Living La Vida Alaska

Somehow as I sit down to write this October is almost over. I truly intended to update our blog much earlier, but I cannot believe how busy this semester has been! Steve and I have decided to cut back a bit next semester (where we can) on our time-commitments because this semester we have been FLYING from one place to the next. In short, you can expect more timely blogging next semester, but for now you will have to take it all in one big gulp. :)

It is quickly cooling down here in Alaska. We knew that last year was unusually warm, but that fact is really starting to hit home as the 17 degree mornings arrive.  We still haven't had a significant snow fall, but the frost isn't melting throughout the day any more. The one evening it did sprinkle a bit of snow both kids immediately ran outside and celebrated.

Catching snowflakes on their tongues

Despite our busyness we have been able to spend some really good quality time with both our family and our students.  One of our family's favorite activities is going to the local Brown Bears hockey games.  Many of our students volunteer as ticket-takers and security at the games, so it ends up being a fun hang-out time with them as well.

The kids always find friends at the games- one of the many benefits of living in a small town. This is Noah with a couple of his buddies from hockey.

With the coming of winter we have had some beautiful views of the "termination dust"- our name for the snow as it moves down the mountians.  This is Mt. Redoubt, our local volcano. It is still active, and last erupted in 2009. 

Winter also bring some hungry animals, trying to put on that last layer of fat before the food sources are covered in snow. This is our neighborhood Mama Moose. She still has one baby with her- they stay with their mom's for two seasons.

Mentoring continues to be a really fun time this semester. Every Monday I get to meet with three great girls. Sometimes we grab coffee, sometimes we run errands. We always have good conversations- I learn just as much from them as they do from me.

One of my mentee's hanging out in my office

Last week my girls surprised me by asking to go to the public library. As you can tell from this picture, I was not at all excited!

Another group of students that I have had the opportunity to get to know better are my student worker's in the library. Unfortunately, because of our small budget, they don't get to work at the same time as me. They come in in the evenings and on weekends to run the library when Mary and I are unable to be here, but we get to talk during training times, and whenever they stop by to give me updates. I have such a great group of hard-working students! I never have to worry- the library is in good hands when I am not there.

One of my student workers

Grace has been hearing about the "Egg-take" field trip since she first started school up here in Alaska a year and a half ago. Her teacher has coordinated with the Department of Fish and Game to provide the local third graders with an amazing experience. The students travel by bus to Anchor Point (an hour and a half away) where they get to learn about salmon reproduction. It had snowed lightly the night before the field trip, and was FREEZING cold. There is no building or shelter where the trip was held, they just gather the students by the side of the river under a couple of pop-up tents. I got to go as a parent chaperone, and lucked out when another mom offered to drive behind the buses and had an open seat, saving me from a 90-minute, bumpy, cold bus ride with some VERY excited 3rd graders.

The "mommy" and "daddy" fish

Prior to the field trip I knew very little about salmon reproduction. Let me just tell you, they left nothing to the imagination. I now know all there is to know about how those salmon come to be.
They started by slitting the female fish open and dumping the eggs into a jar. Each female has 2-4 thousand eggs.  Then, they poke a strategic hole in the male fish and squeeze out the milt (yes, that is the name for sperm in fish). Grace's eyes kept getting wider and wider. They mixed the ingredients up in the jar and then added the magic ingredient- water (since they spawn in the river, water is what activates the fertilization process.) As they mixed everything together 50 3rd graders yelled "Happy Birthday!!!" And that is how Grace learned the facts of life.

The eggs were then taken back to the school where they will grow in a tank until they are ready to be released back into the water next spring.

The fertilized eggs

Our yearly ACC Vision dinner, which is the major fundraising event of the year, was the same day as Grace's fieldtrip. We raced from Anchor Point (which is almost to Homer on the Southern tip of the peninsula) all the way to Anchorage (North of the peninsula, 5 hours from Anchor point).

 The proceeds from this year's dinner went towards student scholarships. The dinner was a big success, and provided an excuse for a much-needed trip to Anchorage for our family. Prior to this month we haven't left the peninsula since July! It is usually good to get out for a day or two every other month or so at the minimum to catch up on bulk shopping (Costco), as well as just to fend of the small-town claustrophobia that can set in without a few breaks.

