Aurora, doggies, and food

Aurora Borealis
One of the things I have always wanted to see was the Northern Lights.  We saw them faintly in October, but with the solar burst in March they were out and vivid.  John and I went out one night and took some of these cool pictures.  Unfortunately I did not get to enjoy them because I was worried about capturing them on film.  My camera also kept freezing up since the temperature was in the negative.  The next night I let the girls stay up late and took  them out to see the lights.  It was awesome and I truly got to enjoy them.  We also got to see a falling star.  This was one of those moments I will never forget and I am so glad I got to share it with Claire and Cate.

First Grade Artists
My class recently finished an art unit.  We learned about mixing colors and the studied the works of Seurat, Van Gogh, and Picasso.  Here are some of the work they created.

Pointilism

                                                 Picasso's Blue Period

Van Gogh's Sunflowers

                                           In first grade we do not wear our pants on the ground.
                                           We wear them on our head.

                                           We are also rock stars in first grade!

                                                  The coldest day of the year.  Negative 50.


Good Eats

March 14-16 was our spring break.  We were invited one night to our friend Darla's house to try Eskimo salad, tundra tea, stinkweed, salmon, and Eskimo ice cream.  Here is a picture of the salad.  It was beautiful and yummy.  The salad contained wild onions, muktuk (whale), black meat (seal), moose, walrus and crab.  After dinner we went to bingo with Darla.  Thank God she was with us to help.  They call the numbers pretty fast for rookies.  Later that week our friends AnnMarie and CO invited us over to share Alaskan king crab that was caught in Elim by AnnMarie's brother.  This stuff would be expensive if you ordered it at a restaurant, but when you catch it yourself it is free.  Just look at how beautiful that crab is.

Eskimo Salad: Yum!

Iditarod
At the end of our spring break we went to Nome to watch the end of the Iditarod.  We didn't get to see Dallas Seavey win, but we did get to see others.  Cate wanted to pet the dogs once they crossed the finish line and this made me cry.  Cate was attacked by a husky in the fall.  She has some scars from the attack and has been terrified of large dogs since.  When she asked if she could pet the huskies I was so proud that she had let go of her fear.  Here are some pictures from the Iditarod.

                                           Snow?  No problem!

Once upon a midday dreary:)

The furtherest north St. Patrick's Day Parade.

                                            See the ice on the dogs chin.

Cate's big step!

                                                         Notice the ice on his face?

                                            Exhausted pup!
Mocha
Well, we are very thankful that Mocha is in fact not pregnant.  She will be visiting a vet this summer to get fixed.  She is a great little dog!  The girls and I adore her.  Here are some of her latest pictures.

Next Year
We have signed contracts for next school year!

It's a busy life, but it's ours!

     Christmas vacation was awesome!   We enjoyed our visits with our family, and the kids enjoyed a little warmer weather, but getting home takes us about 24 hours.  Sometimes I forget how far north Alaska is.  We returned from vacation on New Years Eve and were able to participate in the village's New Year celebration.  We didn't quite make it to midnight due to jet lag, but we did get to see some fun games and Eskimo dancing.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I don't have pictures to post.  We were overwhelmed with how happy everyone was to see us return.  We really felt like a part of the community.
     Since school started back in January we have been super busy.  We flew to Teller for a teacher in-service in January, and since basketball season has begun we have been busy every Friday and Saturday working concessions.  The girls -- especially Cate -- enjoy concessions because it is the one time a week we allow them to have excess sugar.  My first grade class played a mini-basketball game before the high school boys played on Friday.  We needed one more player, so Cate volunteered.  Here is a picture of her taken by our friend, Darla Tocktoo.

    We have experienced record cold temperatures for the Moore family.  Our Georgia bones got to feel -40 temperatures.  Now, I have to admit that is cold, especially when the wind is blowing.  Luckily the last week has been warm with temperatures in the 20s.

This is what neg. temps will do to you:)

Here are some photos of the snow drifts we have around our house.

     John travelled to Juneau for a week in February to attend the state Headstart meeting.  He is the policy council rep for our local Headstart.  John said Juneau was beautiful but a little grey.  Apparently, the off- season is the time to visit because there are no cruise ships and influx of tourists.  Here are some pictures he took while in Juneau.

     We try to get outside and do activities when it is not too cold.  The girls got ice skates for Christmas so we went to the lagoon to skate; however, because it had just snowed we had only a small patch of ice to skate upon that was not covered in snow.  One of my students, Melissa, followed to watch us.  Check out her beautiful "parkee".

     On February 3, my class celebrated the 100th day of school.  We made the number 100 with the help of the kindergartners.  We had a great day!

