It's been awhile!

Hey everyone!

Sorry it has been awhile since the last update. A lot of crazy things have happened in the past month or so.

Let's start with Christmas break. Well, it was quite the adventure to get home. Let's put it that way.
We were due to fly out of Saint Paul on December 19th. The plane cancelled due to bad weather. Apparently we had a tsunami warning early that day. Who knew? So we had to call the airlines and reschedule our flights; not just from Saint Paul, but we would also have to reschedule our flights from Anchorage because now we would miss those too. Well, after about 2 hours on the phone with the airlines we learned that we could not be guaranteed a seat until the 25th or later. They said it was best to go on standby from Anchorage on. We were rescheduled to fly out of Saint Paul the next day, but of course that flight also cancelled. So it was back to the phones to call the airlines. One of the other teachers went to the airport here the next day, the 21st to see if we could fly out on the cargo plane that morning, but they didn't have seats. So, that was a no-go. We finally got out of Saint Paul in the afternoon of the 21st. Once we arrived in Anchorage, Nikki, Steve, Mel, and I got on the standby list. At 9:45p.m. they said they had one extra seat. None of the other three wanted to travel alone, so they sent me off. From there I flew to Minneapolis. I waited on 3 or 4 standby flights at that airport. I was there for 14 hours trying to get on flights home. Then, the flights to Houghton started to cancel due to bad weather there! The ticket people said it was a fat chance of flying home before Christmas! Finally at like 6:30 the night of the 22nd Nikki and Mel made it to Minneapolis. So, we booked a hotel and decided to wait for Steve to fly in, who had now been stuck in Anchorage for 2 days, then we would rent a car and drive the rest of the way. Only problem was, there were no rental cars in the whole airport!!! Flights to Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin were cancelling, so everyone else had the same idea we did! We asked at the ticket counters about a bus, since there were a lot of Michigan people stranded there. They told us that the airport had no bus drivers left, since there had been so many cancelled flights! We figured we might as well go to the hotel and try and relax, get sleep and wait for Steve. We did however have a free hotel shuttle to the Mall of America, which was awesome! Finally Steve came in the next morning at 5 a.m. and we happened to snag a rental car online. We went to pick our Jeep Commander and we headed towards Michigan. Only problem was that there was a blizzard and the plows had been pulled. For more than 2 hours of the trip the highway wasn't even plowed! You could hear the snow hitting the bottom of the car! It was nuts. What should have been a 6-6 and 1/2 hour drive home took 9 and 1/2 hours! Let just say we were very thankful to make it home! We even got there before Christmas Eve. What about our luggage? Well, that's a whole other story!

Once we got home, break was good. Did a lot of relaxing and family time. I even got to see my friend Lora from high school which was awesome. Some friends from college were supposed to come to visit, but they also ran into weather problems and couldn't make it. :( I also did LOTS of shopping! You have no idea how much I missed going to stores. So, when i finally could, I went hog wild! It was great to chill out and spent time with my wonderful family. I had missed them so much.

Coming back to Saint Paul was no sweat. We had few difficulties with our flights home. It was good to see the staff at the airport and to catch up with them. We have no been back for a just over a week. I must say, I actually missed me students! It was good to get back in the swing of things and my students have been really good and are refreshed again and ready to learn. Who knows how long that will last! :)

Sickness has also swept the island. When a few people get sick, it spreads fast here, considering there are not that many people and everyone is related. We have just over 100 students and over 20 were absent today alone. We also have had many teachers get sick, including myself. But we are short on subs, so it is hard to take a sick day! I have been taking Vitamin C drops like they are going out of style and drinking so much water it isn't funny.

Other than that life is going swell! We are half way done with this school year!

It's Christmas time!

December has proved to be a crazy busy and a bit strange. It is weird to be living in Alaska and not have any snow! We have had sprinklings, but not REAL snow. The weather has actually been pretty decent here! Last week, we were told to turn our heat down, because we were having a gas shortage and fuel for heat was running low. We had enough to last about a week. The fuel barge had tried coming out a week before, but had engine trouble and had to head back to shore. Then they had to wait for safe weather and waters before heading out again. The barge finally arrived yesterday! I had to look at the whole situation and laugh. I am definitely getting used to island life.
The past few weeks I have just been trying to get my classes finished on our holiday projects. We have been very busy! I have also been co-coaching the Little Sea Parrots b-ball team. The teams are made up of 3rd-6th graders. We had a tournament at the beginning of the month. My team came in fourth! Yah! (Out of 4 teams, but who is counting?) We lost both our games by one basket!!! But it was lots of fun and I even got a participation trophy and a coach of the year trophy! (All the coaches got one).
So, I have kept myself busy as always. I am very much awaiting my flight home for Christmas. I plan to spend it with family and friends and my dogs. I also cannot wait to go out to eat at a real restaurant and go to Walmart to buy new socks!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

