I missed a few

Turns out there were way more important people in town yesterday than I had known when I wrote yesterday's blog post. Here is a rundown of all of the people who were in town yesterday...

United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan
United States Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas J. Vilsack
United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun L.S. Donovan
United States Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu

Governor of the State of Alaska, Sean Parnell
Alaska State Commissioner of Education, Larry LeDoux

Both the Governor and the State Commissioner spoke at the school during our teacher inservice yesterday. Isn't that special? I think so. It reminds me that Bethel really is a special place to be and it makes me sad to think that this will be my last year here.

And 4 (count 'em...FOUR) of Barack Obama's cabinet members where here in Bethel, Alaska (of all places). Click here to read an article in the local newspaper about their visit to Bethel and another village called Hooper Bay.

In other news...
As of yesterday, we still didnt have long distance or internet service.

We are having weather issues already. Yesterday and today have been rainy and dreary. Many village flights were already stuck in Bethel yesterday because of a low ceiling, leaving many village teachers stuck in Bethel. I thought that might happen and wasnt surprised when the teacher from Nightmute that stayed at our place during inservice came knocking last night after getting stuck in Bethel.

I finally got all of my boxes unpacked. I have very little to do now to settle into the new place. All I need to do now is put on the new shower head, find a desk for Avery's room, get a kitchen table, and buy an area rug for the living room. Avery's room does still need a bit of work, but he is taking the responsibility for most of that (as it should be). I just need to mount the TV on his wall and help paint his new nightstand.

I tried sushi for the first time today during lunch out with some of the other teachers. It was good. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities for my palate!

I wish I could take some pictures for you of Bethel right now. It's beautiful here. I was actually surprised by the beauty of it when we first got off the plane a week ago. It's easy to forget how beautiful it is here when it is covered in snow for 7 months and mud for 2 months, which is almost the entire time that I'm here.

After today, I have officially decided that instead of being called teacher inservice, it should be called TT (teacher torture). Today's presenter was awful. Terribly boring.

I've still been working out on the Wii everyday. I had originally lost 15 pounds this summer, but then figured that I gained about 5 back while in Ohio for the last few weeks, but in actuality, I only gained back 3 (which is not good, but better than 5). I am still doing something right though because when I tried to put my belt on this morning, it doesnt even fit anymore...it's too big. That means I'm down 4 notches on my belt now! Awesome!

Ok...time to go home. It's been a long day! We have a workday tomorrow, then the first day of school is Monday. How does the summer manage to fly by so quickly?