Alaska, Part two

So after we left the teeny tiny little town of Anderson, we headed back to Fairbanks.  We stopped by this little wildlife refuge for muskox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskox) if you're wondering.  They are big and really ugly.  Based on our pictures I'm just glad they don't have opposable thumbs.  We didn't get any pictures of the big hairy things resemebling buffalo.

Someone should call Jason.

After we left the large animals inside their very unsafe fence, we headed to the North Pole to see Santa Clause!  What a cute town, everything was Christmas themed.  The street lights were candy canes, the streets were all named elf this and elf that, santa clause lane, etc, even the daycare was named something like little elves.

Once inside we got to meet Santa!!! The girls were super excited.  He was a great Santa also, I can't tell you how many pictures we have in all different combinations of people.

Anna Kate was all about the elves especially since most things were her size.  I never considered her "elf size" right now.

The best moment ever was Elizabeth...dear Elizabeth starting having a temper tantrum because she wanted an ornament all of her own.  We had already bought an ornament for the family that said North Pole, blah blah blah, we didn't really think that we needed to have a second just because Elizabeth was having a tantrum about it.  As she stamped her foot and got all pouty, Santa Clause leaned over from his chair and said "I KNOW that a little girl is not have a temper tantrum in my house!"  So wonderful and such a memory.  She spent the remainder of the time with her head buried between Mollie and I so Santa wouldn't see her.  It was fabulous.

After we left Santa's house we left for the Silver Gulch Brewery.  There of course was a super long wait but when the sun never goes down it is real easy to wait for a table for an hour.  It was a very cool microbrew there in Fairbanks.  In fact one of the neatest parts of Alaska was the tremendous amount of microbreweries.

We eventually got seated outside which was amazing because a thunderstorm rolled in while were there.  I love the thunderstorms in Alaska because of the echo off the mountains, makes it really neat. 

Aunt Mollie and Elizabeth before dinner.

Uncle Terry surrounded by three of four nieces.  Gillian in the left back, Anna Kate in the left front and Lizzy on the right.  These girls love their Uncle Terry and so do we.

From our first few days in Alaska we decided this was the land of the strange things you find right off the road.  We are pretty sure this is someones house.  But to be driving down a quite mountain road and oh hello, there is a plane sitting there.  It was not small either.

This was our first spotting of really wild wildlife...that is a moose or a moose's rear end...haha, who knows.  But there was more moose to be found!