Hibernation

So you know what the problem is? Too damn many social networking sites. By the time I get done posting pictures and "status updates" on Facebook, not to mention Twitter now, there's really nothing left to come here and write a blog update on without being redundant. Seriously, is this form of blogging becoming obsolete? It might be, at least for me...

But! In the interest of trying to not go, oh, a full month between posts, here's an update. Because really, there has been news.

First off, we spent last weekend in Anchorage! Well, a long weekend, that made up our abbreviated Spring Break. We headed in on Wednesday evening, by snowmachine because the weather (of course) wouldn't let our chartered plane fly out to get us. Once we got to Bethel, sore and soaking wet, we discovered that the jet from Anchorage was actually going to come in for the first time in two days! Buoyed by the news we might actually make it out, we trucked over to the nearest diner to have some supper and kill the few hours 'til the plane was to arrive. Then, the scariness began. We were traveling some friends/coworkers and their baby, same flights, same hotel, everything. After we ate (and only a couple minutes after Sara, Ike and I had started to walk back to the terminal while our friends got ready), our friend had a seizure and collapsed, while her husband frantically called for an ambulance. It's astonishingly lucky that this happened while we were in Bethel, where there's actual medical care available, as if it ha happened in the village they would have had to rely on help to fly out, which in the weather would have been nearly impossible. So...while Sara, Isaac and I got word of this, let the airline know that their bags needed to come off the plane, etc., and flew to Anchorage on our regularly scheduled flight, our friends were taken to the hospital, and then on to Anchorage a few hours behind us on a medivac flight. Unreal.

So, our weekend in Anchorage was a combination of relaxing, sobering, productive, and adventurous. We helped our friends as much as we could, did some shopping, ate some good food, drank some good beer, and generally did what bush teachers do when they head into the big city. We even got memberships at Sam's Club, filled a cart, and braved the "bush order" process. Our boxes are supposedly on the way, but I'll let you know how that goes :-P

As for other big news...it's LKSD Shuffle season. Contract time. Our version of the hot stove league. The time of year when gossip is afoot about who's leaving, who's changing sites, who's moving up in the world and who's giving up and going home to the lower 48 to lick their wounds. Well, as you may have known, Sara's position has been eliminated for next year. Nothing to do with anything, other than the fact that the district had apparently used the wrong funding for the program, and has to alter the way the job gets done. Not a huge deal, since all the teachers in those positions are pretty much guaranteed jobs either at their sites or elsewhere in the district if they so desire, but it has made "shuffle season" a little extra shuffly this year.

As for what Sara plans on doing, we had (or so we thought) a few options. One of the potential jobs was as a teacher coach, basically teaching teachers how to fill in the blanks left by the fact that the ELD positions were going bye-bye. Then there was the option of simply taking a regular teaching job, either here in Nunap or elsewhere in the district. This is pretty much where we thought we were headed, with a sweet, sweet spot in Oscarville with one of our good friends at a great, small school only a stone's throw from Bethel. Until....Sara heard about an opening for a jig at the District Office in Bethel, and was encouraged to apply. For various reasons, we assumed this was sort of a pie in the sky, not really plausible, "hey, I'm gonna do this just to practice my interviewing skills" kind of job application.

Turns out....she got the job. We're moving to Bethel.

I can't even wrap my brain around what this means, both in terms of challenges and advantages. The Cliffs Notes version from our "very serious discussion" about whether we wanted to take the job and move "into town"? Here we go.

Cons: Moving sucks (but we were going to have to do that no matter what), we'll have to buy a car, we have to find (and pay for, at Bethel prices) our own housing, Sara stepping into the unknown re: working at the D.O. and we'll have to live at a more "real world" pace...no more laid back lifestyle of the village, where most days the big decision is whether or not to hit up the Post Office and the store on the way home from work. It's amazing how stress free life can be where there is simply nothing to do.

Pros: Access to stores and restaurants, easier travel (it basically removes a step), stuff to do, hosting friends from the villages, work/volunteer opportunities for me, easier for people to come visit from the lower 48, access to a vet (not to mention our own, human, medical care), and a downright cool, quirky community.

