Juneau

On Sunday, I left for a conference in Juneau.  This is the Capital of the state, but it is only the 3rd largest city in Alaska with a population of only about 30,000.  They have a bus system here though - well it is only two routes.    I took my taxi driver's suggestion and road the bus around to see the sights.  It felt great to back on a bus (now that is something I never thought I would say). Juneau is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, but boy is it expensive.  I got my eyebrows done it cost $17 - I was SHOCKED!  

This is downtown:

Here is the mountain right on the side of the road.  The whole town is surrounded by mountains.

This is the island, Douglas, next to Juneau.  It is about 35 miles long.  

These are some people walking across some frozen water.

Here is the sun setting over the mountains.

I saw the most amazing thing - an Eagle flew right over me and landed on a tree right in front of me!!

Valentines Day

I almost forgot about Valentines Day. I had a few fun surprises. First, a few kids from the Elementary came over and gave me little cards. It was awfully cute! Then, my high schoolers made me a poster:

Little
Interesting
Zesty

Truthful
Exciting
Intelligent
Xcellent
Enchanting
Important
Remarkable
Adorable

ZESTY is my fav - it's like I am a salad dressing!!

Finally, I got a wonderful wake-up call (there is a 4 hour time difference!!!) from Steve which was very sweet. I was a bit groggy and not fully awake, but the thought was VERY nice :)

Busy, Busy, Busy

So I have been VERY busy here - it is a lot of work coaching. Not only do I have to do all the fundraising, with the help of the parents, but when we have an away game I am gone for 4 or 5 days! We fly to another village and play a bunch of games with all kinds of schools. Last week we went to Neknak (it cost $8000 and we raised it all!!), but we had a really great time. The girls came in forth overall, but it was awesome to see them grow and get better even just over the course of the tournament. Naknek is a village about the size of us here at Stu (500 people), but it is much different because they are connected by a road to a much bigger town - King Salmon (about 2000). They even have a swimming pool there and we REALLY had a good time playing there!!

Here are some pics from the trip -

These are a few of my girls while we were on the plane going to the tournament -



This is my captain. Her and I are walking to the post office to mail some stuff because I can never seem to get out of school while the post office in Stu is actually open!!


He are some of the kids hanging out before the games:


Doing their homework in between games:


This is a poster welcoming us to the tournament:


Here they are attempting to wake up after a long night of watching scary movies :)

This girl actually rolled off here areobed in the middle of the night:


Here is the boys team before and after their last game. They took 1st in the tournament.

Here we are playing in the pool. We even played chicken! It is fun playing with the middle school kids because they are my height!!







Even though they are my height, they still like to just play and have fun. Here we are waiting to leave, but all they wanted to do was go outside and play in the playground until our plane came in.



We didn't play any games this weekend so I finally had some time to catch up on my work and even go out for a hike. Puffin and I had a lot of fun hiking, but we got caught in some pretty deep snow. We were walking along in about thigh deep snow, but then all of a sudden I was up to my chest in snow. So I looked at puffin and when she gets in over her head, she swims - so that is what we did - Swim!! I wish I had someone else with us just to take a picture. The two of us with just our heads bobbing on top of the snow, we must have been a sight!






This is the moon rising one night over the school. It was just glowing red!


Here is an eagle we saw while out on our hike -



And these are some fox tracks - Here is Puff during our hike -
And after her bath -

Well this next week is Culture Week and Beaver Fest (like a carnival) so I am sure I will have fun stories and pics from that. For Culture week, I am teaching how to make macaroni sauce and Italian cookies. Wish me Luck!!

1st Ball Game

In case you don't know, I am the basketball coach for the middle school girls team. My girls had their first Basketball game, and I was VERY excited about it. I am sooooo proud of them!! We road Snow-Gos to Ekwalk, which is a neighboring village about 10 miles down river. Now a ton of New Stu people usually come to watch the tournament, but not as many as usual came this time because it was -23 when we left so there were a lot of machines that wouldn't start. Here are some pics of how many Snow-Gos actually made the trip though -




This is what I looked like for the adventure. I was sooo lucky that Aunt Grace got me those toe warms - they totally saved my toes! And, my new gloves (care of Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Louie) really saved my hands my frostbite. My hands were nice and tostie the whole ride!! My neighbors let me borrow a helmet so my head stayed warm and safe :)



Ekwalk is REALLY small so they only had a girls teams and a co-ed team so my girls got to play and then we broke the boys up and half my girls into 3 co-ed teams. We just kind of round-robin played. It was really fun and my girls did AMAZING!!! I was soooo proud of them. We only lost by one point, but they never gave up trying even when we were down by 15 points. They just kept pushing and playing hard. I was just sooo proud of them! We would have won, but we had two injuries, and there was no real referee so I basically had to run on the court and grab my girl - she was poked in eye and was just wondering around. It was pretty funny and after a few minutes she was fine, but they scored like 3 baskets during that time. Also, a big girl fell on one my 6th grade guards so she was limping for a little bit, but she kept trying so I was very proud of her!

Here are some pics of the team and me coaching:

These are my starters for my first game coaching (I think I was really more nervous then they were) -

Here are some of he co-ed teams playing eachother -


This is me and some of my players fooling around between games -
Here are some of my girls waiting around -



Here I am actually coaching -


My life has been pretty consumed with teaching, running study sessions a couple times a week, taking classes, and coaching so I have no other fun adventures to share yet - maybe next week! We are traveling to Bristal Bay this weekend. It will be REALLY fun - they even have a swimming pool!!!