good morning. this post looks like the last few, still 41 below(-55 with the wind chill, but does it really matter at this point) this morning. i am headed to the lab this morning, good temp to get some work done. of course we had nice game night get together at martin's cabin last night. Trevor is just back from Thailand (installing a water system in a remote village) and trying to get back into the cold weather.
patrick still rode his bike, colder than 45 below the pedals will not turn...hopefully he made it home last night because it was pretty close.

36 below

it is 36 below this morning and supposed to be this cold until Tuesday of next week. it does warm up slightly late in the day. i need my snow pants to go for a walk, the car door latches froze this morning so we had to hold them shut a few miles until the oil i am guessing warmed up enough to let the latch fall. after 40 min the car is still not warm, all and all it pretty great though.

thanks for all the emails regarding getting tested to donate. i really, really appreciate the support.

transplant update/ saturday's earthquake

small earthquakes are pretty common here in Alaska. Saturday morning several of us felt the birch lakes, 4.9 earthquake. they always display the current earthquake report with the weather.

in other news, we are still searching for a donor for a kidney transplant. all of the family came back with a positive crossmatch, which means they can not donate. now, several friends from Fairbanks and Ben's dad Roger are getting tested. we are hoping this round goes better. thanks to everyone that has been tested. i am so lucky to have such great friends and family willing to donate.

cold sunday

our interior warm spell is officially over - we awoke to a frigid 23 degrees below zero this morning. i had kind of gotten used to the comfortable range of 10 below to 10 above. the sun is shining though, and we're gaining about 8 minutes of light a day.

we're both really busy here. i'm shooting quite a bit, and working several projects that i'll share later. Dea is really busy at school right now too. papers, classes, research...she's studying like mad. the blog will probably be a little dead here for a while.


Dea at the lab - here home away from home


the lab's instrument for measuring N2O5


Dea- happy to be going home for the night

i'm finally processing, and printing, some photos from the Midwest in Dec/Jan. ..

Sharae & Caden

till later.

ben

the love sac

we had another game night at ed's last night. ben, julie and i sat on the love sac, it is very comfy. ed got it last time he was in boulder. we played balderdash and it was hilarious.
dan flew to barrow this morning (check out your AK map, norhern most point to the north pole that is still land) so we are watching sky. we went for a skijor and i took this while holding on as we chased down ben skijoring with lucy and ted skiijoring with ty. it was 5 below this morning, not a bad temp for a ski. pella she won't pull, so she just runs along the side.
sky at full speed.

CAZ was sooo fast this weekend on our river ski. The river was good for skate skiing. I think we have to have a ski down, Caz vs. Sky.

we did a moonlight ski at stacia's friday night. she had these ice pillars with candles in them that lined her driveway. pretty cool.
then we played a homemade game that kumi gave to laura for her bachelorette party, she is married now, but it is still a fun game. grad school is getting crazy busy so not too much time to blog. we also went to a good first friday's at wells street gallery.

just skate skiing

Taryn, Stac and I had a great ski today with dogs on the henrik loop. We left from stac's cabin, like most of our places skate skiing right out the door.

Game Night tonight at the Huff house, bring it on. balmy 15 above today- this weather is soo great.

Last week Randy and I finally went in the field to gather some data, it was pretty fun and we discovered a multitude of problems with our tubing/cords and battery life when it is 20 below.

Taryn is a new grad student in our department and she is from Rochester MN! We may stay with her parents after the transplant...whenever that is. we are still waiting for a second round of tests to come back from Mayo next week. -dea

We had a great ski into Tolovana Hotsprings. The trail was a trapline and pella tried to steal the food in the traps. Ben and Ed skiing in the begining of the route, a downhill snow plow screamer on cross country non metal edge skis. Ed made some incredible enchilades he carried in for us.
Ben going over the top of tolovana dome, about 8 miles into our 11mile ski. This part was really steep and Ben carried my sled and his pack! That was awesome because we were able to get there in plenty of time to enjoy the hot springs.Patrick and Ben arriving at the cabin, where Ed had the wood fire stove buring and hot coca waiting, nice.



Dan skied in the 60 mile route intsead from Fairbanks and he made it in 1 day! That is a looooong way, he ran into a wolverine in trap that was growling at him in the middle of the night and alone on the trail (i would have crapped my pants). His dog would not come and when he went to investigate, he saw the animal in the trap. Patrick brought a can of dominos and that was the main entertainment after the hotsprings.

ben and i left from the house today on a backcountry ski on the slough. we were trying out our sled system for our trip next week into Tolovana Hot Springs. it is in very rural part of alaska and then an 11 mile hike in to a remote natural hot spring. Not that far of a ski, but hilly, windy and lots of snow. our friends hit a blizzard last weekend and took it forever not to mention frostbite...so we are getting prepared.

we went on a great long skate ski today, the dog musher hall trails are in perfect condition and freshly groomed, only one skijor women the entire loop. it was 5 above, which is crazy warm compared to the rest of the week with temps as cold as 51 below, of course without a wind chill. it only supposed to be 10 below tonight, this warm spell is great. then we all settled at roasters for a good catch up chat, everyone just showed up at the same time.