Yeah, the decision was scary (as are it's implications), but it wasn't all that tough to make. Bethel ho!

Haha!

What is up with all this national media attention lately out here??

Wall Street Journal - Are These the Shortest Commercial Flights in the U.S.?

Note to readers...as the person re-doing the school's website (at a snail's pace, admittedly), don't count on that link to the dog sleds working for long ;-)

Catching up...

See? I told you I’d be back…

So what’s been going on here? Well, a whole bunch and nothing at all, if that makes any sense. A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to be able to chaperone a Cross Country trip to the village of Toksook Bay out on Nelson Island. I’d never been there, and had heard that it was a pretty cool place, so I really wanted to go. It was the first X-C meet of the season, and Nunap only had three runners that had gotten enough practices in to be eligible to travel, so Coach Carey didn’t necessarily need a male chaperone, but since the school had gotten a charter airplane instead of paying seat fare, my tagging along to help didn’t add to the cost of the trip :)

The races there are a part of a community-wide Berry Festival, so there were all kinds of things going on, and people visiting from all over. We went to see the traditional dancing for a little while, but for the most part the kids wanted to do what the kids always want to do when we travel…go to the store, hang out with friends from other villages, and stay up as late as possible. As it turned out, I had brought along Guitar Hero for the DS (always prepared…and I was never even a Boy Scout!), which proved quite the popular little activity with the students. At least until the battery ran out. So the rest of the nights were spent playing, reading, talking, and trying to sleep while the fiddle dance raged…if a fiddle dance can be said to rage…until 2am.

The races themselves were fun to watch. Toksook is right on the ocean, but there are some pretty substantial hills, cliffs, and rock formations, all of which the running courses took advantage of. The weather was not the best for a race, it was windy, cold, and spitting rain, but all three races went off without a hitch and the Nunap runners pushed hard and did well. As I said, it was a small group, but there wasn’t a whiner among them…which, to be honest, was a nice change of pace from most chaperoning trips I’ve done.

After staying another night, we flew back early Sunday afternoon. Our flight out on Friday had been interesting, flying low and on an indirect route around the hills because of low cloud cover, but on the way back it was clearer and we were able to fly as high as I’ve ever been in a bush plane – over 3000 feet. It made for some good views, and I was able to get my camera out and take a couple of pics as we were about to land back in Nunap.

So, while it was nice to take a little trip for a couple days, it was even nicer to get home. After all, I’m used to having a lot of baby-time these days, so I missed the little guy. I have to say, staying home during the school day has been working out pretty well. Yeah, I’m going a little crazy, and yeah, there have been some frustrating days (did I mention he has a couple of teeth already?), but on the whole it’s been a lot of fun. I try to get as much stuff done as I can during the day, both around the house and with my side projects. I’m starting a Radio Club at the school, as some of my students last year really took an interest in writing/recording/producing music, and I’m hoping to help them point some of those skills in the direction of their writing phases, expose them to some music that isn’t Tupac and 50 Cent (though, yeah, that stuff has it’s place…it’s just really all that some of them listen to), and I’m hoping to eventually get them to produce a few podcasts, in radio show format, to get them out there for everyone to hear. I’ll let you know once there’s a link…

But back to Isaac. It’s amazing how much he’s changing, getting new skills, discovering new things. I was a little worried the other day that he was getting sick, because he was sort of grabbing at the side of his head, until I realized that nope, he has just discovered his ear and was playing with it. He’s really taken quite a liking to Loki, trying to follow him around, and keeping a close eye on him whenever he’s romping around playing, or even just sleeping in the living room. I can’t wait until he’s old enough for them to play around together. I think they’re going to have a lot of fun.

