Anchorage And Back

I'm sitting on a couch in the lobby of the Anchorage Hilton listening to and old women talk to her friend about her acid reflux and about something sitting on her diaphragm.  What an interesting conversation!  LOL!  I have been at the Special Education Conference since Friday.  I have been in conferences all day but have been able to enjoy myself after.  I was able to go to Costco and Target yesterday and do some shopping.  The hotel also has a pool and workout room which I have been frequenting and I've been able to eat out at some wonderful restaurants and even get a massage!  Wonderful!  But I am so ready to go home!  There are too many strangers here and I always feel like people are trying to talk to me because they find out that I am from a village.  Sadly,  a lot of these people are educators that have worked in Alaska for years and come to find out that they know nothing about village life.  Poor.

My brother text me yesterday letting me know that they got 3 inches of snow back in Chicago!  I was a little sad because Anchorage has very little snow.  However, I woke up to realize that snowed over night and just stopped a few hours ago.  I guess last year Anchorage got over 10 feet of snow.  This year is quite different.  There is a pretty big storm approaching western AK.  I have a flight in a few hours so I am just hoping that I can make it to Bethel before the storm hits.  Its a huge green mass on the radar!  Ominous...

Our wonderful assistant principal called me yesterday and asked if I would pick up some pizzas to bring back to the village with me.  It was an adventure, I had to cab it across Anchorage in the snow to get to a Papa Murphy's and then I had to convince the man to package them in a way that would allow me to travel with them.  I'm bringing home 20 pounds of pizza!  LOL!  I hope they make it through the plane rides :-)

I can't wait to head home.  Everything is wonderful in Kipnuk.  We are close, so we've been told, to getting our gym back.  The students are excited to have open gym back and a place to have P.E. class.  The community is excited to have KBA (kipnuk ball association) back so they can play league game after school and on the weekends.  And most of all, my ball players are excited to have some place to practice!!!  For not having a gym to practice in they have an outstanding record!  11-2!  It looks like we should make it to the District Tournament!  They have been working so hard... and we have so much fun at practice :-)

The students just finished having the spelling bee!  It was very exciting.  I took some of my high schoolers to watch and even they were impressed by some of the words that the elementary students were able to spell.  One of our 8th graders won the Bee and will be competing in the district Spelling Bee via VTC!  Good luck!

For everything that knows, Baby Girl had her baby.  Ethan is beautiful baby boy that was born on January 17.  He is quite handsome and has ADORABLE dimples!  He and Baby Girl are healthy and enjoy visiting them as often as my schedule allows.

I WILL INCLUDE SOME PICTURES AS SOON AS I FIGURE OUT THIS WHOLE ICLOUD THING...