That's us on the lake in the photo. We were trying to get a Christmas photo of us and Roxy - but no can do. Roxy was not about to sit still with a ribbon around her neck - so we'll try something else for Christmas. We need to face the sun anyway. It was pretty cold that day - as cold as I think I've ever been. Couldn't take those gloves off but for a second or two.

You can see a sampling of the huge dogs -and these are teacher's pets. That is one of the single women here riling up the white dog - and that huge dog is not even a year old. Her dog Jet is behind her. Tom walks her twice every day. Roxy loves these big dogs - they just run all over her.

Here we are going to school at 8:15 am and it is pitch dark. It lightens up around 10:30 am.

We had a real snowstorm yesterday - 45 mph winds in the afternoon and evening. The house was shaking again like once before. Before, back in October, I paced the floor wondering if we were going to have to be evacuated. But this time, it was old hat. We even opened the window a fraction of an inch so we could hear the wind roar as we got to sleep.

I fell for the second time since I arrived - back into a snow bank that was about two feet deep. I could hardly get back up - tooooo funny! Roxy was jumping all over me and I was trying to hold the camera up so it wouldn't get snowed. The snow is so soft and light and just beautiful.

In honor of our first "expected" whiteout, I have changed my blog background to white. Actually it might load faster that way Snow is everywhere - we have some 2-3 foot drifts in places. Tom and I just got back from walking Roxy - and she loved it. I suppose it is like a child first experiencing snow and ice - but of course a dog is not a child.

We had a nice Thanksgiving at the Superintendent's house. There were maybe ten people there - all new people to Chevak.

I watched a wonderful movie with Tom last night - Pelle the Conqueror. Today we are going to watch Winged Migration and then this dog training video with some monks training their dogs. We really need to pay attention to that second one.

We started planning our summer today - it is a little overwhelming since there are so many places to see. I believe we will stick to the larger state area this summer and then plan on seeing the inside passage on the way home summer of 08. I'm looking forward to seeing all the totem poles and such down there.

The photo above is one of Tom's sunrise photos. Sunrise around 10:30 am. We have enjoyed seeing the landscape change daily with this snow. We are able to drive across the lake now on snowmobiles and four-wheelers and some of the teachers enjoy cross country skiing on the lake.
We are getting two days off this week. Tom and I are going over to the Supt's house for Thanksgiving dinner along with a couple of other people. I'll be taking potatoes and rice. So we have a three day week this week, a three day week next week, then two staff development days, and pretty soon it is going to be Christmas break. I really don't feel like I have been here four months. The photo here shows Tom and Roxy out walking behind our house. It is around 4:30 and you may be able to see all the activity - folks are walking the baby, visiting at the doors, kids are going out to play and others are out walking the dogs.You have to do everything pretty quickly after school because in just a short while it is going to be pitch dark!They came and gave us more fuel for the heaters today. They bring it over on the four wheelers pulling a trailer. The last photo is of Tom with his trusty Honda four-wheeler and his beloved Roxy. Roxy absolutely loves the cold weather. She loves the rain, the snow, the ice - I believe she must be descended from huskies! Happy Thanksgiving!

Celebrating Children's Book Week with the kids this week. We are tallying their favorite books, taking a photo of the class and then I am making a book mark for them to keep. Kinda fun! The Head Start Class is coming in tomorrow for the first time and I can't wait! they are so little. I have to pick out a couple of really simple stories and figure out a cute action -ooh I can use a finger play. That should be fun.
The snow is beginning to pile - it is several inches deep in some spots and will only get deeper. It is actually quite beautiful. Children are all over the lake ice skating - that won't last long - until the snow takes over the ice.
We got four gallons of fresh milk today from a by-pass order from Linfords. We're going to freeze it - everybody tells us it is no problem. I never knew one could freeze milk.
Four kids from senior English are doing an Independent Study in the library and I am the - I forgot the word - anyway I am supposed to keep them on track. I hope it goes well. We may try it with some other kids. The problem is that there is only one class - so you have those who are going on to college and those who are planning on hunting and fishing for a living in the same class. Difficult at times - so we are trying this for awhile.
Can't wait till morning - cereal and cold milk!!!!!

