Party time, excellent...

There's this really cool tradition up here called a "throw party"...basically what it is, is that when a lady or a female member of your family reaches a big life milestone, you invite all the other ladies in the village over and toss gifts, essentials, and random stuff to everyone off your roof/porch/whatever. From what we are told, it apparently originated out of a mix of celebration, a sense of community sharing, and also a little bit of bragging (hey, look at how cool I am, I can afford to throw all my stuff to you all, cuz I can just go get more!) Really, it all just adds up to a good time for the ladies...not to mention a little bit of elbow-sharpening and jockeying for position :-P

So, apparently, last spring Sara had discussed this all with a woman whose granddaughter had an occasion coming up over the summer (picking her first berries! woo!!), and they decided that in the fall, after we were all married up and back to the village, they'd do kind of a joint throw. Well, this all went down last week, and it was a lot of fun to watch.

There was definitely a lot of "boxing out" and trying to get good spots, and the windy conditions made for some interesting throws on lighter items. Also, unfortunately there were a few injuries (kitchen knives...yes, packaged, but still pointy...and large rubbermaid items were the culprits), but everyone seemed to have a grand old time.

I'll let Sara further elaborate on the whole story on her blog at some point, but I just wanted to post a pic (and maybe a video, once I get it off the camera and formatted), and let you know what we've been up to...

Strictly for purposes of linking...

I wish I would have thought of taking/posting this picture...oh well ;-)

Almost looks like Bullwinkle could be hiding under there, no?

Seriously.

It's been raining for two weeks straight. And looking at the forecast, it's supposed to rain for another week, at least. At this point, we'll be able to just boat to school in the morning.

But on the bright side, if it was a couple months from now and this was snow, the snowmobiling would be awesome.

Just keep truckin' on...

Well, we're already in the middle of September, eh? Well then...this semester is fixing to fly right by. Cool.

Was looking through some of the pictures Sara took in the spring, and noticed there was a good one of our new house from the front. So, I figured I'd include it to give a little frame of reference for what I've been raving about...the closets, windows, actual kitchen, etc. So yeah, this is our house.

Also, I wanted to post a link to a blog my brother started. For those of you who don't know my brother, he's an EMT/Paramedic/Firefighter/jack-of-all-emergency-trades, and he recently moved down from Wisconsin to Arizona for a job as a Flight Paramedic on one of the major EMS helicopter services in the Southwest. If you want to check in with him and see some cool pictures of the desert/mountains/helicopters (and an interesting climate counterpoint to this blog...seriously, my parents must be wondering how one of their sons ended up moving to one of the hottest spots in the country, and the other up to friggin' Alaska), check out his blog.

Otherwise, not really too much to update from up here. Weather's been about the same, except for the wind really kicking up lately. Days in the 50s, night down to maybe 40. Losing a lot of light, though. Pretty soon we'll be down from sunset at 11:00 when we got here to it being dark when we leave work after school. So it goes, so it goes. Looking forward to freeze-up, though.

Hoping to get out for an adventure of some sort here soon...itching to do some fishing. So I might have an actual interesting update for you soon...with "might" being the operative word.


*note - I fixed the link (thanks Patty)...I was just checking the specs on the endline for the rotary....girder......I'm retarded.*

Looooong Weekend

And not just because of the holiday.

We've both been down sick since, oh, last week sometime. I went home sick Wednesday afternoon, went to the clinic, found out I had strep. Good times. Plus, I think whatever shot it was they gave me for an antibiotic kicked my butt...I've had a screaming headache since, and that was almost a week ago at this point.

*whine*

Sara started out the opposite, with the flu-ish symptoms, and now she's getting the sore throat. She tested negative for strep last week, but I think she's going to go in today and get re-tested. I guess if there's anything you can say about the two of us, we're definitely good at sharing :-P

Hopefully we can move past it and get back on track this week. We were really a pitiful sight this weekend, just lying around the house, alternately napping, drinking tea, and watching TV for three days. Woohoo.

Silly Geese

Did you watch Dirty Jobs last night?!?

If not, and you want to see what it looks like up here, catch a repeat. The episode is titled "Wild Goose Chase". They had some pretty good shots of Bethel and the tundra and what it looks like flying around up here, etc.

Only thing that bothered me was that they kept referring to the area as the "Yukon Delta" instead of the "Yukon-Kuskokwim" Delta. Though, I guess that is the name of the refuge, so I can see why they'd be confused, but still...give the Kusko some props! I think one of the wildlife guys said "Y-K delta" once, so I was happy.