We gave a ride to some of the other staff member's kids which made for a fun trip to Anchorage for Grace and Noah!

Some of our students with Governor Sean Parnell

Our ACC dance team

Governor Parnell spoke a few words at the beginning

Levi shared his amazing story with everyone at the dinner

One of our new students shared how ACC has impacted her life already in the time that she has been here.

This is how Noah does Costco

After we got back from Anchorage, fall festivities were in full swing here on the Peninsula.  Last week the kid's school had a pumpkin patch and some fun fall games for all the students and their families. Every student got to pick a pumpkin- our kids were in heaven! 

Noah with his buddy whose dad is the principal at their school

The night after the school pumpkin patch we got together with friends and carved the pumpkins. Of course the kids didn't want to go with the traditional two-triangles and a smile design, so Steve got to pull out his hidden artistic ability. (I have no pumpkin-carving talent.) The kids are all ready for Halloween- this year we will have an Elsa (along with most of the girls in the nation) and a teenage mutant ninja turtle (because it came with nunchucks).

Grace loves the costume Mema made for her!

Hockey is now in full swing for Noah. He has moved up from the younger Mini-Mites group to the older Mites group. He absolutely loves playing, especially since Steve helps coach his team.  I can't believe how much his playing has improved in the year that he has been skating! Swimming doesn't start until the beginning of November, but once it does we will have some very busy kiddos. Fortunately each activity is just one hour, two days a week (plus meets and games) so it is just enough to keep them (and us) active through the dark cold winter.

The most exciting news of the month (and year) is the birth of little Samantha Jane Allen, my sister Katelyn's beautiful rainbow baby. Samantha is Katelyn and Sam's second little girl as big sister Everly is joining in the celebration from Heaven. We have prayed and prayed for this child, and here she finally is, beautiful and healthy. Grace and Noah are SO excited to meet Sammi when we travel to Houston this Thanksgiving, but until they can see her in person they insisted on Face-timing with her. I think they got a bit more out of the conversation than Sammi did! ;)

Life on campus continues to be great. Our students are at that hard mid-semester hump, but most are getting through it with some hard work and encouragement.  We got to see a solar eclipse last week when the science teacher brought in her telescope, the students loved that. We also got to celebrate Mary, the library technician I work with, on her birthday a few days ago.  Our staff and students truly function as a family here at ACC- I love it!

Noah had a birthday party last week- I had to add this picture because it cracks me up. Noah is the yoda in the front row. This party was incredible- pod racing, a piñata, science experiments, and more! Only in Alaska do you have a birthday party with major outdoor elements when it is 20 degrees outside- and have the kids LOVE it. :)

And last but not least...the kids school pictures for this year. That's right folks, we have officially entered into that awkward "Elementary Big Kid" phase. When I saw their pics, along with the re-take slips I asked the kids (very tactfully) ... "sooo....what do you guys think about your pictures this year? Are we keeping them or doing retakes?" They answered "They are amazing- the best pictures we have ever taken!" So, here they are, no retakes for us!

Tune in next month for pictures of snow, Houston with Sammi, and more! :)

Back to school 2.0

Here we go... heading into our second year of teaching/working at ACC and living in Alaska. We are officially back into the fall swing of things!

Right before the students arrived for the fall semester a group of staff from ACC spent an evening together on a dinner cruise outside of Seward, AK. The school gets an amazing discount with the cruise company so we organized a trip for some great team-building time together. The trip originally was scheduled for the end of July, however a rolled truck on the one-lane highway between Soldotna and Seward caused us to miss the boat! So we tried again, this time on August 7, Steve's and my 10th wedding anniversary. What a fun trip! The weather was terrible- cold, foggy and rainy. It was difficult to see any of the wildlife, and freezing cold, but because of the great group of people that we were with, it was a blast. At one point the captain said "It seems we have a small swell headed our way, you may want to head inside" after which we were blasted with torrential rain and large waves. Praise God for Dramamine! The kids, of course, thought this was a great adventure, and could not imagine watching it through the boat windows. So Steve and a few other gutsy parents braved the storm above deck with an arm around each kiddo. We didn't dry out entirely until the next day, hours after returning home.

