Splashes of Brilliance

Manitoulin Vacation

2010-06-29T06:21:00.001-07:00

Summer is in full swing! Ryan took me on a trip to Manitoulin Island with his family for vacation. We left at about 12:00pm on Friday and drove through Ontario, up the Bruce peninsula, and stopped for the evening in Tobermory. (Ignore the red arrow on the map... that's not where we were)

On Saturday morning we woke up early and decided to hike the Cyprus Lake trail which follows the coast of the Georgian Bay.

The hike was amazing! The limestone rock formations were really cool, and the water was a beautiful blue that faded from light in color to deep, dark blue.

While on trail Ryan and I encountered some interesting folks. There was a couple hiking the trail, and they looked like they had gone to REI and bought all the latest hiking gear for extreme hiking/rock climbing. This trail was more of a family day hike, no need for massive amounts on unnecessary hiking gear.

Around 9:00am we returned to Tobermory to get cleaned up and packed up to catch the ferry over to the island. All went well and we caught the ferry in time and landed on the Manitoulin Island Saturday afternoon. We drove to Gore Bay which is where we were going to stay for the duration of the week.

Here's a picture of the cabin that we stayed in. (I know... not the best picture, but you get the idea... it's beautiful!)

Ryan's Dad brought his two boats on the trip for recreational use. We went sailing on the second day we were there. It was so great! I'd never been sailing before and the weather was just spectacular. I think I could really learn to love sailing. The second day we went golfing. We played a scramble format and had a rocking good time out on the course. Sadly, my team lost, but only by a few strokes. We stayed competitive!

For the rest of the week we hung out around the cabin, rode bikes, played bridge, took naps, ate a lot of chips, and overall just really enjoyed our vacation time. On the second to last night Ryan and I took the row boat over to the other side of the bay (where he and his dad own some property) to camp for the night. The boat ride was beautiful. The sun was just setting into hues of orange, pink, and purple. As we approached the middle of the bay we were joined by unwanted visitors. Yep, that's right the mosquitoes found us. Let me just say this... I had NEVER seen that many mosquitoes. It was insane how many were out that night. When we finally got to land Ryan set up the tent in record time, we got in, killed all the poor guys that ended up in the tent, then we sat there and listened to the hum of bugs outside the tent dying to get in. It was crazy! They sounded like a swarm of bees.

Thursday we took the ferry back to the mainland and headed back towards home. Back to reality. I'm in my last week of summer vacation here in Ohio. This week I'm enjoying family time and packing for my next adventure: graduate school in Juneau!

Mom and Grandma Come to Unalakleet

2010-03-30T20:20:00.001-07:00

My mom and grandma came to visit Unalakleet last week during our spring break. They arrived on Wednesday and stayed through the following Tuesday. This was my mom's second trip to the village, but my grandma's first trip ever to Alaska. I have to admit that I was getting really nervous for their visit because the week before they came the temperatures were near -30! The day before they arrived it warmed up to about 20 degrees. Thank goodness! Grandma and mom would have been icicles in that weather. First impressions: Grandma thought it was too windy! I guess we just get used to it here, but I can see how it would feel really windy to someone who isn't used to the powerful gusts that become normal. Since they arrived on St. Patrick's day I made corned beef and cabbage. We also went on a tour of town and down the the iditarod check point. The next day we went to the school and toured around. Mom had already seen it, but my grandma thought it was great! She loved the furs in our bilingual room.

Each day Grandma taught me how to make one of her amazing recipes! The picture above shows the puff pastry we made on the second day. It was delicious!

Throughout the course of the week we (I should say Grandma) cooked up a storm. She made homemade spaghetti sauce, puff pastry, meatloaf, her amazing cheesy potatoes, chocolate moose pie, sausage/cheese appetisers, two cheese balls, rhumake, the list goes on and on. We ate so well!

Since the weather was nice Mom and I decided to go for a snowmachine ride up river. I drove out and Mom drove back. It was so nice to be out in the country on such a nice day.

In addition to the massive amounts of cooking, we also played massive amounts of bridge. Grandma and Ryan did a great job teaching Mom and I how to play. By the end of the week, I thought, we were pretty good!

On Saturday Mom, Ryan, and I attended the community ski picnic. Ryan and I skied out the the picnic site, and Mom took my snowmachine. Everyone thought she was a snowmobile racer in her Klim gear.

For dinner on Saturday night we had typical Alaskan fare with two types of Salmon, crab legs, homemade bread, broccoli, and of course, Shon's famous rice.

Emerging from Hibernation

2010-03-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

I know you haven't heard from me in a while. Many of you have sent me e-mails asking about the absence and begging for more posts. Well, sadly I have no excuse for my lack of posting other than lameness. I've been wrapped up in teaching, watching basketball, and trying to stay warm through another winter. Now that winter and basketball season have come and gone (teaching remains...but I can handle that for another 9 weeks), I find myself a more willing blogger.

New Gym: Some big news on the Unalakleet community front is the completion of our new gym. It was really tough to go one entire fall semester without any form of play in a gym. Impressively, the construction workers finished without a moment to spare... hours before the first basketball game was to be played.

In order to celebrate the new gym we had a pep assembly. We had competitions like who could lay claim to being the first person to make a foul shot in the new gym, or who would make the first three point shot in the new gym...the list goes on and on.

For the staff members of Unalakleet schools, we couldn't be involved in anything legitimate or cool, nope, we were used purely for crowd entertainment and self embarrassment. We had to place balloons between our bodies and walk/shuffle/run to the next baseline. We looked rediculous. I'm just glad no one got it on video.

The first basketball game of the season was that night against Savoonga. It's hard to believe that basketball season is already over...seems like it just started.

The Cyst: As most of you know over Christmas break my dentist found an abnormality on my panorex x-ray film. After seeing an oral surgeon I became aware that I was the proud owner of a quarter-size cyst growing in the bone of my left jaw....pretty sweet, I know. Anyway, I had to get it taken care of ASAP. There was only one problem I was leaving Ohio in two days! Once I got back to Unalakleet I had to contact an oral surgeon in Anchorage and attempt to get my surgery set up via telephone. After many phone calls and one letter, my surgery was set for Feb 11, 2010.

Long story short...I'm sure none of you want the gross details of the cyst removal, the cyst came out and was sent off to the lab to have a biopsy done, and I got to recover from surgery. On a positive note: I didn't have to go through this alone. Thank God my downstairs neighbor/seriously good friend decided to come into Anchorage at the same time and was willing to help me recover. Here are just a few reasons Susette has earned a place in my book as someone whom I will forever be indebted to:

1. She took demands from a drugged person to go to dairy queen and get a milkshake.

2. She had the foresight to buy pudding, apple sauce, and yogart (things I didn't think to buy before my surgery) so I could actually eat after my surgery.

3. She picked up my prescription medication while I was sleeping off the rest of the anesthetic.

4. After the drugs made me terribly sick, she tied up my bag of puke.

5. She was extremely positive and encouraging telling me that my face wasn't that swollen as I developed the cheek of a chipmunk.

Here's a picture of me icing my face on day one of recovery.
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This is my humbly, modest nurse Susette. She was absolutely amazing! I couldn't have gotten through without her.

Good food: The last theme of recent months has been good eats.

Well, mostly good eats. This picture had to be included because we were making chicken strips one day and Ryan burned the chicken. (He didn't realize the oven was on broil) Normally, I would have shrugged, said it was ok, and thrown the chicken away. But, Ryan mentioned that he had NEVER burned anything before. So, I just had to take a picture, it was a kodak moment.

I was proud of this meal! Usually when I'm home alone I eat meals like a tortilla and M&Ms or green beans and beef jerky. On this particular night, I got motivated. I marinaded some salmon in a soy ginger glaze, cooked brown rice, and steamed some fresh broccoli. It was delicious, and mostly I was just so proud that I actually made some food for myself.

This was also a fun meal. I've found that some of the best dinners are when you make dinner for breakfast. Ryan and I decided to make our own rendition of the Egg McMuffin. Ryan took it one step further and made himself a Man McMuffin. His was double stacked! I was impressed with its size and more impressed that Ryan got his mouth around it.

This last picture is for my Dad...haha. Ojo likes to make this pose when she's inviting you to rub her belly. My Dad HATES it when she does this. He thinks she looks like a "hussy". I got it on camera so I just had to share :)

Early 90's Birthday

2009-11-24T14:34:00.000-08:00

This past week I turned 24 years old... to celebrate I thought it would be fun to have an early 90's themed get together. I'm not the only one who had a birthday this month. Conrad turned 32 on the 8th of November, so the 90's gathering was a combined birthday celebration for the both of us. After the invitations were sent out, the biggest question on people's minds was what did people wear in the 90's, and do I have any 90's clothes here in my house? I was amazed, people came through in impressive style. Two guests even cut their hair into 90's hair cuts...that's dedication!

Remember the spice girls? They were totally 90's! Jessica, Ann Marie and I dressed up as three of the five spice girls. I was Posh Spice, Jess was Ginger Spice, and Ann Marie was Baby Spice. After the initial meet, greet, and socialize time we played "Name That Tune, 90's Edition" lead by Ryan and Conrad. Everyone thought I would come in last because I was only 5 years old in 1990. But, to everyone's surprise (even my own), I came in 2nd!

Heidi and Damon were adorable as always sporting the 90's grunge look.

Again, Conrad had one of the best looks of the night. He represented more of the "jock" look while Ryan was totally 90's grunge. Overall, I thought the party was a huge hit! I look forward to planning another themed get together next year! Now, on to the next event...Thanksgiving!

Halloween

2009-11-18T09:06:00.000-08:00

Halloween is always a busy time of year packed with lots of fun activities. This year the holiday was on a Saturday, so the annual carnival was held on the Friday before. I was the advisor for two booths: FEA held a bake sale and the freshman class ran the football toss. The freshman are getting really good at doing their own thing, while I just come over every so often to make sure things are going smoothly. So, I spent most of my time sitting at the bake sale chit chatting with Chasity and Heidi.

The 10th grade class ran the pie toss. I have to say this event was a total money maker! They ran out of whipped cream about an hour into the carnival. Next time, they'll have to plan for more pie filling!

This is a shot of the whole community packed into the covenant gym. It was cozy for sure! Usually the carnival is in the high school gym, but since our gym is under construction it was held down at the covenant gym which is significantly smaller. A really positive aspect is that despite the smallness, the community still got together and celebrated Halloween.

Since I was in Anchorage the week before Halloween I had the opportunity to buy a pumpkin and bring it back to the village as my hand carry on Penair. I haven't carved a pumpkin since my early years in college. I was super excited that I had the opportunity to get my hands on one this year!

Ryan and I decided to make the pumpkin a sad/scary face. I thought we did a great job! Plus, it looked really cool perched in my window with a candle inside.

Halloween night arrived, and Ojo and I got ready to pass out candy. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to bust out her new sweater. She pretty much hated it! I thought she looked adorable, but she pouted the entire night until I took the sweater off her.

Ryan ended up as a rock star for half the night, then he morphed into the unabomber later on. Conrad showed up dressed as a hillbilly gangster.

My costume was pretty lame...I was "it's raining cats and dogs". Hannah dressed up as Mr. Howard, which I thought was hilarious. And Ryan looked great after his final transformation into his unabomber costume.

What you've missed in the past three months...

2009-10-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

One day after arriving home from the Mother-Daughter trip, my mom was out riding her motorcycle with my Dad. She had a small accident and ended up driving her bike into a lawn near Jefferson. Things could have been a lot worse! She was really lucky, but ended up in a wheel chair with a broken thumb and ankle. I thought she looked pretty darn cute with matching casts on her hand and leg. Since her casts were red she also needed to have matching toe nails, so I painted those so she could coordinate :) Ojo liked Mom's situation. It gave her the perfect place to sit and be pampered.

Nicaragua:

First week in July I traveled to Nicaragua to visit my college friend Alli. I pretty much didn't know what to expect and was in for an eye-opening experience.

Picture of me the night I arrived in Managua, Nicaragua. I fit all my belongings (9 days worth) into my backpack. I was pretty impressed with myself, and so was Alli!

This is a picture of Alli's backyard and in the distance her latrine.

This is Alli's sink/washing machine/dish washer. Yep, she does it all right here. Also, in her town they only have running water for about 2 hours a day. You have to take a shower when there's water and make sure to fill up the basin so you can have the water you need throughout the rest of the day.

Yumm...Gallo Pinto. This is the traditional Nicaraguan dish Gallo Pinto (rice and beans). This is pretty much what I ate the whole time I was there. Occasionally I would have some fried plantains also, but mostly it was Gallo Pinto.

This is a picture of Alli's adult class. I was a part of her lesson on conversation skills. They practiced asking me questions such as: Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? How old are you? Classic!

One of my favorite pictures from the trip... This is Alli's latrine. That's right, this is where I went to the bathroom for nine days. It was a rockin good time, let me tell you. Actually, it wasn't as scary as it looks. Nothing crawls out of the hole and it doesn't smell too bad.

