Lisa brings cold snap to Fairbanks.

Lise arrived in town January 12, and on time - an unexpected surprise from Alaska Airlines! She was also bang on time for the cold snap jokingly predicted by all and sundry, and of course by the immutable Murphy's Law. In fact this January has been about the 5th coldest in the last 35 years. People are scoffing at 'global warming', and the newspapers have been trying to differentiate between short scale local weather and long term, large scale trends in climate.

None of this stopped Lise, who seemed determined to carry on with her summer running schedule as much as possible! She dragged me out skiing and walking on the first weekend when it was only -30 C. Motorists actually pulled over to photograph her during her lunchtime run yesterday in -45 C !

Here's Lise at Creamer's field migratory bird area wondering why she'd flown north for the winter. The new Marmot jacket, and NZ leather/wool hat from my Dad are proving very popular!

Lise has taken to nordic skiing really quickly and we both enjoy getting out on the groomed trails and the mutli-use trails in the woods out of town.

White mascara is super fashionable in Alaska

Here we are basking in the short period of winter light having just jumped aside to let some ski-jorers through with their dogs. How 'bout those eye lashes! If I'm looking worse for wear here you should have seen me 35 minutes later, trying to keep up with her on the ski back out. It had just dumped a lot of snow so ski technique was less important that aerobic fitness as we basically jogged with skis on, and my snack-machine fitness plan was definitely shown up!

Its so great to be together again in the same place. Over the last 5 years, we've spent about 1 year apart; we're really looking forward to the next three years together in this exotic place called Alaska. We're already had to deal with squirrels in the roofing, a partially frozen water line under the sink, and changing a car tire in -25 C. There will be more challenges ahead for sure, but also a great many special opportunities.