Pilgrim Hot Springs

We took an adventure on Saturday. We went on a road trip north to Pilgrim's Hot Springs with Caleb and his wife Sarah. It was about 60 miles away, but the last mlie or so was dotted with deep puddles that our truck couldn't get through (it would have been nice if the guy mentioned that to him when we called in the morning to ask if they were open). So we walked in the last mile.
The area looked like something out of a horror movie. We were joking that it would make the perfect setting, and that we kept getting "signs to turn around" but we were the stupid people in the movie who don't listen to the signs. Once we final found the hot springs, it was a hug bath tub that was dodgey at best. The tub was covered in algae and had boards falling down with rusted nails coming out of them. It was beautiful though with the mountatins in the background.

Today we went to the grocery store and had dinner at Malies. The real excitement of the day was when we tried to leave to go to the grocery store, we found out we had a flat tire. It took a long time to change it because the part needed to get the spare tire out from under the car was missing from the jack kit. Andrew and Caleb had to use some creativity to get a butter knife, pliers and wrench in there to get it out. We'll try to get it patched tomorrow or Tuesday. We'll spend tomorrow at school.

I saw the pictures from the lake and it looks like another great State Fair Night. The food sounded wonderful!

Andrew and I signed up to be the Junior Class sponsor this year. It is a 2 person job, and will give us some money to travel with this summer. We are in charge of planning the Halloween Carnival and the Prom. If nothing else, it will help us meet some people in the community.

No bathtub race for us tomorrow, we weren't able to get a bathtub that had wheels on it. I don't think either of us were dissapointed not to be pushing a bathtub up Front Street!

Happy Labor Day! Erin
Current Temp: 54

BBQ at Sullivans

We had a really fun BBQ tonight for all teachers/staff at our principal/wood shop teachers house. It was pot luck with really yummy food. Only down fall was that it was freezing. There were reports of snow today.
There was some drama in the Jr. high today. Three 7th graders went over to an 8th grader's house last night to beat up the 8th grader. The dad kicked the boys out, but they said that they would get him today. All teachers were on "fight watch" Luckily nothing happened, but there is always tomorrow!
Our friend Caleb's wife comes tomorrow, and hopefully we'll go camping this weekend.
Here are some pictures from the BBQ.
Erin
Current temp 44

First Days

We have finished our first two days of school...alive! It's 9:00 here and we are exhausted. Both days went great, the first week is a little chaotic because students are changing in and out of their classes. On top of that 20 some students showed up to school without being registered. We have to remind ourselves that many of our student's home lives are not what we are used to seeing.

We did our civic duty today and voted in the local primary. It was fun to see lines forming outside the church. We saw quite a few teachers there which is good to see. Erin, the social studies teacher, was giddy with civic pride!

We are going to a first week BBQ at our principals house tomorrow and are looking forward to seeing our coworkers outside of school.

Andrew
Current Temp 44

Salmon

I apologize for not writing more this week. We had inservice all week long, and by the time we got home, we were both exhausted.
We had a great week at inservice meeting and getting to know the rest of the staff in the school. Tuesday we went to a BBQ at a teacher from the charter schools house for the Nome Education Association. We got to meet some of the staff from the elementary school, and get to see the Berring Sea from his beautiful house.
Wednesday we went to a Rotary meeting. We were invited by our new superintendent, who informed us that oh by the way, you are also the speakers. It was nice, and very informal. Once people found out we were from Minnesota, they wanted to know if we were Vikings fans.
Friday afternoon, there was a Cross Country meet at the high school, with about four other teams there. The schools don't have alot of sports (2 per season) but they take the kids every where to compete. On Saturday the team was flying to Kotzubue to run in another race, and they fly somewhere else every other weekend in September.

We were given some wonderful food gifts this week. Caleb, another new teacher, has taken up salmon fishing and brought over 2 gigantic filets for us the other night. Krista Marvin, another teacher in the jr. high, brought over to my classroom on Friday a jar of pickled salmon, blueberry syrup (that she picked and made), and fire weed jelly (again which she picked and made). They are wonderful treats!

Monday school starts. We both went into school yesterday for a few hours and will probably go in again today after laundry.

Hope everyone is enjoying the last couple weeks of summer, and that Blake you have an excellent 6th birthday!

Erin
Current Temp. 50

Polar Bear Swim

We had our first day of "real" inservice today. All the employees from the Elemetnary and High school were at the high school today for inservice. It was alot of listening and sitting, but we learned alot.

At 6, all (most) of the new employees and some administration went for a dive into the Berring Sea. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but it certainly wasn't warm, and not something I'd like to do very often!

