March Madness!

I am so sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my blog as much as I should, but things have been terribly busy! 

Please see below!

Its finally getting brighter in the morning when I leave for work! 

I finally made it to the thrift shop in town known as the Kiita Store. 

I took this picture to give you an idea of how much snow I walked through to go thrift shopping! 

This is my goodie bag from thrift shopping. You can have the duffle bags for free. I didn't want to carry all the AC store bags home. I have too many in my kitchen now!

$6 worth of goodies

This is the entertainment portion of the goodies. I decided to buy Risk. Emily and Abi are old enough now to learn how to play one of my favorite games. I miss playing Risk during high school. Books are free at the Kiita Store. 

Georgia's pile of goodies. She outgrew all of her dress up. I found a tutu outfit for her to play dress up. 

Emily and Abi's pile of clothes. 

This is the best shirt ever! I want to find this online and buy them for people back in West Virginia. 

I braved -20 degree temperatures, ice and snow to go to Kiita! And it was totally worth it! 

The Shakespeare Group from Fairbanks came to Barrow and played games with the kids at Tuzzy Library. 

Emily had Science Olympiad, but Abi and Georgia had fun participating in the workshop. 

I am concerned about the collection of documentaries at Tuzzy. (Look at the titles... one should stand out.)

Not that it was necessary for me to do it, but I took a canning class. I made some yummy canned veggies for later. This is a picture of my favorite canned relish. I now have 3 cans of this in my pantry. I really think that I was born in the wrong decade due to my obsession with canning and old fashioned recipes. 

The Shakespeare Group put on the play, A Midsummer's Night's Dream in the high school theater. I saw most of the play during school, but I wanted to make sure that the girls got to see the whole play. 

Abi and her Girl Scout friends clown around. 

Georgia really wanted the play to start! She hates to wait. 

After show pictures with the cast! 

This was a Girl Scout picture, but Georgia jumped in really quick. 

This is Titania and Hippolyta. Georgia thought she was beautiful. She spoke English and G'wichin during the play. 

Georgia and her favorite character. She wanted to get a hug from Puck and a picture with her. 

Kids from the crowd took pictures with the cast. 

several pictures

March was also the time when I flew down to Anchorage to take 3 more teacher exams.

Why?

Don't I have enough? 

Nope. 

I can teach Earth and Space Science in Ohio and West Virginia, but Alaska requires that I actually take the Praxis 2 for Earth and Space Science. I also took Chemistry and Middle School Content Knowledge. 

I am highly qualified in Middle School Generalist (any topic), General Science, Physical Science, Earth and Space Science, Biology and Chemistry. 

I am still working on the Physics. I'm putting it off due to test anxiety. 

This lovely room is a king room at the Dimond Hotel. I had the whole room to myself. I was different. I haven't stayed in a hotel by myself since 1999! 

Mini refrigerator, Kuerig and lots of coffee and tea selection. 

I want this tv. Its huge compared to my tiny baby tv at home. 

Robes! 

I thought this was a cute chair, but I wouldn't put in my house. Its just nice to look at. 

Window into the bathroom connects to the ...

TUB! A jacuzzi tub! You can relax and watch tv at the same time! I loved it. 

I loved the jacuzzi tub because I was able to shower and then soak in the tub. I miss Japanese bath houses :( 

View from the hotel and last picture I took before I dropped my phone! I have lived in Barrow and have dropped my phone several times in the snow and ice. It never broke until I went to Anchorage and dropped it once. 

My goodies from shopping at Wal-Mart. Yes, that is 5 dozen of eggs you see there on the cart. I will be carrying those on the plane with me. Laugh now, but I am not paying $7 a dozen for eggs. 

This is the final luggage picture. I stocked up on meat in the cooler. Easter goodies and miscellaneous items are in the green bag and grey box. I love Alaska Airline's Club 49 membership because I get 3 checked bags for FREE! 

This picture made me cry. This is a picture of Emily working on her Science Olympiad project. She is timing and doing calculations on my board. I kept thinking how lucky I am to have an intelligent young lady as a daughter. She loves math and science. And she is the only kid I know that is pissed that she isn't allowed to take a summer school class of Algebra 2 to get ahead in school. 

I survived my last conferences at work. This is a picture of Georgia's work. I had conferences for Abi and Georgia too! Emily's conferences were easy because I'm at the high school ;)

And I took Abi and Georgia to Anchorage the weekend after Spring Break. There was a job fair there and I had plans to attend it. I have only been to one other Teacher Job Fair. I wanted to see what a bigger one looked like. 

