Antarctic Snowglobe

My friend Carrie was making Antarctic-themed
snowglobes for the craft show a couple months ago,
and I asked her if she could make me a personalized
version. I received it this week and it features
the flags of the McMurdo area as well as the flag
of the Antarctic Vexillological Association, with
some mountains in the background. It's perfect
for a flag geek like me!

A Visit From Carrie

Our friend Carrie stopped by yesterday and spent the day
with us today. For the next several months, she's taking
classes and completing training at Solar Energy International
in Carbondale Colorado. It's only about 90 minutes from
our house, so we hope to see her several times this summer!
It sounds like an excellent program and she'll be learning
all about solar power units and installation. She'll even
be taking some additional classes with the program in
Costa Rica later in the summer.

Happy Cheeseball Day!

Ok...my friend Carrie is almost 4 months off (the REAL National
Cheeseball Day is April 17...yes, believe it or not, there is a
National Cheeseball Day!), but her heart was in the right place
as she brought me a cheeseball she made with her own two
hands. The whole cheeseball thing goes back to a few years
ago when Lynn and I would play Euchre with Carrie and Tony
and a regular feature of our game would be a cheeseball made
by Lynn or Carrie. (Actually I think Lynn cheated because hers
were from Hickory Farms...but I digress). When we got together
to play Euchre earlier this year (sadly minus Lynn), I was disappointed
that there was no cheeseball. So here we are in the present and
I am the proud owner of my own Antarctic-made Cheeseball.

Secretly, I think Carrie brought me this since she knew that I
would blog about it and besides Lynn, she appears on my blog
more than any other person!

My Substitute Lynns

Although Lynn isn't with me this season, I have
three guardian angels looking over me, and for the
first time this season, they were all in the same
place. Kaska (in front) was my card-playing Lynn
stand in this weekend, Carrie (middle) was my going
to a party Lynn stand in this weekend and Susie (back)
was my going to Thanksgiving dinner Lynn stand in this
weekend. Of course, I think that they would all agree
that none of them holds a candle to the real Lynn in
my mind, it did make a long holiday weekend a little
nicer to have them all around.

My Birthday!

It's never fun to be sick...especially on your birthday!
But, I was invited over to Carrie and Tony's to play
Euchre with Kaska as my Lynn-surrogate partner.
When I walked in the door, I was greeted with a cool
looking Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting (my fav)
and this very fun cut out of Lynn in a showgirl outfit
popping out of the cake! Being a Hamann, I was early
and was the first one there instead of the last one so
the "surprise" was out of the bag. I did have a great
time though and it took my mind off a being sick for
a few hours. Most of my closest Ice Friends were there
including many from our favorite winter of 2007. It was
a great time and I've very grateful to everyone who
attended to make it a special birthday I will remember
for many years to come.

ACH003

I had "training" this morning on how to
drive vehicles. Of course I've driven
vehicles many times down here before, but
for some reason, we have to be re-trained
each year. So I drove an Airporter (kind of
a rental car-type van over to Scott Base and
was now "trained". Later in the afternoon,
Flight ACH003 was headed down from Christchurch
and because Ivan (the big Terra Bus that holds
the most people) was broken, I was asked to
drive a passenger van out to Pegasus Runway to
pick folks up. On this flight were my friends,
Carrie, Nathan, Tad and many others. The winds
were really whipping and the roads were
drifting heavily on the way out and we got there
just as the plane was ready to land.


I love watching the C-17 come in to park after
landing. It's huge! Plus, it was fun to be
out at the runway with the other ATO folks
(my department) including Shuttles and Cargo.


Bob...one of the shuttle drivers who was driving
one of the large passenger vehicles called a
Delta, saw me taking photos of the plane coming
in and asked if I wanted a photo of myself with
the plane. Sure...it would be good to send to
Lynn I thought...so here it is!


Driving back to town was just as windy and
mushy (road wise) due to the blowing snow,
but was fun because I now had 10 passengers
in the back of the van. That smoking mountain
in the back of the photo is Mount Erebus, the
very active volcano. There's a good chance
I'll be driving out to Pegasus later this week
so I'll hopefully take some more photos then.

Carrie's Here

We picked up our friend Carrie at the train station north
of Chesterton and have had a nice visit. She's been living
in Chicago and is helping her sister and her family get
ready to move to a new house, but who couldn't pass up
a chance to visit with the Hamann's!!! Today we made the
drive across northern Indiana to go to a craft show at
Amish Acres in Nappanee. It was interesting and we bought
a few things but found the food to be very expensive so we
actually shared a $5 Lemonade! The evening before we
barbecued chicken on the grill and had veggie kabobs with
corn on the cob.

A Most Thoughtful Gift

Today, I received the most thoughtful gift from my
friend, "The Delightful Carrie *********". While
we were back in Indiana, Lynn, Carrie and I went to
the book sale at the Kouts Public Library. This
was shortly after my Dad passed and her visit helped
cheer us up. Unbeknownst to me, Carrie found this
book and just today I received it in the mail from her.
Even though the book has nothing to do with my Dad and
the story is about something completely non-related,
the title reminds me of my Dad and his love for gardening.
Thank you Carrie. I will treasure this book always.

Greetings from Carrie

Our friend (and often mentioned on this blog), Carrie
is on a roadtrip with Tony across the Midwest and West,
visiting some highlights and not-so-highlights of
Americana. Although I don't think they've visited
the world's largest ball of twine, they have stopped
by the World's Largest Truckstop, The Field of Dreams
and of course Brown Sheep Wool in Mitchell Nebraska.
What? You've never heard of Brown Sheep Wool or
Mitchell Nebraska. For Antarctica knitters, it's become
the new Mecca and is bowed to four times a day. Other
Ice friends, Cindy and Delaney were there last month
and now Carrie has made her contribution to the local
economy.


However it looks like they experienced some problems
with their transportation somewhere in Nebraska.
Apparently they've overcome their problem as last
we heard they're crossing Idaho.

Friends Far Away

A group of our friends recently got together in Madison,
Wisconsin. Although it's great to see their smiling
faces...very tan and very happy looking, it's a little
sad at the same time. One of the bad things about
working down here is that you can go many months, even
years, without seeing people you care about. On the
other hand, each one of these happy friends would not
have been in our lives if we hadn't come down here in
the first place. Tony and Tad will be back this summer.
As for Carrie, Erika and Pete...we will see them as soon
as we can.