We were laughing at the camera guys who kept getting stuck, but seriously...who hasn't gone up to their knees in the muck a least once? And we thought the description of walking on the tundra as like walking on a waterbed was pretty accurate. Now if it would only get cold and freeze again, then we could bust out the snowmachine and start zipping around :-)

The Frozen Stormy Tundra

While sitting around, working hard at doing nothing on Saturday afternoon, I started to notice that I was hearing a familiar rumble outside. What made it unusual, though, was the fact that there's hardly ever real thunderstorms out here. I was a little confused, because I was looking out the front window, seeing blue sky and sunshine, but all of a sudden it started to downpour...without the sunshine going away. So I went over to the kitchen window that looks in the opposite direction, and this is what I saw.

Huzzah for tundra thunderstorms!

There was even a funnel cloud in Bethel last week...a cold air funnel, and nothing too exciting, but still!!

Oh! Almost forgot!

Some folks have been asking how our beer experiment ended up going. Well, the reviews were generally positive, and Sara and I both really enjoyed it and thought that all in all, it went pretty darn well. So we're looking forward to getting right back at it whenever we get the chance (unfortunately, it has to wait 'til we're back in Wisconsin...we live in a dry village up here, for those of you just tuning in), and trying some darker, more complex, more dangerous brews :-P

That's one thing we're finding out about homebrewing...once you start, you're hooked. And for every batch of beer you make, you come up with a dozen ideas for more beers you want to make. I'm not sure if I'll have enough time over Christmas break, but I'm already dreaming about what would happen if I tried infusing a cream stout with a little bit of peppermint leaf...

Back in the Saddle

Well, here we are, back in the village, back in school, back at it. It's amazing the things you can forget in a month or two. Like how nice the sunsets are (not to mention how late, and how long they last...when the sun's moving at crazy angles, it seems like sunset lasts an hour and a half sometimes!)

We're finishing up our first week of school today, and I'm actually feeling pretty good about the year so far. My mornings consist of being an in-class aide for some math classes being taught from the District Office by teleconference. As long as I stay on top of things, I think my mornings will go pretty well and be fairly low on the stress meter. My afternoons, on the other hand, could get interesting. I've got the whole Junior High (mind you, that's only about 25 kids total), split into two classes for Keyboarding/Computers. Mind you, there's no curriculum...I'm making it up as I go along. So that could get interesting. Added into the mix, I've got a P.E. class. Yeah. Try to contain your laughter.

As far as everything else goes...lemme see...

Getting settled into our new house. It's so nice to have an actual house this year, as opposed to the ex-classroom we were living in last year. Now we have rooms! With doors! And even closets, too! And more than one window! And more than 6 inches of counter space! It's the lap of luxury, let me tell ya :-P

Speaking of luxury...we've even been able to watch the last two Packer preseason games, seeing as the second was a Seattle game, and the Seahawks are our local NFL market, and last night's game was nationally televised on Fox for some reason. I think I've already seen as many packer games this season as I did all of last season. And they're on nationally I think 5 times during the regular season, too! Thank goodness for that stretch of the Thanksgiving Lions game and then the NFL Network!

What else, what else...hmm. Loki's loving it being back up here. Back to swimming and frolicking and jumping off of docks. I'm never sure how much he really remembers of people and places, or if he's just good at getting comfortable as long as we're there with him, but something interesting happened when we got back. He got out of the house when we opened the door one of the first days we were back, and he immediately ran out of our new house, over to our old place, and across the boardwalk to where his friend Bailey lived last year. Unfortunately, Bailey and his owner Christina have moved to Oscarville for this year, so Loki didn't get to go in and play, but I thought it was cool that he remembered where Bailey lived and ran right there...I guess his memory is pretty good.

And with that, I think I'm out of stuff to share at the moment...that, and I need to go to class. Hope all's well, and talk to you all again soon!

On the ball...sort of

Just because I feel like I can't really move along on this blog until I give you guys some wedding pic fodder, here we go...maybe I can be persuaded to post some party pics later on, but for now I'm sticking to the formal pictures of the main players. Honestly, it's 'cuz most of you out there either have yourself or have at least seen a lot of the pictures from the reception...even those of you who were there and have...ahem...fuzzy recollection of the evening :-P

Here's the wedding party, in all it's glory. Note the sober groomsmen and clean, intact dresses...it was all downhill from this point.

The MacDonald family shot from before the ceremony...

...and the Przybylskis. We're not much for family portraits, and certainly not much for the tuxes, so enjoy it!

And here's the happy couple. Mind you, I chose this one to post for a specific reason, aside from the fact that I like the bridge. You see, Sara's an inch taller than me already, and with the heels she was wearing...well...in most of the pictures I look like a munchkin. Here at least I get a little boost. Hey, it's my blog, I make the rules!