First week in Alaska

     When we first got our teaching jobs back in February the hiring process was smooth and easy, but shipping our stuff 4,000 miles away was not so much (on top of planning our wedding mid-summer). Actually it was a really big headache.  We shipped about 12 boxes of clothing, household items, kitchenware, and just other random stuff.  I felt like a hoarder picking up each item asking "do we really need this?" We still left behind a whole room of stuff in my parents basement (thanks mom).

     Four days before we were going to fly to Anchorage we had a teleconference with our school district.  We were told we had to apply for our Alaska Teacher Certificate before we left or we would not be able to teach. What!? We were in trouble. The certificate required things like official college transcripts, signatures from our dean of education, and old fashioned ink fingerprints. Those tasks were impossible since we only had one business day to get it all done.  Well thanks to some powerful prayers, we drove down to SBU the next day and got everything done and then some.  We got our fingerprints just over in Stockton and mailed everything from there.  We called our school to tell them we got everything done and mailed out.. they couldn't believe it.  So our last day in Lebanon we could finally breathe and Nathaniel's mom threw us a Blessings/Send off party.  It was great to have everyone there, but super difficult to say our goodbye's.

     We arrived in Anchorage at 1:30am and our principal Diane and assistant principal Cheryl picked us up. The next day we walked around downtown since we didn't have a car.  The weather was in the upper 60's, which felt amazing after our 105 degree Midwest summer.  The view in Anchorage was breathtaking because we were surrounded by mountains and the Cook Inlet.

<--- The view from the Hilton Anchorage.

    
We went to the mall and set up a cell phone plan and got iPhones (which are awesome by the way).  The next day we went to meetings and networked with other teachers in our school district.  The only other new teacher going to Alakanuk was Culea (pronounced kuh-LEE). She's from Arkansas and went to College of the Ozarks.  We actually have a lot of mutual friends... small world!

Hanging around downtown Anchorage

Me and Culea

Musk Ox   

     On Wednesday we had cultural classes and went to a museum.

Coat made from Bearded Seal Blubber

Adult and baby boots

Alaska Game & Fish wants the moose population to be about 1 per sq. mile.  Now they are 6 per sq. mile, so I'm hoping Nathaniel gets a moose this year!

Coat made from black birds

     Thursday was our big shopping day and the most overwhelming. We have never spent so much money in one day.  First we went to Sam's Club for bulk groceries. Our goal was to stock up on shelf food to last us until Christmas. If I hadn't made a shopping list we would have been totally lost. When we got to the check out I had budgeted $1000 for our food.  I literally jumped up and down when the total came out to $650!

We still had to go to the Fred Meyer store to get a cooler and pack it full of fresh food to last us a week until our groceries arrived to our village.

Then we went to the airport post office to ship out our groceries. We packed all our food into 6 (18 gallon) Rubbermaid tubs and 4 cardboard boxes. Oh my!  We also went to 6th Avenue Outfitters to get some rain gear. The man in the store laughed at us when we told him we were moving to Alakanuk. He said our village is bald and has no trees so it is always windy and raining sideways.  We picked out a really nice ( which means pricy) pair of wind pants and waterproof pants. We also got two sleeping bags because we'll need them when we travel to other villages (for teacher meetings and when we coach cross country races).

 

    On our last full day in Anchorage we hiked up most of Flat Top Mountain.

     On Saturday we hopped on a small plane from Anchorage to St. Mary's ( a hub that sends smaller planes to the villages). At St. Mary's we got into a plane the size of a short bus.  The plane freaked me out a little bit.  You know that feeling when you're in a car and drive over a hill and your stomach drops?  Well that's what I felt about every 30 seconds.  It really wasn't too terrifying though because the view was amazing.

Leaving Anchorage to St. Mary's

Snow capped mountains

30 passenger plane

The hub at St. Mary's which flies smaller planes to the villages

Alakanuk's new teachers this year (that's our friend Culea from Arkansas/College of the Ozarks)

    

We landed in our village and there was nothing, literally nothing. No airport, no buildings, nothing in sight. We got picked up and drove down the main road.

police station

health clinic (the red/white cart in front of the truck is the "ambulance."  They hook it to the back of a four wheeler or a snow machine.

the slough (pronounced slew)

typical residential housing and mud...everywhere

     When we got out of the van little kids started flocking towards us and at least 7 of them followed us to the houses. We live in a house pretty much the same as a trailer. We have neighbors on both sides who are also teachers.  One girl brought us banana bread and ready made hamburger helper.  Another teaching couple invited us over for dinner. 

The kids are all over the streets playing in the dirt and mud puddles.  Four wheelers were the main source of traffic on the dirt road. 

The village has 3 stores which are stocked full of the necessities you'd see at Wal-Mart.  Here's some prices from our store: bottle of Tide liquid detergent $30, Gallon of icecream $17, and a HALF gallon of milk $6.50.

shopping at the store
goldfish crackers on sale for $1 (they told us to ignore the expiration date)

We were going to buy a coffee maker at the store...but it was $74.99.

school parking lot



Our village stretches to the Yukon River.  We rode a four wheeler about a mile down to the shore.

 Below is driftwood that naturally piles up along the shore.

 Below is the village dump.

Below is my classroom... a work in progress.

My room is right outside the gym/cafeteria.