Iditarod 2011!

While Tom and his mom are trying to make their way back from the official restart of the Iditarod, I'll post about the ceremonial start of the Iditarod that was downtown yesterday. As the newspaper explained, the ceremonial start is like the tailgate party for the real start. It is like a big fake start where everyone gets all excited, they race for a couple miles, and then they pack everything up and drive two miles north to start for real the next day (pictures #1 and #2). The girls were all bundled and excited to be outside (#3). Celia was LOVING watching the dogs running and playing in the snow. Love this picture of Taylor, Travis, Travis' mom, and I all talking and Celia super excited about those dogs running by (#4). Celia's new faces that appear on camera are always awesome (#5). After watching the races for a bit (#6) and warming up in the mall after a minor breakdown by the cold child, we went to see the blanket toss(#7 and #8). This is an Alaska Native tradition where apparently the village would head to the coast, one person would stand on the blanket made of walrus hides and while he was tossed into the air, he would look out onto the water to see if he could spot whales. The downtown version was cool and still used a vintage walrus hide blanket, but they sat down, and they really didn't get nearly as much air as experienced blanket tosses of which we've seen pictures. Oh, and we saw the "Bushman" who charges $1 for a picture with him. Though it's free if you take a picture of him with someone else and he doesn't notice (#9). Then we took what has become the annual picture of Celia next to the Alaskan mural (#10). And then we came home, were happy to be warm, but we had a hard time taking that hat off Sabrina. She was just too cute (#11). And we took an awkward family photo of the girls with daddy (#12). Hilarious.

Tomorrow, using the photos I'm hoping Tom will bring me of my favorite contestants, I will do a little run-down of this year's race. Man, I love the Iditarod. It's the one time a year I sort of wish I was a teacher because there is such cool curriculum available surrounding the Iditarod.