Otherwise, not too much else going on. Missed the Packer game Monday night because our satellite had only been partially working for a few weeks (no ESPN, or half of our other channels), and I tried messing with the cables in a fit of desperation. The result? No TV at all, and of course the store didn’t have the hardware I need to fix pieces that had rotted from just laying on the tundra for who knows how many years. I managed to hook up a different cable Tuesday evening (the one from Carey’s house, because she doesn’t’ get TV and was nice enough to allow me to steal hers), which required a bit of monkeying around and belly crawling under her house in the muck, but at least for the moment, we have a 90% functioning TV connection. At least enough that I’ll be able to watch football this weekend…and really, isn’t that the main function of television, anyway?

Back...barely.

If there was ever a perfect visual representation of how we all felt when we finally made it home Tuesday night, this is it.

To be perfectly honest, I'd rather not re-live the craptastic rest of the trip, but in the interest of give the Paul Harvey-esque “rest of the story”, I’ll go ahead and give you a run down of what happened.

So when I left off, we were hanging out for another 8 hour layover in the Anchorage airport. Which, whatever, there’s internet and Starbucks, and although we were all tired and cranky and in desperate need of showers, we were able to pass the time relatively comfortably. We got the dog checked back in and through TSA (for the 3rd time in 24 hours…most inspected. Dog. Evar.), and made our way through security and to the gate. There were, of course, a whole bunch of people we knew waiting for the same flight as us, so we had a good time catching up and chit-chatting at the gate. When it came time for us to pre-board, we were really relieved to be getting on the plane, because we knew it was packed full of all the people that were scheduled for that flight, plus all of us on the morning plane that circled and came back. JUST as we were handing the gate agent our ticket, we heard the worst sound possible…our names being called over the P.A., asking us to come to the desk.

Let me just preface this by saying I have ALWAYS had nothing but good luck with all of the Alaska Airlines staff people I’ve had contact with…compared to other airlines I’ve flown, they seem to try to go out of their way to be helpful, from the flight attendants to the desk agents to the people who answer the customer service phone lines, I’ve always been really impressed with the level of service we’ve gotten. That’s why I’ll chalk up the attitude of the person at the desk to stress, likely from a long few days of dealing with stranded Alaskans and tourists due to the volcano situation…but this one specific b!%@# was just plain rude. And it’s not just that she was rude, but I have the distinct feeling she was either trying to pull one over on us, or just plain lying. And if you know me at all, you probably know how I react if I feel like someone’s trying to screw me over.

So we get out of line and rush over to the desk, and of course, Sara’s already worried, stressed, and starting to cry…because really, there’s no positive reason that you can be called to the desk at that point. Well, Miss Desk Lady informs us in an accusatory manner that we had “told the airline that our dog’s kennel was a ‘400’ size when it’s actually a ‘500’”, and because there’s 7 dogs on the flight and not enough room, we need to purchase a new kennel from the airline (at their inflated price, of course), or not be allowed to get on the plane. Yeah, you can imagine the reaction that caused. FIRST of all, when we first flew with this kennel 2 years ago, we HAD ALASKA AIRLINES MEASURE IT to tell us what size it was and what we needed to pay to transport it. SECOND of all, when we’ve booked or flights since, we’ve told them it was an extra large kennel. Is there even a size larger that we could book it as? And what’s with this “400” and “500” business? When I asked her these questions, she wouldn’t (or couldn’t) tell me.

Well, upon first hearing the situation, and Miss Desk Lady’s attitude, Sara got really upset, which set Isaac off crying (not that it took much at this point), and I just about lost it…enough to be willing to fight a little bit not to get bowled over, anyway. I’m not sure if she was expecting us just to say ok, we’ll pay for a smaller kennel, and then pay to have our regular kennel shipped, or if she thought we’d just choose to spend ANOTHER 12 hours in the Anchorage airport, but I wasn’t about to do either until I was sure it was absolutely necessary. Long story short, there was another guy there that had two dogs in large kennels, and he took pity on us (or just wanted to quiet the couple with the crying baby) and offered to combine his two dogs into one kennel. This shut Desk Lady up, and she said that could work, but continued to be snotty with us, telling us that thanks to this guy “stepping up”, we could go ahead and get on the plane. Funny thing is, after all that, when we all got to Bethel the guy’s two dogs were in separate kennels, so no rearrangement or new kennels were even needed in the first place.

