We had our Veteran's Day ceremony at school this week. We invited every veteran in the community including those on the school staff and of course, Tom Bender. The children made craft itmes for them and their names were read off for the various services and wars. Out of a community of only about 300 adults, we had a good many veterans. They seemed to end up being the more well known, successful adults in the community - I'm guessing because they have been exposed to another world besides Chevak, AK. The two Veterans in the photo above are actually Elders in the community and they work every day at school in our Cup'ik Heritage classes.

In this photo, you can see our principal, Del Lantz standing there with the glasses - the one not in uniform. Tom is actually on the other side - hidden. That is Roxie, our counselor and a good friend of ours, leaning against the door. The man in uniform on this side of here is the president of the Board of Education, John Atack.

Friday night at about 5pm (and it was already dark) Cyndy and two other girls had to drive to Hooper Bay on their snow machines, spend the night in the school and get up early the next morning to take a Praxis exam. Cyndy and her husband had purchased our snow machine and while her husband goes everywhere on the snow machine, Cyndy had done no more than gotten some insruction from him as to how to start it. So Friday night she takes off in the dark on that snow machine with three others and they drive 20 miles in the dark snowy night to Hooper Bay - now if you miss Hooper Bay you can end up out on the ocean. I was pretty worried about them, but they made it safely - a bit sore but safe. Brave girls. Okay, one of the girls was Cupik and had made the trip many times, but still....remember there are no lights or signs or houses or phones.

Yesterday we cleaned up our apartment, I realized I had brought some material with me to cover the couch in case Roxie chewed on it =-well she fortunately has not chewed on anything. So I took the matieral and made drapes for our living area andthen made some pillows to match. We moved our litte stove over to the window and then for the rest of the day it felt like Christmas.

Ok, have to get to work on my Big6 online class.