End of Year Photo Bomb

The last month of school was such a whirlwind for us that we didn't do very much blogging. Here's a photo avalanche from the last month of our first year of teaching in Alaska!

Our social worker Nado (front row, right of center) accepted a job in Harlem for the fall. This was his last site visit with the kids. We'll miss Nado and wish him the best in New York.

We spent one of our last Friday work days cleaning out the storage rooms upstairs. Living in the bush forces you to become somewhat of a hoarder, which often leads to a pretty good impression of a church yard sale. 

We focused mainly on organizing our textbooks and curriculum materials. Everyone dreads having to go upstairs to find something for their classroom. We'll link back to this post when we post the "after" pictures in August. 

The staff planned a surprise baby shower for Christina at Shannon's. (Apparently, they didn't trust me not to tell her, because I didn't know about it.)

Playing baby shower games. Apparently, we're both really into the game?

It's a girl!

The baby's room at our new house. Rick let us use this space to keep our stuff over the summer. We took 8-10 trips using the school's trailer our last couple of weeks there. 

Spring Dance

     I'm currently sitting in Chicago's O'Hare airport, waiting for my fourth flight in the last 16 hours, reflecting on my first year of teaching in bush Alaska and anticipating the summer ahead. It's been an exhausting last week, wrapping up classes and final grades, and moving us out of our house in the village to our new home by the school, all while Christina has been back in PA, moving us into our summer apartment and preparing for her baby shower (which starts in about 2 hours).

     What was good about being so busy was that I didn't have much time to think about missing my wife and (soon to be) child. After dropping Christina off at the airport last Friday, I headed to the school to finish setting up for our Spring Dance. If you'll remember from a previous post, rather than spend $6,000 to fly a DJ out to Goodnews, I suggested that we just buy the necessary equipment for the school. Our principal pulled the trigger, and so I found myself preparing to DJ my first ever school dance. In all of my enthusiasm in the equipment idea, I realized I didn't mention that I've never actually DJed a school dance before! Weddings, random parties, but no school functions. 

     Fortunately, the dance was a big hit, thanks to the efforts of all our staff. Teachers (with the help of some students) decorated the gym, cut up fruit and vegetables, made punch, manned the doors and tickets, and even got down on the dance floor. I was really disappointed that Christina wasn't there to see her Kindergarteners tearing it up on the dance floor- they were at times adorable, at times hysterical, all times vastly entertaining from my perch on the stage. 

Ben manning the limbo stick.

They were fascinated by the fog machine. What they didn't realize is that I had a remote control for it- it was funny to watch them try and coax the machine to shoot out fog and the rush up to play in the smoky haze. 

We spent the last week of gym class hiking up Little Rocky. I'm certainly going to miss views like this over the summer.

Pictures

Paper towels count as checked baggage.

Checked baggage at Alaska Air. Yes, that's a 25LB bag of sugar that was checked as baggage.

Remember those bins from our move? They get used ALL the time--it's a way of life here.

The hospital that we go to in Bethel

The most snow our porch has seen all year!

One of my students reading Green Eggs and Ham! What a happy day!

Waiting for parents at the end of the day. Don't let them fool you--they aren't always so sweet! 

Summer is right around the corner

In the last few weeks we've seen more snow than we did all winter however, this afternoon it looks like spring-- so we'll take that! We've been loving the amount of sun we're getting now. Dawn is breaking somewhere around 6:15 and it's still dusk until somewhere around 11:30pm. (I give you an estimate because I'm usually asleep!)

Can you believe that the school year is oh-so-quickly coming to a close? Where has this school year gone?! This coming week will be my last week here in Goodnews and Simon will be following me home the next week.

We're wrapping up the school year and getting things ready for next year. We've spent most of the last few weekends cleaning and packing our house. We've begun to move some of our things into the house where we'll be living next year. We plan to move one last load of boxes this weekend. The teacher who lives there is single and isn't using the second bedroom, so he's letting us use it for storage. Simon will be moving the rest of our things his last few days in the village since we have to be moved out by the end of the year.

Our spare bedroom is the holding ground for packed boxes and things going home.

Sorting through winter clothes that can be packed and left here.

Along with packing and getting ready to move comes the inventory of all things in our house -what we need to remember to order from Amazon and what we need to ship ourselves from PA. Here's the list we've got going so far:

Another thing on our to-do list before summer officially starts? Clean out the freezer. Last night we did an inventory of every.single.thing. we have in the freezer and planned for it's use.

The freezer is our best friend! Keeping things fresh for MONTHS!

The last few weeks of school have been full of state testing and district benchmark testing. Friday, we'll be having Kindergarten promotion and a school wide awards ceremony to recognize students who have made great progress this year. That will be my last day of work and my last day in Goodnews!