JUNEAU, AK

July 31, 2010 - August 10, 2011
What fun it has been to vacation in Juneau, AK!! Despite the fact that I had class from 8:30-1:30 every day, we found some good things to do and had a blast doing them.
_________________________________________________________________
08/02/11

World Famous Red Dog Saloon downtown Juneau. Robin and I checked it out after class.

4 cruise ships came into port in Juneau. I tried to show how big they are....I think this is my next adventure!!

Robin and I also ran into a teacher a former St. Michael teacher and discovered she and her fiance have a buisness on a historic tugboat in the Juneau Harbor http://alaskapiratespride.com/

_________________________________________________________________
08/03/11

We rented a pickup from the local Uhaul co. because it was cheaper....isn't that cute!!! We got tired of walking up and around hills to the bus stop - which we did figure out! Our legs were pretty tired.

Glacial Gardens


<- Ed taking pics of upside down trees

Mom & Ed ->
By the heart flowers

Mendenhall Glacier - Ed, mom, Robin and Jodi

_________________________________________________________________

My apartment in SMK

The Laundry room has plenty of shelving for food storage and laundry supplies or camping gear and dog food....whatever you choose.
The bathroom is far from Master, but it has everything I need!!!
The bedrooms fit a double bed and a dresser. This room actually has 2 matching dressers sitting on the right side of the picture along the wall.
The kitchen has a serving window as it was the kitchen in the BIA school LONG LONG ago! I love this feature for entertaining!
The living room is narrow but has a couch, love seat and 2 recliners now! Plus the table. Sorry the TV doesn't come with the apartment!

This is one of the biggest apartments in St. Michael. There are 2 bedrooms and a bonus room for storage at the back that is narrower than the living room but just as long. The apartment also comes with a stand up freezer! That is helpful for planning and storing food for the long winter!

Puppy Love

My new puppy!!!! His name is Ootagoo and he is part poodle, part terrier. His favorite place to lay is behind my head on my neck.

Snowstorms, ducks and other stuff

A lot has happened since my last post. Here are a few pictures of some things that left an impression!!! Below......one day I looked out my classroom window and this is what I saw. Yes, that is the fence for the playground. There are also 5 trucks and a plethora of 4-wheelers...can you see them?? We couldn't either. That day, most of the kids and all of the teachers ended up being at school until 10pm-ish. SO, we fed the kids breakfast, lunch and dinner that day and put in a little bit of unpaid overtime. Oh the joys of being paid on a salary.
After I finally got home, I was faced with this surprise of not knowing if my 4-wheeler would stay in the lean-to. This picture was obviously take the morning after the storm but look at how high my 4-wheeler is parked compared to Dale's which is buried.
Soon after the storm, we had a POD meeting in Stebbins. Basically, all the teachers get together to get new ideas, help those in need and this time we had a guest speaker, Jan Christianson, who talked about having a balanced math program in every classroom. The picture below is how Dan, my principal, got himself and 4 other teachers to Stebbins. We all went over on 4-wheelers and a few got to take the surbaban which actually made it all the way with a washed out road and HUGE snowpiles everywhere....that was the last week in April.
Last weekend, Dale wanted to go camping and look for duck eggs. We didn't end up going camping, and despite the hope in the picture below, we didn't find any duck eggs.
DO YOU SEE THE EGGS IN THIS PICTURE??? If you are like me, you didn't see them either. We changed from looking from duck eggs to finding Sniper eggs. We drove around on the tundra until we scared one and it flew away from it's nest. Then we would go look around in the area the bird flew from. Dale always found the nest before me because I couldn't manage to see them.

However, when you pull back the grass, this is what you would find. Every Sniper, lays 4 eggs. They are soptted brown and green. We ended up finding 24 eggs. We took back the bucket of eggs to his grandma's house and gave the eggs to Dale's little sister to eat. They are not really big so Dale thought the kids would like them.Last week we went for a drive to see how much the ice was broken up and saw Mark, another teacher, and his boys out looking for something on the ice. We are not sure what they were looking for , but they left without finding anything. The ice had broke up pretty good, there were just a few big pieces left hanging on shore.

This was another one the ice bergs. I was walking around it looking for beach glass. I took a picture of Dale standing behind it then he decided he needed to do the same. Monday I went back down there and the ocean had risen enough that you could only see the top part of this berg so I would have been standing in about 4 feet of water.