Aaaanywho, we made it to Bethel in one piece, got all our stuff (which was a relief, as I thought for certain the general mess in ANC, plus with the Bethel flights messed up that day, would have made for some lost bags), and over to JP for the charter home. JP was grumpy as usual, but he’s good and likes dogs, and with the cost of seat fares these days the charter’s not really that much more expensive. Plus, he stayed open for us (as well as another couple we know that had chartered to Quinhagak), which he didn’t really NEED to do. We couldn’t get a hold of anyone by phone to let them know we were on our way, which was a little stressful (to one of us, anyways), but we took off and got home and got a ride from the (new and improved!) airstrip just fine, making it home around 10pm…making for a total travel time of about 37 hours, personal records for both of us.

As for the rest of the week, there’s been a lot of unpacking, cleaning, organizing, etc. We returned to a few surprises at home, including a new floor in our living room (linoleum? I liked our carpet…), and one new window and our bedroom window completely boarded up. Sounds like some classy Nunap youth(s) were going around throwing rocks through windows in teacher housing over the summer. So after cleaning broken glass out of our bed as well as Isaac’s, washing sheets, as well as cleaning up after the folks who were doing “repairs” around the house (picking nails out of the carpet…I even found another two today :-/), we finally got to bed. Hey, at least the boarded up window means it’s dark in our bedroom, right?

School’s a whole ‘nother issue. I’ll probably post on that situation once it’s resolved. Basically, I have no idea yet if I’ll be working at all this semester, and the semester starts Monday. So yeah, to be continued…

Hanging out with Ted

After dodging ash clouds on the flight from Chicago to Anchorage last night, pulling our usual 8 hour overnight layover in baggage claim with the dog (left), and boarding our flight to Bethel on time, I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief that the latest installment of the migration was complete, or at least near-complete, without too much of a hitch.

That'll show me for even letting the thought creep into my head.

Isaac decided about halfway to Bethel that he was done with airplanes for the day. Not that I blame him, I'd pretty much had it with planes at that point as well. Or so we thought. About 15 minutes out of Bethel the pilot let us know that some pretty dense fog had rolled into the airport there, and that if it broke up enough, we'd "try" to land. Well, after making a circle or two, we tried. And waved off. And flew all the way back to Anchorage.

*sigh*

So here we sit, waiting for our second try at getting to Bethel, not leaving here til 6:45 tonight. That puts us in Bethel at 8, and our charter guy says he'll take us then. If we get there on time. If the weather's ok. So many variables, and it's not even winter yet.

I just want to get home. The thought of being stuck in Bethel tonight is unbareable. We still may just push back 'til tomorrow morning's flight if it looks like this evening's is going to be at all late. At least we can hang in baggage claim again tonight in Anchorage...no such luck in Bethel, we'd have to find somewhere we could take the dog. I just don't know if we can do another night on airport food and no sleep...

Well hello there

Yes yes, it's been forever. But in my defense...no, I can't say I've been that busy. Well, with baby stuff, I have, but that's in no way prevented me from posting, really. I'm just out of habit considering the summer migration and all it entails...

But yes, we got to Wisconsin just fine...the trip went pretty well, all things considered. Honestly, the biggest challenge with Isaac was the airports, not the planes. Sara and I are considering getting a jet engine installed in our bedroom. It works wonderfully at putting (and keeping) the baby asleep.

So our days back in Wisconsin have been so far filled with babyness and beer and food and family and friends. Pardon the use of the space saving crutch, but I'm sure many (most?) of you are here for pictures...so I'll get right on that...

First visit at Grandma and Grandpa's :-)

Baby's first cheese factory trip!

Big smile in the bathtub...

Loki's enjoying summer vacation too...making sure he gets his proper attention and plenty of swimming :-P

Isaac stretching out on his amazing, handmade puppy quilt. We're just picturing him dragging it around by an ear in a couple years...good thing they're triple stitched. Way to go, Mary!!!