This is an old boat ramp that was destroyed after being hit by a massive tidal wave caused by the Good Friday earthquake of 1964.

After spending a few minutes above deck

Our whole group

 Our kids started school the week before our ACC students arrived on campus. Here in AK they don't have "Meet the Teacher Night" where you find out who your teacher is and get to see your classroom until the night before the first day of school. The kiddos were thrilled to learn that they both got the teachers they were hoping for.

Grace with her 3rd grade teacher in the background (she's had great male teachers two years in a row now).

Noah in his new 1st grade classroom

 It has taken us a couple of weeks to adjust to waking up early again for school, but we are finally getting the hang of it. The kids were a bit bleary eyed in their first day of school picture because of the late "Meet the Teacher Night" the night before.

A week ago our students arrived back on campus. This is always such an exciting time, and we are never ready at all until minutes before they arrive. With several staff and office changes there was furniture and office supplies strewn everywhere. I was sure we would not have things pulled together in time, but somehow we managed. :) 

The first weekend the students come, Student Life plans a bunch of orientation events to get them acclimated to our city, and each other. Many of our students have never lived outside of their home towns/villages, so it can be an overwhelming time. The night after they arrived we had a progressive dinner where the students all (or the 60 of them that had arrived at that point) traveled from one staff member's house to the next for each course of their meal. We hosted dessert at our house, which was a really great time to get to meet all of the new students. Fortunately they came in three groups, spaced out over a few hours, so they were all able to fit in our house. We have some new Resident Supervisors this year, and one of them is still learning how to drive our large vans. I received a text from the staff house before ours on the roster that said "Group one on time, group two in a ditch." Fortunately, this is Alaska, so everyone has a truck with a towing hitch attached and they were quickly pulled out. Although the RS who backed it in (and shall remain nameless) may never live the experience down with our students!

Noah talked several of the students into playing some "Hoopskies" (his term for basketball) with him

 The morning after the progressive dinner most of the students and quite a few staff members hiked the Russian River trail. The fish were working hard to make their way up the falls, and the water was so thick with them that students and staff were literally pulling them out with their hands.

About half of the group that hiked the Russian River trail

 The kids love receiving mail! Because it can be hard to find many items here, they have learned that we often have packages waiting with fun (or necessary) things inside. We had a great time after receiving "Flat Stanley" in the mail last week. We showed him around our town, explained things like fireweed and fishing to him, and then sent him on his way back to AZ. If you ever want to send a card or picture or letter, the kids would absolutely love it! Email or message me for our address, we will send you a postcard from AK back. :)

Noah has continued to train hard at hockey. He is trying very hard to get ready for the fall season which begins in October. Our latest training method came from Salvation Army for $6- now we just have to find another pair of rollerblades for Grace. Apparently no store in Kenai or Soldotna carries them, so unless you order them online, drive to Anchorage, or find them at a thrift store, you are out of luck. For now they are sharing this pair, and having a blast. Fairly soon it will be too snowy to skate outside, and we will have to back the cars out of the garage for them to practice.

Steve and I are both loving our jobs this semester. I accepted the position of Director of Learning Resources and Registrar at ACC. This position puts me in charge of the library, which I absolutely love. Working with our students on their information literacy skills has always been a goal of mine, and now it is my job! 

Steve is teaching three math courses at ACC as well as Old Testament. He is also teaching Statistics and Pre-Algebra at Kenai Peninsula College. We have a great group of students this year! I am really looking forward to seeing them learn and develop as college students through this coming semester and year. 

ACC is bursting at the seams, we have over 70 students this year. We are out of space in the dorms and are having to house students in some of the duplex and triplex apartments formally used for staff on campus. We have several classes that are above capacity, and we are running multiple independent studies to accommodate all of our students and their academic needs.  What an exciting time to be involved with what God is doing here- thanks for keeping up with us here in the Great White North!