That's Amore!

"The love we give away is the only love we keep."
~Elbert Hubbard

We checked the weather this evening, it was a whopping 42 degrees here today. Ice was dripping, snow was melting, and I almost dehydrated tromping home in my snow pants and trusty parka. Major switches in the weather patterns up here. That's like a 60 degree difference from last week. Yee haw.

So tonight after the after school program I had 14 kids at my house and they all fit on my couch at the same time (it's a fam-ily couch, my baby brother Sam would say). They ran around for an hour with the only casualties being some glass in one picture frame and the 'flashlight candle' Mike sent. Pretty good considering the square footage we are working with and the sheer numbers of stampeding children wielding walkie talkies, armed with shedding scarves of every color again (Mike sent), and dodging the perpetual revolving bride promenading to and fro. When I finally flushed them outside to play in what remained of the unusually warm temps, they informed me that they were planning a sleepover for this weekend at my house. Fortunately, I had to break the news to them that I was going to be out of village this weekend. Gotta love those kiddos.

Ani and I walked again tonight, very strangely the sky looks like summertime. I know, I know (wishful thinking, I've been doing a lot of that lately;) it's only February but I'm telling you it was a summer sky tonight. Even the stars were summery. We are gaining 5 minutes of light a day here, the sun is rising around 9:30 and setting near 7ish. It obviously can all flip in a heartbeat and undoubtedly will probably tomorrow but for tonight I think the sky was sending us an early Valentine, reminding us of what the future holds again for this frozen tundra country. Since there is soooo much sky, it was hard to miss. Then we came across this little love note, a piece of summer shrouded in a tomb of frozen water, and it was 'pink' to boot.



Anyway I'm packed up and will be headed to Bethel for the Valentine's weekend to get some work done at the district office and catch up with friends. So To All of You, wherever you might be... Have a Happy Valentine's Day! With Love from Alaska:)

"Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything." 1 Peter 4:8