Chillin' on the deck up north at the shack...hanging out, rockin' the hat..

Home again

We made it!

After a little bit of suspense, we did indeed make it back to Nunap on Wednesday afternoon. We were worried, because, as you may remember, the airport is on the opposite side of the Johnson River as the school and our house, and the river ice had melted just enough while we were gone to make walking/snowmachining across impossible, but not enough for the ice to actually break loose and leave, thus making crossing by boat easy. It's the "break up" season, after-all...an annual event here in the area, with all the expectation and uncertainty it involves. The tension is thick in the air...everyone's waiting to be able to get out by boat and after the birds that are flying around.

So, after discussing and wavering back and forth a little bit on Tuesday about whether to postpone travel for a few days based on river conditions, it was decided that we'd take our chances and hope that somebody'd be able to help us across. Sure enough, Matthew and Raymond were nice enough to meet us on the "across" side of the river from school. So we loaded into the boat, motored about a third of the way across the river, and then us guys got out on the river ice and pulled the boat up, in order to push it across to the next area of open water near the shore we were trying to reach. It was a little nerve-racking for this kassa'q to be pushing a boat across rotten ice, listening to the cracking and groaning underfoot and radiating out from the boat, but I had a tight grip that (I hope) would have ensured my ability to jump right in had the ice gave way. Alas, we made it to the rest of the open water, and on to the boardwalk and home. Home!

Don't get me wrong, Anchorage was great, for a bunch of reasons. But there really is no place like home, sleeping in our own bed, being able to get into our own routine with Isaac here now. Not to mention, we missed Loki :-)

The weather was fantastic for us traveling Wednesday and yesterday, too...really warm and sunny, helping to melt that river ice. Which it was such a shock to wake up this morning to find 6 inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground. Oh well, it won't last long.

What the...?

Well, made it to Anchorage! And as Richard Hayden would say, "and in just a shade under a decade too...all riiiight!"

Seriously. New personal record - just barely under twelve hours spent waiting at the Bethel airport yesterday. And by airport, of course, I just mean big concrete room with chairs. It was like a slow-burn nightmare. It's not really a fun story, just planes getting canceled and such.

But I made it! and just in time for a late-spring blizzard, apparently. One of the Alaska Airlines guys said he's lived in Anchorage all his life and he'd never seen a late season storm like this. No idea how much they've gotten here "officially", but it's about knee-deep in the driveway. After a week, Sara says, of beautiful, sunny, warm weather. Trees were budding, all the snow was gone. Oh well.

K, I'm off to explore. Yee haw!

Google-riffic

I decided to make up a quick Google Map of some of the points and places I've been mentioning here on this blog. I may incorporate it into the html of the site at some point, but for now it's just a post. So zoom, pan, and enjoy.

View Larger Map

So let's take stock...

Here I sit, on a chair in the District Office in Bethel. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I vaguely smell. And my week is just getting started. Time to take a look at my situation.

Sara and I went to Anchorage on Saturday, hung out and had a generally good time, and had our last pre-coming-in-for-good appointment yesterday morning. The plan was to try to get back to the village yesterday afternoon, get a day (and more importantly a night) back at home, and then come in for the multimedia competition and training here this afternoon, and staying 'til Friday.

Well, as often is the case, the weather had other plans. Bethel weather was crappy yesterday, so our flight from Anchorage to Bethel was late, and flights out of Bethel to the villages were all shut down. Too windy and rain/snow mix. Then, Era Aviation, who we like to fly when we don't have the dog with us (slightly cheaper, much more convenient than Alaska Airlines for BET-ANC), bumped our bag. We've flown with them twice now...the first time they sent our bags to Kodiak, despite everything being clearly labeled and us checking in 2 hours ahead of the flight. This time, they just "bumped" our suitcase...the plane wasn't full, our box of groceries made it, thankfully, on the plane, but our suitcase did not. It wasn't heavy, it isn't large, there was room...they just didn't bring it. So I don't think we'll be flying with Era again. Their baggage people in Anchorage are just too...sketchy.

