Season 9 Episode 1

 A lovely walk to Hut Point my first weekend with some South Pole Traverse friends.

 Near the sea ice at Hut Point.

An awesome welcome party as my bus arrived from the air field. The whole department!  Check out Mark's Vote for Ildi tshirt (he's my boss's boss).

 A photo from the flight to Antarctica from the cockpit.  They let me sit up there for a few minutes and chat. 

I and a coworker Anne got to go on a snow machine trip out to a seal research camp at Razorback island where Anne and I took a million pictures and learned about the seals there.  Pretty great.

 They're Weddell seals out there.

 We saw starfish when we looked into the ocean.

A ladies tour of the pressure ridges at Scott Base, the New Zealand station, was an awesome eve!

So far this season is flying by unbelievably fast.  I can't believe it's almost Christmas.  I live in the main building above where the food is served, and there's delicious 24 hour pizza which is a new thing.  I've been running 45-60 minutes four days a week and have been going to every social event out there.  Really busy getting ready for the Christmas Acoustic Show that we're hosting up at the Waste Barn.  Oh yeah, that's where I work this season, back to Recycling Tech, which at the end of the day feels great because we make money for the Program.  Lots of fun things coming up for the holidays.  Thank you for your emails and Christmas Cards.  Love you very much. 

Springtime in New Zealand

 Cappuccinos and postcards at the Boat Shed Café...this one is for you David!

 The roses were in wild bloom at the Botanic Gardens.  Most as big as my head. 

 My 9th deployment, as usual spent admiring the beautiful flowers and trees.

 6 of my meals were sushi this go around.  Yum!  I had two extra days because of an airdrop and a weather delay so lots of good food.

 My scientist friend Jayred and I met up for Irish beer one night.  He's one of the ice core drillers from WAIS Divide last season.

 Amazing spring after a beautiful fall.

 This was in the NZ section of the Botanic Gardens.

 These were wildflowers out at Sumner Beach.  I jumped on the bus out to the beach one day and it was perfect weather, good sushi and a great Goodwill shopping.

 Sumner Beach (Dave this is where we played Scrabble with Zach 11 years ago).

A cormorant/blue eyed shag at the beach. I had another lovely trip through New Zealand.  Always a pleasure to pass through, admire the scenery and pig out on the delicious food.  Love you, pics soon from Antarctica and my trip to the seal research camp.

Fall

Coker Creek Falls in Tennessee.  We went with Dave's parents, and saw the 360 degree views of fall in the mountains from Buck Bald on the same drive as well.

This was Frankie, probably the cutest raccoon in the world.  He visited us a lot at the cabin and just begged and looked cute whenever we grilled food.

A particularly perfect day at the cabin, looking at fall colors from the porch.

We had a wonderful week together with Roger and Bette, lots of cards and great food, manhattans and scenic drives to see the colors, an apple orchard and a great day in Blue Ridge.  Thank you very much!

A fish that I did not catch, but that I got to eat.  Dave and I went running, while the fishermen (Brian and Donny) caught us dinner.  Pretty great deal actually.

 We got to go kayaking again!  Lake Apalachia is the best.

Fall color watching from the kayak.

Karen and DJ came up for the week too from Atlanta and we took the pontoon boat out, went hiking at Turtletown falls and ate really well thanks to Karen cooking a lot of Body Ecology foods.  Yum.  She's an Antarctic friend...we took her van on a roadtrip in Christchurch a few years back, and they along with Molly hosted us at their house in Atlanta before I flew out.  Dave and Brian had an awesome send off for me the night before I flew with a brewery tour of Saltwater Brewery.  Such good beer!

Before Atlanta, North Carolina and the cabin, I was in Reno for a couple weeks.  I was supposed to fly to Antarctica from there before the government shutdown.  Mom, Dad and I took a trip to Bodega Bay to see the ocean and eat fresh fish and saw a whole lot of pelicans.  Also seals swimming in the ocean and we had a beautiful visit to the Redwood grove at Armstrong Redwoods State Park.  Thank you very much Szulok!

 One cold and one perfect day at the beach!

 We visited a couple new to us beaches on this trip...this one was close to Schoolhouse Rock Beach.

