Anchorage!!

My trip to Anchorage was amazing. Even though I was just there two weeks prior traveling back from Christmas break it was nice to be back! We stayed at the Hilton and it was absolutely beautiful. I had a corner room with two large windows and the views were amazing!

The view from my bed!

Our conference was at the Dena'ina Center in downtown Anchorage..it was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel.

When we arrived in Anchorage it was snowing like crazy! It actually felt like Alaska with snow on the ground. We all checked into the hotel and took a trip to Wasilla, which is about an hour north of Anchorage. It was pretty foggy on our drive there so we weren't able to see too many sights. Driving on a paved road again was nice! Liz, Nik, and I went for dinner to a nice brewhouse and treated ourselves when we were there.

The Hilton had a pool so we got to go swimming one night! I of course didn't bring a bathing suit with me to Alaska because I didn't think I would be doing much swimming here. Liz and I went to the mall to hunt for a cheap bathing suit but we weren't lucky so I just ended up wearing leggings and a tshirt...but it was still fun!

We also got to go back to that really cool wine bar that I visited in August! We all got dressed up and it was nice. :)

A park in Anchorage had these really cool ice sculptures displayed. I took pictures by a whole bunch of them...behind the ropes that were there to keep people out...haha.

The Hilton had these HUGE bears in the lobby. I showed my students the pictures and they were amazed at how big they were. I was, too.

The Anchorage airport just added this moose to its collection!

I FINALLY got my totes that I sent on January 5th from Pennsylvania. They arrived on January 31st...almost 1 month later! My dad and I used smaller zip ties this time and when the totes arrived many of the zip ties were broken. One tote only had one zip tie remaining on the handle with easy access to everything inside, but luckily nothing was stolen. I'm just happy that my stuff is finally here with me! I made sure to send new games with me so we won't be bored all winter. Here are a few...we played Catch Phrase and Clue on Wednesday night. It was really fun!

Last weekend we had school on Saturday to make up for a day we missed before Christmas. The kids actually didn't seem to mind coming to school on Saturday. The elementary side of the school combined all the students and split them into groups to do fun activities like BINGO, drawing, and playing duck duck goose. After school Nik and I went for a snowmobile ride. It was scary but fun at the same time. I only took a few pictures because taking my gloves off was torture. It was SO cold! For most of the ride we didn't see any sign of other people and all you could see was the tundra. We didn't see any animals, either. :(

Thank you Uncle Rich and Aunt Diane for the package! We made the tootsie rolls last week for the Super Bowl and they were delicious! They don't look exactly like tootsie rolls but they tasted like them! They were harder to make than they look and were super sticky. I've been trying many different recipes since living here...it's fun!

Last week I was working with some students and I thought I noticed one of my students using a pen that said Altoona on it. I looked closer and it was from Penn State Altoona! I have no idea where she got the pen, and she didn't either. She didn't understand my excitement over a pen and looked at me like I was crazy, but home is closer than you think!

I took a screenshot of the temperature a few days ago. With the wind chill it was -33!!! FREEZING!! The wind chill has been around the same for the past couple of days. You don't really get used to it! However, we are seeing more sun! The sun sets around 6pm and rises around 10am each morning.

Today was the 100th day of school! We celebrated all week by making patterns using 100 pattern blocks, making a train of 100 cubes, passing a ball between partners 100 times, and doing 100 squats! It was very enjoyable. 

Right now I'm in Akula, another village in my district for a basketball tournament. The girls played one game tonight and will continue to play all day tomorrow until we can hopefully return to Napakiak. I've been told that we could be stuck here because the district doesn't allow students to travel if the wind chill is -40 or below. Akula is a true tundra village..totally flat with not a single object blocking the wind. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can make it home! Of course, we traveled here by plane. It was about a 20 minute ride. Here are some pictures. 

Liz took some beautiful pictures of the sunrise a few weeks ago that I just have to share.

There is a fiddle dance next weekend in Napakiak and it is also Valentine's Day. I'm excited to celebrate with my class! Hopefully I'll get another blog done within the next couple of weeks. Thanks for reading!