So we spent last night in Bethel, paying Bethel prices for a Bethel-quality B&B room, picked up our bumped bag at Alaska Air, who brought it in for us last night on the jet, and got Sara on the first Yute flight back to Nunap. I'm just hanging here, as it didn't make much sense to me to fly back to the village this morning, only to turn around and fly back in with the team this afternoon. So Sara's going to send a bag with some clothes, my school-issued Macintosh that I need for the training, and other etceteras with the team when they come.

So here I sit. I'm depressed because Favre retired today and the last starting quarterback I've seen for the Packers was Don Majkowski when I was 12 years old. I'm tired, I'm grumpy, I'm dirty, and I'm ready to go home (notice "hungry" disappeared from the list...a very nice lady took pity on me while i was writing this and gave me a donut :-P ). And my trip hasn't even started yet. I'll spend the next three nights on a classroom floor. Wish me luck.

Stick-venture!

Well, our trip to Anchorage went really well...relaxing, productive, and fun. But since I last posted, we had a bit of a time getting home. So by popular request, let's continue the theme of stick figure representations of our trip, shall we?

Here we are at Era Aviation in Bethel, finding out that our checked bag and box of perishable groceries had not come with us from Anchorage, but had instead been sent to Kodiak.

Here we are at the airport in Nunap, with me, Trent, and the pilot pushing the plane back onto the runway after getting pulled down towards the tundra by a snowdrift.

Here I am racing to turn off the washing machine after realizing the draining wash water was draining onto the bathroom floor due to some pipes freezing/plugging/who knows what.

Fun!

Sara's appointment went great this morning. Now we're sitting at the Anchorage airport, waiting to fly back to Bethel, and this is the weather email I see posted on the staff board:

Bethel, Alaska (Airport)
Updated: 18 min 22 sec ago
Blowing Snow
-20 °F / -29 °C
Blowing Snow
Humidity: 74%
Dew Point: -26 °F / -32 °C
Wind: 20 mph / 32 km/h / 8.7 m/s from the NNE
Pressure: 29.96 in / 1014 hPa (Steady)
Windchill: -48 °F / -44 °C
Visibility: 4.0 miles / 6.4 kilometers
UV: 0 out of 16
Clouds:
Clear -
(Above Ground Level)
Elevation: 121 ft / 37 m

Forecast for Kuskokwim Delta Hide
Updated: 5:00 am AST on February 4, 2008
Wind Chill Advisory in effect until 11 am AST Tuesday...

Anchoraging...

So, we're in Anchorage this weekend for Sara's doctor appointment on Monday morning. We've been hanging out, enjoying good food, some shopping, and (for one of us) some good beer!

Unfortunately, not only can Sara not partake in the hop-heavy fun (Alaskan Brewing IPA...yum!), we didn't bring a camera along on this trip, so I can't take a picture of the beer like I did last time.

But at the liquor store, Sara had an idea....so here you have it, my own stick figure ms-paint drawing of the current state of our room here at the Dimond Center Hotel :-)

iTraining

I spent last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with a great group of students, in Bethel for training for some of the great multimedia tools that are on the school computers. The district flew up an Apple trainer from California who, from the sound of it, does a ton of these sorts of workshops. At first, I was a little skeptical of how the training was going to work, but I have to say, he won me (and more importantly the kids) over right away and just took off running with showing us the capabilities and the nuts and bolts of some of the "iLife" programs that come with computers that the schools have for all the students to use.

Now, I've never been a "Mac guy", but that's mostly been because I've never had occasion to use a Mac for any reason. So when I did, it was only to, say, check my email on Sara's school computer, and of course the interface was pretty foreign to me, and I just didn't have the comfort level to use it like I do with my PCs. But now that I'm using them more, and seeing the kinds of programs available on Macs, and their focus on creative-type stuff, I'm definitely seeing the appeal. I'm even entertaining the possibility of having a Mac around at some point in the near future, and splitting my time on seperate gaming/work-focused and creative-stuff-focused setups. Not that I want to buy another computer right now...just saying I can see myself doing it in the future sometime. Like maybe a tax-return or PFD time splurge...

