I don't know how it could get bettter...

When I decided to go to the meetings to hear about this opportunity to come to Alaska or to set up an interview and then accept it when I got the call, I never imagined it would be like this. This experience has been more than I could have ever thought. It's weekends like this one with friends like I have that really make me think about it. Not only that but also the experience within this district and working in this school - I love everything about it. I can't imagine that any district I teach in will ever be the same as this one.

 

Friday evening came around and our plans of a fire on the beach after pizza night were quickly shot due to the weather - the clouds rolled in and filled the clear sky from the day and the wind picked up as well. Instead, the four of us did pizza and hung out all night - it was a nice way to end the week. : ) Plus, it was my first night in my bed room at their house... I have pictures for those of you who wanted to see it! They're pretty great to do this for me!

 

 

 

 

Kasie and I spent the majority of the day on Saturday beading glass floats while sitting on the couch in our PJs, not too bad, right? Then those clouds that had moved in the night before, made their way out and the skies were clear and bright blue! Which only means one thing up here, you've got to get out and enjoy it!

 

The tide was at a negative that evening so the four of us decided to head out and cross North River. We left around 6:30 and ended up getting back around 11 - since it stays light out until close to 11 now, you really lose track of time! It was a pretty great night with great friends. We saw quite a few whales off the shore again, another baby seal and found quite a few more glass floats and whiskey bottles. : ) 

 

 

This was a chubby little guy who was barking at us and then he'd wimper like a dog... made me so sad. Their moms drop them off on the shore at high tide and then they go out hunting for food and pick these guys back up at the next high tide. These babies could be on the shore for 12 hours waiting!

 

So many floats : )

 

They're back! And if I was listening correctly when Jeff told me, this is a female?

 

I don't know what I'm going to do without them.  

 

 

Some of these I stole from Kasie of course, because they're so good. : )

 

 

Tomorrow starts what I think may be a crazy week... graduation is this coming Friday so starting Wednesday, we will begin decorating the gym and all week will be getting ready for that. Thursday, the Kresl's come up from the Bay to visit and bring of their stuff up. (They're who we stayed with during Spring Break : ) ) and I'm sure it'll be a fun, busy week/weekend. Hard to believe it's one of the last... 

Fingers crossed.

Most of my weeks here in Alaska have flown by. They go so quickly and before I know it, it's a new month... then all of a sudden I'm starting my 30 day countdown until I have to leave this place. One month from today I'll be in Anchorage doing some shopping with Kasie before we head up to visit some friends of ours that were the substitutes at the school when I first arrived. After those few days, it'll be time to head home!

 

However, this week is an exception to that. It's been a long week here for some reason. We've had awesome weather and the sun has been shining! Most of my days after school have been spent packing and cleaning... tomorrow I move out of the house I've been staying in for the past four months and I move in with Kasie and Derek. They are so great; they've made me my own little "room" that has a bed and storage along with Christmas lights and pictures hung up above my bed. I even have my own little closet at the end of the bed. I'll post a picture later but I almost cried when I saw it - those of you who know me won't be surprised. ; )

As much as I'm excited to be moving in with them and moving down here with the rest of the teachers, it makes it even more real that the time is flying by. I can't explain how much I've learned and how much I've grown from this experience and the people and kids I've met along the way.

Well, with the long week, I'm excited for tomorrow! A weekend with great friends is much needed. It sounds like it'll be a good one as usual and I'm hoping the weather cooperates with our plans! You never know with that... I'm crossing my fingers!

Kasie and I with some help from Derek and Jeff, have started another project in the library! Kasie did an awesome Earth Day craft with the kids and we decided to hang them up above the books.... naturally, this lead to us coming up with this whole plan to decorate above there. We ripped and crumpled up paper to make those flowers and the sign that turned into a sun. It really helps to brighten it up in there. I'm sure we'll add some more to it... but for now, I like it. : )

Earth Day crafts - showing me their Earths!

Very proud of his tower....

 

I may or may not have helped him with this a little bit. ; ) He was very proud of his tower, too! 

