Curios Questions

Sometimes I forget how unique of a place we live in. We treated ourselves to ordering pizza... we ordered from a place over 250 miles away and a plane brought it. Then we had to pick it up from the air port. So we got on a snow-go and drove out to the landing strip in -20 degree weather.

When we walk to work we cover almost every inch of our skin and look out for polar bears and foxes on the way. I have an escape plan on if I do encounter one on the way and I know the closest house door to where I am.


 I traveled with the ski team over the weekend to another school in our district. We didn't take a bus, we took a plane. We slept on the floor of the school for three days. As we landed I had one student say, "I've never seen trees before!"

I brought a pine cone back from our trip and had it sitting on my desk to show my class during science. All day kids kept picking it up so curious about what it was and asking, "what's this?"



We have been collecting a list of interesting questions that we have been asked up here. I think these questions, some funny, some serious, give a good insight of how we are living. Here is our list of questions we were never asked before we moved to Shishmaref:

"Has anyone invited you duck hunting yet?"

"Do you want to go to the dump this weekend?"

"When are you going to start your tribe?"

"Do you want to see my cute little Eskimo carving?"

"You only have one sister?"

"Are your pipes still frozen?"

"How do you like not showering everyday?

"Can you cut my hair?"

By Students:

"May I take a drink?"

"Is that your real eye color?"

Student: "Lisa, what's your Eskimo name?"
Lisa: "I don't have one."
S: "How come?"
L: "I'm not Eskimo."
S: "Oh, are you Indian?"

"May I take a fresh air?"

"When is cheerleading practice?"

"Is there ski practice today?"

"How come you don't got any kids?"

"Why are you white?"

"What's traffic?"

"Can I call you mom?"

"How come?"

"I like your necklace, who made it?"

"Can we visit?"

Directed to Mike:

"Why are you so hairy?"

We will keep our ears open for more questions that make us smile and be thankful for where we are and we will share them with you when they come our way!

Catch Up

Alright. We did not realize how long it has been since we have updated our blog so you get a special treat today. Usually we like to have a theme to our blog but while I was looking at pictures we have acquired over the last two months I noticed that we did not have any big events but rather a collection of a few pictures here and a few pictures there of this and that. So, this post's job is to catch you up on what we have been up to for the past few months. Enjoy!

Our friend Edwin invites us over for dinner sometimes. He always feeds us some sort of Eskimo food.

This kiddo was over and Edwin offered

 him food too. He was happy to eat.

This was our last meal at Edwin's. A year and half ago I would not have dreamed of eating this meal. But I ate the whole fish and enjoyed it! (not the eyes though : ) I left those to the boys.)

Making Christmas cookies for my class.

Then I decided to make cookies With my class. They were handed out at the Christmas program.

One of our parents made this for our Christmas party. It's a Santa cake, isn't it cool?!

I got these blankets for my class this year. They all loved them! Then they all decided to try to be Linus from Charlie Brown. That's why some are sucking their thumbs and why they all have them over their heads.

On the way to PA for Christmas break. This is the view out the plane window at the "air port."

When I looked out the other window on my side of the plane I noticed the sun set/rise... at 1PM.

Finally made it home for Christmas break! We brought back some Eskimo food and berries. This is my cousin, PJ, trying and liking some berries!

Now my sister's turn... she's not sure about it...

She likes them!

If you don't know... every year on Christmas Eve we have a Rock, Paper, Scissors contest... the winner of the contest wins a fun hat and is in charge of bringing the hat the next year. This year I made it to the final two but was out witted by Ben!

Now we're back in Shishmaref. There have been a few polar bears around. We have looked up how to protect ourselves if we are out and about and run into a polar bear. This polar bear was shot during the school day and was brought by the school. How many people can say, "oh, I took my class out to see a polar bear today?!" P.S. notice the childen with no coat... not even cold!

A few of our little cheerleaders getting ready for a basket ball game.

I snapped this picture at church. The choir is singing... please notice the littlest member of the choir who went up and got a book on his own : )

My class is all dressed up, we are getting ready for the Christmas program!

Here we are performing at the program. All We Want for Christmas is Our Two Front Teeth!

Now we're going on an Elf hunt.

Our class' door decoration!

Mike was so excited to see Santa!

Merry Christmas!

These two decided they wanted to be our children for this picture... for real, they wouldn't leave 'till we took one with them!

I made my own candle! I melted all the leftovers of the old candles and poured them in this one! You have to be crafty up here.

Mike and I got seal skin slippers this year. Our friend made them for us and they are so warm!

There were some pretty cool northern lights out. I only got a few pictures though because my battery died quickly in the cold. This is the side of our house.

Blurry but bright!

Mike surprised me with flowers for Valentine's day. Do you like the Alaska style vase?

I was playing with my tripod after taking pictures of the flowers. Here is some of our Alaska art.

Some of my class working on oil pastels for the art show. They were very proud of their art and put a lot of hard work into them!

We are measuring things with paperclips and cubes in math.

We picked up garbage around the school to be good citizens in our community.

It's been too cold to go out for ski practice so we have been practicing some laser shooting inside.

 

Now that you are all up to date on our lives we will try to keep you up to date. Our next projects include a blog about our visiting stained glass artist and some snow pictures for Linda!

12 Hours in Shishmaref

I would have to say the most common questions asked about us being here are, "How cold is it there?" and "How much snow do you have?" But people forget to associate the amount of sunlight in the day with how far north we are and honestly, last year, the amount of light outside took us more time to get acclimated to than the temperature. Yes it is -9 degrees outside and feels like -24, yes we have a little bit of snow. I gave myself a project of taking a picture outside our front door every hour so you could see the light throughout the day. Feel honored because I had to get out of bed at 8AM on a weekend to do this!

December 16, 2012

8:00 AM

9:00 AM

10:00 AM

11:00 AM

12:30 PM (I was at church at 12:00)

1:00 PM

2:00 PM

3:00 PM

4:00 PM

5:00 PM

6:00 PM

7:00 PM

8:00 PM