     The sun is coming back.  We no longer have just twilight.  We are adding about 6 minutes of sun a day, and it is now staying light until 6pm.  This past Sunday was so beautiful and bright that we decided to ride out to one of the mountains to slide in the snow, snap some pictures, and enjoy the beauty.

    We are lucky to have a grant that fits our students with cross country skis.  Claire is learning to ski and loves it.  John, don't laugh, is the new cross country ski coach for the high school.  Here is a photo of Claire with her friend Shannon.  

    Have a blessed month and keep the Moores in your prayers.  God is good!

Holidays and a Birthday!

This year was one  of the first Thanksgivings in a while that we did not spend in Virgina with my sister and parents.  We only had two days off for the holiday as opposed to a whole week in Georgia.  All of the teachers spent Thanksgiving at Ginger Crockett's, the junior high teacher's home.  She lives above the Lutheran Church, her husband is the minister, and has an awesome view of the ocean.  Each teacher made yummy dishes and brought them to share.  John cooked the turkey and surprisingly he did a great job. Our friend AnnMarie made some kick butt eggnog!! John was in heaven ( In case you didn't know he is a connoisseur of  eggnog.)  We ended the night playing games, while our kids played with their friends.  It was overall a relaxing holiday.

  I called my sister and asked how dinner went for them, she said, "We missed not having you here to sleep to 11am and then get up to make silly hats for everyone to wear."   When you have great cooks like my mom and sister, I have to do something to show off my talents, which is bringing the festiveness. I missed having dressing, giblet gravy, and squash casserole, but mama said she would make it for Christmas:)

Our friend, AnnMarie, made kuspuks for me and the girls!  We wore them on Thanksgiving.

Here is a picture of my class as Pilgrims.

After Thanksgiving, our next big event was Cate's 5th birthday.  I made the cake this year, which is a big deal for me.  We had a low key birthday party with homemade pizzas, made with the help of my super neighbor and friend, Jennifer, and a few friends.  She had a great time even though we had homemade cake and decorations.  I realized this year that the parties I have thrown in the past for our children were really too extravagant, expensive, and stressful.  They really are just happy being with their friends.

Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have now been through a couple of blizzards.  We have a snowdrift in front of our house that is about five feet high.  The girls and their friends spent a whole evening digging tunnels into the snowdrift only to have it covered the next day by another blizzard.  The pictures below were taken at 4pm.  As you can see the sun is setting.

 Cate and her BFF Carol -- or Carold, as Cate calls her.

Sunrise! It was taken about 11:45am.

Mocha, Mocha, Mocha!!  Look how sweet she looks.  Don't let that smile fool you because apparently she is a very popular lady and has had many gentleman callers.  We have not yet gotten her fixed since there is no vet in Brevig.  We were hoping she would not blossom until after we were able to get her to either a vet in Nome or one down south this summer.  Her time came this week, however, and I was shocked to come home the other afternoon, open the door to the qanitchaq (porch) and find Mocha entertaining a friendly male husky.  She was not too happy when I shooed away her friend.  Will we have puppies?  That is a story that will have to be continued later...

Christmas is almost here!  We had a great last week in my classroom.  We read the Polar Express, made homemade ornaments, a vase for parents, and sang Justin Bieber's Santa Claus is Coming to Town for the Christmas program.  A couple of my students looked at me the other day and said, "Teacher you are coming back after Christmas?"  This just broke my heart!  I said, "Of course!"  Teaching in the bush of Alaska is hard, and teachers sometimes do leave at Christmas and never come back. 

Going home has been tough!  As I type, I am sitting at the Aurora Inn in Nome.  We are here spending the night before our flights to Anchorage, Seattle, Houston and then finally Atlanta.  How we got to Nome this evening is pretty interesting.  We were scheduled to leave Brevig at 10 am this morning, however, because of bad weather our flight was cancelled and we were bumped to the afternoon flight.  When that flight started to look like it too was going to be cancelled, we decided to go to the neighboring village, Teller, to catch a flight to Nome.  Teller is only seven miles away, but the visibility there was better.  To get to Teller we had to snow machine across the frozen sea.  We were nervous about this prospect, but our friend CO, a mechanical engineer, assured us that a bulldozer could cross safely at this time of year.  Our custodians, Norman and Robin, hooked the school sled to a fellow teacher and Georgian, Amy's, snow machine.  We then piled onto the sled with our luggage.  Two other teachers, Jennifer and Greg, went with us, but rode on the snow machine.  Once we got to Teller we crashed at the school (thanks Teller staff!!) until our plane arrived.  Their wonderful custodian, Jonathan, drove us to meet the plane.  And here we are sleeping in a nice hotel room waiting for the next leg of our trip home.  The rest of this story is to be continued...