Here's me going to work at 8:15am in total darkness. Big volleyball tournament this weekend - lots of kids flying in from various villages. They bring their sleeping bags and such and camp out in the classrooms at school. I'm just glad they don't camp out in the library! Tom and I trekked up a higer ground place here yesterday to get photos of the sunrise. We left too early and by the time the sun starting showing , well, we were entirely too cold to stay but the camera battery also gave out. So we planned to go this morning a bit later - but today you can't see the sun for the clouds today. Lots of kids are ice skating out on the lake. It is pretty thick now - I think I heard someone say it needed to be three inches thick to be safe. They are zooming around on the snow machines already - man those things are loud. Saw two really good movies, Forbidden Games (1954), about the effect or war and death on children, and Umberto - an Italian film about an old man whose pension is so little - and he has trouble living with dignity. Both movies were just wonderful.

These precious children were sleighing while we were watching the sun rise yesterday. They are in the Head Start program so must be 4 years old.

Ooh, is it chilly! Elizabeth sent me some of her wool scarves and I'm going to have to wrap my face on the way to school tomorrow. The photo above is of Tom in our so-called front yard walking Roxy. That is his Eskimo parka he is wearing - I want one just like it! The sun was so bright today it was like we were three feet from the sun! But now it is really cold. I'm going to take a photo of us walking to school tomorrow morning in the dark.

Here is Tom on Halloween night and the other photo is of Jeff, the fishing teacher, or rather the teacher who fishes. Those skins he is wearing are real. He also is a taxidermist.


The children are all out on the iced over lake skating around even after there was a fatal accident in a nearby village. The lake is not solid frozen yet - it still breaks through. I have a 100% view of the lake through the library window and there must have been a hundred children out there this afternoon. There are no law enforcement people in the village - it is all up to the parents.

Did I tell you that is is pitch dark when I go to school in the mornings and I have to take a flashlight with me to see my way?

Got my Career and College table set up - college catalogs, scholarship information, Petersen's college directories. It looks good, but I still have more work to do on it. Tom and I are going to start shifting books tomorrow. All of the books have arrived and the shelves need a lot of rearranging.

I had fun explaining to the kids today about briar patches. We read Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl and they loved it!

I really like this new blog. I found a book at school today (one of the $59,000 order) on making a blog on Google so maybe I can personalize this a bit since I now have some directions. Most people just jump in there and make the blog and figure out everything on their own– but I need directions and lots of them. The photo shows the thing they rigged up to keep the school warm those three days the heat was off.

We finished two days of staff development – it is hard sitting for two days but the class was great – on cooperative grouping (Kagan). I wanted to relate a partial story I overheard yesterday and you will see how different and dangerous things are here. A lawyer arrived to do some business here at Chevak this past weekend. Unfortunately the person who was to meet him at the new airport did not show up. By the time he realized he wasn’t going to be picked up – everybody else had cleared out. There’re only a few people on each plane and 4-wheelers are usually there to meet them and then zoom off. There’s no body on duty out there and certainly no phone. Well the lawyer looked at the road – which swings out away from Chevak and then back into the village (it is a new road just for that new airport). He then looked at the village … and took a shortcut straight into town. He walked about half way and then came to where the lake started – except he did not know it was water because it was covered with ice and snow. He continued to walk out on the lake (which he thought was ground) and then the ice broke and he fell in. The problem was he didn’t know the shortest way out or even if it was a lake or a river or a puddle. He didn’t know which direction to go…He did make it alive to the main office but I heard he was pretty frozen. I still have to get the full story – don’t know if someone spotted him out there in the lake or he just walked in two foot of icy water till he got to shore. He would have had to climb back up on the ice at some point. Poor guy – I can really imagine that happening to me! I just thought – he wasn’t a “poor guy”, he was lucky the lake is only two feet deep, and he was lucky the village bordered the lake. What if the lake had been deeper and the village was not in sight.

Well, I have tired of waiting and troubleshooting and then failing and then starting all over with uploading my iWeb. I'm pretty mad but don't know who to be mad at. iWeb is simply not going to upload on the wireless network I am using, not at home, not at school - and I have no idea why. Apple is of no help. So, Google is now my blog spot of choice. I'll be able to go in right online and type and add my entries. I don't know how much space I will have yet - but I'm sure I'll find out soon. I'll try not to post too many photo - or maybe I can make them small.

I'm going to to copy the information from the last three blogs that I have not been able to upload (and I have spent hours trying to problem solve this).

