Recap of October

Well...
October has been a crazy month! I cannot believe how fast time flies by! I am already two weeks into my second quarter of teaching.
I am going to write this in chunks.

Jennifer's Wedding:
At the beginning of the month I flew back to Michigan for my cousin Jennifer's wedding. It was so much fun, but went by way too fast. It was great to see my family; my parents, brother, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins! i don't get to see them too often so it was really good to be there. I was a bridesmaid and also "the wedding singer". The wedding was beautiful and my cousin was, of course, gorgeous! It was weird to be in the lower 48 again. Life in Saint Paul is SO different. Going back to Michigan seemed so strange. I saw trees, dogs, paved roads, stores, and traffic lights! And, to top it all off, the weather was in the 80's compared to the 40's of Saint Paul!!

Girl's Night:
A few weekends ago, Mel and I hosted a Girl's Nigh Out at our house. We invited all the female staff members over for games and food. It was a blast! We talked and talked and talked. I even learned that one of the teachers had been attacked by a brown bear! I never knew! We played Guesstures and laughed a ton. It was so much fun and was well needed! The husbands came to pick up their wives and they stayed for a little while too. (I think they were all jealous that we were having such a good time! :P )
The husbands even brought over a few fishermen and some of the coast guard. I guess word spreads fast that there are two single girls on the island.

Artist-in- Residence:
For the past two weeks the school has had an artist-in-residence. His name is Steve and he is a professional photographer. He came into both of my middle school classes last week to teach them about photography. It was a bonus for me, because I got a break from teaching two classes and because I got to learn about photography! I have taken tons of pictures and I am trying to put them into slideshows now and do some cool things with them!

Little Sea Parrots:
This past Saturday was the first day of Little Sea Parrots practice. This is 3rd-6th grade basketball. I am helping Mel coach one of the teams. We have practice from now until Christmas every Saturday from noon-1:30. We even had our first game on Tuesday. The gym was packed! There are four teams that played throughout the night and the kitchen was open to buy nachos and pizza, so we were a very popular place to go that night!

Red Ribbon Week:
Nikki and I are in charge of Red Ribbon week this week. That is a week the school celebrates being drug and alcohol free. We put up banners and set up dress up days for the students. Today is Pajama Day, which is always fun! It has been a busy week!

Halloween:
Halloween is a big holiday here. Last Friday was the annual Halloween Carnival at school. We set up tons of games and activities in the gym and there was a lot of food for sale in the kitchen. Once again, the place was packed! Mel and I were in charge of the Tatoo Parlor, where we gave kids temporary Halloween tattoos and painted faces. After the carnival I went with one of the teachers to the adult costume party and watched the costume judging. It was so fun! And it was a good way to meet a lot of the older community member. I even met Buck-Buck, one of the infamous Saint Paul residents. He has about 5 teeth and is barely understood when he talks. He also always brings home whatever he shot that day for dinner. Well, he came up to me and asked me to marry him! I said, "Sorry Buck-Buck, not tonight. But maybe if you ask me tomorrow I will say yes." HAHA!
Yesterday was actually Halloween. The kids really get into it. When the students come back from lunch at 1:00 they are allowed to wear their costumes to school. At 1:15 all the elementary students have a parade through the rest of the school to show off their costumes. They were soooo cute! Nikki and Mel dressed up as Mama and Baby Bear, Benny dressed up as Napoleon Dynamite and I dressed up as The Cat in the Hat.
After school, we ran back to Nikki and Steve's to get ready for trick-or-treaters. Nikki was handing out candy, Steve would jump out and scare them and Mel and I dressed up as dummies that were sitting in chairs in the porch! We put out three chairs and one of the dummies really was a dummy. When kids would walk by Mel and I would jump up and scare the living daylights out of them! It was soooo much fun! My students were all talking about it today.

Piece-O:
Piece-O is what we have affectionatly named Nikki and Steve's car. It is short for Piece-O-Crap. Well, the name suits it even better now. The starter is out. So, we have to push start the car. This consists of Steve parking the car on the top of a hill and Mel, Nikki, and I running behind it to push it down the hill. Once it is rolling Steve can than get it going! So we have to be sure to park it on a hill all the time. At school we park it on a little hill that is covered in dirt and grass and Steve bumps down it the whole when when we push him. It is hilarious! I guess you do what you gotta do, right?


So yeah! There is my October in a nutshell!