saying goodbye to halloween

 gotta love Halloween.  it's  a no stress holiday.  just party, goofy outfits and candy.  can't go wrong there.  2 parties tonight.  that doesn't happen very  often.  guess there was a baby shower as well today.  missed that one.  this is me with my paper doll costume.  it was a hit.  of course, it was discovered that most people under a certain age have never heard of or seen paper dolls.  haha....still a fun costume...and easy

 rio has been opting out of walks.  yesterday blossom and i went to university lake.  it's been trying to rain and successful at times.  mostly i've been lucky with the weather on my walks.

 not much to take pictures of, but these reflections were nice.

 blossoms toy was quickly taken by a dog who's owner was jogging and not paying attention to her dog. lucky i had a spare.

 went to a bridal shower for holly from peds last night.  fun seeing friends i haven't seen for some time.

 the game that night was to creat her wedding gown from toilet paper, paper towels and tampons.  lots of fun. all i did was make her tampax bouquet.

 today rio stayed home again.  blossom and i looped around out at north bivouac.  ran into a few trail friends.

 again not many pictures.  my party pictures were not that great either.  but fun anyway. indoor photography is not my best...well especially with my little camera.  don't want to be bothered with the big camera's and don't want to be a bother...better to just take snap shots and have fun.

 liking that i can stream net flix through my television.

 last night i streamed a movie my friend had told me about.  "happy people, a year in the taiga".  it was a documentary.  russian trappers.  the trappers seemed happy enough, not sure the other people in the village were.  the natives in it were for sure not happy.  they were only mentioned as basically drunks who can only do menial labor.  so not a very positive spin on the russian native culture.

 there were a few interesting tidbits.  they handmade their own ski's for cross country.  really seemed more like a cross between cross country skies and snowshoes.  pretty wide, not too long.  cool to watch how the guy selected the wood and cut it a certain way and then had to thin it and bend the tip.

 another interesting thing they did was took birch bark and burned it, the tar/sap stuff that dripped off of it was used to protect against the mosquito's.

 was debating hitting the hockey game tomorrow. it's pretty early though, like 3 i think.

 tonight is the night to fall back so at 2 am it becomes 1 am again.  so happy i'm not working. it makes the usual 12 hour shift into a 13 hour.

 loved blossoms reflection out there.

 we are still having totally mild weather from the usual.  still in the 40's i think, rain instead of snow.  there was a bit landslide that a covered a big section of the denali road in the national park.  the warm weather has allowed them to clear that up.  it was pretty big, but nobody was hurt.  that part of the road is closed for the winter.

 last year this trail has been frozen over by mid october.  still all wet.  i'm sure it will cool off soon.  winter never skips alaska that is for sure.

 lots of lichen out there

 these big leaf looking things and that hairy stuff above are lichens

 not many leaves with any colour left in them out there.

 the monday walk could be a full house this week.

 another strange lichen below.

 was trying to watch one of the dvd's i'd gotten from netflix but i finally clued in that the cd was busted.  will send it back.

 the rest are from the two parties i attended tonight with friends. the first one i just heard about from everyone else.  guess it was posted in peds.  the hosts did a nice job decorating and it was at a hotel with catered food.  thanks to the wellmans.

 above is linda and sharon who is in from the east...welcome home sharon!  below is sandra and carrie.

 carrie was a beaver and her tail took out a few drinks on the table.  it was quite large.

 this one loaded sideways, but it's really the only one i have of me in my costume that you can see the whole thing.

 these guys got together and got their zombie on.

 we tried to get control of the tail all night.  haha.

 amy and i...

 amy with lucy and below with carrie and one of hers.  lots of star wars outfits.

 sharon having fun being a zombie...gretchen had no idea she was about to get attacked by the undead.

 now she's going after the other undead....can you become undead twice?  not sure.  i'm not well versed in the zombie rules

 she was a wild girl out there.

 sharon with our hostess.  she looked cool in her outfit as well.  i think it was queen of hearts.

 as i said, loads of kids and they seemed to be having fun.

 had never been to this hotel for a party, but this fountain was pretty sweet looking.

 on to tiff and aarons place.  below amy, holly and lil lucy...

 when i arrived tiff's one dog was quite disturbed by my costume for some reason, so i removed it.  i fitted onto nate later...seemed like he would enjoy it.  clearly he did.  he was having a tough time playing beer pong with it on though so i undressed him.  haha!!

 everyone seemed to be having a great time out there.  a bit chilly outside but they had a fire going on the deck.

 carrie and i tried to beat these guys at beer pong. i started out strong but lost it in the end and carrie got stronger as the game went on. we lost...alicia and holly remained unbeaten!!

 loved this one of amy.  hehe.

 lucy even got into playing with sandra's brain.

anyway.  lots of fun out there!!  i'm about ready to turn in for the night.  alaska has more than one type of wildlife!!  enjoy your extra hour of sleep...i know i will!!