This was another quirk about Nicaragua, they call ice cream Eskimo. Anytime you want ice cream you would say "I want an Eskimo." Since I teach Eskimos I thought this was particularly funny. I took this picture for them. They are ice cream :)

The mango lady... Mangoes were one of my favorite foods while in Nicaragua. They slice them into stripes, then pour a hot sauce over top and sprinkle with salt. It sounds strange, but it was delicious!!

Back to Alaska:

By the first of August I was headed back to Alaska. Of course, my first few weeks back were full of lots of fishing, hiking, biking, and berry picking. Salmon fishing was slow this year. I probably only caught 3 fish of my own. The one in the picture above was an amazing fish! I swear it weighed 15lbs. It was so heaving Conrad had to help me hold it up for the picture!!

While passing through Anchorage this year, I decided to buy a mountain bike. It was expensive but totally worth it. I've done a lot of biking in the past three months, and I'm glad to have something to ride around town for quick trips to the store or post office.

Me, with a fish on my line. Yay!

Heidi and I fishing... we fished all day and only caught spawned out Silvers. Why do the boys have all the luck?

The crew. We headed up river for a picnic and fishing.

Labor Day Weekend (The Triathlon) :

Labor day weekend, Ryan and I planned a small outing that ended up being quite the adventure.
The plan was to bike out 8 miles to the North River bridge, have a bonfire dinner with Heidi and Damon, camp up on the ridge, then in the morning we would raft down North River back to Unalakleet.

The tundra was showing beautiful fall colors.

Cranberries were ripe and ready for picking. Ryan and I picked two nalgene bottles FULL of berries. It was awesome!

The campsite. Our tent was nestled in the trees, but I was nervous all night long... There were a lot of Grizzly Bears in the area and I was scared that we were going to get eaten.

In the morning we hiked up to the top of the ridge to get a better looks at the valley. We really lucked out with amazing weather the whole weekend!

After our hike and berry picking we made our way to the raft to float down the river back to town.

Myself and the Oj in the raft.

Captain Ryan with Ojo keeping watch for logs and branches.

On the way down the river we spotted a bald eagle up in the tree.

This is the bonfire crew! Good times. I haven't been keeping up with picture taking...my apologies. I am going to try and get better at keeping up with my blog!

Mother - Daughter Trip to the Adirondacks

2009-06-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

The mother-daughter trip for 2009 ended up being a week long excursion to the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. We left on Saturday and stayed for the entire week. As usual, my Mom made me wake up before the crack of dawn to get started. The picture above shows us at 6:00am ready to hit the road.

We had to stop in Erie for breakfast, and more importantly, to pick up our listening material for the trip. Last year, we listened to Twilight so this year we continued the series with New Moon. Of course, mom loved the tales of Bella, Edward, and Jacob Black. We are looking forward to watching the movie when it comes out in November.

I ended up doing most of the driving. As you can see from this picture it rained almost the entire drive to New York! It really wasn't the most fun driving in those conditions but we made it work.

So, the original plan was to drive all day and get to our condo, check-in, then sight see around the Adirondack National Park. Well, as we are driving my mom starts to read the fine print of the condo agreement and finds out that we aren't allowed to check in until Sunday (it's Saturday when all this is happening). We decided to make the best of it and stop off in the finger lakes and go wine tasting! I mean, it wouldn't be a mother-daughter vacation without wine tasting.

We decided drive the Cayuga wine trail since we have both done the Seneca wine trail. We thought the wineries were beautiful, but we didn't really care for their wines. They all had a bitter flavor. After a day of wine tasting we ended up staying in Rome, New York. Sunday morning we got an early start and continued the journey to the Adirondacks.

Before we went to our condo we drove north to see Lake Placid. The town was really small and cute. Lake Placid was also the home of the winter Olympics sometime in the 90's. We saw the facilities for the winter sports. We checked into our condo that night. It was really nice, and was more than enough room for just my mom and I. After we got settle and unpacked we went into town for dinner. From here the creepiest story from the trip occurred. It is really best told in person, so if you want to know about it you'll have to call me. It was crazy!

Monday morning we slept in and eventually got ourselves some breakfast. While we were eating, my mom throws this brochure of local day hikes my way and tells me to pick one. I was feeling kinda sick from the malaria pills I have to take for my Nicaragua trip, so I wasn't in the most chipper of moods. I looked briefly at the pamphlet and decided on the Blue Mtn. Trail.

The brochure said it was 4 miles round trip, was not for small children, that it got a little steep towards the top, and had amazing scenic vistas. A little steep was the understatement of the century. This trail was like nature's StairMaster! It was two miles of climbing bedrock strait to the top of this mountain.

My mom was a trooper! I can't think of too many 56 year old ladies that could handle this hike. I was mega impressed with her and kept hoping that when I'm her age, that I too am climbing hardcore mountains.

Once you got to the top you had to climb this fire tower to see the scenic vistas described in the brochure. You can see my mom on the stairs in the picture.

Scenic vista number 1

Scenic vista number 2

The next two days were filled with bike adventures. Tuesday we biked the Buttermilk Falls trail which has a cute waterfall at the end. After the bike trail we ended up going to the BBQ place near Scandaga lake.

They had this cool Adirondack chair made out of old skis. I think Nancy and Christian need to make one of these for their porch!

Myself after our bike ride to Buttermilk Falls.

This was the scenic waterfall.

Mom and I near the falls.

Wednesday we biked 18 miles round trip from Lake George to Glenn Falls. It was a rails to trails trail so there weren't too many hills. It was really pretty and scenic. When we got to Glenn Falls we had lunch and saw the sights then headed back to Lake George.

On Thursday we went white water rafting!!! It was SO much fun. Definitely the highlight of the trip for me. I've always wanted to go. We rafted the Hudson river (yes, the same river that runs through New York city). We were out on the water from about 10:00 to 3:00. Neither my mom or me fell out!

Friday we took a day trip to Montreal, Canada. We toured the city, were yelled at in French, and saw Cirque du Soleil!!

Now I'm back home and I'm revving up for my next adventure to Nicaragua. I leave on Friday July 3, and I'll be there for 9 days until the 12th! I'm really excited.

Chicago Times

2009-06-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I took a trip to Chicago to visit my high school friend Katie. She moved to Chicago in September of last year and I haven't had the opportunity to visit, so I decided to make it happen. I decided to go for the weekend: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Since I don't have a car I looked up alternative forms of transportation. Flying was going to cost me about $286, I've never been a fan of buses, so I looked up what the train schedule from Cleveland to Chicago. Round trip a train ticket costs about $100 and takes about 7 hours to get to Chicago. I booked my ticket and was set to depart at 3:30am on Friday morning. The picture above shows Union Station in Chicago at 9:00am when I arrived.

Katie picked me up at the train station. She was wearing almost the exact same outfit as me! It was crazy, so we had to take a picture. We went to lunch at this awesome Mexican place, then back to her place for a shower and to get ready for our busy day.

One of our first stops was the conservatory. Katie and I both love plants, so this was a fun place to visit.

Me, pointing at the fiddlehead of the fern. (We were in the "Fern Room")

I think this was my favorite part of the conservatory. I love moss. We nicknamed it "nature's carpet".

After the conservatory we went downtown to sight see. We walked Michigan Ave, talked, and checked out the Blues Festival in Millennium Park.

Katie was great and let me be a tourist and take pictures the whole trip. She was the best tourguide! She took me to all the cool places and didn't get annoyed when I didn't know stuff about the city.

After Michigan Ave we decided that we wanted to have sushi for dinner. We hopped on the El and went somewhere else in the city (I pretty much never knew where we were at any point during my whole visit) to this AWESOME sushi restaurant. We both decided that this was the best meal from the trip.

I ate my typical California roll and Katie ordered this awesome spicy vegetable roll that had tempura sweet potato, cucumber, and spicy mayo...it was so delicious!

After dinner we walked down the street for dessert.

The following morning we woke up to rain :( It really sucks when it rains in the city and you have to walk a few blocks to the bus station. Katie had an umbrella and I had my rain jacket so we made it work. We decided to get Chicago pizza for lunch then go shopping in the afternoon ( a good activity for a rainy day).

Our pizza was half pepperoni and half tomato/basil. It was so yummy! I ate six pieces throughout the day it was insane! By the end of the day I didn't want to hear the word pizza for a while.

That evening we ended up going to Andersonville for the mid-summer festival. A friend of Katie's told her about this band that would be playing called Too White Crew they are a cover band that plays 90's rap music. They were AMAZING! This was the best part of the weekend. Their concert was such a nostalgic walk down memory lane, and they were so high energy! All and all made for a great concert. I highly recommend checking them out.

Sunday morning we slept in. After we finally got moving we went to a local taqueria for steak tacos. OMG, this place was also really good! That was the theme of the weekend: amazing food. After lunch we headed downtown for the Blues Festival. We laid out a big blanket, took our books, and soaked up the sunshine while listening to music. It was a great end to the weekend.

For dinner I had to try a Chicago-style hot dog. These are all beef hot dogs with relish, peppers, mustard, tomato, and a pickle on top. I was skeptical at first, but pleasantly surprised.

Katie ended up getting really sunburned. I had to catch my train back to Cleveland at 9:00pm Chicago time. I left Chicago at 9:00pm and arrived in Cleveland at 5:05am Monday morning. Overall, the trip was amazing. I really enjoyed my time in the big city and getting to hangout with my good friend. I've been home for this week, but I'm revving up for my next trip to the Adirondack mountains in New York. Stay posted for the next blog post!

June is in Full Swing

2009-06-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like summer is finally in full swing! It's warm, the sun is shinning, and I am in complete relaxation mode. I've been home from Alaska now for about a month and I've totally been loving the lack of responsibility and the amazing freedom that summer entails. In many ways I've been really busy, but in generally my days are pretty quiet and uneventful. I pass my time in a couple of different ways: I usually sleep in, go workout, read, eat dinner with my family, take Ojo on walks, play bridge with my grandma, or watch movies with my brother. The end of May and beginning of June have not been too busy but this weekend on I'm pretty much booked for the rest of the summer! I've posted a few pictures documenting my fun summertime activities. Enjoy!

In Ashtabula we have this really awesome foot/bike path. It was made as part of the rails to trails program where they turned old abandoned railroads into trails for bikers and walkers. I enjoy biking the path (with my mom's bike).

Richard and I biked some miles the other day and enjoyed the amazing weather and time to catch up.

Ojo has been LOVING her time at home. Her number one, favorite activity is greeting people. She loves it when any member of the family comes home. It doesn't matter if you've been gone for five minutes or five days, she gets SO excited when people walk through the door. We've titled her the official Anderson house greeter. Her second, favorite summer pass time is begging for food. Yes, she has perfected the art of looking starving and trying to get my mom to give her little bits of whatever she's eating. The picture above shows Ojo hard at work...

My mother loves to read the newspaper. Her newspaper is like my novel...it's just what she enjoys reading. My dad likes to give her a hard time about it. Here's a picture of my mom and I posing while she reads her paper and eats her lunch.

This has to be one of MY favorite summer time activities. Yep, I love to read out on the back deck while soaking up the sunshine. I spend quite a bit of time out on the deck. It doesn't get much better than this. Enjoying the beautiful Ohio weather while immersed in a great book.

Southwest egg rolls come to Ohio! That's right Heidi and Damon, I shared your recipe with the family, and they LOVED it! We even had home made sweet pepper jelly. My Grandma wants to use the recipe for her next bridge gathering. This is another thing I love about summer: family dinners. Good times.

For my mom's mother's day present I decided to wait until I got home from AK and I would take her out to dinner and then we would head out for a night of shopping. We decided to go to downtown Willoughby for dinner then Mentor for shopping. I thought our food was amazing, but our drinks were super strong. Neither of us could finish our martinis.

The first weekend we were back Ojo went to the groomer for her summer haircut. I always think she looks so cute when she gets back, and this time they sent her back sporting a USA bandanna. I love it! I think she needs a bandanna for every occasion.

My grandparents live right down the street from my parents, so it's a short walk to go over and visit. One afternoon I stopped by and ended up helping my grandpa mow his back field. I picked up big sticks and he mowed with his tractor.

I personally think turkeys are the ugliest birds ever! They look like dinosaur birds and they look really weird when they run. Anyway, there were two just hanging out in my neighbor's front lawn so I thought I'd take a picture.

Summer is here!

2009-05-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

I left Unalakleet on May 18th and headed to Anchorage. Jessica and Kira were both on my plane and had some time to kill between flights so we all decided to go out for dinner and drinks. It was awesome to be back in civilization having someone else cook for once! The girls provided some awesome company! I'm really looking forward to the hangout time we will have next year.

I had to stay overnight in Anchorage so Ojo could be vet checked before our flight the next day. She enjoyed the amenities at our hotel as you can see in the picture above.

While we were in town we took a walk on the coastal trail that circles Anchorage.