November

I also thought that I would have way more time to update this thing! Sorry, I guess life gets busy, huh?
Well things are going well here. Only 3 weeks left of the first semester! Then it's home for Christmas. I cannot believe how fast life flies by!
There was one great story that I forgot to tell in my October blog. I shall call this story "Flea Market".

Flea Market
It was a Saturday afternoon and rumor had it that there was a community flea market/rummage sale at City Hall. It was supposed to be the weekend before but no shoppers showed up so they did it again. Well, Mrs. Stacks (the principal) said she we should check it out. So, Mel, Nikki and I headed out for City Hall. When we got to the sale, there was no one shopping. It was like 5 women sitting around the sales tables and us. There was nothing there! But we browsed around anyway, prenending to be interested. Then Phyllis, good ole' Phyllis, (one of the lady's who works at City Hall) came up to Mel and me and tried to get us to buy a pastel floral Christmas wreath. We had to say no numerous times, before she left us alone. We had now checked out all the tables but one. This table had some random items on it. Apparently in Saint Paul people not only bring clothes and floral wreaths to a flea market, they also clean out their kitchen cupboards and freezers and bring whatever they find in there with them. For example, for sale they had a few half used spice containers. You know, thyme, lemon pepper, cinnamon, etc. There were tons of used spices for sale. To make it even better, there was a half opened ecomomy sized package of frozen hot dogs for sale as well! We ended up opting for some of the bake sale items instead. We escaped the flea market with 2 pigs-in-a-blanket and 2 mini-mini- loaves of banana bread for only $14.00!! Ha!

November:
This month has been crazy, but good. I honestly don't know where it went. We celebrated Veteran's Day during our November Saturday school. We invited all of the local Veterans to come to an Honorary luncheon presented by the students. It was sooo cool! We taught the kids the pledge and national anthem and all about the history of the flag. It was a great day. One of the veterans got really emotional with the students and said that it was so nice to finally be thanked for what they had done. I think that was when the meaning of the day really hit the students.

Thanksgiving:
I thought Tahnksgiving might be really hard this year, being my first Thanksgiving away from home. But, it was really fun. Of course, I missed my family, but the day was still good. The Wednesday before that was my second parent-teacher conferences, which went well. That night we had a baking party at my sister's house with Mrs. Stacks and her 2 girls. We made 8 pies, the turkey, cranberry salad, stuffing, mashed potatoes, onion tartlets, and rolls!!! Then on Thanksgiving, we watched the Macy's Parade that Nikki taped, since it came on here at 4 am and the National Dog Show. That is a family tradition. After that we packed up Piece-O with all the food and headed to Stacks for dinner. It was great and there was tons of food!!!!!! Friday, Mel and I set up our "Christmas Tree". I will post pics of that later! Then we decided to head to "the" store for the Day After Thanksgiving sales. They had 1 liter cokes half price and doritos were half price!!!! It was a wild 5 minutes of shopping!!!

Now we are back in school. Time will fly by so fast I know! See ya in Decemeber!:)

Pictures!!!

I added new pictures this weekend! So check 'em out!

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!

I JUST ADDED A BUNCH MORE PICTURES!!!! FINALLY!

Heading to the Lower 48!!

This weekend has been really good. It was my third 2 day weekend in the 7 we have been here so far! We have had Saturday schools and inservices on so many weekends. So it was nice to actually relax on a weekend! And to sleep in!!! Last night we all headed over to some friends of ours from school to celebrate their anniversary. It was the first time Mel and I have been to someone else's house besides, Nikki and Steve's, Benny's or the Stacks (our principal) house. We ate and played Guesstures until 1:30 in the morning! It was so fun! Then today I spent the day getting my substitute plans together because I am heading out of here!
I am so excited to head back to Michigan soon! I am flying back out from Saint Paul on Tuesday to go to my cousin Jennifer's wedding. I get to see all of my family. I also will get to see trees, dogs, and paved roads, which are all things I haven't seen in 7 weeks! I am looking forward to a little get away!