Some people have been asking questions that we keep forgetting to answer:
1. The reindeer are owned by people and are supposed to keep them penned up, but usually don't.
2. Nome is very similar to Northern Exposure, except a little bit bigger.

3. Blake and Brady- we haven't seen Santa yet, however, we have heard that you can usually see him once the snow comes.

I think that's it. I should be getting pictures from Dan Sullivan who took pictures earlier this week. More later. Erin
Current temp: 59

Airport Pizza

Today was a fun and relatively relaxing day. We made our rounds to the three grocery stores in town to find the best deals we could. This week we took two other new teachers who don't yet have a car. We are excited to have made friends and made plans to go to dinner with them to a local restaurant called Airport Pizza. Airport Pizza is only a few years old and is a very clean and modern place. What's unique about Airport pizza is that they will deliver to you even if you live in a town that is not connected to Nome by a road; they will fly your pizza out for you! I, Andrew, had the Polynesian BBQ chicken pizza which was AMAZING. It had Hawaiian BBQ sauce, Banana Peppers, two different cheeses and bacon...mmmmm bacon. For the Gluten-free crowd, Erin had the onion burger. It was a burger with fried onions and side of steak fries. Erin said the the burger was very good and would recommend it to anyone, I tried the fries and was very impressed. Overall we would give Airport Pizza our seal of approval, whoever comes to visit us will have to stop there.

Tomorrow is our first day of "official" inservice. Afterwards the teachers all go down to the Bearing Sea and jump in! We have been told that it makes the front page of the Nome Nugget (the local news paper) every year so if you want to look at the Nome Nugget online you might see us. This next week may not be the most interesting but if nothing happens we'll just make something up for all you readers.

Andrew
Current Temp. 62 and sunny

Pictures from Teller

Dried fish in Teller



Andrew and I where we went fishing.



Mayle and I near the brook where you can drink the water out of.

Teller

We had an interesting day today going to tell. We went with Maylie Cay (the new Jr. High Counselor), Caleb (Sr. High English), Carl White (Elementary Principal), and Rick Luthi (new Superintendent), driving about 70 miles west of Nome. We were told there wasn't much there, but when we left we would be happy we were living in Nome, which eneded up being true! It was a beautiful drive out there, with very uneven road. The man who gave our tour yesterday was giving a tour to Teller today so we were able to follow them and listen in on the information that he had when they stopped. Along the way, we saw a herd of reindeer which was cool.

Once we got to Teller, we had lunch with the teachers of the school there. The village is only about 300 people, the school about 70 students. The school is beautiful and only 4 years old. The town was very run down and poverty sturcken. The principal of the Teller school said that the road to Nome is a blessing and a burden on the town. It is nice that they are a connected villiage, but it is too easy to get alcohol into the "damp" village. The principals children are all grown and he said he would not raise his family there.

Teller is in the Bering Strait School District which we both interviewed, and were offered jobs for. The school district has gotten rid of giving out grades to students and solely focuses on standards and making "Annual Yearly Progress". They only teach to the test of what the state of Alaska tests the students on once a year. Students don't move up a grade until they pass the test for that particular grade.

The drive home was wonderful as well. We saw an even bigger herd of reindeer and stopped to fish for salmon on a river. The two other teachers and administrators that we went with were wonderful. We hope to be able to alot with them in the upcoming year.

Tomorrow we will take Maylie and Caleb to the grocery store as they don't have cars yet, and then go to dinner with them and another teacher at Airport Pizza. Hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday, and those at the lake didn't get a sunburn!

Erin
Current temp 67

Hello Central

Today was a very busy day. We had our first inservice day and as one person put it, "We got a drive by shooting of information." We met all the other new teachers and Andrew found a camping and movie watching buddy. Both of us got our school labtops and are enjoying playing with our new toys. We also got a lot of free gifts. Andrew won a door prize of a water bottle and a banner, we both got a coffee mug and a really nice embroidered vest!
After the inservice we got another box FULL of broken glasses and dishes :( We are really not looking forward to arguing with the Post Office over the insurance we baught through them.
We took a real tour with this amazing tour guide, Richard. He was extremely knowledgeable and very entertaining. He was a short, skinny, Jewish actor in New York (Can you say Woody Allen?!?) He still acts in Nome and said that he puts on a few shows a year. He would always say, "Hello Central!" Does anybody know where that comes from? After the tour we went to a fellow teacher's house outside of town and had a BBQ with about 20 other teachers and spouses. They have had a record number of salmon in the Snake River this year, but now they have a record number of dead salmon which give off a kind of...fishy smell to say the least. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the opportunity to meet more teachers. Tomorrow we were invited to take a road trip to Teller (70 Miles West) and are very much looking forward to seeing more of the mountains!

