We made it!

Our 35 seater plane made it to Nome without incident yesterday. A blizzard settled over the city promptly after we got here. It's been snowing and crazy windy ever since. The kids are having a great time. Of course, they do have a really fun and amazing chaperone :)All of the kids who had solo's finish their performances for the judge yesterday, but we have no scores back yet. Hopefully it will be soon, because the kids are anxious to know if they are doing a command performance and if they made it to state. I told the girls that one of them had better have made it to state because I have a cavity that desperately needs filled and I've made an appointment to get it fixed while we are in Anchorage for the state competition. (Update...two girls got superior ratings and command performances, which means a trip to state. YAY! Update...four of our girls got superior ratings and will be going to state. All four sang vocal solos.)Today, the kids have been in rehearsals and instrumental sectionals all day. They've been playing music all day. Their lips are numb, their vocal cords are worn out, and they are starting to get a bit tired and slap happy. They have their individual school performances tonight, then some free time. Tomorrow we might get some time out around town, so hopefully I'll have some more interesting pictures from around Nome.

On my way to Nome

I'm headed to Nome, Alaska with the music kids tomorrow. We leave around noon on a chartered flight. We will be flying on a 35 seater plane. I'm pretty sure it will be similar to the one I took into Anchorage that I wrote about in this post. A good portion of the kids that are going on the trip are girls, so I will have a large group of kids to chaperone, but the music festival keeps them all pretty busy. I should have plenty of free time to go check out the town a bit. To see where Nome is, click on the map above for a bigger new. Make sure to find Bethel, so you can see how far we're travelling. Both Nome and Bethel are in Western Alaska.
Of course, it wont be all green and warm and sunny while we are there. There will still be snow on the ground and the ocean will still be frozen over. I will certainly try to get some pictures from the air to show you what it really looks like right now. Below I've included the video from the Nome Visitors Website, if you'd like to check it out. I'm excited to see another part of this great state!

Just Busy

It seems every now and then, I need to blow off steam about how unbelievably busy my schedule is. Sometimes I cant believe how busy I allow myself to get. I was thinking about it the other day and realized that I'm actually working three side jobs along with taking two classes. Then, of course, there's all the regular stuff that goes along with regular life and raising a child (who also has a busy schedule).

Two Fridays ago I started to get a really bad sore throat, then on the following Monday a major head cold set it. I was miserable all week and missed two days of school. in addition to all the other stuff I had to do, I was out for the count for a couple of days(which meant sub plans). My cold is still hanging out and just wont completely go away. I'll be leaving soon to chaperone the regional music festival in Nome and sleeping on the floor for three days (which also means sub plans).

So, here's the run down, not including my regular teaching day...
Monday 4:45-6:45 meet with my summer school co-teacher about planning the summer science camp (side job 1).

Tuesday 4:30-6:45 class about aggression with a coworker. Biggest Loser on TV and usually my best workout of the week, although I havent been working out much lately because I'm just so busy that when I have some down time all I want to do is relax. I did ride the stationary bike tonight for about 30 minutes.

Wednesday 4:15-5:30 SIOP class with a group of other teachers, this class also includes reading chapters, journaling, trying new stuff in the classroom, and going to observe other teachers during my prep period

Thursday- nothing specific scheduled for this day, but this week on thursday I am traveling with the music kids to Nome for the music festival. This is often the evening the I worked on people's taxes (side job 3), but now I have all of those done now.

Friday-nothing specific this night either, but certainly there's always something going on. This Friday I'll be in Nome, last Friday I was at the NYO tournament with Avery. The friday before that Avery had kids over for a movie night and I made jam.

Saturday 8am-3:30pm work with the science curriculum committee revising the science curriculum for the school district(side job 2). Last Saturday I also spent time over at Avery's NYO tournament watching his award ceremony. I walked back and forth a couple times between the two schools. the Saturday before that I hosted the spa night and the one before that was Cama-i weekend.

Sunday 11am-12:30 is church, then I usually do alot of cooking and cleaning and stuff. This Sunday we actually spent some time out on the river snowmaching. We rode down to a couple of the villages downriver and just fooled around for awhile. It was a warm (34degrees), sunny day and I was happy to get out and enjoy it.

