School is...Well School

I have successfully survived through Midterms! Tomorrow I send home my Midterm reports, this is making me feel like a "real" teacher. I am not sure why that tiny little detail makes it feel so real. I have been busy as can be making sure life in 5th grade has been not only educational but also fun. There certainly doesn't seem to be a dull moment. I have eighteen little darlings...that definitely keep me on my toes! I have wonderful parents that are incredibly supportive.

Life here has been a little crazy, but I still found time for fun. There are two other new teachers at Anchor Lutheran this year. Michael and Lisa have been great friends and we have been able to have some fun times. We went out to a restaurant called Bernie's Bungalow, it was a fun time. Grace, one of the Preschool teachers came out too. We seem to have a great time together.

Michael and I tried the "Tower", it was a little interesting and we made a lot of friends very quickly!

Grace and Lisa enjoyed the "Tower" as well! The scary part is that we got the small tower!

Here is a picture of my first attempt at making a pie in my own kitchen. I hate to admit I burned the crust and my meringue was not the highest. It did taste a little interesting too. It was supposed to be a Key Lime and Orange Pie, but due to the lack of quality produce in Alaska and a nice cold, I accidentally bought grapefruit rather than oranges. I had already squeezed the juice into the mix before I looked at the pink color of juice. I couldn't smell at all, so that hadn't tipped me off! I plan on retrying this pie this week, maybe I will get the fruit and crust right this time.

A Long Week!

So life has been very busy lately! Life hasn't slowed down in a few weeks, some of the events have been: I limited out on silver salmon and halibut one day, my roommate moved back to Ohio/Wisconsin for the school year, my family came to visit, I was installed as a teacher at Anchor Lutheran School, and I had my first week of school. Those are the huge events, and there have been several small but enjoyable events. I will show you some of the pictures that have been taken over the last few weeks.

First off, here is the fishing extravaganza, in Seward, AK.

Rachel and I each caught our limit of Silver Salmon (3) and Halibut (2). I also caught a Lingcod, but it was 2 inches short of being a keeper. I was a little bummed, but he was big and ugly.

Here is my second Halibut with Captain Jimmy. We had a great time with Jimmy and Jess his shipmate.

A Week In Review

Today it was raining, again! So Rachel and I needed something to do. We called our friends Bob and Paula to find out what a great rainy day activity would be and they recommended Glacier Brewhouse. They told us they had a great home brew and wonderful dinner. We had to try it out. This is the Glacier Brewhouse Sampler. I didn't know if I was going to be able to finish all this delicious beer.

Rachel was also excited!

All done...they were good!

And There Shall Be Dancing...

So Rachel was in charge of planning this weekend's events. She chose to take advantage of the Senior Center's, Friday Night Dance Night. It was interesting, to say the least. We had an hour lesson and then we began dancing. There were a lot of interesting guys at the Senior Center. But we had fun even with the creeps hanging around. It was very nice of the Senior Center to provide mints for everyone, it is nice to know your dance partner will be smelling minty fresh! Rachel really liked the mints...I think she was licking them out of the container! I also like the fake flowers on the table. This is a shot of Rachel and one of our favorite dance partners. He was one of the only guys that wasn't 100% creepy. Thanks for the dances Patrick!

This is soon going to be one our favorite fishing spots. We just have to wait for the salmon to come, figure out the license, and find the time to do drive out here and enjoy God's creation! The ducks in the water were so friendly and came within a foot or two of Rachel and I.

You might be wondering why I have my hood up. Well there is a perfectly great explanation. While visiting the beautiful Mirror Lake, we were accompanied by a flock of (or maybe just 3) aggressive seagulls. They were flying so low that I thought I was going to have to clean gull droppings off my head. We had already had one weekend full of droppings, I did not want another one!

Here are some traditional Native American burials that are in Eklutna, AK. They are in the middle of this sleepy village that has a Russian Orthodox church in the middle of it. It was very pretty and peaceful.

Thunder Falls is somewhere behind my big head. But I still think it was a good shot for Rach and I. About 3 seconds after we took this picture a large truck came flying over the bridge and scared us half to death. The bridge was a little shaky!

The view from the top of the Hillside over looking Anchorage. I thought the sky was very pretty. This is just up the road from my house.

Moose Dropping Festival

Only in Alaska can you have an entire festival devoted to Moose Droppings! We got up early Saturday morning and headed for Talkeetna, AK. It was about a two hour drive, but beautiful. We were lucky enough to see McKinley peaking out every once in awhile. We arrived right in the middle of the parade, which was a little bit of a bummer, but we still had a great time.

The whole reason behind the festival is the VFW Moose Dropping Drop. Here is where it gets interesting. In town we bought a ticket and a turd. It was $5, yes we paid $5 for moose crap! They gave you a moose turd on a pin that you wore all day, and it had your number written on it. They wrote your number on another turd and put it in a bag, the bag you will see later. Then you were to go to the VFW at 6 p.m. for the official drop. We went and were more than excited to see what the dropping would be like. They sold 3000 turds, so we thought it would be a long shot. But we were very excited to watch the action unfold.

The turds falling.

The bag of moose turds was raised about 100 feet in the air, and then two sweet men from the VFW started a count down. The goal was to have your turd land closest to the center of the target on the ground. This was serious business. As we watched and listened, we had quite a shock...Rachel's turd was the second closest to the center!! She won second place!! Her prize, a $600 check! Wow, what a way to end a great day!! I am hoping that I get a celebratory dinner out of the deal!

Look at all those turds!

Rachel and her winnings!

My Apartment

I have been truly blessed! I was able to get an apartment with amazing landlords. They are members of the church and Nancey works at the school where I will be teaching. The apartment is completely furnished, I just brought a few decorative things and TA-DA...an instant home!

Here are some shots from around the apartment.

I have been keeping busy here in Anchorage. My roommate from Concordia is here for the summer also. Rachel, is teaching the summer program at Anchor Lutheran School also. We have had several great expeditions with the help of some friends we have met along the way.

We went to the Air Show the last weekend in June and had a great time. There were a lot of planes, and it was a great time to see the Air Force Base. We really enjoyed climbing in the planes and checking things out. The jumpers were cool too. Here are a couple shots from the Air Show.

A really big plane...they told me what it was, but I forgot.

Here I am posing with one of our favorite new brews, Alaskan Amber.

Rachel is a little taller so her head fits a little better than mine!

We are planning on attending the Moose Dropping Festival this coming weekend. It is supposed to be very fun. I will let you know how a festival completely devoted to moose turds is after the fact.

This is my view on my way home from work.

Moving To Alaska

On May 30th I finished my student teaching at Wisconsin Hills Middle School. I had a great time there and I learned a lot. I headed home to Minnesota for about 48 hours. I was able to repack my car, see a few folks, and go to church. It was a quick, but fun time at home. Then Mom and I set out on an amazing drive. We had 3000 miles to cover and a goal of less than 5 days to cover those miles. Mom and I had a great time, it was nice to have quality time and beautiful scenery. Here are some of the great pictures that we took when we were traveling.

This is a goat was not really that nice, he didn't want to move out of the way of the car. He was really cute though.

This is not a bad view from the driver's seat. We had some of the bluest skies I had seen in awhile.

This is Mom after a much needed break from driving. There were lovely port-o-potties and this glorious view.

We finally made it to Alaska!

Here is my new neighborhood moose. He likes to hang out and munch on the plants.