Merry Christmas...

Merry Christmas to everyone! Yesterday was actually Christmas here, and it was actually a pretty good day. Christmas Eve, there was a town Christmas party, and Christmas day they had a big special Christmas dinner. The dinner was actually extremely good - we had prime rib, crab legs, roasted duck and tons of very good deserts. Also, there was midnight mass at the Chapel - this mass is unique, not only because it is one of the first midnight Christmas Masses in the world, but it is the only midnight Christmas Mass in the world to be held in the daylight. Of course, we had to work Christmas morning, but after work I was able to ride around on our snow mobiles for a while (very fun!) and when I got back to town, I went for a hike and watched some football. All in all, it was a pretty good day, but I definitely missed being with family - it just didn't really seem like Christmas.
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As far as work goes, it looks like the weather will start to improve somewhat by tomorrow, and we might have a shot at launching tomorrow evening or Sunday. It doesn't really look all that promising at this time, but it is definitely the best weather we will have seen since we launched ANITA 5 days ago.

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Here are a couple of new pictures. The first one is a picture of me and Henry Cathey (one of our NASA engineers) at the Christmas party on Christmas Eve. The second is a picture of some very cool clouds over Ross Island yesterday. Again, I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas - hope to be home soon.
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