Nothing says home like 40 below and your car won't start. Here is Martin and Ben jumping our frozen car. It is 11am and they are also enjoying an IPA to help celebrate being back in AK. We had a great visit in the midwest, but it is also good to be home.

maple and i trying to take picture outside soaking in the sunshine before we head back to fairbanks. it is 44 BELOW zero today and we will be home around 1am.

Sharae, Taylor and Caden hanging out at grandma and grandpa's house in Iowa. Our last day in the lower 48 and today we are headed back to Chicago. We are looking forward to getting back to Fairbanks to enjoy the new snow.

This week in Chicago has been crazy. From dialysis, to downtown to Wisconsin to see my Aunt Irene and back downtown for shopping. My brother Tim stopped by today and then we headed to back to Iowa to visit with Ben's family.

Chicago B.L.U.E.S

Cafe Ba-Ba-Reba and Ben's Birthday cake.
City and more city. We headed out after dinner to a blues bar (Chicago B.L.U.E.S.) and listen to some great music, J.W. Williams and the Chi-Town Hustlers. How crazy to party in Chicago with stacia from fairbanks? My parents left before brother brown showed up and showed us all how to get down with his saxaphone, it was the highlight of the night.

happpy b-day to ben!

Ben and I have had very busy week here in chi-town. Here we were are on Michigan Ave. downtown. we then headed to wicker park for a great night out with Jessica at Ear Wax Cafe. The area is totally revamped and loaded with consignments shops and modern boutiques. Dialysis has taken up alot of the day today, but it is Ben's b-day and we are headed out to Cafe Ba-Ba-reba with my parents, Jeff and Jen and Stacia!

middle of no where Iowa family farm

We drove back from Mayo Clinic in MN and drove down to Grandma Huff's house all piled together in a 15 person van. She still lives on the a farm way out in south east Iowa. She is 92. It was great to see the farm where ben grew up riding ponies and coon hunting on the weekends. Ben took some great portrait shots of his grandparents and surrounding farm stuff and he doing a big post on his blog. We went a few miles to Joan's sisters farm and had lunch with the rest of the family (ben's parent were high school sweethearts and there are farms on both sides of the family).
i took this picture of ben and taylor. not bad eh?

of course caden was passed around to everyone and i also held him for awhile.

mayo clinic update

We are in our last day of testing at Mayo. Lots of information and after meeting with the surgeon and doctor they have decided that it would be better to pursure another donor. Ben is of course healthy and able, but the positve crossmatch reaction (my antibodies react with his cells) is really severe and would require 2.5 weeks of pre transplant treatment (similar to kidney rejection treatment in seattle), removal of my spleen and still no guarrantee they would do the transplant. So we are looking into other donors and some of my family members have graciously come forward to be evaluated to donate a kidney. Mayo is going to test my their blood for the same positive crossmatch and go from there. It has been a long couple of days, but we have to been able to get out in downtown rochester. We should know more in another couple of weeks. Dea

one of the many christmas day family pictures.
jeff and jen at christmas eve dinner.

Mayo is Crazy

Ben and I are at Mayo Clinic. This place is huge, we each received a colored bag (green for transplant and orange for donor) and then they set us off in opposite directions. I did pass Ben once today. Very modern and beautiful place. Everthing is connected via underground marble subway lined with retail and coffee shops as far as hospitials go it pretty nice. Everything is planned to the minute, LG then go to LA, charlton or eilson...you get the lingo of the billon different buildings pretty quick. I have some great pics from the holidays to post when I have a little more time. Dialysis again today, skipping once was ruff and christmas day and the day after I was feeling pretty crappy so I am going again today to get all caught up! It has been a whirlwind tour so far.

snowing in anchorage

hard to tell from this picture but is snowing like crazy here in anchorage(not like denver, but still alot). this is our plane, we are supposed to be boarding now, but we have heard nothing yet.
we hope to get outside tonight! Dr. Wu is also here so we are just hanging out playing on free wifi. dea

Happy Holidays!

We are off to Chicago, Iowa and Minnesota today...we arrive tomorrow night. Can't wait to see everyone.
Tim and Stacia showing the latest in Fairbanks Fashion. Fox and Rabbit Ruffs.

a super duper cool picture!!

i stole this from Ed's blog. This picture is by Todd Paris.
This is a great time lapse picture of how low the sun is in winter. this is what is looks like for 3 hours of daylight, sunrise-sunset colors the entire time.

my cool new ipod shuffle from Ben for Christmas.
we skate skied across the street from the house yesterday, of course middle of the day is still pretty dark. it was 15 below so we had our baklavas on. it is supposed to be 30 below by Sunday, but we will be in sunny warm chicago! -dea