Dale is still working cleaning up at school and one day I followed him. I was sitting in the office working on a Tupperware order and one of the other janitors came in really excited about how Dale's 'honda' was parked. I went back out and saw Dale's 'honda' had been pushed down this little mote around the school and hit the support beam that the school sits on. It took 4 of us to get it out of the hole. Funny enough, I drove my own 'honda' up to the school and he wanted me to park right next to him. I declined and parked parrall to the mote. The push actually pushed in the front bar on the 4-wheeler.
All is well and I am looking forward to seeing my family this summer!! No other plans except to hang with a few friends!!!

Winter Wonderland

This is what Doppler Radar said........... (light snow)
This is what Doppler Radar meant........... (snow storms so bad you can't see 5 ft in front of you unless there is a break in the wind)
The long thing you see is the fence around the playground....who needs a fence? I need a slide. The black dot you see on the right of the fence is the school suburban.....who could drive that thing in this weather?


The aftermath????? Lots of snow, over 9 ft high banks and a lot of people STUCK!!!!!

You know the old saying.... "If March comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb." Here's hoping!!

Dale's MOOOOOOOOOse

Dale went hunting for a moose in September and was successful. He and his hunting buddy had to fit themselves, a 4-wheeler and this HUGE moose in a 18ft Lund boat. He says he didn't have room for the 50 inch spread rack. After going to MN for Christmas and seeing what people do with the antlers, he has decided to go in search of this particular rack when he goes hunting this month again for moose and bring it home to display on my wall......gee, I'm so excited!!! No really, I am!

Alaskan Wonders

There are so many wonderful things about living here in Alaska.  Here are a few of the plants I found and then discovered my camera took some pretty nice pictures. 

8 months of silence

I know, I know, I needed to blog again. I didn't have internet at my house last school year so when I was done with paperwork at school, I didn't feel like sitting in my hole (classroom with no windows) to blog. SO, here is the last 8 months!!

Dale's parents dancing at the New Year's Eve dance at the hall in Stebbins.

The band that provided music at the New Year's Eve fiddling.....they are all Eskimo.
In February, I started selling Tupperware. I came home one day and Dale had carted all the Tupperware boxes and a moose leg into my house....see the moose leg in the kitchen? I laughed and took this picture....only in rural Alaska!!
One of the other teachers...Lacecy....is from Arizona so all of this is a big shock to her. I thought I would help her get acquainted with life out here......She was a little nervous and thought she would mess it up, but she did just fine.
The snowfall was quite huge this year. This is Bob's store in Stebbins. Under this snow bank are a couple of trailers and 4-wheelers. The snow hills in Stebbins was much higher than in St. Michael. You can kind of see the half buried snowmobile in the middle of the bank.
In March, Dale and I and many others traveled by snowmobile to Kotlik to celebrate their Potlatch. Here you see some of the other Stebbins dancers, including Roseann Dan (seated), who passed away June 2nd, 2008. She will be missed not only for her smile but for her knowledge of traditional ways in the Yupik culture. She is known state wide.
In the spring, Dale and I went for a ride and came upon some curious fox. There were actually 4 of them but this guy was the only one brave enough to let us get close.
As the snow melted, my reading class went on field trips, here was the cover picture of the class in the sled that the shop class was making.
We also had the opportunity to have the Mazola (MT) Childrens Theatre with us. We did a rendition of the Little Mermaid. most of the children had fun with it. This is actually the play that was done in Stebbins but the same play was in St. Michael as well.
Awwwww.....a beautiful 2 am sunset in April!!!!
Followed by the running of the reindeer at 2 am. We had the joy of having to wait for the herd to cross the road too.


OOPS, sideways, sorry.......Dale moved the baby reindeer out of the middle of the road so no one, includiing him, would run it over.
My mom and my nephews.......how cute are they?
Mom and I went to Pickford Michigan, on our way, we found a Big Boy restaurant. We of course had to stop for a picture.....Me and the Big Boy.
Mom and I are excellent self-portrait takers....I believe we were in from of Lake Superior somewhere in Michigan..
In Sault Ste Marie (Soo Saint Marie) we were so close to Canada. The city across the water is actually Canada. We couldn't go because we didn't have our birth certificates or passports. The locals, commonly refer to this place as "The Soo."
We of course got to see Brock and Lori. Look how talk he is at 8 months, with 8 teeth. My mom was trying to see how he would react to the grass.
Yes, he is actually standing behind that tote. He was trying to walk when I was there.
The rest of this summer I went to a wedding, and will be spending time in Duluth. Hopefully there will be more pictures to add later. This school year, I should have internet at my house so updates should happen more frequently than last.