Today is Alecia's birthday and so on Tuesday before Kasie went out of town, we had a dessert get together with the staff as we've done for every one's birthday. As you guys can probably tell by now, we tend to go over board for pretty much everything so dessert should be no exception. We found this recipe on pinterest and had to make it. The bottom one is called Butterfinger Cookie Dough Cheesecake bars and the top one is the same exact thing only instead of Butterfingers, we used one of Alecia's favorites - Carmellos! Needless to say, they were probably the best desserts I've ever had. It's a layer of cookie, a layer of the candy of your choice, a layer of cheesecake, some more cookie dough dropped on top and then chocolate chips! They were so sweet but so delicious!

 

That's it for today! There's a lot of cleaning, some packing and some extra sleep in my future. : )

 

Hopefully I'll have some pictures from the weekend to share soon... until then, miss you all!

Life is pretty great!

What I thought was going to be a snowy weekend turned into a beautiful weekend! The weather is so nice and warm. By warm, I mean in the 40's. It's funny how great it feels when it hits the 40's.... almost like summer. ; )

Saturday we shot skeet during the day out back in the tundra. It was my first time shooting skeet and it was so fun. I hit a few clay birds, too!

I took this picture so you could see how the tundra can me. It's full of holes.

 

Kasie and I went for a walk afterwards and ended up walking for two hours. I guess since she's been away for a week, we had a lot to catch up on! We walked down the beach to the point - where we find most of the beach glass - and walked back through the tundra and made our way back. We took Heiden along with us and got rained/hailed on at one point but it was a nice walk!

 

 

Last night was dinner and a movie night... chili and Aladdin. Sounds about right? Haha : )

Today was no exception with the weather. Kasie and I decided to get out and enjoy it one more time before another week started. We drove out to the beach and rode down the beach to North River. We ended up crossing it and going about 20 minutes out that way. We found a few glass floats and some glass bottles from Japan, it was a really fun ride.

I finally got some pictures of the swans! 

Saw quite a few pairs of bald eagles today!

We were driving down the beach, we came across this little guy! A baby seal... it broke my heart seeing him try to get back into the water. We were standing right next to him when he finally did get back into the water. Look at that little face. : ) 

While we were standing there with the seal, we noticed some whales off the shore! There were at least two out there!

 

I was standing on the beach next to a baby seal and watching whales out in the Bering Sea... it never fails to amaze me being here.

Right after that, we came up on this fox eating some jelly fish!

After our ride... dirty, with some sun and wind on our faces! It was a good day with a great friend, full of animals. : )

 

Recess with the preschoolers!  

 Sweetest little girl, Daisy!

Dress up!

 

 

 

 

Love these kids!

The past few days have been gorgeous. A little windy but really nice... a little more like spring time!

 

I've got some pictures to share from the past few days.

 

 This picture doesn't do it justice. The sunrise this morning when I was leaving for school at 7:15. Both the sunrises and the sunsets never fail to amaze me!

The elementary kids on a field trip today. We went down to old village to compare and contrast the old school to the new school. Mrs. Manning is a pretty awesome teacher! Behind where the kids are standing, is where the old road ends. That road used to go the whole way out and around to the old houses that I've posted pictures of before. Due to the erosion and the beach moving in, just like many of the houses, the road has washed away.

Love these kids!

This morning on my way into school I passed a swan hanging out in the swamp. The other morning, Jeff had pointed out to me that the swans were back in town and there were quite a few pairs around the swamp beside the school. It's nice to see them, makes it feel more like spring with birds around! So, after talking to my dad this morning and telling him about the swans, I went out to try to get some pictures. Needless to say, it was cold and I couldn't find the swans but I did get to see some more of the sunrise. I love how this picture turned out! Hopefully I'll be able to capture the swans at some point.

One more of us today down at old village with the beach in the background. They're pretty awesome kids who have stolen my heart!

 

: )



Sunny Saturdays are the best : )

I'm sad to see another weekend go here in Port Heiden but it was a good weekend at least. This past week was not quite spring weather in my book. It snowed every day and it was windy... it was a really interested week weather wise. One minute it would be sunny and you could see out the windows and the next minute, you couldn't see two feet out and it remained cold all week. I guess that's just an Alaska spring and I'm sure I haven't seen the last of the snow. Needless to say, we didn't get out at all this week because of that so when Saturday rolled around and it was nice, it was necessary to take advantage of the sunshine!