Ojo had lots of fun sniffing all the greenery and I enjoyed just being outside. While we were walking back to our car we saw a moose alongside the trail. It was pretty crazy to see a moose that close!

We arrived in Cleveland on Wednesday. I was super exhausted, but SO glad to be back home. Ojo is loving being back with her Grandparents and people who give her lots of love and attention (me too for that matter!). We've done lots of sleeping and relaxing since we've been back. It's so nice to not have an agenda or schedule. My family has kept me pretty busy with fun activities.

Of course we've also been out motorcycling. It's not summer without bike riding. We rode out to the White Turkey Drive Inn for root beer floats and cheeseburgers. Richard, my Mom, and Darl have their own bikes, and I ride on the back of Darl's bike and take pictures.

Another fun get together was when Katie came to visit from Chicago. We went to Ferrante's Winery and shared a bottle of wine and a Margarita pizza. It was so nice to see her and catch up. We also started planning a trip to Chicago where I can visit her. Summer has been amazing so far. I love being home!

End of the School Year

2009-05-24T19:03:00.001-07:00

I made it! The 2008-2009 school year is officially over! Holy cow, there were some days I felt as if it would never end. There were some pretty fun events leading up to the end that made time go a lot faster.

On Mother's day Patty planned a bonfire/barbecue up at the gravel pit near Army hill. Things were running a little behind schedule when we got there, so Karis, Master Park, and I hiked to the top of Army Hill.

This is a picture of Ojo and I on our way to the top. We are in the midst of a Lord of the Rings-esk fog! This was Master Park's first visit to Army hill, so we were glad that he had the chance to make it up there before he left.

Lots of friends were at the picnic. We had hot dogs, brats, beef roast, chai tea, and tons of other goodies. It was nice to be outside and visiting with everyone.

This is one of my favorite things to do...compare before and after pictures. Above are two pictures: one of Janelle and I on the first day of school, and one of us on the last day of school. The first day of school picture is really comical because Janelle and I ended up wearing the EXACT same outfit! You will also notice that my hair is pretty short and I'm looking nice and tan. The last day of school picture isn't too bad either. I think I fared another year pretty well. I do look a little paler, the hair is longer, and I think I look slimmer too!

One of my students suggested for the last day of school that we all wear our Wolf pack hoodies. So, you can see all my 8th graders, plus me, sporting our wolf pack pride on the last day! (Notice Ms. B always has her coffee cup in hand if it is before 10:30am)

Just like last year, our middle school picnic was at Power's creek. We had significantly more snow this year than we did last year, so there was a lot of snow on and surrounding the beach. You can also see all the ice chunks floating in the water behind me.

Here's a picture of mostly 7th graders out on an ice chunk.

Picture looking down the beach towards Besboro island.

Spring Concert

2009-05-07T14:56:00.001-07:00

Last Wednesday was the school's spring concert. All students ECE - high school perform what they've been learning in music class. Heidi, Damon, Karis, and I wore Kuspuks (traditional native shirts).

The entire middle school sang the hymn that they have been practicing for bilingual class.

During the concert I had to sit with my students to help encourage them to be on their best behavior. Since Janelle was busy conducting, I got to help out with Jonah. I got to be Aunty A!

Prom 2009

2009-05-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right, I went to prom this year, as a chaperon... Karis and I committed ourselves to chaperon prom from 11:00pm-12:00am. We are so passionate about our jobs, yea right, we got suckered in. The kids played the "but you're young and single" card on us and we were signed up. Even though we are adults and don't dance we still dress up. K and I found ourselves dresses and had fun getting ready for prom. Of course since we were going to prom we had to stop by our friend's houses to "show" them what we looked like. We stopped by Kira's first and took pictures.

Then we went to Heidi and Damon's house where they ooohhhed and ahhhed at how pretty we looked. Damon then made Karis and I take the prom promise, basically saying that we wouldn't drink and drive on prom night. (first of all, if we would have drank on prom night we would have been fired from our jobs, and second... we don't have anything to drive). Speaking of not having anything to drive, we had to walk to prom... That's right, we were all dressed up and had to walk all the way down to the other end of the village to get to the prom. (Talk about prom village-style) So, we put on pants under our dressed and worn tennis shoes and rubber boots...we looked cool!

Karis and I sporting our dresses and warm clothes!

My super sweet prom date and I had a rockin good time chaperoning... not really. Haha, I jokes, it was ok. It was fun to see all the kiddos dressed up, and get dressed up ourselves.

Back and Blogging...

2009-04-21T23:41:00.001-07:00

So, spring is here and we are starting to see things emerge that we haven't seen all winter. Karis's camping chair has been buried since October, and now all the snow is melting so you can see it again.

Another thing we haven't seen in a while is the ground...that's right, the ground has been covered under snow since October 1st. Ground, it's nice to see you again.

With the onset of spring comes new attire. No more huge parka, neck warmer, double layered gloves, snow pants, or bunny boots.

Instead of bunny boots I get to wear my rubber break-up boots so my feet don't get wet in the big puddles that I walk through.

No more big red parka, just my thin green rain jacket.

And lastly, no more double layered gloves just light weight ones.

Karis in her spring time outfit, I personally think she looks very festive.

Last Tuesday night we all got together for a celebration dinner in the honor of Karis's 25th birthday. This gathering couldn't have come at a better time because my house was an absolute disaster, but I was committed to hosting the dinner for Karis. So...it motivated me to clean my place. I made a big deal of spaghetti bake with garlic bread. It was SO much fun to have everyone together. We ate, drank, and told fun stories.

Aunty Karis and little Jonah.

After dinner we all sat around and talked until 10:30...on a school night! It was really fun to all be together.

Camping at Old Woman

2009-04-06T11:55:00.001-07:00

Ryan and Heidi outside the cabin.
Friday night after school some friends and I headed up to Old Woman cabin for two nights of camping.

Damon with his gun and the bag, ready to go!
Once we got there we set up camp and started to make dinner. We had moose chili and pimento cheese (yumm...Heidi makes the best pimento cheese!). After we ate dinner we just hung out and talked before calling it a night. The next morning we woke up and had a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and fried potatoes. Then we decided to drive the 17 miles east to Tripod cabin (total of 57 miles outside of Unalakleet!). Once we got to tripod Damon and Ryan decided to go cut down some dead trees for fire wood. They left Heidi and I in the cabin to warm up until they got back.

Me outside the Tripod cabin.
I have to admit, it was a little unnerving being left at some random cabin in the middle of nowhere with no snowmachine and no real supplies. Heidi and I played the worst-case-scenario game, thinking about what we would do if the guys never came back.

It was taking them a lot time, so I decided that instead of worrying in the cabin that I should go outside and take some pictures.

After the guys had been gone for an hour (at least we thought an hour, we had no device that tells time) we were kinda worried, so we decided to keep busy by making a snowman. The snow didn't pack very well so we had to make a laying down snowman.

But finally the boys came back, and with a sled full of wood.

The drive back from Tripod was amazing. For once the trail was really smooth with very few bumps, and for an added bonus the sun was out and the temperature was really warm. As you head west towards Unalakleet you see Old Woman mountain. It's a pretty awesome site.

After our excursion to Tripod we came back and had a lunch of hot dogs and baked beans, a camping classic. Once we were all full we decided that it was nap time. Everyone laid down for a nap...and we all slept for a ridiculously long time! I woke up around 8:45 and restarted the fire. I couldn't believe we had all slept for as long as we did.

Once we were all up from nap time, we decided to take a sunset ski down the iditarod trail east towards Tripod.

As you can see, it was beautiful!

We skied for about an hour, until it got dark.

Heidi and I posing for a picture, with the sunset in the background.

Ojo on the iditarod trail, thinking about how she can get onto one of the dog teams next year.

Saturday night we ate snacks and played cards until 1:30am! We woke up on Sunday and packed up our stuff and headed back to Unk around 11:00pm.

The Rest of March

2009-04-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

To my blog readership: I know I haven't been a very active blogger for the past three weeks, so for that I apologize. I'll try my best to get you all caught up on the latest happenings. The first Sunday of spring break the iditarod came to town. Lance Mackey was in the lead by a long shot and was the first musher into Unalakleet. Karis, Ryan, Shon, and I rode snowmachines up river to try and see Lance out on the trail. The picture above shows him following the trail off the river up onto land.

We then hopped on our snowmachines and drove back to town to see Lance pull into the Unalakeet checkpoint. The picture above shows him escorting his dog team into their resting position.

This is kinda a random picture, I know, but I thought it was really cool. This is Glenda, our school secretary, and (I think) her sister. I thought their parkas were beautiful so I asked them if I could take a picture.

This is a picture of the town at the iditarod checkpoint. The first musher coming in is a town event. Everyone comes out and gathers around to watch the front-runner make it in.

Here's a picture of Lance's dogs resting after their long run from Kaltag.

Speaking of dogs: I thought I needed to get some cute pictures of The Ojonator up online. Ojo had a lot of fun hanging out with Mom over spring break. We spent the majority of our time cuddling on the couch, sleeping in, skiing, and watching movies. She likes to jump up on my knee and check out the camera. Her fur has been getting kind of shaggy lately, so I recently decided to try giving her a hair cut myself. It can't look any worse than it already does, right?

Well, when the whole process was done and over with, I thought she looked pretty darn good! She definitely looks way better than she did before. She hated getting her fur trimmed, but she was a trooper and sat through it. When I was finished, I made sure that I told her how pretty she looked. After I told her how gorgeous she looked she pranced around the house totally eating up her compliments.

Later on in the week Ryan, Karis, and I went for our last snowmachine ride of spring break. We decided to ride up to Ayyu's hill to check out the view. Karis was looking super cute next to the snowmachine in her new jacket. I pretty much hate her because this jacket looks so good on her (just kidding K - but you know how much I seriously dig your spiffy new coat).

This was the view from Ayyu's hill. You can see the river in the background.

For the drive back we decided to cut over to the road and take that loop back to town. As we were climbing the ridge near the power line we got to this hairy part of the trail. Last minute I decided to chicken out and turned my machine off the rail to aviod this bumpy part. Well, I ended up getting my machine kinda stuck. Karis went up past me, then as she turned around to see if I was ok she saw the three moose back behind me. There was a momma moose and two baby moose. If I wouldn't have gotten stuck, we would have driven right past them!

Well, spring break has come and gone and it's been back to school for about two weeks now. During those two weeks I've been a dorm parent for some district students that are here in Unalakleet for skills camp. So, basically I've been with teenagers for 24 hours straight for the past two weeks. My patience is wearing thin. Overall, the kids have been really great, but it's been hard not having any downtime/alone time. I did get a little break on Friday night and Saturday night. Saturday night I took a snowmachine ride out towards Shaktoolik. It was a beautiful evening! It was warm and still sunny around 8:00pm. The picture above was taken around 9:30. I'm really looking forward to the end of skills camp when my time will be my own again. Only six more weeks left of school...we're in the home stretch!

Old Woman Cabin

2009-03-17T14:32:00.001-07:00

Spring break is officially here! I kicked off the week by taking a trip out to Old Woman cabin on Saturday afternoon. Damon, Ryan, Brian, and I drove three snowmachines the 40 miles out to the cabin. The plan was to drive out, have lunch, then head back to Unalakleet. The trail was really bumpy, but we made it.

About half way we always stop for the photo shoot in front of the Iditarod trail sign. The sign reads Iditarod trail since 1867, Unalakleet 20 miles.

We have so much snow that if you step of the trail you sink waist deep into snow. Damon is demonstrating this for us in the picture above.

Once we got to the cabin we started to get lunch set up. Damon brought his camping stove and I brought the chili. This was a pretty amazing trail lunch! We had chili with sour cream, cheese, and tostitos chips. Brian brought these amazing dried cherries from Michigan and we had two big thermoses of hot coco.

After lunch we had to replace the wood that we had used to make a fire in the wood stove, so the boys got to work sawing up another log. Once they sawed the log and chopped it into small pieced we were ready to head back to Unalakleet.

Darl Visits Unalakleet

2009-03-09T17:31:00.001-07:00

This past week my Dad came to visit Unalakleet! He arrived on Thursday morning and stayed through Tuesday. We had a great time hanging out, playing games, and snowmachining.

Day 1: Darl got here on Thursday in a break between bad weather patterns. As soon as he landed and was safely at my apartment the weather started to go sour. That night we got super bad blizzard number five! Blowing snow and high winds were the norm throughout the night and early morning. Darl wanted to experience the blizzard, so we suited up and went for a short walk. When we got back we had icicles and snow from head to toe! That night we hunkered down, watched a movie, and enjoyed the howling winds from inside my apartment.

Day 2:

Friday morning was still very windy and inhospitable so we slept in and enjoyed a slow start to the day. Finally in the afternoon the weather broke and the sun came out to shine for a little while. We put all our gear on and went out for a snowmachine ride. Because of all the blowing snow the entire inside of my engine was also covered in snow. It took us a long time to try and brush out all the little nooks and crannies.

