All work, no play.

Susan and I have spent the entire weekend working on a required Alaska History course. All the teachers new to Alaska have to take the course. The first lesson I did took 17 typed double- spaced pages. We have essay questions on the lessons and the two tests. I will be so glad to get this out of the way. Some of the courses at other universities let multiple people work on the same lesson and just put all their names on it for credit. Not ours, we have to do the lessons individually. We will probably do better on the tests, though. We plan to do three lessons per weekend finishing the lessons in one month. Our school district is paying for the course after we pass it, of course. 

Susan and the Yukon River. We still need to walk over to the island.

It snowed and stormed so much that we could not get out on a plane and missed a teacher in-service in Anchorage. We could have been in Anchorage 3 days at the end of this week. Now we will be here for months, unless another in-service comes up. It snowed a foot then 4o degree temps came in one day and melted a lot of the snow cover. Now, of course, the temp is in the single digits again. Oh, that is negative single digits!

Shark Boy playing with his new Spanish friend. Someone called her a teacup dog.

This was at noon, I think. Heavy clouds were moving in with a brisk breeze. Susan has her winter cough. She went to the clinic and they gave her cough syrup. I think she needs a shot of something strong with a syringe. 

Going to another village school for an in-service.

This was after the in-service trying to get all the snow machines running again after setting in the -20 degree cold.

The school building we traveled to for the in-service. This is the arrival. You see all the clothes this person was wearing.

Sometimes the snow machines stick to the snow and person has to lift their tracks off the ice or the belt will set there and burn on the pulley that drives the tracks. On ice the front skis do not turn the snow machine very well. I guess that is why the don't call them ice machines. You just sit there with the steering wheel turned saying, "OH ____!!!!" (fill in the blank with your personal preference for those times when severe injury accompanied with pain is mili-seconds away). My experience was the machine had to run into some snow or bushes at the edge of the trail before the thing would turn. 

On arrival, I think that is Susan!! Anyway whoever gave me an Eskimo kiss. We were cold and frost bitten.

The survival kit my daughter, Sarah, gave me minus the little pliers-knife handy dandy 
combo the security person at the airport took from me. They probably needed one for their kit. The knife wasn't long enough to hit anything vital, at least, on me. I should have taken the foil blanket out and put it over my head so I could have avoided a scabby nose and face. Right, I would have hit the only large tree along that part of the iced over Yukon River.  

Frosty trees in Anchorage

Even the wild animals are running away from the cold. I think the temperature has been mostly below -10 since we came back to Alaska.

A village dog may wonder why the humans wear so much clothing that you can't even smell them.

And all this time Shark Boy thought hell was hot. He gets so confused on the bitter cold snow. His movements seem to tell us, "which foot should I save from becoming a block of ice!!"
Shark Boy wondering how can we expect him to do what comes natural in an unnatural place with fox scent everywhere. And what is a fox? Hopefully, not some kind of dog eating, blizzard loving, snow munching monster. 

It was nice to come back to so many friendly kids ready to tease us and tell us "Happy New Year." Seems like most teachers are the kind of people who see mostly good in most everything and everyone.  

The days are already getting longer. I feel we have made it through some kind of trial like a Praxis II test or something. It stays light till about five thirty, now. It is really like what I commented upon before: we are too busy working with mostly fun, smiling, young people to worry much about the light. The students provide light shinning out from within their spirits with their wonderful responses to our teaching and caring. Our church from Blytheville sent gifts of pencils, socks, lotion, and snacks. Surely the astronauts could see their light shinning that day. I will always remember seeing gifts coming from good caring people back in Blytheville in the middle the world received with thanksgiving by good caring people from Emmonak at the top of the earth. 

After the Holidays and Sarah's Wedding

There is a new dog in town, Emmonak Village that is. It was -22 degrees with a -44 degrees wind chill. Cold has a new meaning for us and our dog can high step it much faster.

Bride and Groom start a new life. We all had a great time at the celebration with relatives old and new. 

