part was that the Aces won!  The Vegas team scored a goal in the first period, but in the second period the Aces scored two goals within minutes of each other.  Then the Aces scored again in the third period.  And then, with around 5 seconds remaining, the Vegas team pulled their goalie, the Aces hit the puck from across the ice, and it slid into the goal!  It was a lot of fun to watch the fans go wild on that goal.

Of course, in between each period Steve's favorite part of the hockey game came around:

We also came to realize that this arena was where the UAA team played as well.  Teams in their conference include Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Michigan Tech.  This, of course, warranted a picture:

That's all we have for now.  Steve's probably going to hit the cross-country ski trails this afternoon while Tammy works on some projects she needs to finish.

Next weekend we're talking about going to Fairbanks to see the Northern Lights, visit the hot springs, and hopefully take a ride on some snow machines.  We'll also get to see some of the other Alaska Supreme Court clerks, which will be a lot of fun!  Hopefully the weather holds up this time, unlike the last time we tried to head north.

Have a great week!


P.S. We're adding a new segment to the blog called "The Alaska Bucket List."   These are things we want to do before we leave this great state.  So far the list is as follows.  Please feel free to add any recommendations you may have!

• Catch a salmon and eat it
• Ice climb
• Snow machine
• Fly an airplane
• Sky dive
• Go to Midnight Sun Brewery and Silver Gulch Brewery
• Ice skate on a lake
• Do a 3-day backcountry trip
• Sea-kayak
• Ski Alyeska
• Hike in Denali
• Dog mush
• See Northern Lights
• Hike Flat Top and Wolverine Peak (cool hikes outside of Anchorage)

There's been a MURDER!

Hi, All:

Sorry for the downturn in writing as of lately; life got a bit hectic with the holiday season.  But now that that's in the past, let's focus on . . . . well, the past.

Right before the break we hosted a murder mystery party at our apartment.  The game was called "The Icicle Twist," so we decided to buy it because we figured it wouldn't take too extensive of costuming for us folk in Alaska.

Well, we were wrong.  The parts were a bit more intense than intended, but our friends did an amazing job dressing up.  We cooked some delicious food (stuffed mushrooms, salmon spread (thanks to MBC), a chili with cornbread, and s'mores and cookies (thanks, Tiff!) for dessert.  We also decked out our apartment to look something like a ski lodge.

POP QUIZ:  why are they called S'mores?!

ANSWER:  because once you have one, you'll always want . . . SOME MORE!

This is Aesha (the surgeon), Dario (the bodyguard), and Tammy (the ski shop owner) reading their respective parts.

Michael (the national security director), John (the P.I.), and Lindsey (one of the people at the party) all getting into their roles as well.

Tiffany (one of the people at the party), Rebecca (a flight attendant), Henry (a guest), and Elena (a guest) figuring out what questions to ask.  Note that to get the apartment setting correct, we bought this amazing fireplace DVD and had it playing in the background.  It made awesome crackling sounds and everything.

For the astute observer, you'll notice those are our cross-country ski boots by the TV -- warming by the fire.

Everyone is acting their roles!


It was a ton of fun and we definitely intend to host more of these in upcoming years.  We won't ruin the ending for you, but if you can guess the murder weapon off of this post alone we'll be very impressed.  Tiffany and Aesha were able to do so before even playing the game!

We also both went on family vacations these past few weeks.  Tammy went to DC and northern VA to go skiing with her family.  She stayed in the cold and snow.

Steve went to California with his family.  He experienced the true meaning of fire and ice:

These days, it's actually getting pretty warm up here.  It's above 30 degrees this week, and the snow is starting to melt.  We're expecting it to get cold again soon, but this is an interesting break.  We're also getting more sun now that Dec. 21 went by.  We have time to go yet before we feel much of the effects, but every day it gets a bit brighter for a bit longer.

We've also started putting together a bucket list of things to do while in AK.  So far the list is as follows:

Ice climb, sea kayak, catch and eat a salmon, snow machine (go on a snowmobile -- they call it a snow machine up here for some reason), fly an airplane, sky dive, dog sled, run with reindeer.

If you want to join us for any of these, or have any other good ideas to add, let us know!

Hope you're all keeping warm!