Once we got the machine cleaned out we took off for the open tundra. The scenery was amazing! After spending the better part of two days couped up it was nice to finally be outside. I think Darl really enjoyed the breath-taking landscape that Alaska has to offer.

Later that evening we enjoyed a meal of moose stew! That's right, Darl got to try the moose that I butchered over labor day weekend. I think he would agree with me in saying that it was pretty tasty.

Day 3: So finally on Saturday we had a break from the weather and the sun came out to shine for a little while. The temperature was reading pretty cold at about 0 degrees. We were scheduled to go out ice fishing with some friends, but were a little concerned about the temperatures. We decided to be troopers and go out anyway. Because of the heavy winds that had been blowing off the bearing sea the river had LOTS of overflow on it, so we had to travel mostly across the land-based trails until we got far enough up river.

One mighty big perk to traveling across land was that we got to see a MOOSE!!! This was my first moose sighting in the wild and Darl's too! You can see the moose in the picture above. It was so cool to see a live one out in the wild.

Once we got to the river Bebucks and John got busy with the auger (sp?) to make our hole for ice fishing. The river ice was soo thick that the auger didn't make it all the way through the ice and they had to use the hand ice pick to chisel the rest.

Once they got all the way through the ice we were ready to fish! Darl is using a jig stick to fish for trout.

Success! We ended up catching about 20 trout and one grayling. We took two trout and the grayling home with us.

After a long day of ice fishing we decided that it would be fun to go out to eat "village style" at our local pizza place. We met up with my friends and had fun letting someone else cook for once.

After dinner at Peace on Earth I taught Darl how to cut fish. We gutted and filleted the trout and graying. I also showed him how to take the skin off using pliers.

In this picture Darl is using the traditional Eskimo knife (ulu) to cut the fish. It's the best tool I've come across for fish filleting!

Day 4:

On Sunday we went for a walk around town to pick up some last minute necessities at the local AC. As you can see from the picture above we had A LOT of snow in town. You can't even see the front of the church! The drifts are insane. I really don't think we will see the ground until next August.

On the way back from the AC we stopped in my classroom. I had taken Friday and Monday off so I had to get my Sub plans ready for Monday. Darl had to take a picture of me in my second home :)

After the trip to school it was bath time for Ojo! That's right the foofy dog got a bath and a hair cut. She hates getting a bath, but she was a big-time trooper!

I personally think she looks like a drowned rat when she gets wet, but we wont tell her that.

Day 5:

The last day Darl was here we went out for one last snowmachine ride. We cruised up to first hill and drove around in the surrounding valleys. It was nice to be out after a couple of days couped up inside.

Look closely you can see Unalakleet way off in the distance.

Snowmachine = Fun

2009-02-21T14:06:00.001-08:00

As I'm sure most of you already know....I'm the proud new owner of a snowmachine! Yay! It arrived in Unk about the second week in January. Ironically, however, the second day my machine was in town, it started raining! I couldn't belive it. I couldn't ride it for about a week until things started to freeze back up. Between crummy weather and being busy with school I haven't been out on my new toy as much as I would like, but I have been out for a few small adventures. A couple of weeks ago Mark, Karis, Carrie, Stacey, and I went out for a ride up river. We rode around for about an hour and a half then pulled off to a ski trail and skiied for another hour.

This is a picture of me skiing back on the trail. It was so nice to get out of town for a few hours of recreation. Other then that one big trip I really haven't been out on my machine (other than for small trips around town). Although, Tuesday of this week Conrad, Ryan, and I went out for a ride after school.

The temperature was about -20! For the first half of the trip I was warmish. Once we got to the top of the mountian, I was feeling pretty cold. Even though I was cold I stopped and enjoyed the view. It was so beautiful! Sometimes I still can't believe that I live in Alaska and get to step out my front door and snowmachine to such a cool place.

The drive back was a little rough. My hands got pretty cold and the ride home seemed bumpier than the ride out. The combination of cold and discomfort made me kind of cranky. Ryan drove on the way home, which was AWESOME! I was really cold...so I was glad that I didn't have to drive. Despite minor temperature discomfort, the ride was still great. When the school week gets crazy and frustrating there is nothing to help clear your mind like a snowmachine ride!

Christmas Break 2008!

2009-01-07T21:41:00.000-08:00

My Grandpa and I outside my house. Grandpa was about to plow our driveway.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! I know it's been a while since I last blogged, but I'm going to try and fill everyone in on what's been happening. I left Unalakleet on Saturday, December 20th. I ended up in Cleveland on Sunday at around 5:30pm after a grueling 24 hours of traveling. I was SO glad to be home and not on an airplane.

Richard and I at Christmas eve dinner
Christmas break was awesome, but as I start to become more and more accustom to village life I find it harder and harder to transition back into civilization. Everything was so fast-paced and hectic. I thoroughly enjoyed all my time at home visiting with family and friends, but it was very overwhelming at times.

The fam hanging out playing cards before dinner.
This year I was a pretty major procrastinator when it came to Christmas shopping so when I got home I had A LOT to do. I arrived home on December 21st, so the 22nd and 23rd I got ALL my shopping done. Richard was a champ and endured the endless task with me. On Christmas eve my family went to my Aunt's house for our traditional Sweedish and Hungarian foods. We played cards before dinner then feasted!

Grandma teaching Richard how to calculate his meld bid.

Everyone passed out after eating too much ethnic food...

My Aunt Deb with her "special" ginger bread man on Christmas day. My brother and Dad decided it would be funny to make this man with with a special problem.

Grandma got everyone Carhartts for Christmas. This is a picture of my Mom and I sporting out gear.

Richard with his pink martini...

My cousins and I super excited to go see Twilight.

Cabbage perogies...yumm

Happy Perogi Day!

Grandma and Richard cooking the perogies.

After the holiday festivities my family went to northern Michigan to go snowmachining for about three days. We stayed with my parent's friends and snowmachined about 120 miles a day.

Me on Mr. Gloekler's snowmachine. Thanks for letting me ride it for the week!

Mom on her sled.

Richard and Darl on their machines.

Mom and I ready to hit the trail.

This is Ed. He is the guy we stayed with. For New Year's Eve we went to a bonfire. I LOVE his outfit. I think this guy would fit in well in Alaska.

Videos from Unalakleet

2008-12-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

The top video is of my students during reading class...aren't they amazing? The past couple of days have been REALLY windy. Last night we had 60mph winds...it was crazy. The second video is the wind outside my classroom. This video doesn't even do the force of the wind justice.

Wreath Making and Other Weekend Events

2008-12-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

We are currently in the home stretch, only two more weeks until Christmas break! This time of year can sometimes be really hard. All the kids are excited for the upcoming holiday, and as a teacher we have just as hard a time concentrating on school. It can make for some long....weeks. This weekend was a great break from school drudgery. It kicked off on Friday with a girl's night at Peace on Earth. Heidi, Karis, Kira and I went to the only village restaurant for some pizza, salad, and ping pong. It was such a fun night! Playing ping pong was hilarious. I think we were more obnoxious than high school kids. Saturday morning started with breakfast at 9:30 at Carrie's house. She was leaving for her Christmas break and wanted to have breakfast with Karis and I before she left for a month. After brunch Heidi and I decided to go on a long ski to get some spruce branches for wreath making. We skied for about an hour before we got to the first tree!

Once we got to the spot, Heidi took out the saw and cut some branches. We stuck them in my backpack and started back.

On the way back to town we saw a dog musher running his team. (This is one of the many things I love about living in Alaska! People here still use dog sleds...how cool?)

When we got back to Heidi's we got to work making our wreaths. We took about three branches and tied them together using green wire. Then we made a bow and attached it to the top.

Heidi making her wreath!

Me making mine. As you can see mine was a circular wreath.

Ojo didn't want to participate in the wreath making. She opted to relax on the couch and tell us what to do. I think she was a little pooped from the two hour ski!

Heidi's finished wreath!

After we made wreaths I went to the church's annual soup and pie social. I paid five dollars for all you can eat soup. Among the soup choices were: reindeer stew, moose soup, salmon chowder, and muktuk soup (pictured above). The mutuk soup has little bits of muktuk, or belgua whale blubber, in it.

Today has been a very chill and relaxing Sunday. I went to church this morning then came home and went on a ski. I know I say this ever weekend, but it was absolutely beautiful outside! This is a picture of a fish rack that I skied by as I went onto the river. As you can see Ojo was very inquisitive and decided to see what was inside.

The Things I'm Thankful For

2008-11-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

During Thanksgiving dinner Karis asked me "A, what are you thankful for?" I told her, "My family, all my amazing friends, my adventures, my students...the list goes on." When I was uploading pictures off my camera from this week I thought that the pictures demonstrated for themselves some of the very things I am most thankful for.

I am thankful for friends:

Karis, Kira, and I went out skiing this Saturday. It was fun to get out of the house, talk, and take pictures. It has been great skiing weather this week, so I have been out almost everyday! I hope it stays like this for a while longer so I can get lots of skiing in before Christmas break.

This is a picture of Kira standing behind our amazing Thanksgiving feast. Thanksgiving this year was at Jake and Janelle's house. Janelle and Jake made the stuffing, Turkey, rolls, and some pies; Karis made the yams; I made mashed potatoes and artichoke appetiser dip; and Ryan made an apple pie. All the food tasted amazing, and I totally stuffed myself to the point of being in pain.

After Thanksgiving we decided to play a festive game of cranium. We picked numbers out of a hat to determine teams. Jake and Janelle were team one, Karis and Kira were team two (aka team double K), and Ryan and I were team three. Basically Ryan and I had a slow start to begin but we picked up the pace and ended up winning the game. The picture above shows our team work at its finest: Ryan was drawing a "cloodle" and I was guessing what it was. The item he had to draw was a menorah, but the funny thing was that he didn't know what a menorah was so Kira had to explain it to him.

Karis and I being super cute before our most recent ski trip! She is such a great ski teacher. I know she will help me improve my pace and form before the year is out.

I am thankful for babies:

The most recent addition to our Unalakleet family has been Jonah Dathan Snyder. He was welcomed into this world in early October and has been winning over the hearts of all the ladies ever since. I am normally not a big baby fan...that was until I met this little guy. He is pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Karis and I are unofficial Auties for Jonah and we fight over who gets to hold him first.

Kira also likes to take part in the baby gushing.

I am thankful for skiing:

The ski season is in full swing here in Unalakleet. The trails are groomed and the weather is cold...but not too cold. I've been really trying to take advantage of the warm weather and get out and ski as much as possible before the negative temperatures set in.

Kira doesn't have skis but she snowshoes! It was fun to have her out along with Karis and I on the trail. We skied past the fish rack, onto the river, then up onto the tundra again.

This is a picture of Heidi and Karis on an afternoon ski. We have to book it out of school so we can get out before it gets too dark. As you can see there isn't much light at 4:15 anymore.

I'm thankful for pictures of my friends falling down when they ski:

Karis and Heidi are such amazing friends! Whenever they fall down while skiing they are always good sports and they let me laugh at them and take their picture. I personally think when people fall while skiing that it is hilarious, and I want to thank these ladies for making my week with these pictures.

I'm thankful for cards:

As most of you know I love to play cards. These past couple of weeks Heidi, Damon, Ryan, and I have been playing cards as an enjoyable bush Alaska pastime. We began to notice a pattern whenever we played: the girls would win the first game, then the boys would win the second. This past Friday we decided to determine the all time winner and play a third game. Well, by an amazing stroke of luck the boys ended up winning the last game. They were pretty proud of themselves and wanted to take a picture with their score card. Heidi and I were good sports and told them that they did a good job. We know next time we'll beat them!

Birthday - Unalakleet Style

2008-11-20T12:55:00.001-08:00

Birthday ski with Carrie! This picture was taken at about 4:45...as you can see we are starting to loose daylight very quickly.
Twenty-three is a great number, not only is it LeBron Jame's jersey number and the ninth prime number, but it is also my current age. That's right my birthday was yesterday...I turned 23 years old! Most of you who know me well know that when I celebrate my birthday we usually celebrate for about a week and title it "The Festival of Adrianna." This year the festival kicked off early with a party thrown by my friends.

My bindings are a joke...here's a picture of me stuggling with to clip my skis in.
It was a black and white themed party complete with lots of friends, cake, hairy musk ox, and cards. I had a great time! For my actual birthday Carrie and I went on a birthday ski then Heidi and Damon made dinner for me and we played pinnacle. Ryan made apple pie and the three of them sang to me...it was quite hilarious (the video is up on facebook for all to see/hear). Overall, my twenty-third birthday was amazing. I was sad that I couldn't be with family, but I did get lots of phone calls and my friends defintely helped make up for it!

The birthday crew looking super classy all in black and white.

Janelle is amazing and made me an awesome chocolate cake for my party!

Kira, David, and I...