Bride Sarah with her daddy. All I was thinking of was my memories of all the fun Abby, Sarah, Susan, and I had while we struggled through growing up and learning new things every day.

Sarah and Abby help each other while Susan and I are so far away. That is and always will be a great comfort for Susan and I to know our daughters are making sure each other are doing okay.

As we stepped outside the airport in Fayetteville, Susan and I were greeted by this beautiful sunrise promising what turned out to be a wonderful Christmas vacation with family and friends.

Susan took this picture. It warmed up some and most of the snow melted from the trees. One day it was -8 with the wind chill it was -20. Hey, cold is cold -8 -20 just means you will freeze faster if you fall down or something.
This is a nice kid that is in both Susan's class and my class. Kids just can't keep off the net!! I will be glad when basketball starts here. Teachers have to do volunteer duty, just one hour shifts.
I think I might have put this on before, like maybe last time. They call it cabin fever. (just kidding)
Susan and I are so excited to be coming home in three weeks. It will be good to see everyone. We can't believe the time has passed so quickly. We decorated for the Christmas season!
I am going to work hard with the kids so the time passes quickly. We have an after school program 2 or 3 afternoons a week for another hour and a half. That really gets Susan and I tired be the end of the week. We do have fun with the kids though. We get to work with some kids we don't have during the day.

Here is a flocked tree. The snow looks like little thorns. From 50 feet away the trees look like they are blooming.

Talking about a winter wonder land. We have it!! Now, I know what fake flocked trees are supposed to look like.
It is like large crystals. The snow has crystal like projections.
Road to the Bering Sea You can see the clouds that seem to hang over the sea about 14 miles away. It is about 4 pm and -9 degrees. My fingers get cold quickly even with gloves. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving Break.

We had a parent night for the after school program. The program paid for $700 worth of Subway sandwiches to be flown in from Bethel, Alaska. Grant Airlines brought the sandwiches in free. That was really nice for the kids. Yes, we had mostly kids show for the night. The teacher's had to do an hour and a half tutoring session, then do the parent night without any pay. Susan and I were really tired after 12 hours of teaching work.

The snow just sits on the bushes where it lands. The sunlight does not melt it and we have not had strong winds to blow it off (an 0 degrees, that is good news!!).

Not much going on here. The temperature is staying around 0 degrees at night. Susan and I do after school program about three afternoons a week and/or sometimes a double session on Saturday. We get warn out by Saturday evening. The kids are great and love getting the snacks the after school program provides. They are required to work on the educational program the program supplies for at least 45 minutes of the hour and a half long session. At the very least this may help the student to develop the ability to stay focused for longer periods of time. We are doing popcorn reading in my classes. I have been doing research on reading development and trying different approaches. We need to work on comprehension if we are going to see any improvement in the Alaska State test. Here are some pictures I tried to get of a beautiful sunset. I even ran out in the snow to get around some brush that is close to the school buildings. The snow was a foot deep. It is not packed, but held up by high grass. The snow does not melt much because of the temp. When it does frees water drips through cracks above our back door and freezes solid during the night. It is very hard to open, if fact, I don't think Susan can bust it open. Also, the key hole gets water in it and won't let me get the key into it without hot water which only freezes back again. I am going to get the stuff a person can spray into car key holes when I go home for Christmas. We have a front door, course I spent an hour shoveling the steps and walk to the back door last Saturday. I am spend a lot of time on the school's computers. It is definitely more of a hobby.

Now the pickup berg is on the right. We traveled about 45 minutes by snow machine to get to the spot where one can forget all the political speeches and media bias. Who cares if the stock market crashes, who cares if rich men become poor, who cares if poor men become rich; it is hard to worry about all of that out here so close to nowhere so far from everywhere. I am just glad Susan is here with me and my family is safe at home in the other world.
You see, it is a lot lighter in this shot. The sun sets very fast around this part of the world. Francine said someone caught (shot) a polar bear near here in 1970.
We went from 15 to 40 mph on the way out here. Susan and I tested the worth of our winter clothes and found out what we might need later on in the really cold Alaska night. Hooper Bay, where Susan got in the Bering Sea, is far from here. Today, my older students were telling me that the ice is only about 6 to 8 inches deep. They said it will get 4 feet deep. I told them I want to go white fish fishing with them this winter and they said "Good". My students can say a lot in a few words. Maybe, that is better, well, I know it is better that what we have been hearing on TV.

