Happy Thanksgiving

Hello all.

When I first thought about taking this job one of my biggest concerns and reasons why I dragged my feet to accept the job offer was knowing I was going to be away from my family for the holidays. I knew with modern technology in place that keeping in touch wouldn't be a problem but just missing out of the festivities of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years with my family I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it. As I travelled down here I made lots of new friends from both orientation, the flights and sight seeing around Christchurch along with the friends I have made here at McMurdo I knew that it was going to be easier than thought. I can say after enjoying Thanksgiving here last night it was a lot better than I had expected it to be. I have realized that most of us down here are away from our families and friends so we all rely on each other to fill that hole. The one thing that I wish I could have seen would have been my nieces Andy and Orly and nephew Breandan enjoy the food and fun that comes with Thanksgiving, but leave it to my family to come through and send me a photo of Andy and Breandan enjoying a little painting session together to let me seen them having fun. Thank you Tim for the photo, that made my day. Since we rely on our friends it is always nice to have a reason to celebrate a birthday, a party or just having a reason to get together with friends. On Friday night I had planned a little surprise birthday party for one of my teammates, originally I had planned on having it on her actual birthday, after looking at our work schedules I realized it was going to be harder to make it work. I can say that we were able to succeed in surprising Alysa and have a great time with all the night shift cargo crew that showed up to the gym to help out celebrate, set up for Freezing Man and get checked out on the climbing wall. This made my weekend even better knowing that everyone was willing to help out and spend time together. Many laughs were had in the end. This same family came together for dinner Saturday night, many stories were told just the same as it would have been back home, laughs always make a tough situation better. I can say that my McMurdo family enjoys laughing. I don't think there is a meal, break or work situation were someone is not laughing. I have added some pictures of my McMurdo family hope you all enjoy them.

Our first night out in McMurdo after arriving, these are just some of my new family members who I flew in with.

Outside with the same family.

Myself, Natalie and Chris

Myself, Kristin and Alysa

My McMurdo family before my first dinner of the night.

This is the cargo team I work with.

Myself, Alysa, Gift, Karl, Marty and Matt on the bottom with Lisa standing on top of the cargo.

My week this past week didn't go as bad as thought. We were able to stay busy all week even though some bad weather came in and shut down all the air operations. I think it snowed on every shift we worked last week. It reminded of Colorado a lot with the way the weather was. I would show up to work and the sun would be out all nice and sunny and as the work day progressed the weather would change and we would be working outside in the snow. I can say this is probably one of the few places that snow will melt even though the air temp is below freezing, but it did feel warmer with the snow falling than with clear skies. The 4 days straight went quick, and the past 3 days off have been well earned and deserved by our team. We will be back to the airfield next week but at Pegasus which is a 14 mile drive from McMurdo. So my schedule will change since shifts are staggered with the long ride out. I am looking forward to that so that I can see some more of the area. I hope that soon more wildlife will be showing up as the weather warms up and the sea ice breaks up.

Till next time, Tim