Cheerleading and Wrestling Tournament

2008-11-09T12:47:00.001-08:00

This past week was the 27th annual middle school cheerleading and wrestling tournament. Basically, middle school students from 12 of the 15 sites in our district fly to Unalakleet to wrestle and cheer for three days. Our school is taken over by middle school kids! They sleep in our classrooms and night and compete during the day. The strangest part of this who experience for me is that the competition takes place during the school day, in the gym, while the rest of our school is trying to have classes. As I'm sure you can deduce...the tournament is a huge distraction. Since I teach exclusively middle school about 98% of my students were participating in the tournament and therefore not in class. I had 2 kids in class in the morning and 4 in the afternoon.

I pretty much didn't have to teach for three out of the five days this week. My students and I read, conducted interviews, did some technology stuff, and cheered on our fellow classmates as they wrestled. It was a nice break in our normal routine, but this upcoming week we are back to business! We have lots of work to accomplish before Thanksgiving break.

Another interesting aspect of wrestling here in bush Alaska is that there are many girls who participate in the sport. Back home no girls wrestle, but here there were quite a few...and they are pretty good! The girl in the picture above pinned this boy in the first quarter.

I'm headed into a normalish looking week schoolwise. We have about two and half weeks until Thanksgiving break...I can't wait! I seriously need some time to just rest, relax, and do nothing.

Paper? or Plastic?

2008-11-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

This Halloween was random, spontaneous, and above all, super fun! Halloween kicked off at 6:30am when I woke up for school. I taught hyper, middle school kids all day, then at 5:00 I had to run a couple of booths at the school's Halloween carnival. The carnival was fun and my student's were a success at helping out and running our class activity. After the carnival my friends John and Vanessa Nassett hosted a Halloween costume party at their house. Of course, I didn't have a costume, but I had decided that I was going to go to the party anyway. Well...I walked over to Ryan's house to see if he was going to the party, and long story short we came up with our costume idea. That's right...this Halloween I was a paper bag! Part of the paper? or plastic? team costume. I thought it was a really clever last minute costume idea.

Heidi was super cute and she dressed up as a cowgirl.

The cowgirl and paper bag hanging out together at the party.

I have to say that bush Alaska brings out the creativity in people. There were some of the sweetest costumes ever at this party. Conrad was his wife's fisherman...which I thought was really cute.

Damon dressed up at our superintendent, Jim Hickerson, and he totally looks the part.

John and Vanessa were a white trash couple.

Stacey was an AMAZING Einstein! When I walked in I didn't even know it was her!

More Skiing

2008-11-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday Heidi and I decided to go out after school and ski. We drove her four wheeler out past the tank farm to the power line trail. The wind has been blowing really hard this week so once we got there the trail wasn't as groomed as we are use to.

There was more rocks and exposed tundra then normal, but Heidi and I made it work. It was a beautiful afternoon with little wind and warm temperatures. I really enjoyed the exercise and conversation.

Once we got out of the Willows and on to the open tundra the wind had completely destroyed the trail so instead of skiing we were more like snowshoeing. We decided to turn back and head back home.

We Make Alaska HOT!

2008-10-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

NACTEC Jr. High Session # 1:
Two weeks ago I escorted twelve Jr. high students to Nome to visit the Northwest Arctic Career and Technical Center for career exploration and life skills training. We left on Tuesday morning and stayed at their dorms until Friday afternoon. It was definitely an experience spending four whole days with 13 and 14 year olds. Each morning we would wake up and go to the rec center and work out for about an hour and a half. Then the kids would come back and go to class from 10:00am-4:00pm. Once they were finished with classes they would come back to the dorms for an evening activity and dinner. Some interesting things that occurred while I was chaperoning:
#1 Middle school kids eat CONSTANTLY! My students grazed the entire time we were there. It was amazing to me that my middle school boys could eat Ramen noodles at 9:30am!
#2 The kids were fascinated by Ms. Brown in the morning. They totally wanted to see what I was like at 7:00am. I don't even like myself at 7:00am, I can't believe that this was one of the highlights for the students.
#3 Tesoro: My middle school students wanted to go to Tesoro like it was Disneyland! The main reason they wanted to visit this gas station was to buy energy drinks! I couldn't believe that they were so obsessed with these drinks.

Once I got back from Nome and rested up a bit we celebrated my friend Kira's birthday on Sunday. David baked Kira's cake, and Karis and I frosted it (It was totally a team effort). Once I got the chocolate frosting on I had to call Karis and get her to come over pronto to write Kira's happy birthday message on top. I have horrible handwriting so I'm glad K came over to help out.

Karis finishing up the final touches on the cake.

Once everyone came over we drank apple cider, ate birthday cake, and played board games. Here's a picture of the crew hanging out. Notice: even Ojo is a part of the group.

Happy Birthday Kira!!!

This past weekend was the first ski excursion of the year!! Yay for skiing! Karis, David, Robert (Susette's friend from CA), Ryan, and I drove out on four wheelers to the north river bridge to ski. We got pretty hot and sweaty with the burn of a good workout, but also took time to take in the amazing scenery.

Here's a picture of me getting ready to hit the trail!

Me, Robert, and Karis!

The fabulous three! David...please find a way to stay in Unalakleet.

Saturday night, after a long hard day of skiing, Karis, Stacy, and I went over to Carrie's house for a birthday dinner/Thailand picture showing. Carrie made some AMAZING food and we all hung out and looked at pictures from Carrie's summer trip.

What's Been Happening

2008-10-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

These past couple of weeks have been extremely busy, full of activity and excitement. It's been difficult to even get the time to upload pictures to the blog, let alone write very much to accompany them. I will try my best to fill you all in. The picture above is from a four wheeler ride up the beach past blueberry hill. It was a really nice night and we drove farther than I have ever been up the beach before.

That night the waves were really big (I know they don't look like big waves, but this is big for Norton Sound!). I thought this picture was really cool.

Cool picture of a the last bonfire of the season.

A couple of Sundays ago Jeff and Donna Erickson invited me out to the Covenant Bible camp to go berry picking. They have a truck with two lawn chairs in the back, so Ryan and I got to sit in the bed of the truck and enjoy the ride in comfort.

Once we got there we picked for high bush cranberries. These are different from the low bush type that I usually pick. You can't really eat these berries right off the plant, people usually used them for jams or jellies.

This is the Unalakleet river which runs past Bible Camp. I loved the fall colors and sunlight that day. It made for a gorgeous picture.

Donna with her berry bucket. She had a lot of berries by the end of the afternoon!

Jeff took us to this really cool look-out point. I think people just call it "the bluff." It over looks the windy Unalakleet river, and the mountains to the south. Jeff took the picture above of me taking a picture of Ryan.

Welcome back snow! Yep that's right this year October 2nd was our first snowfall. I was SO excited to the white stuff come back and cover the ground and plants. To my surprise it has actually stayed around, and not melted right away like everyone predicted.

I've finally said goodbye to all my fall gear by putting away my rain pants, rain jacket, and rubber boots. In their place I broke out the big, red parka, hats, gloves, and snow pants. It seems that winter is here.

Last week I agreed to be a dorm parent for the skills camp that the district was running for some of the students from different sites. I got paid about $13 an hour (and free breakfast and dinner) to babysit teenagers from Sunday to Friday morning. Sounds simple...right? Well problem A: I have to be at work to teach from 8:00am-4:00pm, well I have to dorm parent from 4:00pm-8:00am. Last week I was with students almost 24 hours a day for about five days straight. Lets just say by the end of the week I was a little testy and very tired. I actually had a really fun time hanging out with the girls I was "in charge of," they are in the picture above. I'm in Nome this week chaperoning kids at Northwest Arctic Career and Technical Center. Stay tuned for the next post!

-Adrianna

Long Time No Blog

2008-09-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a long while since the last time I posted. I want to offer my apologies to all my avid readers and fans. To be honest, life has been very busy and constantly filled with things to do. I know I wont be able to retell the whole tale completely, but I'll give it my best shot.

Kids in the river collecting their sample
A couple of weeks ago the Bureau of Land Management came to Unalakleet to do a science training with our middle school students. They taught the kids about benthic micro invertebrates (in English, they taught the kids about small creature without backbones that live at the bottom of a river).

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the field trip. They got to get out of the classroom, play in the river, and best of all: they got to ride in the truck while Ms. B was driving. Whenever we take field trips in rural Alaska all the kids pile into the back of the blue school pickup truck, then we drive where ever we need to go. That's right, no school bus and no seat belts. The kids absolutely love it. Whenever I hit a pot hole they all love flying up in the air and screaming about how much it hurt their butt.

This is one of our village elders teaching the kids how to dump out their sample.
Once we finally got out to north river the kids had a great time looking for critters in their water samples. They collected a sample of river water then sorted through and categorized all the different organisms. The kids really got into it and loved learning hands on about their local ecosystem.

Students very engaged looking for micro invertebrates.

I thought this was a cool picture of the road we drove down to get to the river. I love fall time and I'm sad to see all the brightly colored leaves start to fall and disappear.

One of my 7th graders wearing chest waders that are way to big for her.

These are my 7th graders doing their partner reading activity. For some reason my students love to lay on the floor and read.

Life at school has been really busy. We have been reading and writing up a storm. I'm finally starting to feel the groove of the school year. My eighth graders are starting to settle down and my seventh graders are starting to warm up and come out of their shells. I guess you could say we are finding our balance. The school year also seems to be flying by at an usually fast rate. We are already beyond half way through the first quarter and October inservice is right around the corner. My weeks have been filled with meetings, observations, and planning. I hope the business will start to let up soon, but I highly doubt they will.

More partner reading.

On the social front: A couple weekends ago Janelle, Heidi, Kira and I got together for Sunday brunch to celebrate the beginning of Heidi's pregnancy and the almost end of Janelle's. We made Heidi a pregnancy basket (with all the pregnant essentials), and had an amazing breakfast of french toast, eggs, and potatoes.

The girls at our brunch.

The final product: the result of all our hard work.
The following Friday was Janelle's last night in the village before she leaves for Anchorage to have her baby, so we decided to have a goodbye feast of sushi. We made crab, avocado, cucumber, carrot, and rice sushi. It was yummy.

Most of the crew hangin out waiting to roll sushi.

Sunrise/Sunset

2008-09-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

So, I've had two awesome sun-watching experiences this week. One morning as I stepped outside my apartment building to go to work I saw the gorgeous sight above! Can you believe this is the view I get to look at for my commute?

Sun still rising on my way to work. I couldn't believe how amazing the sunrise looked. I ran back into my apartment and grabbed my camera to get some pictures.

My second sun watching experience took place on Saturday night when I went up to Army Hill to watch the sunset. The tundra is starting to change colors and it was a great temperature outside, so I decided that I needed to get outside.

The sun is starting to set around 9:30ish. I think this picture was taken at about 9:40 just as it was starting to go down.

Fall is my favorite season. One big downfall to living in Alaska is that we don't have trees that change color and shed their leaves. I really miss fall back in Ohio when all the trees turn great shades of orange, red, gold, and purple. Even though I miss the full blown fall of Ohio Alaska still has it's own miniature fall display. As you can see in the picture above the tundra does change. It is nice that we at least have some change and pretty colors. So, I guess I shouldn't complain too much :)

These pictures are of the sky about 15 minutes after the sun had gone down. It has to rank up in the "top-five-sunsets-I've seen-in-Alaska" category.

One Seriously Alaskan Weekend

2008-09-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

This year labor day weekend kicked off with a pizza gathering at Unalakleet's local pizza parlor Peace on Earth. A bunch of teacher friends got together and celebrated pay day/the start of a long weekend. After we munched on pizza a few friends and I decided to go up the beach for a bonfire. We left for the bonfire around 8:45pm (the sun is starting to set around 10:00). Once we got out to the campfire site we got the fire going. As we were starting the fire we noticed that we had a visitor.

Only in Alaska would you have a fox visit your bonfire! It was so cool to see this guy come over and check us out.

The next two days were filled with berry picking! Last week we had our first frost of the year, which means that it's cranberry picking time. Janelle, Daniel, Jake, and I went out to Muskox hill to pick some cranberries. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but fall is right around the corner. The tundra is beginning to change colors and the air is starting to turn colder. It was so great to get out of the apartment for a little while, chit chat, and pick some berries.

Berry picking: Day 2

On Sunday I went berry picking AGAIN with Heidi and her family that is in town visiting. We drove out to Army hill to pick.

These are what the low bush cranberries look like...yumm. After I got home I baked some cranberry-pumpkin muffins. They were so tasty I had to give most of them away! They are too dangerous to have around the house.
Now....the content below is not for the faint at heart. If you get squeamish at the sight of blood you may not want to look at the following pictures. On Monday morning Jake (Janelle's husband) and Ryan (our new math teacher) went out moose hunting at about 6:00am. At about 1:30pm Janelle got a call letting her know that Jake and Ryan had, in fact, shot and killed a moose. Janelle called me and we went into prep mode. We had to ready the kitchen and prepare the food saver bags for the meat processing.