It's alot to take on at the same time, but I'm enjoying all of the things that I'm involved in. I just wish it wasnt all at the same time.

6 done, 24 to go

Last weekend I made a batch of orange marmalade that turned out fantastic. This week I had a half dozen grapefruits that needed eaten, so I decided to give grapefruit marmalade a try. I made a double batch a few nights ago along with another batch of orange marmalade. I have left a few of these little treats for several of my coworkers along with a note that read, "Thanks for all that you do."

Number 28 on the birthday list. Done.

Eskimo stick pull

In addition to taking first in the One Foot High Kick at the NYO tournament this weekend, Avery also took first in the Eskimo stick pull.
The idea here is that you use your arms and legs to pul the stick out of the opponents hands. Having spotters on the sides supporting you is supposed to prevent much twisting or pulling the stick to the side out of someone's hands.
Avery was proud of his "battle wounds" to prove that he was the fiercest competitor in the stick pull event. He insisted that I take this picture of his calluses from the stick pull event.

77 inches

I went to my first NYO (native youth olympics) tournament tonight. I'm not sure why I've never been to one before, but maybe I was out of town or something. It was interesting. This is Avery doing the One Foot High Kick. They have to kick the hanging ball with one foot and then land on the same foot as they kicked with which is completely counterintuitive. He won first place in the junior high division with 77 inches. The winner of the high school division kicked it at a whopping 102 inches! Apparently the record is 114 inches...that's like kicking the bottom of the backboard of a regulation basketball hoop! Insane!

Taiko (Japanese) Drummers

As a part of this year's Cama-i dance festival, we had the treat of seeing these Taiko drummers perform. They are a Japanese drumming group from Anchorage. They had a wide assortment of drums, but there were other instruments as well.
One person played some sort of flute and another played a shell. The first thing they did was a drumming routine that is supposed to chase away all of the bad spirits from a place. It was very entertaining. The kids absolutely LOVED the costumes, masks, and acting of the drummers. It was so much fun! The kids in the audience squealed with laughter and screamed with joy as these drummers put on their show.
They were a very engaging group. It was so much fun to watch, although they were not all authentic and japanese, some of the group members were indeed Japanese.

Enjoy the video. Make sure to turn the sound up so that you can hear the drumming.

April recipe: Sloppy What?

That's right...Sloppy Jane Sandwiches. Have you ever heard of a Sloppy Jane? No? Me, either. This is a tasty twist on the traditional hotdogs and beans. I really liked this recipe, especially because it used very few ingredients and what ingredients it did call for were common and easy to come by. I used real minced onion, rather than instant. It smelled wonderful and tasted just as good. We put ours on hamburger buns. I'm sure I'll use this recipe again. This recipe also came from my crockpot cookbook and will count as my April recipe for number 10 on my birthday list.

Spring is different here...

Today it got up to 14 degrees above zero. There is definitely still snow and ice on the ground, although the mud is starting to show through in larger and larger spaces. If you've been reading the blog long enough, then you've probably heard me say that there are two seasons in bethel...mud boot season and snow boot season. Well, mud boot season (spring, summer, fall) is closely approaching. It just snowed yesterday and the day before. Just a light dusting, but still snow.

The days are much longer now with the sun rising before 8am, but not setting until almost 10pm. The sun is shining more too...not as many clouds. The birds are coming back. Ice classic tickets are being sold for the impending break up of the river ice. People are talking more and more about summer plans. Coats are being more commonly left on the coat rack in lieu of a hoodie. Prom and graduation are on the horizon. Cars and trucks dont need plugged in anymore. Snowmachines are being traded for 4wheelers. There's a freshness in the air.

Spring is definitely here...it's just different.

5 done, 25 to go

Tonight was our girls spa night at my place. There were about 10 of us. I forgot to take pictures while we had out all of our nail polish and stuff. I only just remembered to snap a shot right before everyone was about to walk out the door. We had the most amazing hors d'oeuvres, desserts, and wine. I made Asian meatballs, which was another recipe out of my crockpot cookbook. We did facials, waxing, hair treatments, manicures, and pedicures, but best parts were the great conversations, the time spent together, and the laughs. Number 18 on the birthday list is complete and I do believe this might become something that we do every now and then. It was alot of fun!