School

As always, life has been crazy busy. I feel like I have spent every waking moment at the school in the past week. Last Friday was parent-teacher conference day. The parents are required to come to conferences, so I met with 27 sets of parents. It was a little stressful, but it went well. Saturday was an inservice day, so I was at school all day again. Yesterday, Benny invited Nikki, Steve, Mel and me over for a Sunday lunch of roast, potatoes, carrots, rolls and brownies. It was awesome! Then, it was off to school again to get some lesson planning done.
In my spare time, Mel and I have been busy with our evening work out routine. We just got a Tae Bo workout DVD, which is really hard! We are trying to get in shape for our spring break trip to Hawaii (hopefully). We have also been hanging out with Nikki and Steve a lot.

Seal kisses

This seal was spying on me!

Here are some arctic foxes hanging out down the road from our house.

Hunting for for Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen

Well, it has been crazy the past few weeks! School has kept me so busy! Last Saturday we had Saturday school. We have school one Saturday a month, that way we end up getting out in the middle of May so the students have more time to work in the summers. Our Saturday schools aren't like normal school days, we usually do some cultural activities. So, this past Saturday I took a group of the students out reindeer hunting. Well, actually I was more like the teacher chaparone who went with two local hunters who took a group of students reindeer hunting. But whatever. Anyway, we were driving around looking for the herd when one of the students said, "I just saw one back there". It is really usual for a reindeer to be roaming around on its own during this time in the year. They are usually all in the herd. So, we figured the herd must be near. We drove up a hill and there they were! 600 of them!!! It was so cool! We all got out of the van quietly and figured out the best way to sneak up around the herd so they wouldn't see or smell us. As we stalked up to the herd, I was in the rear making sure all the students were coming. One of the girls was having a difficult time walking through the rough tundra and was trailing behind. I was coaxing her on, when I heard a grunt. I looked up and there was a reindeer trotting right for us. I was trying to get the girl's attention without scaring the reindeer. She was so oblivious to the fact that at any moment we might become the new version of "Grandma Gor Runover By a Reindeer." Can't you picture it, "Teacher Got Run Over By a Reindeer". All of a sudden it stopped and stared right at us. We both froze. We turned around and the other hunters were taking pictures! haha. Finally, it ran to catch up with the rest of the heard. By the time we caught up with the rest of our group, two of the girls didn't want to walk any further. So, I was asked to stay behind with them. We sat in the fog on soggy moss covered rocks in the middle of the tundra for an hour and fifteen minutes, while the others were off on a hunting escapade. I was a little bummed, but then the girls decided it would be fun to sing "High School Musical" songs. So, time went faster after that. And the hunters didn't get a reindeer in the end, so I really didn't miss out.
Anywho, we made it back to the school in time for the hot dog luncheon. After sharing our adventures with the other students I was sent off to lead the traditional Aleut story telling and games. I asked Ms. Edna, the Aleut teacher, to teach me a few things. It was really fun! After all of this the last half hour was spent celebrating Grandparents Day. All of the grandparents were invited to the gym, where there were tables of crafts and food. The students made seal and halibut cracker spread and spicy seal chilli. And that my friends, is Saturday school in St. Paul.

The rest of this week has been rather uneventful seen as how I have been swamped with school work! I think I am actually getting the students excited about books! I gave one class the option of playing a game for the last ten minutes of class or I could read to them out of our book. They asked for the book and were bummed when the class period was over because they wanted to know what happens! It was awesome!!!

1st Week of School

Well, it has been a crazy week!

We finished our teacher training and I got my room all set and ready to go. Wednesday, Father (the Russian Orthodox Church Father) came into the school and blessed each room and all of the teachers. Religion is a huge part of this community here and culture here, so it was really cool to see a religious figure inside of the school! Thursday was registration day. The students and their parents came in and met with us to fill out paper work and get their schedules. It was a great way to get to see the students. Friday was the first real day! It went really well. Over the weekend we had another work day on Saturday and Sunday I spent writing lesson plans and getting ready for the next week.
This first week of school went well. I am still learning a lot and figuring things out. I think my students have taught me way more than I have taught them. It has been a challenge all ready, but I am ready for it!!!