Once Ryan and Jake got back we all drove right into butchering the meat. We started butchering at around 4:00pm and worked until about 10:30pm. The picture above shows Ryan, Shelly, and I cutting up neck meat.

This is a picture of Karis holding the moose's heart. It was bigger than her head! This animal was enormous.

Ryan cutting front quarter meat.

Karis was washing meat. This was an extremely important job because flies had already started to lay eggs in the moose meat. Karis had to be really careful and wash the meat thoroughly to make sure it was completely clean before we packed it.

Shelly and Janelle processed and packed all the meat. We made the meat into hamburger, stew meat, steaks, and roasts.

The butchering table.

Me....with an enormous pile of meat in front of me waiting to be cut into pieces.

Working hard...

First Week of School

2008-09-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

Can you see the difference? Now...my class at the beginning of this year (August, 2008)

Then...my class at the beginning of last year (September, 2007)

I know that it is no longer the first week of school, but...I am a little behind on my blogging. So, just pretend. The first week of school was a blurr. Here are some of the thoughts/realizations I had throughout that first week:

1). I love being a 2nd year teacher! Life is already SO much easier than last year. Having some experience and knowing what to do in most situations rocks. I'm not saying that this year is going to be a piece of cake, but I know for sure that it will be a lot easier than last year.

2). My students GREW! I know that I have only been away from the village for two months, but I came back and it seemed like I had been away for at least a year. Many of the boys in my class have grown inches, their faces look different, and in general...all my students just look older.

3). It's great to be back with my class! Since I am the middle school reading, writing, and social studies teacher I get to have the same kids over again. Last year's 7th graders (this year's eighth graders) are my "same" class. It is SO great to have all those kids back in class. When we all got together on the first day there was a very strong feeling of comfort/community. I was suprised at how happy I was to be back as their teacher (I know I am such a nerd!).

I think the above sentiments pretty much sum up the first week of school. It was crazy, busy, but great at the same time. The pictures of my students are from the first week of school when we did an outdoor writing assignment. Notice how "on-task" they look! They were great! I was really proud of their ability to go outside, find a spot to write, and actually get some work done!

My Apartment/Back to School

2008-08-20T20:11:00.000-07:00

This is going to be another non-writing post. I wanted to show everyone pictures of my new apartment and talk a little bit about the first days of school.

This picture shows a very important aspect of my apartment...my pantry. I am pretty proud of all the food I have stored up for winter.

My stove and counter top...notice the retro 70's color yellow :)

This is the doorway into my apt.

My entertainment center/bookshelf.

Kitchen table...

Bookshelf...

The living room area... I love my sweet new couches.

My bedroom.

Beautiful Alaska beach...

Ojo looking cute.

Janelle and I dressed exactly the same on the first day of school. Aren't we cool!

My 8th grade class on the very first day of school.

Back to Alaska/Richard Visits Unalakleet

2008-08-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

Ok...life has been REALLY busy lately, so at the request of my awesome family I have posted pictures. Unfortunately, I wont be able to write a detailed post. So enjoy the captions, and call me if you want further explanation :)

Heidi, Damon, and Ericka at the post office in Anchorage. The tote are how we "bush" teachers mail all of our food out to the villages.

Once we got back to Unalakleet we got Richard out right away fishing. This was his first catch. It wasn't a salmon, but it was a good sized trout!

This is a picture of the boat launch in Unalakleet. The green building in the background is our local AC (or grocery store).

I think the Alaskan sky is one of the most breath-taking aspects of Alaska. It has so many diverse looks, yet all of them sunningly beautiful.

Richard's first Silver Salmon! There is a funny story behind this picture. Talk to Richard if you want more details.

My principal taught Richard and I how to fillet fish. Richard did a great job for a first-timer.

This is a picture of my new apt while I was trying to unpack. Notice I am being a GREAT host and sitting on the floor unpacking while Karis and Ryan (our new math teacher) chill out on my couch.

My poor dog had a hard time finding a good spot to lay her head during the move. She became quite fond of my door mat :)

My bedroom....full of boxes.

Richard and I on the four-wheeler getting ready to go berry picking.

Richard out picking blueberries. I think he ate more than he picked!

Me on the other hand..I'm all business.

Richard took this awesome picture of the village on the walk back from our berry picking spot.

All smiles out on the boat, about to go catch some salmon.

Ojo looking cute as always.

A picture of my fishing pole...

I actually caught three of the four of the salmon pictured here. Most of the time I am a terrible fisher-woman. I couldn't believe that I had almost caught my limit before both of the guys on the boat. I was quite proud of myself.

Ojo curled up in my arms for the boat ride back to the village.

Jake and I cleaning the 8 salmon and 1 trout we brought back.

This is about half the salmon I sent home with Richard to my family.

Catching fish is really fun, but cleaning fish is A LOT of work! My two primary tools are pictured here...my ulu ( the round shaped knife used for taking the meat off the body of the fish) and my plyers (sp?) (I use these to ripe the skin off the fish) As you can see this beautiful fillet picture is ready to be cut up and stored in a freezer bag.

Gripping the skin with the plyers getting ready to pull it off

Skin almost completely ripped off.

Mother-Daughter Road Trip

2008-07-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

The past few years my Mom and I have traveled together on various mother-daughter adventures. May, 2005 we traveled to Ohau, Hawaii. Last year (summer 2007), Mom and I flew to Nappa, California for a wine tasting expedition. Every time we have had lots of fun bonding and traveling so we kinda decided to try and make it an annual event. This year we decided to take a road trip to South Dakota to visit my Dad at his new job. My Dad is the construction manager of a new windmill blade factory that is being built in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He spends about half is time in Ashtabula and half his time in Aberdeen. My mom has not been out to see him at the job site so we decided to road trip out to visit. We began our road trip on Saturday July, 15th at 5:00am! (My Mom wanted to get an early start to avoid Chicago traffic)

Mid-day we decided that we had never been to Chicago, and that now might be a good time to stop in the city for lunch. I was interested in driving down Michigan Ave to see where Oprah's penthouse is located, and Mom and I had so much fun last year in San Francisco, so we decided to give Chicago a try. All I have to say about Chicago is that the city is NUTS! It is so big/congested/contains too many people. We drove into the heart of downtown and stopped for lunch at Navy Pier.

There were tons and tons of human bodies crammed into one place. People were bumping into me left and right, you couldn't walk without touching someone (this is not my type of environment). After about two hours on sightseeing we decided that it was time to leave the big city. Later that evening we reached our stopping point: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is home to two cool places: the Harley Davidson Museum, and the Miller Brewing Factory. We toured the Harley Museum then went to our hotel because we were pooped and ready to sleep.
The next day we drove to Minneapolis, MI.

We ended up meeting a few friends at the Mall of America for dinner. It was really nice to catch up and eat with friends. The next day my mom and I devoted our entire day to shopping the colossal mall. We ended up stopping at REI first then going on to the mall.

At REI I bought my cross country skis!! I am so excited to finally have my own pair. After REI we headed over to the mall and shopping from about 11:00am - 9:30pm. I had a really great time, and spent way too much money.

Next day, we packed up the car and went on our way. We stopped at a Cabellas somewhere along the route to South Dakota. I was really anxious to see Cabellas, because in Alaska everyone shops at the store. I was less than impressed. The store is mostly geared towards sport hunting. When you walk into the store there is a huge center mountain thing that has about 30 stuffed animals. In the words of Ace Ventura "This was a house of death!" Although I didn't like the store I still bought a nice pair of Columbia khakis that were on clearance.

We spent the rest of the day driving then ended up in South Dakota that evening. We met up with my Dad and went out to dinner with his co-workers.

We stayed at the cottage that he rents while he lives up there, which has a stellar view of this beautiful lake. We spent the next two days hanging out with my Dad in South Dakota. Thursday his neighbors Tom and Cindy were nice enough to take us out on their boat for a tour around the lake. We drank port and ate chocolate while enjoying a gorgeous summer evening.

On Friday we woke up super early and drove 12 hours back to the west side of Chicago. Then Saturday we drove the rest of the way back to Ohio. This week-long vacation was an awesome adventure and went by way too fast. I think next year Mom and I need to go visit New England. What do you think Mom?

My All Over Ohio Weekend

2008-06-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a blur! I literally traveled half way across the state and back in three days making small stops here and there to visit with people. I had a great time, but by the time I got home on Saturday night I was beat! The original purpose for the trip was to travel to Columbus (where my Aunt and cousins live) to help my cousin Stephanie study for the ACT. I left Ashtabula on Thursday morning and headed towards Columbus. Cleveland is on the way to Columbus so I stopped to visit Dan for a couple of hours. We went and ate lunch then I helped him paint his brother's house for a couple of hours. Then it was off to Columbus. It takes about two hours to get to Columbus from Cleveland, and it is probably one of the more boring drives in America! Ojo and I settled in and drove straight there. Once I got there I ate dinner with my Aunt and Uncle then my cousin and I sat down to start studying for the ACT. Well, the test prep they had was online test prep...and well as ironic as this is, the power went out. The power was off all night and all the next day! We ended up driving across town to my Uncle's friend's house to use his computer. After that Stephanie and I went to lunch and then I headed back to Cleveland. Once in Cleveland I visited with Dan for about an hour then drove to Kent ( which is where Richard (my brother) lives).

Richard...looking super comfy on his couch.

Richard's bedroom...
Richard just moved into a new apartment and I was one of the first people to see it in its completed state.

Richard's room continued....

Our awesome dinner.
After he gave me the tour of his place we went out to a Mediterranean restaurant. It was really good for fast food! Later we stopped at a bar and enjoyed some Long Island Ice Tea. It was nice to have an adult beverage in an actual drinking establishment. After our drinks we went back to Richard's apt and watched the movie Transformers.

Me, obviously enjoying my Long Island.
It was funny because in that movie the little dog's name was Mojo which sounds like Ojo. The next morning Richard and I went to Target to look for design ideas for my apartment next year. We picked up a few things then had lunch at Panera. After all that it was about two o'clock and I needed to head to my soccer tournament in Hiram. I said bye to Richard and took off towards Hiram College. Our soccer tournament was headed by my friend Bojan, so when I got there he was already there setting up the field.

Head coach Bojan and I. Bojan is originally from Macedonia (the country), but now he lives in Macedonia, Ohio.

The beautiful field complete with goals, and toilet paper lines.
It was really amazing to see all my friends again. Many of them went to graduate school, many went back to their own countries, and some just went to work. It was great to get together and play a sport we all like. Most of these guys played on my intramural soccer team throughout our years at Hiram. Before the games started the boys pulled out a 12 pack of beer. I thought why are we drinking beer before soccer?

Nabil and Ashrof hanging out enjoying their pre-game beers.

The whole gang: (from the left) Ashrof, Mihai, Me, Bojan, Maria, Nabil, and Dimo.

Me showing Mihai how cool my camera is. Mihai is from Romania and just finished his first year of graduate school at Princeton. I feel smart just because I know him...
Well I guess it is tradition to enjoy a beer before the three on three tournament. Teams were picked and I was on a team with Bojan and Dan Factor. As a team we didn't do so hot....we lost all of our games.

A cool action shot.

Mihai in his super short european soccer shorts.
To say it nicely Bojan was pissed, but I still had a good time. Around 6:00 I left Hiram to drive back towards Ashtabula. I called my friend Katie (she lives in Geneva which is on the way back to Ashtabula) and I decided to stop at her house for a little bit. We ate dinner, played corn hole, and hung out with her family. It was nice to see all of them again. Around 10:00pm I finally headed back to my house. Once I got home I was so tired I just went to bed. After traveling all around Ohio in three days I was beat.

Indians Game

2008-06-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

Darl and I at the Indians game.
For my Dad's birthday (which happened in March) I bought him tickets to a Cleveland Indians Game. Last night was the night we decided to go! Our main objective in going to the game last night, opposed to any other night this week, was because last night was dollar hot dog night. Normally hot dogs at Progressive Field are $4.25; dollar hot dog night is quite the deal.

Dollar hot dog night on the Jumbotron
We ended up with tickets in the Mezzanine section which has a great view of the entire field. Weather was a little bit of a concern for us in the beginning but it ended up nice out. For the past two days thunderstorms have plagued our region and the night before the game I was getting really worried that we would be weathered out, but the last of the thunderstorms passed through between 12-3 leaving the evening crystal clear. The thunderstorms also cooled the temperature down so it ended up being the perfect, sunny/cool evening to go root on the home team.

The view from our seats.
Once we got there we bought 8 hot dogs for all three of us. My Dad had four and my Mom and both had two a piece. The game itself was kind of boring, but we didn't really go for the game in the first place. We primarily went for the experience, and the dollar hot dogs :) The Indians ended up winning the game (one of their first wins this season), and the Anderson family had a rockin good time.

Mom and Darl waiting in the condiment line :)

Yum! Dollar hot dogs, eight of them to be exact.

