Christmas in Paris: 20 done, 10 to go

The view out of our hotel room the first night. It was Christmas Eve and the snow was swirling all around us.

We drove up to the north of France on Christmas day and stayed two night in a castle in Sedan. The next day we drove over to Belgium just because we were so close. We bought lots of chocolate, ate mussles, and walked around the quaint little town.

This was our castle.

Notre Dame in Reims was surprisingly more grand and impressive than Notre Dame in Paris. But it was very cold inside so we did not stay long as my gma couldnt handle the cold.

The hall down the side of the church.

Some of the stained glass had a very modern feel to it.

Nan and I under the rose window. She was cold.

Denette and I walking down the streets of Paris with our baguette just like all the other French people.

The Garnier Opera house in Paris. We saw the bartered bride.

The artwork on the ceiling of the opera house.

The hall of mirrors at Versailles.

The outside gate of Versailles after the lights came on.

Napoleon's apartments at the Louvre museum.

The glass pyramid entrance at the Louvre.

Nan and I with the Venus de Milo.

The street that our apartment in Paris was on.

Statue on top of the opera house.

Rose window on the front the Notre Dame in Paris.

The rose window from the inside.

The Eiffel Tower between two lamp posts. I feel in love with all the lamp posts.

Sun shining through the tower.

The back of Notre Dame in Paris.

Nan and I in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Ornate bridge.

Christmas lights in front of the mall.

Nan being serenaded by an accordion player.

City hall.

Notre Dame of Paris at night.

A beautiful stroll by the river Siene.

The river was flooded due to the snow so I couldnt walk down next to it.

The city streets all decorated for the holidays.

The arch at the end of our street.

The street we lived on.

The Arch De Triomphe.

View of the Effiel Tower from the Arch.

News stand.

Sacre Coure.

The gargoyles.

Inside Sacre Coure.

Entrance to the metro, which I learned how to use pretty effectively.

Notre Dame and the city by night.

Number 1 on the birthday list is done...vacation in another country. Christmas in Paris, what more can a girl ask for?

19 done, 11 to go

Avery and I started reading the Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman about a year ago. We read the first book, The Golden Compas, last spring. Then read the second book, The Subtle Knife, in the fall. We started the first few chapters of the third book, The Amber Spyglass, before Christmas break, but it was like pulling teeth. Really. Avery has grown out of reading aloud together. Being a teenager, he provides me with plenty of opportunities for battling, but reading is not a battle that I'm willing to fight. He does plenty of his own reading without me needing to drag him into a reading situation that makes him dislike reading. So, I have chosen not to fight the 'read aloud' battle and have waved my white flag. I am going to finish reading the last book on my own because it is a good series and definitely worth finishing. Since we did, in fact, read most of the series together and I am going to finish it on my own, I am counting Number 21 on the birthday list complete.

18 done, 12 to go

It's my birthday list so I'll count it if I want to, count it if I want to, count it if I want to...

Number 7 on the Birthday list is to take a family photo. I didnt get around to taking an official family photo (which would have been of just Avery and I because he's really my only immediate family), but I did take this picture the other day. I like it so much that I am going to put it in a frame after all. I love, love, love this pic, so I'm totally counting it as being our family photo and I'm crossing Number 7 off the list.

17 done, 13 to go

My birthday is coming soon so I have to try and wrap this list up in only 2 weeks. I have a feeling there might be quite a few carry overs onto next year's list. Oh well.

For now, number 22 on the birthday list is complete: Ban (almost) all Christmas spending. I really did not BUY anyone (except Avery) a single Christmas gift this year. I did send out some Alaska Bird calendars as gifts to some people, but those were free :) I didnt even send Christmas cards. I know that some of you might be thinking "Ba humbug", but really it is about time I banned Christmas spending. It was getting out of hand. I would much rather go somewhere (Paris) and do something (ok, lots of things) and enjoy the company of the people I love (gma), than spend a bunch of money on stuff. So, this year instead of spending a bunch of money on Christmas stuff, I took my grandmother to Paris instead. Post to follow soon, because that was number 1 on the list.

Merry (belated) Christmas everyone. I hope you got to spend yours with the people that you love rather than the stuff that you got. Joyeux Noel!

16 done, 14 to go

On my way back to Alaska this year, I brought home some of my stuff from Ohio. Number 14: Ship more of my belongings from Ohio to Alaska is complete. I brought a couple suitcases and a box filled with the important stuff. So, what made the cut?

All of my purses (about 10)
My cordless drill
My good camera
Champagne flutes
Wine goblets
Another coat

Yes...Important stuff.

BBC Book List

Book List...this is from facebook.

But I thought I would post it here and it will end up in my notes that way.

"Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. BOLD those books you've read in their entirety, ITALICIZE the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds."