This weekend is the 100th year celebration of the church, so there has been a lot of excitement. Friday, the bishop flew into the island. A bunch of the teachers and students left school and greeted him at the airport. Yesterday, Mel and I went for a walk around the island and walked to the church. They are putting a new traditional gold dome on it for the celebration. it is a beautiful church with a lot of history. It was cool to watch them get it all ready. We ended up walking around the island for 3 hours. We saw alot of Arctic Fox and seals! We walked down to a seal blind hoping to get some good pictures. Seal blinds are like little shelters that you can stand in a look through windows to see the seals. They can charge you and are very dangerous, so there needs to be something between you and the seals for safety. We walked a few miles to get out to one. As we walked closer to the seal blind we could hear how loud the seals were! They make so many weird noises. Sometimes they sound like they are burping. When we started toward the seal blind we saw that some seals were actually IN the blind. And on the stairs. And they were BIG seals. So, we couldn't get any closer!

Pictures

i finally added pictures so check it out!

Almost Time for School!!

I have moved most of my stuff into my new house! I love it!!!!! The past few days I have been cleaning my room like mad. The principal said that the last time the room had been cleaned and rearranged was over 16 years ago!!!! I completely tore it apart and now it is a mess! But I am seeing progress after putting in 20 hours so far!!! Last night Nikki, Mel, and I had a crab dinner with free crab we got from Mr. Mac.The we went over to the Stacks house (our principal and her husband) and watched a movie, which was a good way to chill out after being at school.
This morning we woke up to the sun shining and a huge full rainbow!!! It was awesome! I could see parts of the island that I had never been able to see through the fog before. It was so pretty. The island is gorgeous in the sunshine. Anywho, Steve, my brother-in-law just flew in today and we are all having a big crab dinner again tonight with. So I am off.

Arrival on St. Paul

Well our plane took off. Three hours into the flight we were told that it was too foggy to land on St. Paul, so we were going to fly to the other island, St. George. We circled around for a little bit and then went in for the landing. All I could see out the windows was fog and more fog, and then water. I was freaking out at this point, thinking for sure we were landing in the Bering Sea, then out of nowhere we hit land! And it was St. Paul after all! We walked off the plane and through a garage into the airport/hotel/restaurant. There were tons of people there and they all watched us as we walked in. Nikki said a lot of them were my students and they wanted to see the new teachers. We were met by Mr. Mac, the maintenance man, and the principal and her husband. We loaded all our stuff into Mr. Mac's truck and jumped in for a tour of the island. It was a foggy day, but the ground is so green and the island is really pretty. We drove past the school, the store, the post office and Mr. Mac also pointed us who lives in what house. We drove down to the docks to see the Halibut boats and the crab pots. It made me so excited to live here. We stopped at the post office and picked up our first load of our boxes and Mac helped us bring everything back to our houses. Mel and I were super excited to see our new home. It is awesome! I love it! We will post pics as soon as everything is unpacked. While we were starting to put stuff away we could hear little kids giggling outside our door and then our doorbell rang. Mel and I went to answer. There were 4 little kids standing on our porch holding up a couple of bones. When we opened the door they said, "Hi! We found some seal bones for you," and handed them to us. Two more kids came by and joined our little group and they introduced themselves and talked to us for quite awhile. They came by about 8 more times in the next hour. Once they wanted to come in and us our bathroom, a few times they would ring the bell and run and hide and one time they came by with another seal gift. The principle's daughter, Stormy, held out a seal eyeball. I didn't believe that that is what it was, until I could smell it. It was a decaying seal eyeball from the seal harvest they just had! Nasty! But it was so cute to see all the curious kids come by and to meet us. Later we went to Nikki's for pizza and one of the other teachers, Betty came over to say hi. She invited us to her place for a glass of wine. We stayed there until I could barely keep my eyes open any longer. I crawled in bed at 11:30 p.m., while it was still light out.

I am in ALASKA!!!!

