Freezin' for a Reason

Luke decided to join a group of coworkers and do the Polar Plunge last Saturday (Dec 21).  The polar plunge is a fundraising event for the Special Olympics where participants pay money and raise money to jump into Goose Lake.  (Um…what about a bake sale…inside?  Just saying...)

Karrick and I went to watch, and we made it JUST in time.  Karrick decided to get a cold from his dad (yes Luke did the Polar Plunge with a cold), or so we thought--in hindsight we know now he had started teething…plus he may have still had a cold..who knows?  All I know is that it was a horrible night.  I spent the whole night with Karrick in the recliner.  That was the only way he and I were able to get any sleep at all!  Luke got up and left early to meet up with his coworkers.  He sent me a text before I left saying that I would have to park at UAA campus and take a shuttle so I needed to look up exactly where the parking/shuttle services were.  I didn't even think about checking on that the night before… I blame sleep deprivation.

Luke was scheduled to jump at 10:30 a.m. (15 minutes after sunrise). I checked where we needed to park and left the house around 9:50 a.m.  I parked, loaded Karrick in the ergo carrier, and got on an almost full shuttle bus around 10:20 a.m.  We were going to make it!  Wahoo!  And then the bus made it's way over to the lake where we had to wait for a snowplow to clear the entrance so the ginormous tour bus wouldn't get stuck.  But before the snowplow could clear the entrance a minivan had to be pushed out of the snow.  Time was ticking.  I was worried/mad that we would miss Luke and that the horrible night/morning and racing down to Anchorage would have all been in vain.

I took this picture to document how close I was to the lake…in case we missed it.

Finally the road was clear of snow (and dumb people driving where they shouldn't).  I got off the bus and walked as quickly as I could toward the lake.  We made it just in time!  A miracle indeed!

Even though it was "nice" outside (temps in the 20s), we didn't hang around long.  After watching Luke, we got right back on the shuttle bus and went back to the truck to go home.  Karrick was fine during all this--like the night before had never happened.  Little punk. :)

Here are some pictures from the Anchorage Polar Plunge 2013 of Aquaman and his sea creatures (Luke is the turtle):

I took video of the actual jump…but one of Luke's co-worker took this one and shared it with us.

The Aquaman group talking to someone from the local news.

Posing for a group photo

Receiving the official Polar Plunge beach towel

Time to go get warm again…somehow...

Once Karrick and I were back at the truck I tried to get him to eat his bottle.  No such luck… (Good thing he's cute!)