The lights came out right over our house, and not even the city lights could wash them out.

Coffee house Christmas party, Christmas eve, and Christmas morning.

Stephanie's sister Melissa and Teddy came for a visit, and we drove down to Ninilchik for a few days.

May began with break up on the Yukon and some flooding in Circle. Back in Fairbanks, Jacob got the fishing bug, so we got starter rods and practiced from the back deck, playing in the yard, and finally camping on the Chena.

In March I went with my kids from Circle to Washington D.C. and New York City. Here are also a few from the weekend I arrived at home, bringing candy from Dillan's in NY, and an outing to Creamer's Field.

The newest pictures of Sarah, plus the boys being crazy, picking raspberries, and Steph's new friend Gov. Palin.

A lot happened in one month. Here we are pakcing up our apartment in Circle, living in our UAF apartment, playing with watersquirters, and moving into the new house.

A family outing to an odd assortment of rocks that jut out of the flats near Central.

More pictures of boys

With Jacob's whale and dolphin fixation, we took him to Sea World to blow his mind.

Christmas in Texas. More pictures with the boys and family.

Northern Lights, Jacob and Toby playing in the snow, swimming in Fairbanks

What can I say? He needed a haircut. And it's dang cute. And it suits him.

Way back in the trees, an old school still stands. The cemetery dates from the gold rush days in the late 1800's.

On the first Saturday of the school year, I took my students out to climb on the Ketchum Rocks. Toby, Jacob and Steph followed along. Our kids play out in the woods. Imagine.

Toby's birthday, a few of the family around the house, an aerial of Circle, and a floatplane on the river.

Our good friends Matthew and Lisa and their son Nathan came to AK for a visit. We had a great time and we ran them ragged!

With no new baby this year, Jan and Julius had the chance to do the touristy thing in Alaska this year and spend some time with us as well.

It's been a busy June.

Toby squeals. And squeals. And squeals.

An overnight trip up river

The Yukon River breakup over a few days

A few misc. pics. of mi familia.

Our weekend jaunt to Fairbanks

While in Anchorage for the NEA Delegate Assembly, I was able to sneak away to take a few pictures and hear some good music.

A few recents of our little family.

A small sample of the road that is my driveway.

A few of the new kid...

The first few days in the hospital, and others of Jacob meeting his new little brother, and hanging out with Opa and Granna.

The Tanana Valley Fair in Fairbanks

Stephanie, Jacob and I went to Texas for two weeks to see friends and family.

A few pictures from my first jaunt up the river to Circle. I have a buddy up here who was moving his things to the nearest road, which happens to be in Circle, Alaska, by a local barge. Here is what it looks like to move on the river. After we left him and his things on the bank in Circle, I drove home to Fort Yukon in what was suddenly my new boat.

Stephanie's brother, Brian, came up for a nice visit to do the Alaska thing in May. Good times.

We spent a relaxed afternoon of swinging and riding around on the four-wheeler.

We drove to Circle to spend a weekend getting oriented to our new community and seeing the new space. Here are a couple of pictures.

A few odds and ends from April.

On a recent trip to Fairbanks, we purposely chose a hotel that had a swimming pool so that we could do the family swim thing. We had no idea how he would respond, but as you can see, he was pretty excited.

Here are a number of pictures of Jacob from the last couple of months.

This has been an amazing fall in Fort Yukon. The fall colors have been vibrant, the air has been cool and clear, and it has lasted for weeks and weeks.

Everyone tells me you take a thousand photos of the first child, and then drastically less for every following child. Here are a thousand shots from the first couple months... From birth through Halloween.

I had a chance to chaperone a group of my high school students to Washington DC for a week for the Washington DC Close Up trip. It was a great deal. We bought a ticket for Stephanie so that she could go as well.

An annual event in Fairbanks, teams and individuals from all over the world come to compete in the single block or multi block ice carving competitions.

Our neighbors and friends, the Korths, invited us to visit them at their place "up home" on the Colleen River.

In July 2004, Stephanie's mother Kathy and my mother Liz came to visit us in Alaska. They were the first ones of our family to make it to Alaska and to Fort Yukon. It was a whirlwind tour, but we covered a lot of ground, air and ocean.

Stephanie and I spent some time in Juneau. Everyone tells me it rains all the time in Juneau. I think this is just a conspiritorial tale Junoans tell to keep such a good thing to themselves.

On Memorial Day weekend, Stephanie and I went on a trip with our friends Bryan and Carissa Neubert. It was an amazing place. Neub and I hiked in while Stephanie and Carissa flew in on a float plane. Another outing straight from the pages of Outside magazine.

While these pictures are of no single event, they are the miscellany of our lives in 2004.

After a short six months in Alaska, Stephanie and I went back to Texas to see friends and family and to share stories and pictures.

Various pictures of where we live, where we work, a lot of snow, and other faces of our town.

We sold our stuff, packed our car, and drove away. One act, or a series of acts, that will define much of the rest of our lives. The achieved and longed for goal has set up a lifetime of further goals. We reinvented ourselves, but took a lot of our old selves with us into the new.