I has so much fun driving the snow machine. It is a lot like driving a motor cycle. They have caterpillar tracks on the back and skis on the front. Raymond said he went slow for us and usually travels at 5o mph. I kept thinking what I would look like with the tip of my noise black with frost bite going only 15 to 30 mph. They lent me some goggles that were definitely necessary!! It was good to get out of Emmonak and out of the school and house.
I told Raymond I would be very happy to help him collect wood on Saturday. Susan and I do have to teach the after school program till noon and I do not know if he can wait for me to go. They find the wood along the shore and either tie the logs behind the snow machines or take plastic-like sleds that require that the wood be cut up some for the trip to Emmonak. I hope I get to go and will wear more clothes next time. Although, Susan and I never got cold at all. The handle bars of the snow machines are heated somehow and get very warm on your hands.

After traveling 14 miles by snow machine through the snow covered tundra dotted with frozen lakes we arrived at the Bering Sea once again. The forms in the back between the sky and the sea are small ice bergs. I was surprised at how many there were. I just checked the temp and right now it is 5 degrees. It could not have been much more that 10 degrees on our way out.
This picture shows the mounds of ice that build up when the sea is trying to freeze over. How can there be such beautiful places? Why can I see them? It seems that God does love us to let us share in this enormous testament of the universe only he could create.
I was trying to get the larger ice berg at the left of the picture. It looked as large as my poor lonesome Ford truck waiting for me in Arkansas.
Here is Susan and our friend who took us on another once-in-a-lifetime adventure. This is Francine, and also her husband Raymond was there to guide us on the many snowmobile trails to the Bering Sea. Susan could not get in the sea, so she licked a piece of ice. Yep! Salty!
Here is Susan, Francine, a teacher we work with, and one of our students. They look so small. I am a loss for words to describe the vast emptiness we found and which greedily swallowed us for a while. It puts a speck of dust in perspective. We were the dust and God's creation was the rest.

Fox and Snow

I don't know if this is the fox by the river, but here he is up by my house. I was getting ready to take a picture of the snow and the fox jumped up on the walk. He showed no fear even after the flash went off.
This is a picture of the first measurable snow plus an interesting light. Our house is on the left. This is the same walk the fox chose to use.

Kids on the ice. A teacher told me she walked out on the ice, also.
Looks like a snow river, now.
There is a lot to look at in the picture. Looks like snow in a day or two.
The big white blotches are big flakes that fell on the lens. this is the young man who teaches next to my room. He is from Fayetteville , Arkansas. His parents both graduated from Oklahoma State just like Susan and I. We might meet him and his wife at Tim's Pizza in Fayetteville if Susan and I stay a day or so after Sarah's wedding.

It was snowing and I tried to get a shot of the snow coming down against the gym. You can see the larger flakes. The students said when it is real cold the snow sometimes comes down like tiny ice balls. This is from the window in my room at school.
Here is Susan in her pretty red coat my sister gave her. I am trying to load some English software on one of the computers in my room while I am doing this. Behind Susan is the frozen Yukon River.
Here is the kid walking through the water on top of the ice on the river. It was in the twenties with no wind. A very nice day to walk around for Susan and I. Hope you like the movie.

The kids were taking advantage of the new snow for some fun on a sunny day. Never mind that they were sledding out on the river ice. If they get caught on the ice before it is judged safe they will be put in jail. The blue edge is ice covered with water. They were walking through the water and out on the ice. Their tracks can be seen far out onto the ice. Susan and I knew them and told them the ice was not safe. They just told us kids did this last year. I said "Well, where are those kids."