 

 

Friday night was a movie night at the school and so the kids got to come and watch movies in the classrooms and buy candy, popcorn, soda, etc from the student store. While that was going on, it was adult night gym so a lot of the guys in the village come to play basketball on those nights. I floated around throughout the night, socializing of course : )

 

Saturday, I went out on a ride with Jeff and Heiden. But I forgot my camera, which I know is the second time which is probably a record for me. So I'm sorry that there won't be any pictures but at least you can hear about it. Maybe we'll head out that way again so I can take some pictures. Just since last weekend, the beach got all clogged up with ice again so we couldn't ride down the beach and the tide wasn't good for crossing North River. Instead, we went out towards the volcano and a ways out there's a place called Caribou cabin. It's a tiny little one room building - very tiny with a woodstove and two sets of little bunkbeds and some old things that looked like mattresses. Apparently, it used to be used for hunters that were hunting the caribou. They would stay up there in the cabin. Now, it's not really used for much I don't think other than people hanging out. It's not in the best condition, that's for sure. And the out house out back is missing it's door and who knows what was in that, I didn't look too close! It was neat to see the peoples name's carved into the wall and the little table that was in there. That took a little bit of time to get out to that cabin - it's in the middle of no where and it sits up on top of a hill surrounded by alders so it's hard to see. It's quite a maze to get up there!

 

After we left there, we kept driving towards the volcano and away from the village. We had to cross a stream a few different places and we drove out through a ton of alders... we saw a lot of different tracks and even a rabbit! It was nice to just hang out and enjoy the weather by a stream. Kind of reminded me of home. :) We did some hiking up the hills to get better views from the top. Again, I wish I would of remembered my camera so that I could share the pictures with everyone. As you can imagine, the views were pretty incredible, as usual.

It was a good Saturday that ended with some movies on the couch! I stayed up late and woke up in the middle of the night a few times to try to catch the Northern Lights because it was a perfect night for it, but there was nothing to be seen. : ( Other than a beautiful sky full of stars... I'm beginning to think that the Northern Lights might be one of the only things I don't experience while I'm here in Alaska. I've still got some time... we'll see! If not, I guess that just means I'll have to come back : )

 

Today is my gram's birthday and I got a request from her to put some pictures up of the school and some of the kids. I don't know why I didn't do this earlier in my time here, but here are some pictures for you gram! Happy birthday : )

 



When you first walk in the store.

Back room of the store.

Suprise! I'm bringing home a puppy in May : ) I'm just kidding, I wish I was. For a little while, I debated about it because there was a puppy that didn't have a home. But they're all accounted for now. One of the families in the village, their dog had puppies (they're about 5 weeks old right now, I think) and two of the kids brought theirs into school the other afternoon. We love when these cute little guys come to visit. I might have a slight obsession.

This picture is a neat one, I think! It's Pennsylvania in Port Heiden. This is from when Dr. Bazley from Kutztown brought up some of her students to see the schools in some of the villages for a week. So there's all of us Kutztown people and then Kasie and Derek who are Penn State people. It's pretty neat we could all be here and we were posing with this huge mural that an artist came and did with the students in the school last year. From what I hear, every single student in the school painted something on this board and it's all the things they love about Port Heiden. It's hanging up in the gym now and it's pretty amazing to see. : )

The library after Kasie and I have spent many hours organizing it!

The wolf can now be displayed and our Spring decorations! Check out how organized those books look ; )

And those!

Some of the kids during iPad time after they finished their work!

 

I was literally being attacked and he thought it was hilarious! 

: ) First graders and kindergartener!

Of course I have my fair share of time with Mr. Tate! He's getting so big!

Some days I go into the Elementary room in the afternoon for a short while. We work on handwriting and listen to Kidz Bop... sometimes we sing, too : )

High school room!  

Kasie in her room being productive : ) 

Kasie's room - counselor! 

Main office

 

In my next post, I'll have to post a picture of the elementary room, preschool room and middle school room. I don't have pictures of them for some reason! But now you see where I spend my days : )

 

 

It's a gorgeous night in Port Heiden and this view never gets old... : )