I measured just under 1 in of new snow this morning. Right now it isn't snowing, but we don't have sunshine, either.

We just got news that our niece, Jennie, the nurse whose picture was on the blog a while back when she was caring for children in S. America, is engaged to be married in September. This is wonderful news. We haven't met the groom-to-be, Nick, but we're looking forward to that. We don't see Jennie often. She's out in New York state and keeps very busy. We wish them both many years of happiness together.

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Excerpt, courtesy of Henretta Splain, from the Caledonian Record:
This is just a reminder that on Sunday, January 24, at 2 p.m. the Fairbanks Museum will host internationally known biologist and bio acoustics researcher Katy Payne. Katy's work over thirty years has focused on the social communication of whales and elephants. She discovered the continuous creation of new vocalization patterns (songs) in Humpback Whales and the use of infrasonic vocalizations by African elephants to communicate over long distances. Her talk, "Eavesdropping on Elephants" is part of the Museum's mid-winter awards celebration and is open to the public, with pre-registration requested. Tickets to the program and the reception that follows are $10 for Museum members and $15 for non-members. To register and for more information, contact Tara Holt at 748-2372 or tholt@fairbanksmuseum.org.

There was a segment on 60 Minutes recently on this: Link

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Ellie, our sister-in-law and Jennie's mom, writes that at Beaver Creek where they are in Colorado, there's still very little snow. I think they may be getting some in a few days if the storms that are devastating southern California right now make it to the mountains. The forecast is for only small amounts there in the next few days. Not a good ski winter so far out there. Ellie says she won't be skiing until there's more snow as the trails are so poor. Tom, however, still has to be there and give lessons, but they probably have lots of snow-making going on and some trails are in good shape.

Someone asked us if there appeared to be a lot more snow in Burlington than here after they got 30 inches and we got about 3. When we were there on Thursday last week, it didn't seem unusually snowy, and in the Underhill area we thought there was less than we have.