Pics on the way to Fairbanks. 

Anchorage. 

More Anchorage pics. Its strange to see water without ice on it. 

Anchorage airport. Georgia loves having her picture taken. She takes pictures all the time with her camera, my camera or asks to have her picture taken. 

Oh a wolf!

Roar! 

Suvat! (What's up?)

Dall Sheep noise

We ate at Subway! It was heaven in our mouths. I forgot how to order. I felt so dumb trying to remember how I liked my sandwich. 

Abi was so happy to get her tuna. 

I snuck a picture of Georgia with the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny promised to come to Barrow to deliver some goodies. 

Model solar system. Can you tell that she's the youngest? 

Beautiful and intelligent! It was so warm for us that we got hot with light jackets on. 

We watched a movie in 3D and we spent 3 hours at Chuck E. Cheese. 

Pics on the way back. 

Mountains!

I miss mountains. 

Barrow! 

Better picture of Barrow before we headed out over the sea ice to turn and land. 

This is ocean sea ice! 

Sea ice! The ocean is frozen! 

This is at 6pm on April 1st. The sun is still up high in the sky. 

The sun makes it look nice and inviting, but remember that there's snow on the ground and ice on the roads. It has to be below 32 for that to remain. We won't start thawing out until end of May. Then everything turns into a muddy mess. 

Let me catch you up on a few things...

I have neglected my readers for long enough. I am going to post all the pictures that I haven't posted for the month of February. I really need to catch you up on things. 

Feb 1st 2015, Barrow side of town. My back is to Arctic Pizza. I'm trying to show you the sea ice. 

Frozen sea ice

Feb 1st 2015 sign near Arctic Pizza

I met an awesome student in the two days that I was teaching Personal Finance. He showed me some books and visits my classroom during lunch. We have interesting talks about survival. This is a picture of the books we were talking about. 

The Whaling Commission had a week long meeting at the high School. I liked the sign because of the pictures and words. This community survives from the whales that give themselves to the community. 

This is the bottom of the sign. 

2/8/2015 @ 2:30 We decided to have a picnic in the truck at Freshwater Lake. We were tired of being cooped up in the house. We had to get out and do something in the sunlight. 

2/8/15 - On the road to Freshwater Lake

Nothing but snow!

Don't let the sun confuse you. Its like -30 outside!

I like this picture because you can see the truck, sun and nothing but snow and ice. 

Another view

Snow drifts on the way. 

The lake is behind her and its frozen solid. 

Georgia climbs down to get Abi. 

Its strange to look around and see nothing. No trees, no bushes, nothing is there. 

I love the color of the sky. 

One more picture of Abi. 

One more view of the sea ice. 2/8/15

The Messenger Feast known as Kivgiq (Kiv-vee-ick) was held Feb 9 - 15th. People from surrounding villages arrived in Barrow for traditional dancing, singing and more. It was held all day long in the high school gym. Students attended during the school day with permission from their parents. They were still responsible for making up the work. 

Lighting of the seal oil lamp. 

I have my planning period right before lunch. I went to Kivgiq on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. 

This is King Island Dancers. 

I pulled Abi and Georgia out of school for the day. They went to Kivgiq with Toby for a few hours. They loved the dancing and drums. Emily stayed at school due to workload. 

2/15/15 @ 5:45pm by the Fur Shop 

Another Fur Shop picture. 

I can't believe the answer on this assessment. I have to give that student points for creativity in his or her answer. 

And February was the month that I updated my CPR/First Aid card. This is Georgia's little brother that I practiced on. 

February saw the end of my many colored hair. 

That's not highlights, that's grey hairs!

My shade is now Expresso. 

And

now

its

time 

to 

see

the

blizzard 

conditions

2/25/15 @ 4:30pm 

I took a taxi home due to the weather. I like to walk and take the bus but today it was not happening. 

We were unable to drive on the land bridge beside Ipalook. We had to take the long way home due to snow drifts. This is a series of pictures that I took on the way home. 

Yes I know that the taxi cab had a bad crack in the window. Its difficult to find a car or truck that doesn't have a cracked window. 

You can barely see the Top Of The World Hotel in the background. 

I got home before it got too bad on the roads. It got really bad at night. They cancelled schools to give the city trucks time to scrape the roads. 

Emily's team won Battle of the Books for the district. They placed 14th out of 25 at State. 

And that is everything that happened in February that I didn't tell you about.