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Divine Comedy - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo



Looks like I've read 20. I've got several more on my bookshelf just waiting for me to have some free time. Maybe I can keep track of how many I read on here.

bold is 2010 and everything prior
purple is 2011
red is 2012
green is 2013
orange is 2014

Maybe we'll get some snow outta this...

This doesnt look good for our Robotics competition. If the village teams cant make it in, our competition will be postponed. At least then I'd be able to watch Avery wrestle. Oh wait, the wrestling tournament will be cancelled too if the teams can't make it in. Maybe I'll just have a weekend filled with relaxing and riding the snowmachine through. That sounds ok. But first, the blizzard must come...it's not even here yet.

Blizzard Warning

Statement as of 4:30 AM AKST on December 02, 2010 ... Blizzard Warning in effect from 3 PM this afternoon to 3 am akst Friday... The National Weather Service in Anchorage has issued a Blizzard Warning... which is in effect from 3 PM this afternoon to 3 am akst Friday. The blizzard watch is no longer in effect. A strong low pressure system and associated front will move across the Bering Sea today. Temperatures will be below freezing around the Kuskokwim Delta as the winds and moisture arrive this afternoon. The combination of falling and blowing snow will reduce visibility to less than one quarter mile this afternoon and tonight. Conditions will improve late tonight as the front moves inland. Precautionary/preparedness actions... A Blizzard Warning means severe winter weather conditions are expected or occurring. Falling and blowing snow with strong winds and poor visibilities are likely. This will lead to white-out conditions... making travel extremely dangerous. All travel and outdoor activity is strongly discouraged.

15 done, 15 to go

Number 5 on the birthday list is complete, read 5 books from the top 100 books list. Well I guess I read more than 5 and I have quite a few more that I am going to try to read over the next few months.

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Anthem by Ayn Rand
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin



Avery and I are also almost finished with the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman. This is also on the top 100 list and also number 21 on the birthday list. We're not quite done with it yet, but should be able to finished it before my next birthday.

I am also currently reading The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. I'm hoping to finish that one before Christmas break. That one is also on the top 100 list and also number 11 on the birthday list.

Flood watch and broken records

Areal Flood Watch
Statement as of 11:30 AM AKST on November 26, 2010


... Flood Watch in effect through Saturday afternoon along the
lower Kuskokwim River from Kalskag to Bethel...

The National Weather Service in Anchorage has issued a

* Flood Watch for the lower Kuskokwim River from Kalskag to Bethel

* through Saturday afternoon

* significant rainfall occurred in the Kuskokwim basin over the
last several days with total amounts ranging from 1.5 to 2.5
inches over a four day period. This event was accompanied by
warm temperatures that have melted much of the low lying
snow pack. Ice has moved at various locations along the Kuskokwim
River with reports of ice moving steadily Thursday at Aniak
before stopping Friday morning and open water at Stony River. A
resident of Sleetmute reported that ice had moved in various
locations from Stony River to Kalskag. Ice has lifted at Bethel.
Ice thickness has been reported to be from 6 to 10 inches. This
will mitigate the chance of a prolonged ice jam. Temperatures
are expected to fall below freezing through the weekend which
will greatly reduce inflows to the river. However... if an ice
jam were to occur on the lower river... low-lying communities
are at risk of flooding. This is a very unusual event.

* Travel on the Kuskokwim River in places where breakup has
occurred will be very dangerous until a significant ice cover
has reformed. If a significant ice jam forms below a Village that
is flood-prone... flooding is possible.

Precautionary/preparedness actions...

A Flood Watch means there is a potential for flooding.

You are encouraged to closely monitor this weather situation.
Preparation for this potentially dangerous weather event should
begin now.






Record Report
35 5 akst Fri Nov 26 2010

... A new record for precipitation and snowfall...

A new record of 0.64 of precipitation was set yesterday. The old
record of 0.57 was set back in 1936. There was also a new record of
6.7 inches of snowfall set yesterday. The old record of 5.9 inches
was set in 1965.

2010 BRHS haunted house

The haunted house this year was a huge success. The 10th graders had a very ambitious plan this year, but it all came together in the end. The first hallway was clowns, then there was the stranger.Then there was a big spider web with a person caught in it and a big spider that dropped down in people's faces. Then they walked down a pitch black dark hallway to meet a person with a electric saw who chased them out of the hallway.Then they had to say "Bloody Mary" three times. Bloody Mary came out from behind a black curtain.Then they entered the blood bath area where the person rose up out of the bloody bathtub and stood dripping and look at the people all creepy. They splashed around some too.

And a person in a body bag squirmed around on the floor as well.

Then this guy in a coffin jumped out to scare you!And these monsters shaked and rattled this cage trying to get you as you walked past.And this person locked in the closet rattled another chain and begged you to let him out.

Then finally when you thought it was over, one more person with a mask on jumped out and scared you one last time.

I lost count of the number of kids that left crying. Good stuff!