Spring Break!

So...April Fools' Day is tomorrow. I can't wait to play a few jokes on my students and coworkers! April 1st means it's getting closer and closer to the date of my return to Pennsylvania! I'm excited to soak up some warmer weather and spend time with my family and friends.

Spring Break was wonderful and a much needed break away from everything. Thank you Liz for inviting me to tag along with you! One day we went to a place called Hatcher Pass which had amazing views everywhere you looked. I couldn't get enough. It took us a long time to get to the actual top of the mountain where they had small cabins to rent and a little snack bar. People can go there to ski, snowboard, ride snowmobile, etc. for free! There are no ski lifts so that makes things interesting. If people make it to the bottom of the mountain and a car is going to the top they usually just hop in the back for a ride! Here are some really great pictures of the views...

So Alaska...a husky in the snow.

The only place I wanted to go the entire trip! Target with the mountains in the background...something you don't see much in Pennsylvania. 

We got to go to the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla. It was neat because the race was actually going on while we were visiting, however, we didn't get to see any of the action. I snapped a few pictures inside and grabbed some souvenirs for my Pennsylvania friends.

The mountains are literally surrounding you every place you go. Amazing.

Guess what else we found while we were there?! GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. They're $5 a box in Alaska. I made the girls pose for a picture haha.

Look what else I found at a grocery store here!

$5 foot longs don't exist in Alaska. It still tasted good though.

One thing I never really noticed at any other airports are cargo airplanes. It seems that Anchorage has a ton!

Finally it was time to return to Napakiak after a quick trip. I had the row all to myself on the plane so I hopped over to the window seat to take a picture.

St. Patrick's Day fun at school! 

Here's a cute picture from when we played "Who wants to be the teacher?"

I have some models...

This past weekend we had the NYO (Native Youth Olympics) Tournament at our school. We had 20 other schools come to Napakiak and compete to move onto the district meet in Bethel. It was crazy!! There were about 175 kids here..more than go to school here! It was super fun though. The athletes are very talented and you can tell that they train intensely for their events. NYO reminds me a lot of track and field in the lower 48 because it has many different events. Students can choose to participate in all the events or just a few. 

This is the two foot high kick. Athletes need to touch the ball with both feet and then land with them together for it to count. 

So many kids!!

One interesting part of NYO is that the audience doesn't clap until the competitor is eliminated. They get 3 chances to complete the event and if they fail or miss they are eliminated. It is definitely a game of concentration and the audience needs to be almost completely silent to help the athlete focus. This was the first weekend I was able to watch NYO besides walking through practices in the gym here. It was so neat and interesting. I took a bunch of videos throughout the weekend, but I decided to compress them into one short video if you would like to watch.

It was really amazing to see the culture brought into our school over the weekend. Students from other villages practice their native songs and dances often and brought them to share. Here is a quick video. It's so cool seeing them interested and "into" their culture. They are proud of it. 

This is walrus!! The layers from left to right are: blubber, fat, meat. A visiting team brought the treat to share with others. They say it is a special treat and they don't get to eat walrus as much as other animals. The natives say that the walrus cleans your stomach and will also keep you warm. The woman I talked with said she will boil this down for a few hours until it gets soft and then serve it. I wasn't lucky enough to try this...lol.

On Saturday after the NYO Tournament we took a ride up to Bethel while the river was still frozen (at least in most parts). We happened to come across a Yupik museum and walked around for a bit. The picture below is a coat made from fish skin! The museum showcased a variety of native work.

It was such a beautiful day out in Bethel. We got some coffee, sat outside in the sun, enjoyed dinner, and did some grocery shopping. We all enjoyed ourselves, even though those are such small things in life. It was fun. Here are some pictures from our trip back to Napakiak. We got out right in the middle of the 'road'.

The weather is starting to warm up. That big snowman we made a few weeks ago is melted and the  sunlight is here to stay. Right now the sunrise is at 8:15am and sunset is at 9:30. It's pretty amazing. You don't realize how late in the day it is until you look at a clock!

This has been a long post filled with lots of pictures! I hope you enjoy viewing my pictures of Alaska.  This week during school we are celebrating Easter and doing activities with Easter Eggs. I'll post more pictures soon! :) Thanks for reading!

Happenings in Napakiak

Time is flying by. I can't believe it's already March! I've been back in Alaska for 2 months and I'll be in Pennsylvania in under 3 months for the summer!

Valentine's Day was super fun with my class. We celebrated by opening our valentines and watching a movie. I definitely got my fill of chocolates for the year.

I thought this girl's hair was so cute! A little heart.

Last week was Read Across America day...so of course we celebrated! We read information about Dr. Seuss, made Dr. Seuss hats, and created silly sentences to write on our hats!

The weather here has been changing constantly. Some days everything is melted....

...and some days it's in the negatives with snow!

Last Friday seemed like a blizzard. The weather calmed down and we were able to make a snowman! The snowballs got so heavy by the time we were done making it!

I was lucky enough to get some more packages from home! My dad sent me a package with homemade pierogies and Hahn's Dairy milk! It was delicious. My aunt, uncle, and cousin sent me a package with tastycakes and ingredients to make homemade play-dough. I can't wait to try it with my class. Thank you!! All the teachers who had never had tastycakes before loved them!

My friend Morgan sent me a postcard of the Obamas! I showed my students and one of them asked, "Is that your dad?!" All I could do was laugh, especially because they met my dad when he was visiting in October!

The sun is now setting around 8:30 pm thanks to daylight savings time! It's strange because it seems so early, but you look at the clock and it's already 8! I thought coming to Alaska I would have a lot of free time, but it turns out that I don't have much free time at all! I'm usually working in my classroom  every night after school or catching up on television shows by watching them online. Keeping busy makes the days go by super fast. 

Unfortunately, this past weekend my family had to put our lovely dog, Dudley, to sleep unexpectedly. I wish I could have been home to say goodbye, but the Duds lived a happy life and I'm sure he's in a better place now.

One of my 1st graders has his own snow-go (snowmobile)! I took a picture of it from my classroom window. He just drove away while one of his friends hopped on the back. He's six years old...crazy!

We ended up making some more homemade pierogies one weekend to keep busy. They turned out good, but we only made 12 all together! Next time we will have to make more dough.

I finally drove on the frozen river about a month ago. It was scary!! Nik and I took a quick trip just to go to the grocery store for a few things. We passed a few other cars along the way. The scariest part of driving on the river is getting on and off. Sometimes there is water where you have to exit and enter the river, and you just aren't sure how deep it is. However, we survived! Here's what it looks like...

Currently I'm sitting in the Bethel airport waiting to board a flight to Anchorage! We got two days off for spring break so I'm traveling with Liz to Wasilla. I'm excited! There are only 10 more weeks of school, too!

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!