Well, I'm here! Right now I am writing this from the Anchorage airport where I am waiting to catch a plane to my island. We have had 2 delays so far and are hoping to fly out of here soon. I am with my sister Nikki, and my friends Melissa and Benny.
Anchorage is gorgeous! When we flew in, the skies were clear and we had an awesome view of Mt. McKinley! Nikki, Mel and I checked into our hotel and did a bit of shopping to buy some supplies. We then picked up Benny V. from the airport and headed out to dinner. We stopped at the Sourdough Factory where we ran into "Hobo Jim" a famous Alaskan musician and we even took a picture with him. We then ate dinner, which was actually quite nasty, but made for a funny time.
Yesterday morning we did a Walmart run and then headed off to Sam's Club to buy our food supply for the next 4 months. We forgot to think about how we were going to fit our purchases into the car with the four of us. Nikki ended up driving with our huge load and Benny, Mel and I walked back to the hotel crossing the highway with our three months-worth of toilet paper in hand. We got to see downtown Anchorage that evening and did some more shopping. After all this we had a packing party back at a condo that the teachers own and shipped all our stuff off.

This morning was a whole other adventure! We went to Walmart to ship off the rest of our stuff. We pulled 3 carts of boxes into the Walmart post office where the cashier told us the scale to weigh our boxes wasn't working so we couldn't ship anything from there. We were already in a time crunch to get to the airport, so Nikki and Benny drove to another post office on the other side of town while Mel and I went back to the hotel and got all of our bags down by the lobby door and waited for Nikki to come back and get us. After sitting with our 8 suitcases and 8 carry-ons in the lobby, the lady at the desk came up to me and told me I had a phone call. It was Nikki saying she dropped Benny off at the post office to ship things off and headed to the teacher condo where she locked to keys in the rental car while it was running. So, Mel and I called a cab and planned to head to the condo to meet her there, when we realized we didn't know the address. As the cabbie loaded our mound of luggage into the car we tried calling Nikki for the street name, but her cell was also locked in the car with the keys. So, we gave the driver as much info. about the condo as we knew and he told us he knew where it was. Nikki was at the condo waiting and she called and got someone to unlock the car. We were rapidly running out of time, so we packed Mel, Nikki and I into the car with 8 suitcases and 8 carry-ons! The three of us sat in the front with two suitcases. Nikki dropped Mel and I and all our luggage off on the corner at the airport and flew back to get Benny from the post office an hour and a half after she dropped him off there. After the four of us were together again, we went up to the ticket counter to find out Mel didn't have a ticket reserved for this flight. Nikki talked called the principle of the school who then called the reservation desk and we got Mel on the flight. After making it to the gate just in the knick of time our plane has now been delayed twice. Hopefully we will be heading out the the island soon!! I'll keep you posted!

Catch up!

Well, it has been awhile and A LOT has happened. I will write this blog in little parts to catch up on life so far.

Leaving NZ-
It was hard to say good bye to my students as well as the teachers and great friends I made. My friends from church there had an awesome BBQ for me before I left. I was so lucky to have met such cool and caring people. I was sad to leave NZ, but I was excited about what was ahead. I know I will come back some day.

Fiji-
I then headed off to Fiji. Just me and my suitcase. I never thought I would travel to a tropical island alone, but it was awesome! The first night I stayed in a hostel with 40 people to a room in Nadi, Fiji. The next 3 nights I stayed at the Octopus Resort on Waya Island. It was amazing. It was so gorgeous. Too hard to explain how gorgeous it was in words. Look at the pics! Then I spent one more night back in Nadi before flying home.

Coming home-
It was so good to see my family. After over 40 hours in planes and airports I was so ready to be home. My mom and sister picked me up at the airport. It took awhile to adjust back into life here again, but it was so good to be back. The day after I flew in I drove downstate to see my grandparents and my cousin Jennifer who is getting married soon! It was such a good week with them.

G.E.-
Now I am back home teaching third grade for Great Explorations, which is a fun summer school. It has been really fun so far, but I come home exhausted at the end of the day after playing with kids for 8 hours!

Shell Lake-
Last weekend I went to my friends Katie and Ryan's wedding in Shell Lake, WI. It was so much fun! It was great to see all of my bestest buds again. I hadn't seen anyone since before Christmas. The wedding was beautiful, but the whole weekend went by way to fast.

Now-
Now I am teaching at GE and enjoying the warm weather while I get everything in order to move up to Alaska. I love the sun and am trying to soak it all up before I move to the Arctic!!

New Pics and Exciting News

I put some more pics onto my website. Now that Megan is gone I will be posting most of my pics onto my site. So check it out!
The other exciting news is that I just booked my plane tickets to Fiji!!! I leave a week from tomorrow for 5 days in the sun and surf! Thanks Grampa and Maggie!

