November 12th, 2006
Saturday we drove to the Kuskokwim river expecting to see large chunks of ice. Imagine our surprise to see it is completely frozen over and people are walking around on it. The gentlemen in my pictures told me the ice is about 10 inches thick and trucks will soon be using the river as a road. You can see that people were ice fishing, for some kind of cod. Unfortunately the tide was going out and the fish weren’t biting. It was a sunny day and the ice was really pretty.
Hello to Family and Friends!
Finally I have this site set up. As an introduction, in August 2006 Lori Abrams and I moved to Bethel, Alaska to interpret in the Lower Kuskokwim School District and serve as house parents during the week for two deaf children from a local village. LKSD serves Bethel and 24 surrounding villages. Lori is working at the elementary school and I am working at the high school. After the final school bell our evening job begins, as care takers to siblings, a 7 year old and 14 year old. Let me say that I’d totally forgot how much energy parenting requires!
Life here is settling into a routine. Work and house parenting during the week, then the weekends for catching up on sleep, shopping and house cleaning. We are gradually making our house a home. “Deaf house”. Sometimes it feels like we’re living in a television reality series. What drama will surface this week? Stay tuned…anyway, the time is truly passing quickly. Ben is coming for Thanksgiving to see Bethel for himself, and Lori is heading home to Washington for that weekend. I know this next month will pass quickly leading up to our departure for the Christmas break on December 21st.
The weather has been in the teens with sunny afternoons. With the wind chill added to the freezing temperatures, the cold is down right scary. Sunsets continue to be incredible - tonight it looked like the sky was on fire. Sunrise is around 9:30 am and sunset is about 5:15 pm. It’s been extremely dry and there’s less than 2 inches of snow on the ground, unlike the Anchorage area that has 5-6 inches. After hearing about the tons of snow last year, I keep waiting for the big snow storm. I’m sure its coming, but its late this year.
I had my first weekend out of the bush when I visited Anchorage November 3rd through the 5th. I enjoyed the hospitality of Sue and Frobin Putman of Wasilla. I spent the weekend visiting with them and enjoying their Alaska stories, as well as power shopping to stock up the house. See for yourselves how beautiful it is this time of year in Anchorage and the surrounding area. I’ll do my best to post comments and pictures to this site in a timely manner - meanwhile - love to you all!