Mom and Darl enjoying their hot dogs.

My Mom and I fighting boredom at the game by taking pictures of ourselves.

On our way out of Cleveland we passed by the big LeBron billboard. I always tell my students about this, but they never believe me...now I have proof!

Haircuts- Ojo and Adrianna

2008-06-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Since we have been back in the lower 48 both Ojo and I have gotten haircuts. Ojo's haircut happened a couple of weeks ago. I took her in to be groomed (since she hasn't been trimmed since January). I asked them to leave about 1/2 inch. What I didn't realize was just how short half an inch is, basically Ojo got shaved. Of course, I think she looks gorgeous with her new due, but other people have told me that I have a "weird-looking dog." (what do they know!) Anyway, her hair is a little short, but we are being positive and saying that it helps her stay cool during our hot Ohio summer.

Since my dog got her haircut I was secretly jealous so I decided to go get mine trimmed too. Actually I have been planning on cutting it since before I returned to Ohio. It seems that I have developed a hair cutting pattern: I cut it in the summer, then let it grow all year long without a trim, then finally I cut it all off again the next summer. Well this trend has continued into this summer. I had not cut my hair since last August before I moved to Alaska. I'm just like Nick from Elim! (without the burly-looking beard) When I went to the salon they cut about five inches off! I am now sporting a super cute summer cut, and hopefully everyone else thinks so too.

Home for the Summer

2008-06-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

Damon let me drive his boat! It was really cool...the throttle was just like a motorcycle.

Hello everyone! I know it has been awhile since I last blogged, but so much has happened since I left the village. This post will inform in two ways: pre-departure and post-departure.

Pre-departure:
After CASC was over Damon and Heidi decided to take their boat up river for its first run of the season. They were sweet enough to ask me along for the ride. I was so excited to get out on the water! Here are some pics from the trip.

Heidi and I ready to get out on the water!

The Alaskan essentials: beef jerky and a shotgun :)
Post-departure:
As most of you know, Karis, Jake, Janelle, and I flew out of Unalakleet on Monday, May 26th. Once we got to Anchorage Karis and I rented a car and drove around, shopped, and ended up at Humpy's for dinner. Around 8:00 Karis took me to the airport for my 9:40pm red-eye flight to Chicago. I ended up in Chicago at 6:45am on Tuesday, May 27th, and I hopped on another plane to Cleveland. My parents picked me up and took me home. I then slept from 2:00pm-8:30pm (Ohio time). Since I slept for so long I was no at all tired that evening. I didn't sleep AT ALL that night. It would have been fine, except I was scheduled to take the PraxisI exam the next morning. Let me step back and explain the significance of this test. In Alaska EVERYONE must take the Praxis one to keep their initial teaching certificate. Well, I didn't think I would be teaching in the state past this year, so I didn't bother to take the test. My license expires on July 10th 2008. In order to renew my license I had to take and pass this exam on the first try. I asked my Human Resources man, "Ted, what would happen if I didn't pass first time, and they didn't renew my license?" His reply: "The consequences would be dire." I pretty much was scared to death and started cramming. Karis helped me review and many other people lent me practice books. Well, I took the test the day after I arrived home in Ohio...and.... I PASSED!!! Well, at least I passed my Reading test. I have still yet to hear my score for writing. So, I would like to ask everyone out there to continue to pray that I pass my writing test. Please :) After my Praxis exam I met Dan in Cleveland for lunch then we went back to my house in Ashtabula. We hung out with my Mom, and saw the Indiana Jones new movie. Then on Sunday we drove back to Cleveland and went to a barbecue at his brother's new house. On Monday we woke up early and went fishing in some river near Dan's house.

Me, fishing...I'm so white! I can't wait until I get tanned.

I have to say fishing in Ohio sucks compared to Salmon fishing in Alaska. I pretty much gave up on fishing after 20 mins of waiting.

Dave seriously fishing.

I was testing out my waders that Mr. Gloeker gave me.

This is our good friend Dave hold up one of the fish Dan caught. We had no idea what kind of fish this was...anyone have any guesses?

For the majority of the time I laid on the ground and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. Although I was a dud at fishing, Dan proved quite good at it. He ended up catching three! (we didn't keep any...they were too small, or we weren't sure if they would be safe to eat) After fishing we took Ojo on a long walk through the metroparks then had dinner with his parents. His Dad grilled pork chops and his mom made these awesome potatoes. It was nice to hangout with family again. I'm back in Ashtabula now. My mom and I went grocery shopping and ate at the Mexican restaurant down the road. It is so nice to be home and not working. This school year was pretty stressful and lots of work, but having the summer off makes it totally worth it!

CASC 2008

2008-05-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

This is the entire 2008 CASC team, all content areas.
So as I stated in my last post, for the rest of the week I have been working on the district's social studies CASC team. CASC stands for Content Area Standing Committee and the primary focus of CASC is to revise the district's standards, end of level assessments, rubrics, and scoring guides for individual standards. I joined the social studies CASC because I didn't like some of the questions on the EOLs in the levels that I teach. What I didn't realize was that this was kind of a bad reason to join the CASC. In reality....I don't really know that much about history and what kids should be learning at all the various levels. In my own self defense, I feel that I have been helpful to my CASC, but because my primary content area is not social studies, I feel that my content area contributions are limited. So basically my team members and I set out our goals for the week on Tuesday then for the rest of the time we have been working, working, working to try and accomplish our goals.

This is about half of our social studies team. Everyone hard at work on their computers.
Our goal was to re-write the end of level assessments for all three content areas in levels 3-8. Well, for those of you who don't understand the leveled system, levels 3-5 are upper elementary the levels 6-8 are like 8th grade-12th grade. Now, I am not a high school teacher, but I teach one of the high school levels, so I was designated to the upper level group with one other person: Angie. Angie and I hit it off right away and we definitely had lots of fun working together. The rest of the team was cool too. Out of all the CASC teams I think we had the coolest/most fun group. We are all high energy and funny, joking people. So, I have basically been staring at my computer screen for four days, and today is finally the last day! After today is over I have to go home and pack to get ready to come home for summer!

Last Day of School

2008-05-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

Middle schoolers in action roasting hot dogs around the fire. For our last day of school we went to Powers Creek for a class picnic.

Finally, no more school! That's right...I made it through my first year of teaching! Whoohoo, go Adrianna. Our last day of school was Tuesday, and the entire school decided to end the academic year with very non-academic class picnics. Pod one (1st grade-3rd grade) had their picnic on the beach, Pod 2 (4th grade-6th grade) went to the gravel pit, middle school a.ka. Pod 3 went to Power's Creek, and High School went to Army Hill.

Sweet bonfire.

We didn't leave for our picnic until 10:55am so I had to entertain the masses for about two hours before our class outing. I also was made aware that I needed to be out of the classroom from 9-10 to join my CASC (curriculum advisory selection committee, I was going to be working on district social studies standard with this group starting on Wednesday). So, I needed to find someone to cover my class (on the last day of school) for about an hour. I asked Janelle if she had to be with any particular group and she did not, so she was able to watch my students for that time period. She read out loud to them for about 40 mins then popped in a movie. After I got back we started to prep for the picnic. I reminded them to use the bathroom, and we gathered our food. Then headed out to the pick up spot to wait for the school trucks.

Jennie and I roasting our hot dogs.

Our picnic site was about 4-5 miles outside the village so we had to take school trucks to get out there. Once on location we built a fire as a group then began to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. Overall the picnic went really well. The kids behaved themselves and no one was hurt or thrown in the river.

Hunter's face says, "Yummy, I heart hot dogs!"
We were out at the picnic site from about 11:00am -1:30pm when our Principal and Assistant Principal came out and picked us up. When we got back to school we just played hangman until 2:35 when the kids could be officially dismissed. The day was kind of anticlimactic, but I guess in a good way. There were no sad goodbyes, everyone was just really excited for summer - me included.

Janelle and I on the class picnic. I was lucky enough to get Janelle's assistance chaperoning my 28 middle school students. It made the picnic a rockin good time to have both my class and a good friend out there.

Wednesday I finished packing my classroom for the summer then I joined my CASC team for some EOL (end of level assessment) fun. Earlier this year I decided to join the CASC team for social studies to help the district revise some of its assessments and standards. I get paid and I thought it would be really cool to give my input on district-wide matters. So far it has been gruelingly hard work, but well worth it. I really like my CASC team members, and I think we have fun (well at least I do).

Cloei and Jennie hanging out around the fire.
I can't tell you how excited I am for my summer vacation to start. I have CASC until Saturday then I will probably pack all day Sunday and then I fly out of the village on Monday. Karis and I will be flying in to ANC together via PenAir. I can't wait to go shopping and eat at Humpy's while we kill time in between our flights. A friend asked, "Adrianna, what are you most looking forward to during your summer vacation?" My reply was, "Shopping, eating at restaurants, and hanging out non-stop with family and friends." I really enjoy living in Alaska and the experience of bush-life, but I am really looking forward to civilization for a couple of months.

Cold Water Survival

2008-05-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my middle school students learned about cold water survival. Heidi and Jason are two instructors from Nome, Alaska who specialize in training people what to do in case of cold water emergencies. They spent the morning with the 7th grade and the afternoon with the 8th grade. They taught us about the importance of survival kits, trash bags, what to do when you fall through the ice, how to put on survival suits, and identification and treatment of hypothermia. As a class we went through all the pictures in this post and came up with captions. Enjoy!

This is a picture of Deion and Linda in their "trash bag shelter." Heidi (the instructor) told the kids that they needed to make a shelter out of a trash bag and two pieces of duct tape.

This is Chris stuffing his throw rope back in the bag after he had just rescued Stuart from the perils of the gym floor.

Stuart flexing his muscles after Jason (the instructor) had automatically inflated his PFD. PFD stands for Personal Flotation Device, not to be confused with Permanent Fund Dividend.

This is instructor Heidi showing us how to put the survival suit on. She could get into her suit, fully zipped in 40 seconds!

Shyler (student) putting his suit on. They told us to use store bags to help our feet get into the foot holes without having to take our shoes off.

Bubba and Stuart fully suited up in the "chain swim" position.

This is a picture of me after I had just put the suit on. It took me 60 seconds flat. I was one of the slowest times!

Jason (instructor) and Devin (student) getting ready to get into the slough for some cold water survival.

Devin approaching the water "slowly and cautiously."

Ojo Breaks Her Leg

2008-05-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

After only five days of being a single puppy parent, I have to announce that my dog has broken her leg. I feel like a really bad puppy parent. Dan hasn't even been gone for one week and my dog breaks her leg on my watch. Anyway, let me tell the story from the beginning.

Sunday morning I woke up around 9:30am and took Ojo out to do her morning business. Once we came back inside, Ojo wanted to stay awake and play, but I wanted to go back to sleep. Dan and I usually let her go out in the living room and play with her toys while we sleep in. Normally, she is just fine. She plays with her toys, chews on her bones, and just hangs out. Well, this particular Sunday morning would turn out differently. I woke up around 10:05am to my dog screaming in pain. It was so loud that I thought someone was in my apartment torturing my dog. I ran out into the living room, having no idea what was happening to see Ojo sitting next to the recliner crying. I run over to her and scoop her up in my arms desperately trying to figure out what was wrong with her. I called my co-teacher Perry (he used to raise dogs and knows a lot about doggie injuries) and he came up to check her out. He couldn't figure out what had happened/what was wrong with her.

Well I called in vet in Anchorage and Nome and both said to monitor her and let her rest, and if she wasn't better in the morning to transport her to the vet clinic. At 9:30pm I was super worried and convinced that this was no minor injury. I called our vet in Nome and told him that Ojo would be on the morning flight out of Unalakleet and that she would arrive in Nome at about 11:00am. For the next two days I called the vet non-stop and totally annoyed all my friends talking constantly about Ojo's situation. Ojo had to be taken to the human hospital in Nome to have an x-ray (there are no doggie x-ray machines in the whole Bearing Strait region) from that x-ray Dr. Leedy found out that she had in fact broken a bone. The final diagnosis was that she had a spiral facture on her back right leg. He told me that she would be ok, and that he could put a cast on her at his clinic (if dogs break a bone in the hip-knee region they have to be flown to Anchorage for surgery...I was glad she could be fixed in Nome). Well, he casted her this morning and put her on the afternoon flight back into the village.

Ojo is back home and sporting a huge green cast. I am still trying to figure out how to keep her from peeing all over it, but all and all I am so glad to have her back and feeling better that I really don't care. She will have to keep the cast on for about one month. I was kinda bummed about that because now that the weather is finally nice, and I want to spend all this time outside with my dog she has to be couped up inside with a bum leg. Oh well, at least it is only for the beginning of the summer. I'll keep you posted on any new happenings. Thank you to all my friends who helped keep me calm throughout this whole ordeal!

