The Shortest Day of the Year!

....and it was also the sunniest day of the week. Seriously, the sun came out for the first time since LAST Sunday today. I think maybe God has a sense of humor - the SUN only comes out on SUNday. Ha. It's not funny.

Moving on...

As the title of my post says, today was the shortest day of the year. That's not something I ever paid attention to when I didn't live in Alaska. I mean, I knew when the official first day of winter was (which was always funny, because it always seemed like winter started LOOONG before that first day), but I never really focused on the importance of the daylight associated with that. But, when you live in a place where the shortest day of the year consists of 6 hours and 30 minutes of daylight, you pay attention! For the record, tomorrow we'll have 9 more seconds of daylight than today. Yes, that's important, even if it's just 9 seconds. The key is that it's MORE than today.

So, what does the winter solstice look like in Kodiak? Well, this picture shows what noon on the solstice looks like. On the left-ish is the sun, just barely clearing the top of our neighbor's 2-story house. I actually took this picture at about 12:30, so we were definitely at the high point of the sun for the day!

There is much rejoicing in the Dorval household today - mostly by me - since we're officially on the downhill of this winter. Yes, winter will still last until sometime in mid-April (if we're lucky it won't go til May), but the sun will be out for longer and it will get higher in the sky on the days when we actually get to see it.

Speaking of the sun, as I said, today was the first day since last Sunday (it might've been Monday) that the sun made an appearance. After a week of rain and snain, the blue skies and bright orb in the sky were welcome visitors to the neighborhood. Between batches of Christmas cookies, we took the opportunity to head out for a walk at Ft. Abercrombie. It seems like a lot of other people had the same idea, too. We counted 15 cars in the parking lot on our way out. I think the most we've seen there on the nicest summer day was about 8 or so. Yep, we all were going a little stir crazy!

With that, I'll just share some pictures I took today... the camera finally came back out on a hike with me for the first time in months!

Ft. Abercrombie view: Notice the bit of ice fog on the water... it was just gorgeous out there.

Fred enjoying the view - and some time off leash letting some energy out!

This is why I need an even bigger zoom lens. That's an eagle on the rock.

And, finally, the money shot. It only took me about 10 minutes and too many tries to count, but I really wanted a picture of a water drop on the spruce.

That's the latest from Kodiak. Hope everyone is ready for Christmas and can take the next few days to relax and remember why we all go crazy getting ready!