We even had enough people interested and learning to have two separate Mah Jongg tables. Lots of good luck generated that night. 

After dinner, we all sat down for the real excitement for the evening.... Mah Jongg. Karina and I had a book, a few of the Chinese Fish tech students remembered a bit. But we all pretty much had to start from scratch. Lots of enthusiasm. I think it will set off a weekly gathering for more Mah Jongg. (Thanks for my mom for sending my Auntie Hattie's Mah Jongg set and Aida for letting us borrow her's.) 

Some friends enjoying the New Year dinner. There was lots of other great food people brought too. A nice feast. 

That's part of our spread. Jenny, in the back, made some yummy sui mei. Karina also made oyster sauce broccoli, almond float, citrus grapefruit-orange-lime punch, and 8 egg cake (but not all of it's out yet.) 

I made won ton. That's our brand new deep fat fryer. I'm so proud of it. Perfect golden won ton every time. 

Karina's starting on the Jai (aka monks food). Its a tradition for Chinese New Year. Vegetarian with plenty of glass noodles, mushrooms, fungus, carrots, bamboo shoots, tofu, and some other veggies. 

Gettin' some help. They made a whole lot of dumplings. Some were pork filled and some were tofu filled. People ate dumplings all night long. 

Jiaqi's folding the little suckers. 

Here's Lei using Shen's special roller from China to roll out the little dumpling skins. 

Time for Chinese New Year!!! Gong Hay Fat Choy! Here are some of our friends from the Fish tech center. They're actually really from China. Lei (the one to the right) got a recipe from his mom on how to make chinese dumplings. Here they are getting out the dough. 

 

 

Gotta leave your mark, right? 

There are all of these cool little spider web dealies on the ice. We don't know why they're made, but a bunch of them end up under tree branches. And sometimes they even look like the branch. 

The Lake has a whole bunch of different types of ice on it. We figured that this "black ice", also the smoothest, is the area that gets the most shelter, thus the least amount of freeze-melt-refreeze process. 

Gracefully, charging ahead.

Here's Karina taking her first skate/steps. They were pretty tenuous, but by the end of the day, she was making full strides. 

Here's the lake from Karina's perspective. She hasn't skated for a while, and no one else is on the lake, and it was a pretty warm day... which all together made Karina a bit nervous. 

I loved the lake skating so much, I had to find some skates for Karina to have her experience it too. Here she is with 3 pairs of wool socks squeezing into skates about 2 sizes too big. ( Mine were too.) 

At the end of the lake... just a skip on over to the beach and the ocean. 

Can't tell you what an amazing experience it is to be on an huge empty frozen lake amonst the sitka spruce with a few friends during sunset. WOW!! 

Just to prove there's really ice under all that snow. 

Sunset... 

That's Steve on the left and his wife. He's the medical director of the hospital and the main ER doc, still an FP though. They lent Karina some skates (you'll see her soon, but she couldn't make it on this night because she had to work late.) 

This is Lake Gertrude at Abercrombie state park on Kodiak. Its lightly dusted with dry snow, but no problem for skating. Pretty, huh?