But the training itself went awesome...can't wait to get started on some of the website and podcast stuff we're going to do with the High School students next semester. I think they're going to have a blast...

Update

For those of you wondering...here's what I know so far:

1. Sara's appointment went really well.

2. The ultrasound person wrote down the sex of the baby on a slip of paper and put it in an envelope along with some snapshots, etc (apparently the printer was working this time...heh). We'll open it together when she gets home tomorrow :-)

3. You can definitely expect another blog post on the subject.

*cue halleluja chorus*

New York Times: Some Airlines to Offer In-Flight Internet Service

One of the airlines mentioned? Alaska. Yeah, how nice will it be to be able to get online during the six-and-a-half hour flight between Chicago and Anchorage? A much better use of $10 than the "digi-players", that's for sure :-)

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they equip the long-haul planes by spring. If so, I might have to invest in an extra laptop battery so I get my money's worth out of the flight...heh.

KWN N.Y.O. Pictures (& November Rain?)

Sorry about the G'n'R reference...I just read the latest weather forecast for the week. Sad, sad. We're stuck in this upper-20s to mid-30s pattern, which has meant lots of snow (good), but no ice being made on the river (bad). Hence, our lovely snowmachine is left sitting, waiting for a chance to get off the boardwalk and out and about across the river.

Been a while since I posted, hasn't it? Been kinda busy, but then again, that's a good thing. I was able to accompany the school's NYO team to Quinhagak this past weekend, and it was loads of fun. In fact, why don't I just post a few of the pics I took and tell a little of the story that way?

Loading up the boat to head over to the airport. One of the older guys that works at the school said that this is only the second or third time in his life, that he can remember, that the river's still open in November. Someone call Al Gore.


At the airport...our buses have arrived!


For some reason, I'm almost always on the wrong side of the plane to be able to take a picture of the village coming in or out...that, or the weather's too bad to see anything. Friday was beautiful flying weather, so I was able to snap a shot from a little ways away. Hopefully, sometime, I'll be able to get a better, closer shot.


The airport in Quinhagak is a couple miles out of the village proper, but unlike Nunap, they have actual roads! So some nice folks from the school came and picked us up...and Carey and I "got" to ride in the back of the truck. A little chilly, but a nice view of the mountains!


One of the best things about being able to travel to Quinhagak was seeing our friends, Eric and Sherry, and their little one. Sara wanted to come along and see a whole bunch of students, teachers, and parents she knows from when she taught here for a couple years, but unfortunately, there ended up not being any room on the charters for her to tag along. Here, Eric is teaching his boy an essential NYO skill...the High Kick!


After we got settled in, it was time to start the events. Since there were only two teams there, I ended up helping to judge almost everything. This is the third meet that I've helped, so I'm starting to feel like I'm understanding all the rules enough that I won't be nervous about judging on my own, if need be, next time. Anyways, here is one of our students balancing for the One Arm Reach.


After all the events were over on Friday night, the Quinhagak team stuck around for a sleepover with the Nunap team at the school. Lots of hanging out and open gym time. They have a bunch of rollerblades at their school for some reason, so everyone had a good time playing rollerhockey and generally skating around and trying not to fall on their butts.

We were ahead of schedule when we finished up on Friday night (another nice thing about only having two teams there), but we still had more events to do on Saturday. Here is a very quick video of some kids practicing for one of my favorites, Eskimo Stick Pull (named so as to differentiate it from Indian Stick Pull, which is a completely different beast, and involves Crisco. Seriously.)


Another benefit of bringing a big team to a small meet...here's the high school team accepting the 1st place trophy!