Waihi Weekends

Last weekend was my first weekend without major travel plans since Megan left. Friday night I had some guys from church over for a Mexican meal. I made them some wonderful tacos using my great cooking skills. Haha. Saturday I went to see some of my kids play rugby and netball. It was fun to watch them play and they were really excited that I came to see them play. Saturday night Kristy and I went to a Pink Floyd tribute concert at the beach pub. We thought it would be pretty cool, but it turned out that it was a bunch of middle-aged people in their black t-shirts drinking away and I was with my baby blue polar fleece on. I felt a bit out of the loop. So Kristy and I left and came back to my house for junk food and a chick flick. Sunday was church and that night for the evening service I lead the worship team. It was really fun and it made me being on a worship team a lot (I did it at university for awhile). This week has been pretty good. It is crazy trying to get everything done before I leave. And I am planning my trip to Fiji!!! I cannot wait!

Graduation!

I graduated from UMD today!!!!

Moving to Alaska

So, as if life isn't crazy enough, I am moving to Alaska in August! The adventures continue! I interviewed for a teaching job there on Wednesday and was hired yesterday! I am thrilled! I know I am using a lot of exclamation points, but I am just excited! I will be teaching grades 6-12 English and possibly Social Studies at St. Paul School on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea. My sister is currently teaching elementary school there and my brother-in-law teaches high school. Another friend from home was also hired yesterday to teach elem. school as well. I am so pumped! I know it will be tough to be so far away, but then again, hey I have been living across the world for four months already. It will be such a great learning experience. I cannot wait! YAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pics

Megs and I put up more pics on her website. For some reason they show up at the bottom of that page. But they are there and ready for viewing and I will put up more soon!

Life is Crazy!

Okay, so a lot has happened since I last wrote on here. So I shall break it up into chunks for you.

Beach Hop-
Two weekends ago Megs and I chilled in Waihi. It was weird to be there for a weekend when we are usually out traveling, but it was really nice to relax. That Saturday we went to the Whangamata Beach Hop. It is basically a classic car showcase. There were classic cars lining the roads. People were dressed in 50's clothes and there were bands and vendors everywhere. It was a gorgeous day. We sat on the beach for quite awhile too. I love the beach! Sigh.

Auckland-
Megs and I hit up Auckland last weekend. We hadn't had much of a chance to check out New Zealand's biggest city so we went to see what it was all about. We brought Myles along with us for the trip. We dropped him off to see some friends and us gals went off into the town. We ate a bite to eat and then hit the markets in the town square. I love the markets. They are really artsy and sometimes really cheap! There were street performers all around. It was great. We hit up some other stores wishing we had more room in our suitcases to bring stuff home. We checked out a park and then the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. It has amazing views of Auckland. Gorgeous. I think it is safe for me to tell people now that I then dropped Megan off at the airport. She didn't want anyone to know she was going home so she could surprise them. So I have had to be hush hush for awhile. It was hard to say goodbye to such a great travel partner. But I didn't cry! After we hugged goodbye and I saw her off, I had to try and catch up with Myles. I drove around Auckland for an hour completely lost! Not a shocker if you know me! haha. I finally found him and we headed off with his cousins and some friends of his to a cocktail party. It was really fun. I felt a little out of place at first but I met tons of great people and even taught people how to swing dance there! It was a late night. We stayed at Myles cousin's house that night and headed back to Waihi on the way home. We stopped at the Karangahake Gorge to checkout a cool waterfall on the way.
That night it was weird to be alone in my house without Megs, but I was so exhausted I just feel right to sleep.

This week-
This week has gone by so fast. I cannot believe it. I only have two weeks left here at the school. I am going to miss the kids so much. My supervisor came in for the last time to observe me. It is weird to have everything winding down now.
Wednesday I went surfing again with Myles and his cousin and I actually got up on the board! Not for long, but when I did I screamed and then lost it! haha. I also got wacked on my head with my board. As I was out there surfing the sun was setting and it was gorgeous. I realized how lucky I am. As I am sitting there in the waves trying to get back on my board like a beached whale I hear "hi". I turned around to see some of the Year 8 kids (who are competitive surfers) out there riding the waves and waving at me. I tried to pretend like I was just waiting to a good wave, paddling away on my board, when one crashed into me and threw me off. I looked like such a dork out there! haha. Well, the kids thought it was cool that I was trying anyway!