November 4, 2006 Tom the Terror
Halloween was wild. We had hundreds of kids come to the door - some came two and three times. There were many with two sacks - one for a little brother or sister, or cousin, or friend - well you get the picture. The high schoolers came as well - all in costume. Tom was decked out as a zombie, I guess. We had haunting ghost sounds on the Cd player going out the window and he had a knife and a bone and he took out his lower front teeth. Pretty spooky. Some of the children really got scared but as soon as I started putting candy in their sacks, the fear diminished quickly. Tom had purchased over $100 worth of candy in Anchorage and we used just about all of it - I was just throwin’ that candy at ‘em. Lots of gleeful smiles the next morning.

We had Eskimo Dancing night on Halloween Eve. Pretty nice - lots of folks there.What I really like is all the young folks dancing with their parents, even the teenage boys. It is a real issue here - preserving the traditional language and culture - and here these cool teenage boys are Eskimo Dancing and loving every minute of it. You can see mothers and sons together on the stage. They served Eskimo Ice cream again - I think I have described that earlier.This time - everyone knew us and all the kids came up to talk. They want to know if Tom and I sleep together in the same bed, how much I weigh and what size I wear. It’s a hoot. And all the females, young and old, and many of the men, wear their most beautiful cuspiks ( I have not spelled that correctly), a traditional dress - sometimes short and worn over pants and sometimes long worn over pants.I have one that was made for me as a new teacher. I took my camera this time. Remember they are not doing this for the teachers or tourists - it is their way of life, a traditional celebration. They do it for themselves only. We were just guests.

Have I mentioned that we have no trees here, not one, not one solitary tree.

Got my library web page up - it isn’t finished but you can check it out at http://vak.gcisa.net/~libary/

The heat was out for about four days before the repairman could fly in from Anchorage. Our custodians rigged up this interesting thing to keep the building at a reasonable temp (55-60) while we waited. We just put on coats and went about our business.

Friday, October 27, 2006 Halloween

We’re gearing up for a big Halloween here. The elementary school is having a Halloween party Sunday afternoon, the kids trick or treat from 4 -6 on Tuesday and then the entire community has a Halloween Costume Party at the community center from 7-9 pm with dancing. I can hardly wait. Tom and I are both dressing up and decorating for trick or treaters. He is going to be stationed in front of the picture window staged like a Zombie. I’ll be a witch and answer the door. I have a tape with eerie sounds and I’ll be carrying a skeleton. Should be fun.

It is much colder, snow is staying on the ground, lots of icy patches. I have to be really careful in my steps. The lake has begun to freeze and the kids are throwing things out on it so it looks a bit like the moon surface. Several have fallen through the ice playing out there.

We went to the wrestling tournament tonight - the whole village was there. Chevak was winning everything. Their boys flew in on a chartered plane from Nome, and then our girl’s volleyball team flew back to Nome on the same plane to compete in a tournament there.

Hope this entry uploads okay. The internet connection drops a lot and causes me much stress.

Tuesday October 24, 2006 They're Yummy

We’re still here. I got the books in - the $59,000 worth of books. I’ve been shelving and shifting shelves and unpacking boxes for at least two weeks now. Great books - I’m so glad to have them! A lot has been going on at school too - well, Halloween mainly. I’ve been celebrating all month - and it is still seven days away.

Tom got his Arctic parka and it is really warm. He sat out on the porch today pretending he was an Eskimo. While he and Roxy were sunning, the two Great Danes and our neighbor Kim dropped by. Roxy was nuts enough with those two dogs but then another dog dropped by and he is hyperactive. All three of those huge dogs started barking and play fighting with each other. Me, Tom and Roxy moved further and further into the corner of the porch. My head could fit inside that Great Dane’s mouth. Our porch is around 3 feet by 10 feet and there were four adults and four dogs - three of them super huge. Lot of fun...

A little girl came up to show me her book the other day. She opened it up to a beautiful illustration of Beluga whales swimming in the ocean. My first thought was how beautiful they were and then I thought of the gorgeous Beluga whales in the Atlanta Aquarium. ‘Bout that time the little girl said, They’re yummy! Specially the baby ones!” She was rubbing her tummy at the same time. I nearly fell over with horror and laughter at the same time. I’m not in Georgia anymore!