It had been a long 24 hours, and without much sleep, as I can attest...here are the boys, (mostly) sleeping on the plane ride home. The pilot woke them up shortly after this pic was taken, however, with a few good rounds of "roller coaster" :-)

Trip Report

Well, as I believe I had mentioned here at some point, we headed out of the village to Anchorage this past weekend. Sara had a couple of doctor's appointments scheduled for Thursday morning, so the plan was to head out from the village on Wednesday afternoon right after school, then from Bethel to Anchorage on the jet. Well, we almost didn't make it. The weather had been fine, clear and sunny, all day Wednesday. Then, about half an our before we were supposed to catch our plane ride out after school, the clouds and snow rolled in, and we were on dreaded weather hold for a couple hours, which of course meant sitting, worrying, and stewing over the fact that our well planned and much-looked-forward-to trip was going to be foiled by a dastardly October snowstorm. But luckily, at about quarter to 6 we heard the pilot call over the VHF that he was 6 minutes out, and we rushed to the boat and over to the airport for the first portion, and really the only stressful part, of our trip. So we got to Anchorage with no problems after that, picked up our rental car, got to the hotel and checked in at around 11:30 or so. Despite our exhaustion and the fact that we had to be awake in about 6 hours to get to the clinic for the appointments, we decided that we needed to celebrate getting to the big city by ordering a pizza. It was, needless to say, delicious.

So, the next morning we drove over to the clinic for our appointments. As you probably already know by now (or have probably guessed), Sara and I are officially expecting our first child in May :-) Well, all the appointments went just fine, and we got some questions answered and issues resolved and schedule set up, so I'm a little more comfortable with the logistics of how this is all going to work, with us out here in the boonies and two plane rides away from our doctor.

The rest of the trip was a bit of a whirlwind, but a relaxing whirlwind, if that's at all possible. We got a bunch of shopping in at a whole bunch of different places, including some places that we hadn't planned on...we ended up using a technique called "drive around for a while 'til we see something that looks interesting". It worked well for us.

We also got to go out to eat a few times to satisfy that little part of our brains that have felt deprived of the not-always-healthy-but-oh-so-satisfying restaurant experience. Sara wasn't able to get sushi, sadly, due to her present state, but we did get to the Bear's Tooth Theater/Pub for some excellent eats and a screening of the newest Harry Potter movie we had not managed to get to over the summer. I was also able, at the Bear's Tooth, to get a nice glass of Porter to supplement the bottle of Imperial Stout and the six-pack of ESB I had picked up for the hotel room. Hey, there are other things I was looking forward to that we can't get in the village besides just gyros and fresh veggies!

So, having tamed the grumbling in our brains for things that we were craving, we headed back to the airport Saturday morning and made the trip back to the village. Now that we've had the first appointments, Sara doesn't mind me talking about the whole baby situation (which I can totally understand...don't want to have to un-tell a bunch of people should anything go wrong at first)...but I promise, I have no intention of letting this turn into a baby-centric blog or anything. I know that can happen with expectant/new parents, but I'd like to think I can resist the urge to post nonstop pics and videos of "baby's first spit bubble" and the like. But we'll see. It's definitely going to be a big part of my "Alaska Adventure" from here on out, so you'll definitely not have to dig too far for baby news. But yeah, that's what's up :-)

On a side note...freeze-up is happening! We pulled boats out of the water yesterday (good thing we got back Saturday...I don't think we would have made it across the river yesterday!!), and school was canceled today after almost half of the kids didn't show up because of the river. So it's just about time to get the snowmachine out of storage and start the fun that all that entails! Woohoo!!

When in Anchorage...

This is what is sitting right next to me, right now, as I type this.

I love Anchorage.

Almost as much as I love good beer.

Back in the Village...just a quick note

Woo! Got home yesterday late morning, took a nap, started the unpacking/settling in process...good times. Phone line wasn't transfered over like it was supposed to be my now, but it should be today...if I was supposed to call you when I got home, sorry!

I have a lot of backed-up posting (not to mention email) to catch up on, for sure...but it'll be a day or two until we're settled in enough to really make that a priority. But it'll get there. Oh, and FYI...we're back on filtered internet, which means no Facebook, no Myspace, no MSN Messenger for a while. So if you want to find me, drop me an email, comment here, or dust off the ol' AOL Messenger (AIM) if you have it...my contact name is 'przybby'.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and let y'all know what's up. More to come, of course :-)