Stebbins Part 1

Welcome to Stebbins where this is called a tree!

It was so beautiful there we took a walk on their wonderful beach!

It was a perfect fall day!

This is one of our staff member Steven chillin' on his cot!

My lovely husband

Getting ready for our wonderful walk!

The tent Derek and Lacy made in our room in Stebbins!

Under the LOVE tent

Stebbins Principal checking out our tent!! 

Birthday Week Continued!

 Right before we left on Thursday Ty ran to the post office to check the mail. To my delight be came back with two packages! This first from Ty's parents and the second from my good friend Myo and her daughter Kjisa!! They were both a great surprise and a since of home before a long weekend! Thank you so very much!!

When Ty and I first started dating Ty's mom got me hooked on cow tails (candy)!

!

I love this nice and soft blanket Ty's mom made for me!

LOL Ty commented that is was a little for me so I thought maybe she was hinting at something!?  No, we are NOT expecting!

 

This box is from Ellsworth, WI were I did my student teaching and Summer School but the best part of the job was working at PKC with Myo :)

She wrapped the goodies with County Market news paper and the prices made me sad!

But to my delight I LOVED the what was inside!! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!

Sunrise 9:04am - Sunset 9:38pm (Spet. 19th)

This is a picture from my classroom window about two weeks ago at 7:30ish in the morning. If you are wondering how the town gets power there is your answer!

The sun was setting way past the time we were going to bed but this weekend I was able to capture these pictures from our door step around 9:30- 10:00pm. The days are getting darker here and it is only the beginning!

I love this picture!

To think, this is the view I see from my door step. It is pretty amazing!

A few pieces of Gambell we will Treasure forever!

Over the past few weeks about every other night either at school or at our house we have native people coming to sell us carvings! We have seem some truly AMAZING things and were finally able to purchase a few pieces after payday!  

This is a whale bone mask carved into a face with polar bear fur around the head like a hood!

This is my Walrus he is pretty big even though you can't really tell. He is made out of Ivory.

This is our Beulah doll, he is a drummer. The drum he is holding is a very small version of the drums the Gambell men use during Yupik dance on Fridays. We were in our classrooms last week when this tiny old women walks in with this amazing doll. I was so shocked to actually see a Beulah doll and meet Beulah as well! I told her I would love to buy her doll, it would make a great Gambell Birthday present! I think she was very happy!

I found this bit of information about Beulah on the internet about how she makes the dolls and why they are so special.
   Beautiful Eskimo Dolls made from a variety of native materials by Beulah Oittilliah, her Granddauter Stephani and Maxine Ungott of Gambell, Alaska, Yup'ik Eskimo village of about 700 people on St. Lawrence Island; just south of the Bering Straits. The Yup'ik people have occupied the Bering Straits for thousands of years.
Beulah, Stephanie and Maxine are master Yup'ik doll makers. Beulah’s work is featured in a book titled “Ivory Carvers of St. Lawrence Island” by Dale Kessler. Each doll is unique and one of a kind. They have maintained their uniqueness because of the isolated nature of the island. The dolls are made from a wide variety of native materials. The face, hands are ivory from the tusk of a walrus. The eyes are inlaid baleen. The parkas are traditional walrus gut and gray-silver spotted fur seal. The trousers and mukluks are also spotted fur seal. They are generally mounted on an old walrus vertebrate or whale "ooziva". 

This is Ty's buy. His little Walrus family! The mama walrus has a baby under her side you can barely see behind the tusks.

It's Birthday Week!!

 It's Birthday Week!!! If you didn't know already my birthday is on Friday!! So today I feel it fitting to post about the beginning of Birthday Week!!! The only things that could have made this week better was if I got to spend it with my other half. But it has been what 5 years apart on our birthday so what's another year... there is always next year!! Happy Birthday Morgie!! I love you!! 

I should also mention Happy Birthday week to my wonderful Mother In-Law as well because her birthday is on Thursday!! Happy Birthday Week Edwina!! We Love you!!! 

Looking extra special opening up my box!

The box was busting open!

.. but it was just a pillow! Smelled like cardboard and home! : )

An already open bag of pancake mix!

The Box was SO Fun of the most wonderful things!

Sorry a bit blurry but it's butter!! Oh how I have missed BUTTER!!

Cornbread one of my favorites!! Just waiting for our SPAN meat order to come for some ribs and cornbread!

So happy for some Peanut Butter M&M's!! Ty will not get any of these because he deemed them non-essential when we were packing in Wisconsin to come up here! 

This is the box unloaded! SO much Yummy stuff!! 

Getting my Old Navy fix even in Gambell!! Thank you!!! 

As hard as this birthday will be not being near to my family this box came at a perfect time!! Thank you Mom and Jennifer and Morgan for filling it with most of my favorite things!! All I need now are some bittersweet chocolate chips!! -wink wink!!

THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!!
Sending my love in the wind because with the gusts here I am sure you will feel them back home!!

Map of the Villiage

 One of the other teachers had this on their blog and I just love it! So of course I do what all teachers do and took it and made it my own! :) Thank you, Weirauch's!!

A birds eye view of Gambell

High Surf Advisory

So I have always wanted to live in a place that would have a high surf advisory! However, I always thought that would mean I was living in Florida or California or even Hawaii! Nope, right now we are in a High Surf Advisory with winds up to 43 mile/hour with 39 degree temperature that really feels like 27 degrees. Needless to say walking a mile to school in that was a workout! Ty and I were literally playing bumper cars with each other!

I have video on my ipad of the ocean yesterday and you can really see the waves! But of course I am not sure how to get those on my computer! I will have to post them all later.

Last week was a really good week for me. About mid week I gained five new students and lost one. We had Saturday school so it was a long week! Sunday we spent lesson planning for this week and Ty made me promise that we didn't have to come in yesterday. So Monday we took completely off! I almost didn't shower! We are trying to get together a Span Alaska meat order this week so we will soon have real meat to eat. Ty also got sick yesterday with a head cold, I think it is because he had been losing weight like crazy! That big guy needs some real meat in him!

Anyways, this week we start teaching curriculum I am happy for that. I hope my little ones show up to school today despite the horrible wind. We also have a school board meeting at our school today so it will be nice to see the members that work at the DO. We also have our Alaskan Teacher Mentors coming to support us at the end of the week -wind depending. Let's see I think that is all for now. I have a request to check out the prices at the stores so I think I will try to head that way later this week. If you want to know anything else just ask!! Thank you for following our adventure!! I'll post pictures and hopefully a movie as soon as I can!

Mom thanks for the nice email this morning, totally made me cry...

Homesickness is starting to sink in especially with my birthday right around the corner....

LOVE YOU ALL!!

The view outside our door!

The view outside our door!

The view outside our door!