Andrew Current Temp. 56

Velvet Eyes

We saw the reindeer again today. He was just standing in the truck bed, hanging out.
When we were in the school, I asked someone what the deal with the reindeer was. She said it belongs to the plumber in town, and he rescued it when it's mothers died. The reindeers name is Velvet Eyes and he likes to go to the bar with his owner and eat broccoli. Now we will have to go to the bar to find this reindeer and take pictures of him eating broccoli.

Yesterday, we took our drivers tests and both passed. The test was more difficult than I thought it would be. A new grocery store opened in town and it carries alot of gluten free items which will be very nice. It is also significantly cleaner than the other grocery stores in town.

We went to school today and worked in our classrooms some more. There were quite a few teachers there today, so we were able to meet some people which was good.

Current temp: 58

More pictures

Reindeer and a Car

As we walked home from school this afternoon, we were quite surprised to see a reindeer in the back of someones truck. In fact I believe my exact words were "oh shit, that's a reindeer" The school is building a vo-tech building right next to the school. One of the construction workers had a reindeer tethered to the bed of his truck. It was just standing there, eating. It was very odd.

We bought a car (truck)! A kid here in town is going to the U of A Fairbanks in a few weeks and isn't bringing his truck with him. It will be wonderful not to have to borrow the schools van anymore. Andrew put 5 gallons of gas in it, and it cost $30. Ouch. Good news is that you can't drive too far.

I am having problems adding pictures and will try again later.
Current temp: 52

One Shoe :(

We had a nice relaxing day today. On a sad note we had our first broken items today in box #17. Two of our platters broke and in a broken box Erin lost a shoe, just one. Luckily we have insurance and should be able to get reimbursed. We now have some furniture so we don't have to sit on boxes anymore, Yea! The T.V. came in the mail just in time for the Olympics' opening ceremonies, and we have enjoyed watching the games. Erin and I took a self tour of the school on the 8th and found our classrooms (Erin's classroom is newer and nicer than mine and she has fun reminding me of that). The school is in great shape and we are getting more and more excited.
We got this email from our principal yesterday and thought it says alot about the community:
Greetings. I am looking to purchase a dried walrus stomach for an Inupiat drum.

Thank you.

Karlin
More later. Current temp: 55

Blue Skies!

Day two and we're moving right along. We got our land line set up and think we will be getting rid of our cell phones because we get no reception in our apartment. The new number is 907-387-0440. It was a nice day today with very little cloud cover so we took the opportunity to walk into town and saw some fun sights along the way. We saw a dog sled team sunning them selves on top of their houses, and we were able to see the "hills" in our back yard (it's hard for this Fargonian not to say mountains). The weird Stonehenge things on top of the hill are satellite dishes from back in the Cold War, if the Ruskies sent a missile it would be our responsibility to warn the rest of the country.

First Day

We had a busy day running around town. We got our cable, internet and landline set up. We get very limited cell phone reception out where we are, so we will use a land line as well. That number will be coming soon. The guy that helped us set up the services grew up in Sebeka, MN which I thought was kind of funny. We got a library "card" (account), as well as a video rental account.

We knew groceries were going to be expesive, especially the first couple of trips to have the staples in the apartment, but I had no idea it would be that expensive. A gallon of milk was $7.49. Toliet paper was $30. It will defently take some adjustments/budgeting!

The good news is that everyone has been super nice. Everyone has welcomed us and told us about the town. The school let us take the car for free today because no one else has used it all summer, which we really appreciated as we had lots of groceries! Our principal, Janeen, who picked us up at the airport last night, made us Banana Bread so we wouldn't be hungry this morning. Andrew said it was wonderful (a side note, my Celiac test came back positive)

Our apartment is wonderful. It's 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. The kitchen has all new appliances, including a microwave. There is a large pantry with an extra freezer. The building is very quiet considering how many kids live here.

Current temp: 46
More later.

Anchorage

We made it to Anchorage and so did our luggage which was a good thing as our bed we will sleep on for the next couple of nights was packed in one of the bags. The flight was beautiful and the Captain of the plane said it is never as clear as it was today.
When we we tried to check in and check our luggage to go to Nome, we found out you can only check in 4 hours prior to the departure time. So we had to hang out with our luggage for 2 hours.

Boxes and T-Minus 16 Hours

We sent our final two boxes today in Hamel. The final count was 41 boxes and just under $1500 to send them all. Not bad considering we were quoted at $15,000! We leave Tuesday morning at 8 am. Wish us luck!