And we took a wonderful trip to Lake Tahoe too to see the trees there, and the fish on the Truckee river. We also walked in the marshes everyday by their house, saw the ponderosa trees near Mt. Rose and my grandparents.

It's a month of lost work and a $300/week pay cut, but I got to see Dave again, take some lovely trips with my parents as well as Dave's and see the first fall I've seen in a long long time.  Beautiful!  I'm currently in Christchurch New Zealand, seeing their spring and flying to Antarctica in the morning.  Thank you and love you all!

Indiana, N. Carolina & California

I got to see my beautiful cousin Zsuzsanna for the first time in a long while since she lives in Tempeh.  She's engaged!  Mom & Dad and I watched my nieces for a couple weeks so that Tibor and Dora could take an adult vacation to Canada and Yellowstone, and so the girls got to see Zsuzsa too!

Roger took me to an Indiana University football game, and they won!  It was exciting and fun.

Blue heron at Roger & Bette's pond in Indiana.  It was great to see it up so close.  What a bird!

Roger & Bette in their backyard before their high school reunion.  It was great to spend some time with the Koehlingers.  We played a lot of cards, ate so well and even went to a harvest festival.

Dave on the John Muir trail in Tennessee by Brian's lake house.  So nice to hike on it!

Dave and Brian.  We just made a dinner for kings, bacon wrapped jalapenos, avocado salad and gorgonzola cheese and caramelized onion hamburgers!  Bloody mary's as the appetizer. And below is a lake I hiked by and Dave mountain biked in the Smoky Mountains.

Dave and I went kayaking on Lake Apalachia, and had a lot of relaxing days on the porch.

This beautiful cardinal sat on our car everyday.  He kept looking at himself in the mirror.  Funny!

After Dave went back to Alaska, I dog sat Bitsy the chihuahua and Max, a small black dog.  My friend Molly from Antarctica came up and we did a fast together and enjoyed the lake views.

We went to Auburn California with my parents to see some exotic plants and fall colors.  We actually found a regional park that wasn't shut down and it had mining exhibits as well as gardens.  Very pretty.

There were hollies and magnolia trees, as well as huge Ponderosa pines.

This was my favorite bit of fall color there.  Right now I'm packing (for Antarctica, Alaska, New Zealand, Atlanta, North Carolina........whatever comes first.)  Let's see where I end up, since politicians killed my job. 

North Dakota, Indiana, Nevada

 North Dakota sunset at the Maah Daah Hey trail head, near Teddy Roosevelt National Park

 With Grandma & Grandpa at their home in Reno in April

 Our tent on our Maah Daah Hey mountain biking trip in North Dakota

 Abigail with her cute shoes at the playground in Stanley, North Dakota

 Isaac, so tall, in Stanley.

Second annual drinks on the Gas House deck for Roger's belated birthday in Indiana and below is Dave and I at the Olive Garden in Reno with my parents, Tibor, Dora and the girls.

 Family group portrait in front of the house, with the help of the neighbor Mark.

 Caught up with Incze cousins Attila and his wife Reka, their boy Zoltan.

 Hanna's first time bowling, and she beat Tiora by a point.  We went with the whole family.

 Mountain lion yawning at the wildlife park outside of Reno that takes care of injured animals.

 Dave and I at the campground right before starting our mountain biking trip.

 Beautiful badlands in North Dakota.  It was a magical place and I'm glad we got to see more of it.

On this trip, Dave and I biked parts of the Maah Daah Hey trail, me just 40 miles of it and Dave 80.  It's in a gorgeous spot and I imagine that when they have money for trail crews (which they didn't this year), that it's absolutely perfect.  I'd like to get good at it, so I've been riding Dad's bike here in Reno.  We saw some incredible sunsets, flowers and even bison there and enjoyed the camping and food in Medora.  We visited Mike and Jen and the kids and enjoyed our time there very much.  Can't believe how tall Isaac has gotten.  Drove to Indiana and celebrated belated birthdays as well as played some great cards and then flew to Reno to see my brother, sister-in-law and kids as well as my parents and grandparents.  Another 3 weeks with Dave that just absolutely flew by too quickly!