A funny I received in my email....

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, theolny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsatl tteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Christmas 2005

This was the first Christmas where the boys really enjoyed the holidays and had huge expectations. They enjoyed pretty much everything regarding decorations, the music and most of all the presents. I think they must have redecorated the tree about a dozen times and they all got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas (Carter just stared and didn't say much). Jack had to be cut off as he was telling Santa the story of the Dinosaurs while all the other kids were waiting. Kyle said he wanted a Donkey. Santa asked if he wanted anything else and he said no, just a donkey. Carter, as you can see here, wasnt sure what to make of the Jolly Fat Man.

Christmas morning was spent opening one present at a time, playing with it for a while before moving onto another. After doing that at Carolyn's on Christmas eve, our house Christmas morning and Grandma's house on Christmas afternoon, they were becoming old hats at present opening.

I'm Outta Here!

After 3 weeks on station, it was time to start getting ready to head home. I was scheduled to leave South Pole for Mcmurdo on the 18th which was perfect timing for getting back to Denver in time for Thanksgiving. However, there was one little hitch, I was not on the Northbound flight manifest on the 19th, from Mcmurdo to Christchurch. This was a real problem for me as I could be kicking around Mcmurdo waiting to get on a flight as Thanksgiving drew closer. If I missed the flight on the 19th, the next available flight to Christchurch would be on the 21st. With the weather in Antarctica, there is absolutely no guarantee of an on-time flight. With some last minute paperwork, and some begging, I was finally able get scheduled for a northbound flight from Mcmurdo to New Zealand. Needless to say, I was really concerned about missing Thanksgiving. The last time I had been to Mcmurdo, my north bound flight had been cancelled four days in a row.

The night before departing the South Pole, I packed up my stuff and dragged my giant yellow duffel down for cargo to pick up and load onto a pallet that evening. The next morning, I kept my eye on the weather bulletins and flight information with fingers crossed. Finally my flight landed around 10:30 Am and I walked out to the skyway to watch the C-130 taxi into the station. I should have waited another 15 minutes as I ended up waiting for the flight crew to offload fuel and cargo before we were allowed to board the plane. On this flight, there were two departing winter-over Polies whom had not seen civilization for over a year. They kind of kept to themselves. Once the plane was in the air, I promptly fell asleep only to wake up an hour later literally freezing to death. It turns out that we were still flying over the Pole. Apparently the flight crew was collecting flight data for approaches to the station. Fortunately, this only lasted another fifteen minutes before we were truly on our way to Mcmurdo Station, where we landing about 3 hours later.

Accommodations in Mcmurdo are nothing like South Pole where most people have a single private room. However, because I was only in Mcmurdo for a night, I shared a dormitory style room with 5 others in building 155, the primary dormitory/galley/offices/everything building in Mcmurdo. Anyway, 14 hours later I was once again dragging my bags to board yet another C-130. This time, it was crewed by the New Zealand Air Force. This was the longest flight thus far with airtime of nearly 8 hours.... sheer boredom. I believe I finished most of a book I picked up in South Pole, Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven.

Well, to wrap it up, the flights from Christchurch to Auckland to LA to Denver were all fairly uneventful. In the end, I did make it back for Thanksgiving. Seeing the kids again was great, I believe they missed me as Jack became quite the Chatterbox, telling me about all the stuff he did while I was gone. Good to be home.