-Adrianna

Twilight Books Take Over My Life

2008-04-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

My latest book fascination has been with the Stephanie Meyers trilogy Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. My addiction to these books is comparable to the way I read the Harry Potter series: all at once and very quickly. This series is like crack... I get beyond addicted and I must read until I find out what happens next. Twilight was on my books to read list for a long while, but I didn't assume that it would be so good that I needed to read it right away. Some of my students began reading it because it was on the high school battle of the books list. Once they read it and RAVED about how good it was, I had to give it a try. After I started reading Twilight it was all down hill from there. I know once I get into a book like that I can't stop/help myself. I turn into a couch potato/comatose zombie until I finish the book I am reading. I read Twilight in about a week and a half (it only took me that long because my parents visited in the middle of my reading...I think actually reading time only equaled two or three days). I just finished New Moon yesterday and I had only had it for four days. The books are about a star-crossed teenage couple, who fall in love with each other. Only one problem stands in their way, one of them is a vampire. Meyer creates an interesting fantasy about a world where supernatural monsters coexist right along side humans. The books aren't the most challenging/complex novels I have ever read, and I felt that the plot design and lame resolution were exactly the same in the two books. But if you are looking for an easy, fun, and suspense-filled book, this is it. Bottom line, I recommend these books to anyone and everyone! I haven't read Eclipse yet; I have to wait for my student to let me borrow it.

State Battle of the Books

2008-02-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

Last week was the 7-8 level state Battle of the Books competition. Our Unalakleet team was pumped and ready to go at 8:30 in the morning for the first round of battles. We headed over to the District Office to utilize the conference room seeking peace, quite, and a conference phone. Many of the other school districts in Alaska do not have VTC capabilities yet, so we had to battle over the phone. Our Unalakleet Battle Books team consisted of Mia Consilus (our writer), Linda Cooper (our speaker), Nilson Mixsooke (our thinker), and Ms. Brown (the official bracket timer, and score keeper for our team).

In order to get our brains warmed up and ready for competition Mia was kind enough to make us all pancakes. The kids sat around the conference room table and quizzed each other while eating pancakes in order to last-minute cram for the battle. The team did really well throughout both rounds (there were two rounds within the first official state round), answering tough quotation questions from twelve books that they were required to read. At the end of the first round we were in second place within our bracket. We took a short break hen went into the second round. At the end of both rounds, and thirty-two questions later our team finished second within our bracket with a final score of 144 points.

Unfortunately, our score was not high enough for our team to move on to the second round of state competition. We ended up coming in in 14th place out of 35 schools within the state of Alaska. I was proud of our team. In past five years Unalakleet has never scored higher than 27th, so we made great progress as a school. We were disappointed that we didn’t get to move on through the competition, but there is always next year. You can check out the results and final standings at the following website: http://www.akla.org/akasl/bb/78results.htm

Middle School Battle of the Books Champions!

2008-01-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

This has been an extremely insane week filled with battles, leadership, and toggling. Monday, Unalakleet's junior high Battle Books team competed for the district championship. At the end of the first round Unalakleet was in second place, but because we scored in the top four, our team went to the final round. The final round was nerve racking and intense. At on point in time all the schools were tied for first place. My students did some great thinking and won a challenge question to moved ahead in the game. After answering the last question correctly and hearing that we had won, my team was so excited that they started jumping up and down celebrating. I was so happy and proud of them. We will compete in the state tournament during the last week in February.

That same afternoon I participated in the BSSD Leadership workshop. Each site in the district sends three students and one teacher chaperon to Unalakleet for training in leadership assets and techniques. I had a great time and learned a lot of interesting information. Participation in the conference worn me out though! I had to write sub plans for three days, and of course, I procrastinated and didn't start writing each sub plan until the day of. I ended up going to school every morning at 7:00 and then I didn't leave until about 9:30 at night. It made for a long three days. Also, during all this chaos, I had to toggle grades for all my classes and fix comments on DART for report cards. The first three days of this week have been such a blurr. I have been going non-stop and I am looking forward to getting back to my normal routine.

Career Skills Field Trip

2007-12-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month my seventh and eighth grade career skills class took a field trip around the village to explore possible career opportunities post-graduation. Village jobs are scarce and these kids need to learn what it takes to live in the village after high school and become employed. We started our day at the airport, which is also West Coast Construction company. The owner of the airport talked to them about what types of training they would need to work in either the construction field or customer service. He also told them about the types of skills that you need to successfully interview and obtain a job. I should have prefaced this post by saying that this was the day that we had 50 mph winds and no planes were flying. Unfortunately our trip to the airport went without seeing airplanes. It was cool, however, to learn about the weather station.

(the picture above is of our class at the courthouse with Unalakleet's magistrate Heidi Erickson. This was the third stop on our trip)

After the airport we then went to Peace on Earth Pizza to learn about entrepreneurship in a small village. For those of you that don't know Unalakleet is the only village in the Bering Strait School District that has a restaurant. First, Brett, the owner, told us about how he started the place, what it took, and how he continues to run his restaurant today. It was really interesting to hear about small business ownership "bush-style."

(Some kids had to ride in the back of the school truck. Even though the winds were so strong and cold, these kids toughed it out and rode in the back. Also, this picture was taken at 10:30am....notice the darkness)

After Brett talked about all it took to start up Peace on Earth, he showed us how he makes pizza and runs his store. He allowed the students to make their own pizzas. It was really neat to see how it was done, and fun to make our own. (sorry the pictures are out of order...its just the way that they uploaded) There are pictures from our pizza-making experience shown below.

For our last stop on the trip we went to the health clinic to learn about careers in the medical field. It's really interesting to learn how a rural, isolated village manages to function without any doctors. The lady above is a dental therapist...aka she can do anything a real dentist can do, but she isn't a real dentist. It's complicated. Anyway, for two years of school she makes A LOT of money. I was like "kids this would be an excellent profession to consider."

Aurora showing the kids how to read an x-ray.

This is a really neat machine! It takes a video of a patient and transmits the video to the actual doctor in Nome. So, if a patient has a limp or physical aliment this machine videos or takes a picture of them so the doctor in Nome can make a diagnosis.

Here are the pictures of the kids making their pizzas....enjoy, don't get too hungry :)

Overall this was a really educational trip! Maybe more so for me than the kids since I am so new to the village. This was such an amazing day for me, I love connecting the kids outside of class and having a learning experience as well.

2007-11-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is a video of the Native Alaskan Group that came to Unalakleet during the Ed Conference. They are doing a native dance about a game that the kids play here called Bat. This group was really neat to watch, and they reminded me of seeing the Hawaiian dancers. They held one concert for the teachers during the daytime and one concert for the community at night. Dan and I liked the concert so much that we went back for the community one as well. We figured that we live and teach here and we qualify as part of the community and not "just teachers." Here in Unalakleet the native culture is dwindling. They still very much practice subsistence and there are a few people in the village that still speak one of the native languages fluently, but for the most part they don't do a lot of cultural events here. When the other teachers were here they told me stories of Eskimo birthdays and Eskimo Dances and all the different cultural events that they had been invited too. I have to admit that I was a little jealous, but there are pros and cons to life in every village. This is one of the reasons I was so excited to see this group...finally some Eskimo dancing! I liked this group so much that I have been trying to look them up online for more videos and cds, but nobody can remember their name and if they remember it, they don't know how to spell it. This group was nominated for a Grammy in the category of world music...they have to be on the web. I will find them, it is only a matter of time.

I don't remember what this dance was about, but it is awesome non-the-less. This group was made up of three guys and one lady. At the beginning of the concert they did traditional native dancing then towards the end they started singing modern day jazz in the native language Yupik. It was neat to hear them singing in a different language, but I liked the dancing better :)

This last video is of some of the teachers at our inservice. These ladies teach at St. Micheal, which is a village located on the St. Lawrence Island. They asked the singing group if they knew how to play any traditional music from the St. Lawrence Island region and they did...so these ladies got out there impromptu and danced for the entire audience. I was so amazed! It was great to see.

As a Teacher I am....

2007-10-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

During the BSSD Ed Conference Karis and I were inspired to write a list of all the roles we play every day as teachers. Enjoy!

(Here is a picture of me being a "medic" and cleaning the flesh wound of one of our high school students)

As a teacher I am....

1). A Medic

2). A Role Model

3). A Physic

4). A Policewoman

5). A Baby Sitter

6). A Counselor

7). A Mediator

8). A Researcher

9). An Editor

10). A Dictionary

11). An Orator

12). A Learner

13). A Photographer

14). A Decorator

15). A Politician

16). An Entertainer

BSSD Ed Conference 2007

2007-10-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Unalakleet, for the past week, has played host to the anual Bering Strait School District Educational Conference. Basically, the Ed Conference is when our district gives the students a week off, and flys all the teachers, cooks, janitors, and para-professionals to Unalakleet for one HUGE professional development opportunity. The population of our village almost doubled. BSSD brought 400 people to Unalakleet. I was SO excited for this week because we got nine whole days without kids! I truly do love all of my students, but I really relished this time away. The week kicked off with team time (where you meet with your school's staff and get work done) in the morning, then our keynote speaker in the afernoon. The keynote was WAY too long; I can't sit still in one seat for two hours straight....it was just rediculous.

On the first day we got our conference t-shirts which had the slogan "Attitude is Everything" written on the front. Attitude is everything isn't at all a bad slogan, its just funny because our district wrote AIE over the slogan. We are infamous for acronyms, so they thought it would be funny to add the acronym to the t-shirt. Tuesday and Wednesday I was in the "Wide World of Writing" session, which was where I got to brush up on my six traits knowledge and get some new fresh ideas for teaching thematic writing units. I was a little worried about this session because Karis (the other new-English teacher) and I were both signed up for this one. We tend to get ourselves in a little trouble when we are together. We like to talk, giggle, and have a good time. Lets just say that we have developed a little bit of a reputation and the session leaders were made aware that we shouldn't sit together. All in all Karis and I did just fine, and I think the session leaders ended up liking us. Thursday I went to a session on blogging, and I learned how to make my classroom blog sweet...it was good info to have. Then we had our closing speaker and the door prizes give-aways. My district doesn't mess around...they gave away about 20 prizes and in those prizes they gave away two round-trip plane tickets to Anchorage, three i-pod shuffles, and 150 pounds of free freight. Overall, I really enjoyed my time at this conference. There were some tedious moments (as you can see from the pictures) and I definitely worked by butt off, but I feel like it was well worth it in the end. We also had some really funny giggle fests and humor moments. I also feel rejuvenated with all the new ideas and the break from my students. Hopefully, this will get me through to Thanksgiving and on to Christmas.

Berry Picking

2007-10-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

On Thursday of last week I got the chance to take my seventh graders berry picking as a part of our unit on global economics. The standard that we were currently studying was about the various forms of economies including subsistence. So, instead of me teaching the students about subsistence (which they probably know more about anyway) I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to go on a field trip to berry pick. I was very excited to tell my students about this awesome field trip that I had planned, but when I told them I recieved quite a different response than I was expecting.

When I finally annouced the fun trip all of my boys said "Berry picking! Why do we have to berry pick for subsistence? Why can't we go hunting!?!?! Hunting is so much better!!" I was SO mad! I guess they hate berry picking. Here I was so excited and I thought for sure that my students would share in my excitement, because well...we were acctually going outside and not sitting in the classroom learning. No, all they wanted to do was go hunting. After they started to accept the idea then they started trying to convince me to let them bring guns on our trip, explaining to me that we could all get mauled by a bear and that they all needed to bring their guns for protection or just in case they saw some ducks....then they could shoot them. Long story short, I had to crush their hopes and dreams of hunting on our subsistence field trip....I am SUCH a mean teacher. Anyway, in the end everyone had a GREAT time.

Moral in my classroom was up really high and the kids really enjoyed getting outside, bonding and yes....berry picking. It was great. They all think I am the best driver ever because I don't slow down for pot holes. (meaning that every single one of my students sitting in the truck bed went flying three feet in the air each time I hit a pot hole....they loved it!)

Cultural Night

2007-10-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

So...last Friday my seventh grade students put on a cultural night for their parents to show case the skills they had learned in Geography class. As a summative assessment for our geography unit the seventh graders were required to make a travel brochure on a country of their choice. They had to include certain facts related to their country's culture, history, and geography. We also decided to make ethnic food from each of their countries and invite the parents to come and see all their hard work. The kids and I started cooking at 2:30pm on Friday and didn't stop until 5:00 when parents started arriving.

It was amazing! I was so proud of them for successfully making most of their dishes. Janelle's music class came down and helped us cook, and thank God for them! I don't think we could have pulled this off with out them. Janelle and I assigned roughly one high school student to on middle school student and then we floated around helping those in need. Reza (the only Indian man in Unalakleet) also came and helped Bubba cook some awesome chicken curry to represent India. Originally I didn't think that we would have a great turn out, but we ended up having about 40 people show up! It was great that so many people came to support the kids, I could tell that it truly meant a lot to all of them. All in all it was a very successful night. There are many things I would do differently, but for my first year... I think it went very well.